Apr 152023
 


Pablo Picasso Head of a Woman 1946
..gifted to the National Gallery by Picasso in 1946 in recognition of Athens’s resistance to Nazi occupation; he inscribed on the back: “For the Greek people, a tribute from Picasso.”

 

Poland Receives Zelensky, Prepares Direct Intervention In Ukraine War (WSWS)
Failure In Ukraine Could Mark The End Of Western ‘Golden Age’ – Polish PM (RT)
Poland Would Not Survive A Russia-NATO war – Medvedev (RT)
Ukraine A ‘Non-existent Country’ Financially – Orban (RT)
US Seeks To Drag Everyone Into Ukrainian Conflict – Orban (TASS)
Ukraine Calls Out Orban Over Money (RT)
Ukraine Faces Corruption Investigation By Pentagon Inspector General (Rebel)
Pentagon Leaks Won’t Hurt Ukraine – Prigozhin (RT)
Ukraine’s EU Backers Are Skeptical Of Counteroffensive – Bloomberg (RT)
NATO States Sponsored ICC Prosecutor’s Putin Arrest Warrant (GZ)
Nuland Issues Threat Over Russian Assets (RT)
Now, The Difficult Choice (Denninger)
Disorder is the Order of the Day (Kunstler)
Global Monetary Experiment Ends in a Bloodbath – John Rubino (USAW)
Germany Shutting Down Its Last Nuclear Reactors (RT)
Contentious COVID-19 Drugs Are All Antimalarial (ET)

 

 

 

 

Tucker leaker
https://twitter.com/i/status/1646673964884713476

 

 

 

 

Bragg

 

 

 

 

Greek new year is this weekend. This is a stone’s throw away, last night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The complete and final victory of Ukrainian nationalism will be won only when the Russian empire no longer exists.”

Poland Receives Zelensky, Prepares Direct Intervention In Ukraine War (WSWS)

In a joint appearance with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in the courtyard of Warsaw’s Royal Castle, Zelensky praised Poland’s role as one of the biggest supporters of the war and called for further arms deliveries. “Is it still far to victory? No!” he declared. He added that one should “just not stop at solidarity. If the fight requires artillery, it must be granted. If victory requires tanks, their thunder must be heard on the front line, and if independence requires an air force, one must not brood over how Russia will react to planes.” Poland is among the first countries to supply fighter jets to Ukraine and now plans to hand over its entire stock of MiG-29 fighter jets to Kiev. Polish President Andrzej Duda announced this after a meeting with Zelensky. He said his country had already delivered eight fighter jets to Ukraine and was currently preparing six more MiG-29s for handover. He said Warsaw will be “in a position in the future to hand over its entire MiG fleet” of about 30 aircraft to the Ukrainian Air Force, “provided the NATO allies agree.”

On Thursday, Berlin approved the Polish government’s request to export MiG-29 fighter jets to Kiev from stocks in the former East Germany. In 2002, the then Social Democratic-Green government had sold 23 fighter jets to Poland, which the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) had taken over from the former East Germany’s National People’s Army. According to Warsaw, the Polish Air Force still has about a dozen of them today, which are now going to the Ukrainian army. The planned Polish arms deliveries are not limited to fighter jets. In Warsaw, the Ukrainian delegation signed further contracts for Polish howitzers, anti-aircraft missiles, troop carriers and wheeled tanks. The arms purchases are to be financed by support funds from the EU and the USA. It was also agreed to set up joint production lines to manufacture 125-mm tank ammunition for the Ukrainian army.

The entire visit was designed to celebrate the close alliance between Warsaw and Kiev. After Duda received him with Poland’s highest military decoration, Zelensky spoke of a “friendship for centuries” between Ukraine and Poland. But historical conflicts still simmer beneath the surface. This summer marks the 80th anniversary of the massacres by Ukrainian nationalists and fascists of an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 Poles in Volhynia and eastern Galicia. The leaders and instigators of the mass murder are glorified by today’s leadership in Kiev. On January 1, 2023, the Ukrainian parliament and military leadership celebrated the 114th birthday of notorious fascist, anti-Semite, and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and its paramilitary wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), played a central role in the Holocaust and war of extermination against the Soviet Union.

The current Ukrainian government sees itself as part of this tradition. Among other things, the Ukrainian parliament published a tweet showing a picture of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in front of Bandera’s likeness, quoting him as saying, “The complete and final victory of Ukrainian nationalism will be won only when the Russian empire no longer exists.” After a public outcry in Poland, the Ukrainian Rada (parliament) was forced to delete the post. But this does not diminish the glorification of Bandera and other fascists in Ukraine. The Zelensky regime spends millions on monuments and renaming streets in honour of Nazi collaborators and neo-fascists.

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“Some politicians in Western Europe “want a quick ceasefire almost at any price” he claimed.”

Failure In Ukraine Could Mark The End Of Western ‘Golden Age’ – Polish PM (RT)

Not everyone in the EU wants to support Ukraine as much as Kiev requires, yet the country’s future is key to Western prosperity, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has insisted. “Failure in Ukraine could be the beginning of the end of the golden age of the West. Ukraine’s victory is a guarantee not only of reconstruction, but of strengthening of our economic power,” the politician declared on Thursday, in a speech hosted by the Atlantic Council, a pro-NATO think-tank. Poland prides itself on being one of the most vocal supporters of Ukraine against Russia. According to Morawiecki, all Western nations want Kiev to prevail, but “not necessarily to the same extent”. Some politicians in Western Europe “want a quick ceasefire almost at any price” he claimed.

The Polish prime minister believes that Russia’s goal in the conflict is to “destroy Ukraine … so that Ukraine cannot be a base for enhancing the West.” The country’s existence is “crucial to contain Russia,” he added, claiming that “if Russia wins, we will be next.” The Russian leadership stated that its primary goals in Ukraine were to curb a growing threat to national security posed by NATO’s creeping expansion into its neighbor and to stop Kiev’s attacks against the people of Donbass. Morawiecki touted Poland’s centuries-long history of hostilities with Russia as a source of his expertise on the Russian mindset. “Imperialism, colonialism and nationalism is not merely a passing affliction of Moscow’s soul. It lies in its core,” the politician stated. Defending Ukraine has ramifications for other brewing conflicts, particularly the US-China stand-off over Taiwan, Morawiecki reasoned.

While Beijing has strongly protested against Washington’s growing involvement with the self-administered island, US officials claim that China could take Taiwan by force. “You need to support Ukraine if you want Taiwan to stay as it is,” Morawiecki said, criticizing EU politicians, who believe that Taiwan is not within their sphere of influence. “If Ukraine falls, if Ukraine gets conquered, the next day China may attack Taiwan,” he predicted. Beijing’s stated policy is to seek peaceful reunification with the island, but it does not rule out military action to prevent separatism. Morawiecki dismissed the notion of EU strategic autonomy, saying that people promoting it are really pushing the economic bloc into greater dependency on China. “We have to rebuild the world order, renew NATO and restore peace,” he stated, explaining his nation’s vision of the EU’s future.

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“..considering Poland’s role as a NATO outpost in Europe, this country is sure to disappear together with its stupid prime minister.”

Poland Would Not Survive A Russia-NATO war – Medvedev (RT)

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has claimed that Poland would cease to exist if a direct war were to occur between Russia and NATO, regardless of the outcome. He was responding to remarks by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who expressed confidence that the Western alliance would win such a conflict. Morawiecki, who is currently visiting the US, commented on the Ukrainian conflict in an interview with NBC News on Friday. Host Kristen Welker asked whether he was concerned that Ukrainian strikes outside its territory risked “a wider war, drawing Poland… into the conflict.” The prime minister replied that he was not concerned, as it would be “a war between Russia and NATO, and Russia would lose this war very quickly.”

“They believe that fighting with Ukraine they are fighting with the West and fighting with NATO, whereas the fact of the matter is that we are only supporting a brutally invaded country”, Morawiecki said. Medvedev, who serves as deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, tweeted in response that he was not so certain about which side would win, “but considering Poland’s role as a NATO outpost in Europe, this country is sure to disappear together with its stupid prime minister.” The Russian official has previously warned against a possible escalation of the Ukraine conflict, which Moscow perceives as a proxy war against it by the US and its allies.

If that were to happen, hostilities could go nuclear, Medvedev believes, and all sides would be catastrophically harmed. The former president has branded European leaders who underestimate this risk as incompetent. Morawiecki is one of the most outspoken critics of Russia and its involvement in Ukraine. He has claimed the country is similar to Nazi Germany in its goals and methods, and accused nations in the EU that do not fully support Ukraine, of appeasing Moscow. During his visit to the US, the Polish leader delivered a speech to the Atlantic Council, a pro-NATO think-tank, in which he reiterated his case for investing in Ukraine. If Kiev loses, he claimed, the West’s “golden age” may end.

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“The EU is now paying Ukrainian salaries, pensions and healthcare, allocating “huge sums, which the European economy is missing out on..”

Ukraine A ‘Non-existent Country’ Financially – Orban (RT)

The EU isn’t going to provide Kiev with funds indefinitely, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned Friday during an interview with a Kossuth radio station. “Effectively, Ukraine is a non-existent country in financial terms,” he declared. “The fall in economic indicators is huge, which is completely understandable due to the war. Obviously, Ukraine can’t finance itself,” the Hungarian leader explained. The EU is now paying Ukrainian salaries, pensions and healthcare, allocating “huge sums, which the European economy is missing out on,” the PM pointed out. He added that this support “can’t continue indefinitely.” According to Orban, the question is whether the West wants to continue sustaining Ukraine.

“The moment when America and Europe answer ‘no’ to that question – the war will end,” he stressed. Budapest is also involved in financing the Kiev government through joint EU mechanisms, but despite this, the situation keeps deteriorating for the Hungarian minority in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia Region, the prime minister said. Orban had previously complained about Ukraine mistreating ethnic Hungarians in the country’s western region. In his speech in February, the PM claimed that Hungarian symbols are being brought down in settlements across Transcarpathia, heads of Hungarian language schools are being removed, while “many ethnic Hungarians are dying on the frontline.”

The EU, its member states, and financial institutions have provided more than €50 [$55.3] billion in financial support to Kiev since the outbreak of fighting between Russia and Ukraine more than a year ago, including €12 billion in arms and €30 billion in macro-financial aid. Hungary has supplied humanitarian aid to Kiev, but refused to send arms to President Vladimir Zelensky’s government, unlike many fellow EU members. Budapest has consistently called for a peaceful settlement to the conflict and criticized the sanctions imposed by Brussels on Moscow, arguing that they have failed to achieve their goal and were hurting the EU more than Russia.

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“..if a world war breaks out, it will be a nuclear war..”

US Seeks To Drag Everyone Into Ukrainian Conflict – Orban (TASS)

The United States has not given up on its aim of embroiling everyone it can into the military conflict in Ukraine, but Hungary will remain on the side of peace, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told the Kossuth radio station on Friday. The head of government stressed that the US “has not abandoned its plan to shoehorn everyone into a military alliance,” supplying weapons to Ukraine and supporting continued hostilities. In connection with this, he reiterated that the threat of the Ukrainian conflict morphing into a new world war has been growing with each passing day. “And if a world war breaks out, it will be a nuclear war,” Orban noted. In his opinion, the current escalation of the conflict in Ukraine attests to the fact that the [combatant] countries are literally “inches away from the use of nuclear weapons.” This is precisely why Hungary supports the swiftest possible ceasefire and the commencement of peace talks on settling the Ukrainian conflict, the Hungarian prime minister emphasized.

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“By giving money to Ukraine, Nikolenko insisted, the EU “invests first and foremost in its own security..”

Ukraine Calls Out Orban Over Money (RT)

It is “cynical” of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to criticize the EU funding of Ukraine when Budapest takes money from Brussels as well, the foreign ministry in Kiev said on Friday. Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko also insisted that Ukraine was defending Hungary and the rest of the EU from Russia. Earlier in the day, in an interview with a Hungarian radio station, Orban had described Ukraine as “a non-existent country in financial terms,” entirely dependent on EU and US donations that won’t go on forever. “Another anti-Ukrainian statement,” Nikolenko wrote on Facebook. “It is cynical of the Hungarian leadership to speak on other countries’ financial issues while Hungary itself receives a lot of money from the EU to support its economic stability.”

By giving money to Ukraine, Nikolenko insisted, the EU “invests first and foremost in its own security,” as Ukrainians are defending Europe with their lives from “unprecedented Russian aggression.” Instead, he argued, Orban should be grateful to Ukraine for “a peaceful sky over Budapest and other European cities.” Speaking to the national radio on Friday, Orban pointed out that the EU was currently paying the salaries of Ukrainian public officials, as well as pensions and healthcare expenses, because Kiev’s economy had completely collapsed due to the conflict.

By the most recent estimates, the bloc has provided over €50 ($55.3) billion to Kiev since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022, including €12 billion worth of weapons and another €30 billion in financial aid. This does not include the $113 billion the US Congress had appropriated to prop up Ukraine, of which only about 20% has been cash assistance. “Obviously, Ukraine can’t finance itself,” Orban said, adding that external support “can’t continue indefinitely.” The conflict will end the moment the US and the EU stop funding Kiev, he argued. While Hungary does get billions of euros subsidies from Brussels, the EU is currently withholding a combined €34 billion, including in Covid-19 pandemic recovery funds, demanding that Budapest change the policies the EU disapproves of, most notably on the issues of immigration and LGBT rights.

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Could be used as an excuse to leave.

Ukraine Faces Corruption Investigation By Pentagon Inspector General (Rebel)

The Pentagon’s inspector general is examining the Ukrainian government for corruption in relation to the vast aid received since Russia’s invasion last year. Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch is probing the Ukrainian government for corruption concerning the large amounts of aid provided to the country after Russia’s invasion in the previous year. According to Defense One, Storch has over 20 audits planned and nearly 100 people involved in Ukraine-related oversight, working in collaboration with the State Department and USAID. Storch stated that they are covering a broad range of security assistance. Ukraine has a history of significant corruption issues, which could pose a threat to the nation if they undermine the trust of foreign governments supplying its military with advanced weapons and supplies.

Republicans are increasingly critical of the Biden administration’s aid to Ukraine. The U.S. is the leading supporter of Ukraine in its conflict with Moscow, having committed over $78 billion in military, humanitarian, and economic aid since January 2022, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has referred to the aid packages as a “blank check” lacking strict oversight standards. The Ukrainian government is working to eliminate corruption, but allocating resources to oversight and investigations diverts resources from the war against Russia, a senior official in Storch’s office told Defense One. The source explained that the Ukrainian authorities are fighting both the Russians and internal corruption, with many individuals who would typically combat corruption now engaged in the conflict with Russia.

The Defense Department is aware of Ukraine’s corruption history and views the potential diversion of aid before reaching its intended recipients as a “high risk,” according to the official. Another official noted that the Pentagon is concerned about the theft of weapons systems and other goods being sent to Ukraine. Defense One quoted the official as saying that numerous entities, including foreign nations and criminal groups, are interested in obtaining weapons technology. While the Biden administration continues to express its commitment to supporting Ukraine, reportedly leaked classified documents from the Pentagon indicate that the administration is pessimistic about Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russia. These documents emphasize weaknesses in Ukraine’s military, such as weaponry and air defenses, and predict that the two sides will be in a stalemate for an extended period.

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“The Ukrainians are ready to attack. We are ready to repel the blow,” Prigozhin summarized. “No negotiations. Only an honorable battle. And the sooner it starts, the better.”

Pentagon Leaks Won’t Hurt Ukraine – Prigozhin (RT)

The leaked Pentagon documents contain no strategic revelations that could harm Kiev, and the media attention they received must be an attempt by the West to delay the Ukrainian military’s much-announced “spring offensive,” Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Friday. “The documents by themselves do not pose any strategic danger,”Prigozhin said in a statementposted on social media, describing their published contents as mostly being based on open sources. “However, the leak was widely publicized and immediately after it, statements from sources close to the Pentagon began about the need to delay the offensive announced for April 15 until the summer.”

Commenting on the arrest of the alleged leaker, a 21-year-old Air National Guard member, Prigozhin said he may have been a fool or a dupe, but “if this leak had not happened, it would certainly have been invented.” The documents themselves, he emphasized, contain nothing that would add to the risk of the Ukrainian military should it launch its long-anticipated attack. “It is clear that the military operations on Ukraine’s side are tactically directed by Ukrainian soldiers, but strategically by the so-called Western coalition, run by the UK and the US,” said Prigozhin. He accused the West of “holding back” the Ukrainian military in a “dramatic pause,” after it had been assembled for attack, delaying the offensive that might actually inflict reputational harm on Russia with even a symbolic advance on any front ahead of May 9, the anniversary of the great WWII victory over Nazi Germany.

“The Ukrainians are ready to attack. We are ready to repel the blow,” Prigozhin summarized. “No negotiations. Only an honorable battle. And the sooner it starts, the better.” Founded as the businessman’s side project, Wagner has been involved in heavy fighting in the Donbass, most recently in the storming of Soledar and the battles in and around Artyomovsk, called Bakhmut by the Ukrainians. As of Friday, Wagner and other Russian troops hold most of Artyomovsk, with an estimated 6,000 battered Ukrainian troops attempting to retreat westward to Chasov Yar. Prigozhin has suggested that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had thrown his best troops and foreign mercenaries into the battle for the Donbass town after receiving a personal challenge from Wagner in December, losing thousands in the “meat grinder” with nothing to show for it.

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“Bloomberg alleged that the high hopes prevalent among Ukraine’s backers late last year, after Kiev’s troops managed to regain a large area, have now mostly dissipated..”

Ukraine’s EU Backers Are Skeptical Of Counteroffensive – Bloomberg (RT)

Some EU nations supporting Ukraine have started to doubt whether Kiev will be able to recapture large swathes of territory this year, Bloomberg has reported. Even a modest advance would likely result in heavy casualties among Ukrainian personnel and require considerable amounts of ammunition and hardware, the outlet claimed, citing anonymous EU officials. In an article on Friday, Bloomberg alleged that the high hopes prevalent among Ukraine’s backers late last year, after Kiev’s troops managed to regain a large area, have now mostly dissipated. Fewer people in Western capitals are counting on a decisive push in 2023, with the fighting expected to continue well into next year. The news agency quoted unnamed European officials “involved in efforts to support Ukraine’s military” as predicting that a realistic goal for Kiev would be a 30 km (20 mile) advance.

This, if successful, should set the stage for a deeper counteroffensive in 2024, the sources predicted.To support such a push, Ukraine’s Western backers would need to step up their military production capacity, Bloomberg said. According to the outlet, further large-scale deliveries could, however, run into political opposition in some countries. An unnamed European official cited in the report also warned that any such operation would be a costly endeavor, both in terms of manpower and weapons, as Russian forces have had time to dig in, with minefields, ditches, and concrete anti-tank pyramids in place. Nevertheless, several European defense officials have told reporters that the counteroffensive, which the Ukrainian leadership has been hyping up for several months now, is likely to get underway by mid-May.

Strikes may be expected from multiple directions, potentially including diversionary ones, the sources alleged. Speaking to The Hill on Tuesday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal suggested that the counteroffensive may actually begin in the summer. He insisted that Western backers were not putting any pressure on Kiev to force it into action without due preparation. The official also called on the West to provide Ukraine with more artillery, ammunition, middle- and long-range missiles, tanks, and fighter jets. On the same day, the Washington Post, citing a trove of recently leaked classified documents, reported that US intelligence did not hold out much hope back in February as to Ukraine’s ability to make significant territorial gains during the anticipated counteroffensive. Among the problems supposedly faced by Kiev at the time were “force generation and sustainment shortfalls.”

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” Through his focus on Ukraine, Khan has presided over a massive surge in Western financial support for his office..”

NATO States Sponsored ICC Prosecutor’s Putin Arrest Warrant (GZ)

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, stood before a podium on March 3, 2023, and issued an unusual qualifier: “Of course the prosecutor of the ICC does not, whatever affection and regard I may have for my dear friends in Ukraine – has no special affinity to any particular country. We’re not a party to any hostilities.” “We have an affinity to legality,” Khan insisted in British-accented English. “We have an affinity and commitment to the rule of law.” Khan made his declaration of legal independence while headlining the “United for Justice” conference, an event personally organized in Lviv, Ukraine, by President Volodymyr Zelensky. There, he pressed the flesh with Ukraine’s president and conferred with US Attorney General Merrick Garland, who had stopped in to advance the Biden administration’s effort to haul Russian President Vladimir Putin before an international war crimes tribunal.

It was Khan’s fourth visit to Ukraine since the Russian military invaded the country in February 2022. On March 17, 2023, Khan introduced a formal ICC warrant for Putin’s arrest, accusing the Russian president of the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children to a “network of camps” throughout Russia. The warrant arrived days before the 20th anniversary of the NATO invasion of Iraq, a crime directed by US and UK officials whom the ICC has refused to prosecute to this day. As The Grayzone has reported, the ICC’s warrant was inspired by a State Department-funded report that contained no field reporting, no concrete evidence of war crimes, and no proof that Russia was actually targeting Ukrainian youth with a massive deportation campaign. In fact, the investigators acknowledged finding “no documentation of child mistreatment, including sexual or physical violence, among the camps referenced in this report.”

What’s more, the inquiry’s lead author told The Grayzone’s Jeremy Loffredo that “a large amount” of the Russian youth camps his team researched were “primarily cultural education – like, I would say, teddy bear.” Though Khan pledged his absolute independence in his hunt for Putin, he is closely aligned with the same Western governments that are currently engaged in a proxy battle with Russia on the Ukrainian battlefield. Meanwhile, he has stalled the ICC’s case against Israel, frustrating human rights lawyers who represent the victims of grisly violence in the besieged Gaza Strip. Additionally, Khan formally dropped the international court’s case against the US military for its actions in Afghanistan. Through his focus on Ukraine, Khan has presided over a massive surge in Western financial support for his office, with much of the money earmarked for his investigation into Russian officials.

The ICC’s issuance of Putin’s arrest warrant happened to coincide with a major donor’s conference for the court in London, England. The ICC prosecutor’s political entanglements do not stop there. Celebrity lawyer Amal Clooney has worked as a special advisor to Khan’s office while simultaneously counseling the Ukrainian government on its initiative to target Russian officials with prosecution, either by the ICC or another international body. Clooney has also served as a special liaison to the British Foreign Secretary. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that after two decades of unremitting hostile relations with the ICC, official Washington is suddenly warming up to the court, and is endeared by its top prosecutor.

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Broken record.

Nuland Issues Threat Over Russian Assets (RT)

The American authorities are in discussions about using the Russian central bank assets frozen by the West to rebuild Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, has said. When the conflict between Kiev and Moscow ends, Washington plans a massive reconstruction program for Ukraine aimed not only at rebuilding its cities, towns, and villages, but also at providing the country with a powerful military, “greener” energy infrastructure and stronger government institutions that would be “better hardened against corruption,” Nuland said during a speech at the US-Ukraine Partnership Forum in Washington on Thursday. The reconstruction of Ukraine would cost at least $411 billion over a ten-year period, according to conservative estimates of the World Bank, she said.

“Among other things, we are working to ensure that Russia helps pay for all that it has broken,” the State Department official pointed out. She said that thanks to the support of Congress, the US Department of Justice has been granted new authority to use “illicit assets seized from Russian oligarchs” to help rebuild Ukraine. “In February, we announced the first tranche of $5.4 million under this authority, with more announcements to come,” Nuland said. She also stressed that “discussions are ongoing about the estimated $300 billion of Russian central bank assets that we and our allies have frozen” in connection to the reconstruction of Ukraine.

On Thursday, however, German newspaper Die Welt reported – after viewing unpublished internal documents by the European Commission – that Brussels had come to the conclusion that it would eventually have to return the frozen central bank reserves. This could happen after the conflict in Ukraine ends, according to the outlet. The foreign reserves of the Russian central bank were seized by the US and the EU shortly after the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine last February. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described the move as “plain theft,” accusing the West of “returning to bandit, wild capitalism from the times of the Gold Rush” in the 19th century.

Nuland

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“..every penny you spend, every tax dollar you generate, every bond sale you allow to have a “full faith and credit” behind is an act of support of said war..”

Now, The Difficult Choice (Denninger)

The alleged “leaker” of classified US defense information, which I remind you not only provided details about the Ukraine situation but also stated that we had actual uniformed troops in the nation, has been arrested. There were plenty of folks who claimed over the last few days that these documents were not genuine; that is, they were a hoax — or propaganda, if you prefer, put forward by Russia to make it look like we had troops in Ukraine when in fact we did not. By arresting the “leaker” we have admitted the documents are factual. This is a problem; it is quite-arguable we have actually entered the Russia-Ukraine war. For real. You need to think long and hard about that, because from this point forward it is your decision whether you permit this administration – and by extension the military that is under civilian control of the Executive – to do this.


Unlike many nations the military in the United States is under civilian control and said control resides solely in the Executive, with the President as Commander in Chief. All the denials, all the arm-waving, that’s all over now. This is now our war, and we, the people are the ones who decide. Whatever you think about Putin or Russia generally, or for that matter Ukraine, we are now in that war, the opponent has nuclear weapons, and we, right here in America, are now subject to whatever Russia decides to do with regards to a combating nation in said war, including to us as the civilian population. Do not kid yourself as to what this means. Choosing to do nothing is consent; every penny you spend, every tax dollar you generate, every bond sale you allow to have a “full faith and credit” behind is an act of support of said war; no war is ever prosecuted without both men and money and this is no longer an abstract discussion.

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“..Larry Johnson says the leak was done for a specific purpose, namely to shove “Joe Biden” out of the White House..”

Disorder is the Order of the Day (Kunstler)

The mysterious “Joe Biden” regime, in its brief two-plus years of service, has proven especially adept at creating fiascos. Are they aiming for the gold ring in this Ukraine gambit, that is, nuclear war? People seriously wonder. Or is something else going on? Blogger and ex-CIA agent) Larry Johnson says the leak was done for a specific purpose, namely to shove “Joe Biden” out of the White House. Yes, our Deep State is at it again. Why, because “Joe Biden” can no longer be trusted to even pretend he’s chief executive. (Well, maybe they shouldn’t have installed him in the first place.)

Larry also reminds us that, conveniently, an Obama-era whistleblower named Mike McCormick, who accompanied Veep Joe Biden’s delegation to Ukraine in 2014, has stepped forward to detail Biden family grifting operations there, with the help of then-aide (now National Security Advisor) Jake Sullivan. It’s like somebody is laying out a case for impeachment — or resignation. One really off-the-wall theory floating “out there” has Veep Kamala Harris being induced to take Diane Feinstein’s senate seat (DF, 89, is very ill), and “Joe Biden” then appointing Barack Obama to be Veep — with BHO stepping back into the White House when “JB” exits (or gets exited). Note, the XXII Amendment only prohibits a person from being “elected” president more than twice. No mention of appointment. Now there’s a real Catch-22!

The blogger who styles himself as “Sundance” at the excellent Conservative Tree House website has another theory. He writes, The Leak Was the Op, saying its purpose was to help get the Restrict Act passed. This loathsome legislation, pimped by Senate Intel Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA), would essentially allow the government to censor everything and anything on the Internet, including blogs and comments on blogs and all websites generally — that is, the entire Alt Media. Senator Warner, you might recall (if you followed the immensely tangled story) was one of the prime movers behind the RussiaGate hoax. What a daisy he is!

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“We all should be preppers now.”

Global Monetary Experiment Ends in a Bloodbath – John Rubino (USAW)

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino said in February, “We are in a debt and death spiral” that will force dramatic changes on the world. It was a direct hit because in March, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) tanked, and the FDIC and the U.S. Treasury were forced to basically back-stop the entire banking system. The financial problems are far from over as Rubino explains, “Basically, interest rates have been artificially low for a decade . . . . In that time, crazy numbers of office buildings went up and were financed at really low rates. . . . Now, office vacancy rates are spiking, which means office building are not profitable anymore. The debts they have at 2% to 3% now have to be rolled over at 5%, 6% or 7%. This means an already unprofitable office building is going to be even more unprofitable because of rising interest rates.

Now, they want to sell this office space, and the price cuts that have to be done to get a deal done is 30% to 50% . . . . Some are down by 80%. . . . Local and regional banks already had their troubles last month but are going to have bigger troubles when all these building turn out to be not worth nearly as much as we thought they were. This paper is in pension funds. . . . they are going to go into crisis. So, real estate is liable to be the catalyst in crisis in several other sectors. . . . The government is going to have to let it burn and have a 1930’s style depression, or bail out everybody in sight. . . at the cost of rising inflation and the dollar tanking.” Rubino says, “There is no fix. . . . There is no way to refill these buildings. There is no way to refinance them without going bankrupt. . . . Sometime this year we are going to drop back into negative growth, and it’s going to be a bloodbath. There is no solution, and these guys see it coming and they have no idea what to do about it. . . .

This is the sector we want to watch and will be the catalyst for the next big crisis. . . .The next bailout crates a lot of new dollars, and that pushes down the dollar, and then, we are in the death spiral where there is no fix. That is out there waiting to happen, a bailout so huge that it terrifies holders of the currency and Treasury bonds. Then it’s game over. . . . This is just a question of when people figure this out. That really is our situation right now.” In closing, Rubino says, “This is a much bigger story than what happens to the dollar as the reserve currency. This is the end of a global monetary experiment that is going to go out with a very fiery end. This is not going to be fun to watch.” Rubino advises people to get tangible assets such as food, water, tools, gold, silver, a car title and a garden, to name a few. Rubino says, “We all should be preppers now.”

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Coal is “accounting for over 31% of power supplies”. Green success.

Germany Shutting Down Its Last Nuclear Reactors (RT)

Germany’s government has confirmed plans to go through with the shutdown of the country’s last remaining nuclear power plants this weekend, cutting off a key source of energy despite the loss of Russian natural gas amid the Ukraine crisis. The last three reactors – Emsland in northwest Germany and Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 in the south – will be idled for good on Saturday, completing a phaseout of nuclear power that began in 2002 and was accelerated after Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011. The shutdown order had been extended from the end of last year to April 15 amid concerns over a potential winter energy crisis, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz ruled out seeking another extension. Germany’s nuclear power industry accounted for about 30% of the country’s power supplies in the late 1990s. With all but three reactors closed, the plants generated 6% of German electricity last year.

Fossil fuels are filling the void. With Russian gas imports cut off, output from coal-fired plants rose 8% last year, accounting for over 31% of power supplies. Germany also is ramping up imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), including cargoes from the US. The country plans to boost its LNG import capacity more than fivefold by 2030, to nearly 71 million tons annually. Scholz has warned that Germany will need to install four to five new wind turbines each day over the next few years to meet its power-supply needs. That would be about triple last year’s pace of 1.5 per day. Renewable energy sources currently account for 46% of power supplies. While environmentalists have pressed to keep Scholz’s government on course with the nuclear phaseout, most Germans oppose the move.

A poll released on Friday by public broadcaster ARD showed that 59% of Germans believe the government’s decision to abandon atomic power was wrong, while 34% agree with the policy. Two-thirds of respondents who want to keep the reactors running said they’re concerned that energy prices will rise when nuclear power supplies are lost. “Politicians need to adjust to changed circumstances, and I accuse the government of not doing that at all,” opposition party lawmaker Albert Stegemann told the Associated Press. “The nuclear phase-out by April 15, that’s this Saturday, is a done deal,” the chancellor’s spokesperson said earlier this week. Environment Minister Steffi Lemke defended the decision, saying the safety risks of nuclear power “can’t be controlled, even in a high-tech country like Germany.”

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“Drugs that are capable of targeting iron storage or preventing proliferation may therefore be successful in treating both malaria and COVID-19..”

Contentious COVID-19 Drugs Are All Antimalarial (ET)

The COVID-19 recommendations hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and now artemisinin all have one thing in common: They are antimalarial drugs or have such properties. Yet studies suggest that this may not be a mere coincidence; malaria and COVID-19 may be more similar than people may realize. From the outset, malaria and COVID-19 are very distinct diseases. Malaria is a parasitic disease. An infection starts when an individual is bitten by a mosquito carrying a parasite from the Plasmodium genus. Upon infection, the parasite first goes to the liver and multiplies in liver cells. Then it migrates to the bloodstream, invades and proliferates in red blood cells, and causes these cells to expand and burst. Common malaria symptoms such as fever, chills, and sweating occur during the blood-stage infection. Complications include anemia, and on rare occasions, cerebral malaria, liver failure, fluid buildup in the lungs, and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

COVID-19, on the other hand, is a viral disease. Infection occurs primarily through the inhalation of contaminated droplets. The virus invades the body through the nasal cavities, entering the upper and then lower respiratory tracts. Inflammation of the lungs ensues as the body’s immune cells fight off the infection. The person’s oxygen levels start dropping as inflammation worsens in the advent of a cytokine storm, and the lungs become damaged. Some of the virus can also go into the bloodstream and invade other organs, causing systemic inflammation and damage. While one mainly affects blood cells and the other primarily affects the lungs, both diseases are characterized by a strong inflammatory response early in the infection, according to a 2022 paper in Frontiers in Immunology.

Symptoms-wise, both infections from malaria and COVID-19 can lead to fever, fatigue, shortness of breath, diarrhea, and muscle pain. If inflammation is prolonged, the body will experience a significant increase in cytokines, and individuals can become severely injured or even die. The two diseases are also similar in that they both sequester iron, use the same receptors in their pathogenesis, and even share similar structures in their proteins. Both the Plasmodium parasite and the SARS-CoV-2 virus require iron to proliferate. Therefore, both the parasite and the virus need to store iron inside the ferritin protein within infected cells. High or increased levels of ferritin are therefore an indication of severe disease and inflammation. Drugs that are capable of targeting iron storage or preventing proliferation may therefore be successful in treating both malaria and COVID-19.

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Flying cycle

 

 


Images that produce an illusory motion when scrolling or moving are caused by small, involuntary eye movements generating a ghost image on our retina to overlap with the image on the page

 

 

Pilots
https://twitter.com/i/status/1646978853292724225

 

 

Attack
https://twitter.com/i/status/1646633570838913025

 

 

Humpback

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 222022
 


Hayami Gyoshu Tea bowl and fruits 1921

 

Biden Brags About Sending Weapons at ‘Record Speed’ to Ukraine (Celente)
The Collective West Is Stumbling Towards Nuclear Armageddon (Doctorow)
New World Disorder (Charai)
Why So Many Middle-Aged Deaths in 2021? (Briand)
Poking Holes In The Brain-blood Barrier. Is That Such A Good Idea? (Girardot)
A Moratorium on mRNA ‘Vaccines’ is Needed (Byram Bridle)
Fauci Complains About ‘Dangerous Precedent’ of Mask Mandate Ruling (TH)
Tulsi Gabbard Releases Cease And Desist Letter To Mitt Romney (JTN)
Destroying Democracy To Save It? (Turley)
Barack Obama Outlines Perils Of Unregulated Big Tech (G.)
Big Tech’s ‘Cancel Culture’ Love Affair (Pepe Escobar)
Feds Subpoenaed Hunter Biden Paternity Documents, Including Tax Returns (CBS)
Black Lives Don’t Matter To BLM (Blaze)
Elon Musk To Collect $23bn Bonus As Tesla Beats Targets (G.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

George Webb

 

 

 

 

Medvedev

 

 

Am I the only one who thinks they’re too eager to get all these people into the US?

President Biden: “I’m announcing a program, Unite for Ukraine, a new program to enable Ukrainians seeking refuge to come directly from Europe to the United States.”

 

 

And not a word about peace.

Biden Brags About Sending Weapons at ‘Record Speed’ to Ukraine (Celente)

President Joe Biden on Thursday took to Twitter to inform Americans that his administration will send another $800 million in military aid to Ukraine to “further augment” Kyiv’s ability to counter the Russian offensive in the eastern region of the country. No mention of peace. Just more war. Biden, who called Putin a killer and war criminal, bragged that the new package will include heavy artillery weapons, dozens of howitzers, 144,000 rounds of ammunition, and tactical drones. “In the past two months, we have moved weapons and equipment to Ukraine at record speed. The United States alone has provided 10 anti-armor systems for every one Russian tank that is in Ukraine,” he posted.

Biden has sent $3.4 billion in less than two months to Ukraine. He also announced that he will send a supplemental budget request to Congress to get the funding for the weapons. He also plans to send $500 million more in direct economic aid to Ukraine and accept more refugees. Biden said the war is at a critical point and about to enter its “next phase” (which only means more weapons). The weapons will go “directly to the front lines of defending freedom,” he said. [..] John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said the new weapons batch will include 72 tactical vehicles to tow the howitzers, 121 Phoenix Ghost tactical drones—a new weapon rapidly developed by the Air Force for the Ukrainians, according to Defense One. Biden also announced that $500 million more is being provided to Ukraine.

Biden, who earlier held a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal, said Americans should take pride in providing the weapons and intelligence that “beat back Putin’s savagery.” “Putin has failed to achieve his grand ambitions on the battlefield. After weeks of shelling Kyiv. Kyiv still stands,” he said.

Scott Ritter

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“..overcome with pure hatred for the West brought on by the sanctions, by the rampant Russophobia that is now public policy in Europe and the USA..”

The Collective West Is Stumbling Towards Nuclear Armageddon (Doctorow)

[Mosfilm general director Karen] Shakhnazarov expressed amazement and deep worry that Western leaders have literally ‘lost their minds’ by pursuing measures to destabilize Russia in the hope of precipitating the overthrow of Vladimir Putin and maybe even the disintegration of Russia in a way similar to the dissolution of the USSR in late 1991. Shakhnazarov remarked that total absence of common or any other sense in Joe Biden is to be expected because of his health (read: senility). But his jaw dropped when he heard that the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, declared a couple of days ago that “Russia must not be allowed to win this war!” Where are his brains? Shakhnazarov asked rhetorically.

The point of Shakhnazarov’s reasoning is as follows: Russia is the world’s leading power in terms of nuclear arms. An overthrow of Putin would lead to chaos, and very likely to genuine radicals assuming power. Their aggressive inclinations for policy to the West would be underpinned by the vast majority of the Russian population, which, in Shakhnazarov’s view, is now overcome with pure hatred for the West brought on by the sanctions, by the rampant Russophobia that is now public policy in Europe and the USA. If the conflict should escalate to use of tactical nuclear missiles and beyond, then Russia would no longer limit its strikes to military installations but will happily target all capitals and population centers in Europe and, we may assume, in North America. In a word, Shakhnazarov equates destabilization of Russia with nuclear Armageddon.

I repeat, these are the fears of a highly responsible and publicly visible Russian general manager in the arts. Is anybody in the West with comparable standing even beginning to imagine the coming catastrophe let alone speak out about it? Before closing, I redirect attention to a major newsworthy development in Russia yesterday afternoon which even our Western media have reported on this morning: the test launch of Russia’s new Sarmat ICBM, which sets new records for speed, distance, destructive force of its MIRV warheads and, surely most important, imperviousness to all known and projected anti-missile systems in the West. Part of the invulnerability of the Sarmat is a function of its range, which extends to every point on planet Earth. Sarmat’s trajectory can be set as best suits its undetectability.

For example, it can hit the USA by approach via the South Pole, thereby evading American tracking systems, which look to attack from the Northwest. The Sarmat’s 7 or 15 nuclear warheads can each also evade ABM systems and head for target at hypersonic speeds. Starting in September, the Sarmat will be installed in silos till now housing the world’s most powerful ICBM, the Voevoda, which will be gradually retired and redeployed as launchers for commercial satellites.

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“The view from the rubble of Kyiv’s suburbs isn’t hopeful.”

New World Disorder (Charai)

The latest battle zone in the Russia-Ukraine war was in the quiet, mostly mannerly halls of the United Nations. There, in the UN’s iconic New York headquarters, the world voted on Russia’s largest invasion since World War II — revealing fractures and fissures in global support for democracy. Suspending Russia from the UN Human Rights Council was technically the issue put before the delegates. But every diplomat knew it was really a vote on Russia’s assault on Ukraine. The consensus for democracy and self-determination was fragile: only 93 states (out of 193) voted for removing Russia from the UNHRC, and therefore condemning its actions against its smaller, weaker neighbor. Another 24 nations (including China) voted with Russia.

Most worrisome, 58 countries abstained, refusing to take sides in what many see as a duel between the great powers. Others feared that energy, food, and fertilizer prices might continue to climb if the conflict escalates. (Both Russia and Ukraine are major producers of oil, gas, wheat, and fertilizing petrochemicals — all of which are a matter of life and death for developing nations.) Fear and food are more important to many developing nations than democratic ideals. American and European policy makers will have to face a hard truth: while Russia is diplomatically isolated, it is not entirely alone, and many countries do not side with Ukraine and its democratic hopes. The view from the rubble of Kyiv’s suburbs isn’t hopeful.

Ukraine’s democratically elected leaders know that they could be captured, wounded, or killed. And they also know that the history of sanctions, the weapon of choice of the Western coalition, shows that they almost always fail to tame invaders. All of these facts were known to the UN delegates. Indeed, they would have heard them directly from Ukrainian diplomats. But high ideals and real desperation didn’t move them.

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“..a 45-54 years old death peak in September is unheard of.”

Why So Many Middle-Aged Deaths in 2021? (Briand)

Martin Kulldorff recently wrote: “For the mRNA vaccines, the big question that needs an urgent answer is whether they cause an increased risk of heart attack and/or other serious heart problems. There are many anecdotal reports, especially among young male athletes, and many VAERS reports. [..] Public health officials face a temptation to summarily dismiss anecdotal vaccine injury stories and people concerned about the publicly available VAERS reports, but in public health, we cannot do that. We must take people’s concerns seriously. What’s an economist’s reaction to anecdotal evidence? A friend recently asked me about the statistical relevance of anecdotal evidence. My answer to him was the following. The sum of life experiences by the many leads to a picture of the whole, while a picture of the whole hides unique and varied life experiences.

No “anecdotal evidence” should be dismissed a priori, just because it has been observed over a small and/or unique sample. The questions are the same, whether about “anecdotal evidence” or “evidence over a larger sample or population”: Have we really observed a change in the pattern in our data? What kind of inferences, if any, can we make from our observations? I have never paid much attention to athletes (no offense to the athletes), but I have recently paid attention to U.S. deaths. Using publicly available CDC data, I simply plotted monthly U.S. deaths, from 1999 to 2021. To my surprise, deaths due to suicides do not show an increase in 2020-21. But we thought they did, didn’t we? Does this mean we were not paying attention to suicides before, but recent events made us more attune to the suffering of others?

Or does it mean deaths of despair are found in other cause of death categories? Deaths due to accidental poisoning and exposure to noxious substances (which include accidental drug and alcohol overdose) have increased. Deaths due to homicide, and deaths due to liver diseases, have too. Some thought April 2020 deaths were too high and justified putting our lives on hold, but January 2021 numbers were worse—the percentage death rate in 2021 is the same as it was in 2020. Why the increase in January 2021 deaths? Continued upward trend in deaths due to the increase and aging of the US population? Deaths of despair? Increased deaths due to untreated conditions in 2020? Deaths due to COVID or one of its variants? Vaccine deaths?

In 2021, death numbers have peaked at unprecedented levels, in September, for the 45-54, 35-44 and 25-34 years old. September 2021 deaths for the 65-74 and 55-64 years old were also higher than their April 2020 numbers. Ok, so why is that significant? Let’s take the 45-54 years old group for example. Seasonal variations in deaths for this group has always been less pronounced than for the 85 years and older group, but whatever peaks they had, they still occurred mostly in January for both groups—so a 45-54 years old death peak in September is unheard of.

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“As long as the brain-blood barrier is leak-proof, very limited quantities of lipid nanoparticles – or pseudo-virus vectors – will penetrate the brain.”

Poking Holes In The Brain-blood Barrier. Is That Such A Good Idea? (Girardot)

Utilising 20% of the body’s energy, the humain brain contains ~650 kilometers of blood vessels, roughly 6 times the lungs’ own vascular system. As such it would be natural that the brain would face the most endothelial risk in the human body. When the data about the LNP distribution came out last year, most of us naturally focused on the organs where most of the nanoparticles seemed to be principally localised: liver, spleen, ovaries, heart, lungs … Strangely, the brain seemed relatively untouched with a peak estimate at 2 million nanoparticles in the brain, whereas the lungs seem to retain 6 times more vaccine particles… an inverted proportion.


Chart 1 – Lipid Nanoparticle Estimate for Pfizer Vaccine based on Mouse Model

There’s an acute difference between the brain and other organs: As a vascular system, the brain-blood-barrier (BBB) is a much tighter assembly of specialised endothelial cells than the rest of the circulatory system. The BBB controls what penetrates the brain much more tightly and rigourously. In other words, vaccine particles can come in and out freely in most organs, not in the brain. As long as the brain-blood barrier is leak-proof, very limited quantities of lipid nanoparticles – or pseudo-virus vectors – will penetrate the brain.

As we have witnessed with the escape from the injection point, it doesn’t mean necessarily that tissues are favourable to transfection…so a significant proportion of cytotoxic LNPs accounted for in Chart 1 aren’t necessarily synonymous with severity. Indeed, they might leak back into the lymphatic system and the blood stream later on. What I am trying to say is that it might seem from Chart 1 that the brain is not so much at risk, but effectively it probably is. Simply the brain isn’t storing LNPs in the tissue the way muscles or the heart might…and therefore the 2 million LNPs accounted for in the brain are likely transfected BBB endothelial cells !

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Too late already?

A Moratorium on mRNA ‘Vaccines’ is Needed (Byram Bridle)

Do you remember when public health and government officials assured everyone that the mRNA ‘vaccines’ function like traditional vaccine technologies? …meaning that they largely remain in the shoulder muscle where they are injected, with some portion going to the draining lymph nodes where an immune response is initiated. Well, back in May 2021, I, along with some international colleagues, looked at a document that Pfizer had submitted to the Japanese health regulatory agency. It was a pre-clinical biodistribution study. This means it was an experiment done with an animal model to predict where the vaccine formulation might go when injected into people. What I saw was startling. Most of Pfizer’s vaccine spread throughout the body instead of staying at the injection site.

This also meant there was the potential for toxicities that would never occur with traditional vaccines that largely remain at or close to the injection site. To ensure people could make a fully informed decision about whether to take the jab I went public with this information in a radio interview. I wasn’t surprised by the systemic distribution of the vaccine per se. Being a vaccinologist, I knew that lipid nanoparticle delivery systems were originally designed to spread far and wide throughout the body with the hopes they could be a vehicle for gene therapy and/or drug delivery. Instead, my surprise came from the fact that the data confirmed my historical understanding and contradicted public health messaging that the mRNA jabs behaved like traditional vaccines.

Public statements by health officials made me assume the lipid nanoparticles had somehow been modified to stay at the injection site, which was news to me. This highlights one of the first rules of thumb when practicing science. Transparently presented raw and/or peer-reviewed data are the cornerstones of objective science; not personal proclamations or data disseminated via media releases. In May 2021 I realized two things: 1. There was a lack of transparency about data supporting COVID-19 inoculations. 2. Incorrect messaging was being relayed to the public. As an academic public servant with relevant expertise, I spoke up when enquiries came from the public. I spoke the truth then and continue to do so.

Ryan Cole Cancer and T cells

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Fauci declares himself above the law. And the courts should stay out of it.

Fauci Complains About ‘Dangerous Precedent’ of Mask Mandate Ruling (TH)

After Fauci himself acknowledged that the rise in cases of this new variant may not lead to increased hospitalizations, he claimed that “it was perfectly logical for the CDC to say ‘wait a minute, we were planning on ending this mandate on a certain date, let’s wait a period of time until May 3” and also tried to convince that that “was a very sound public health decision.” He continued to complain about Judge Mizelle’s ruling, saying that “for a court to come in, and interfere in that, is really unfortunate. It’s unfortunate because it’s against public health principles, number one, and number two is because that’s no place for the courts to do that, this is a CDC decision, and that’s very bad precedent when you have courts making a decision and looking at what the basis of the decision, it was not sound.”

What? Is the CDC accountable to no one? Also, when it comes to waiting until “a certain date,” plenty of us remember the powers that be at the time telling us, over two years ago now, that we just needed two weeks to stop the spread. Such exchanges certainly highlight an entitlement that Dr. Fauci, the CDC, and the Biden administration all have when it comes to their authority in handling the Wuhan coronavirus. It’s all on these members of the mainstream media for throwing Biden such softball questions. These remarks came after Dr. Fauci just recently, during an appearance on ABC News’ “This Week” acknowledged that “this is not going to be eradicated … Each individual is going to have to make their [risk] calculation.”


Fauci has hardly been the only one to denigrate Judge Mizelle though, with other liberals going after her, including to do with her age and her qualifications, as Spencer and our friends at Twitchy highlighted. When it comes to Fauci’s sense of entitlement, he may need to be reminded that the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have found that the CDC overstepped its authority before when it comes to the pandemic. Last August, in a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled against the CDC’s eviction moratorium, which even President Joe Biden had acknowledged was likely unconstitutional, though he issued it regardless.

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And Keith Olberman. But nobody takes him serious anymore.

Tulsi Gabbard Releases Cease And Desist Letter To Mitt Romney (JTN)

Former Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has sent Sen. Mitt Romney a cease-and-desist letter over the Utah Republican’s recent accusation that she has told “treasonous lies.” The letter, which Gabbard posted to her social media, accuses Romney of making “false and defamatory statements” and encourages him to enter into a settlement with her before the process reaches the litigation stages. “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda,” Romney tweeted March 13 about the ex-Hawaii congresswoman, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was roughly two weeks old. “Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.” The senator and former Massachusetts governor and 2016 GOP presidential nominee did not offer specifics.

But he purportedly was referring to comments Gabbard – a major in the Army National Guard who served two tours of duty in the Middle East – made about biolabs in Ukraine. Last month, Gabbard, also a 2020 presidential candidate, told Fox News show host Tucker Carlson that she was “deeply concerned” about the biolab issue and posted a video to her social media accounts in which she said that there are more than 25 “U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine, which if breached would release and spread deadly pathogens.” “While your tweet lacked any context, we surmise that your tweet was made in reference to a video Representative Gabbard published on Twitter that same day,” Gabbard’s attorney said about the Romney tweet.

“In her video, Representative Gabbard called for a ceasefire in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine so that any biological laboratories in Ukraine could be secured,” states the cease-and-desist document, which also argues everything Gabbard said in her video was “factually accurate.” Treason can be punishable by death, according to U.S. House code. Gabbard’s lawyer also writes: “Representative Gabbard’s loyalty to the United States is beyond reproach. You knew your claims of treason were false, or, at a minimum, you made your claims of treason with reckless disregard for the truth.” Biolabs in Ukraine are the focus of a conspiracy theory that alleges the Biden administration was funding biological weapon labs in the country now under attack from Russia.

Tucker Tulsi

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“Whether Jan. 6 was a riot or an actual insurrection remains a matter of deep and largely partisan disagreement — but the disqualification clause was written in reference to a real Civil War in which more than 750,000 people died in combat.”

Destroying Democracy To Save It? (Turley)

As the country braces for the midterm elections, the left seems to be rallying behind three D’s: Democracy, Disinformation and Disqualification. The latter effort just received a huge boost from a judge in Georgia who has allowed a challenge to knock Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) off the ballot as an insurrectionist. Nothing says “democracy” like preventing others from voting. Many of us have criticized Greene for her inflammatory rhetoric and her extreme views. No less dangerous, though, is the means being used by some of Greene’s critics to get rid of her. It is all part of a new movement to defend democracy by denying it. To paraphrase the Vietnam strategy, democracy can only be saved by destroying it through the denial of speech or the right to vote.

[..] Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was written after the 39th Congress convened in December 1865, following the end of the Civil War. At the time, many members were not pleased to see former Confederates like Alexander Stephens (D-Ga.), the Confederacy’s vice president, appear in Congress to retake the very oath they previously violated by waging war against the country. Whether Jan. 6 was a riot or an actual insurrection remains a matter of deep and largely partisan disagreement — but the disqualification clause was written in reference to a real Civil War in which more than 750,000 people died in combat. The Confederacy was a separate government with its own army, currency and foreign policy.

There is another problem: To the extent that a person can be disqualified under the 14th Amendment, it requires action from Congress, not a local board of election. Despite an otherwise long, careful opinion, Totenberg blithely set aside such details, including an 1869 decision by then-Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. The case in question challenged the right of Hugh W. Sheffey to hold a Virginia state court office, given his support for the Confederacy. Chase ruled that Section 3 did not disqualify Sheffey because “legislation by Congress is necessary to give effect to” Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and disqualification from office “can only be provided for by Congress.” Congress later passed the Amnesty Act of 1872, which overrode the Disqualification Clause except for “Senators and Representatives of the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh Congresses.”

The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that states cannot impose their own qualifications for Congress because it would “erode the structure envisioned by the Framers.” Under such an approach, partisan state election boards could simply conclude that a member is an insurrectionist and prevent voters from being able to make such choices for themselves.

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Cancel Culture. As per the Guardian.

Barack Obama Outlines Perils Of Unregulated Big Tech (G.)

Technology companies must be reined in to address the “weakening of democratic institutions around the world”, Barack Obama said Thursday, in a sweeping keynote speech on the perils of disinformation. Speaking at Stanford University in Silicon Valley, the former president made his most extensive remarks yet about the technology landscape, which he said is “turbo-charging some of humanity’s worst impulses”. “One of the biggest reasons for the weakening of democracy is the profound change that’s taken place in how we communicate and consume information,” he said. The address came as Obama has increasingly focused his post-presidential messaging on misinformation and what should be done about the largely unchecked power wielded by big tech. On Thursday, he solidified those calls, endorsing specific legislation.

“Do we allow our democracy to wither, or do we make it better?” Obama asked. “That is the choice.” Obama’s speech called attention to the grave impacts of disinformation and misinformation – including manipulation of the 2016 and 2020 elections and the rise of anti-vaccination sentiments. He was candid about regrets he had surrounding Donald Trump’s election, saying his administration had long known that Russia had incentive to manipulate US democracy but he underestimated the effectiveness of the efforts. “What still nags at me is my failure to appreciate at the time just how susceptible we had become to lies and conspiracy theories,” Obama said.

A Senate panel report in 2020 found conclusively that Russia had interfered in the 2016 elections to sway votes in favor of Trump, echoing findings from a prior report published by the Department of Justice. In addition to impacting the results of those elections, disinformation and misinformation has also caused many Americans to reject the results of democratically sound elections, Obama said – noting that the majority of Republicans doubt the legitimacy of Biden’s 2020 win. Much of these issues can be attributed to a decline in media literacy, the erosion of local news sources, and an “information overload” as we come into contact with limitless content each day. “The sheer proliferation of conflict and the splintering of information and audiences has made democracy more complicated,” Obama said.

Obama

“Despite the fact that we have now essentially clinically tested the vaccine on billions of people worldwide. Around 1 in 5 Americans is still going to put themselves at risk… rather than get vaccinated.”

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And this is where Obama’s views lead:

Big Tech’s ‘Cancel Culture’ Love Affair (Pepe Escobar)

This month, several of us – Scott Ritter, myself, ASB Military News, among others – were canceled from Twitter. The – unstated – reason: we were debunking the officially approved narrative of the Russia/NATO/Ukraine war. As with all things Big Tech, that was predictable. I lasted only seven months on Twitter. And that was long enough. Contacts in California had told me I was on their radar because the account grew too fast, and had enormous reach, especially after the start of Operation Z. I celebrated the cancelation by experiencing an aesthetic illumination in front of the Aegean Sea, at the home of Herodotus, the Father of History. Additionally, it was heart-warming to be recognized by the great George Galloway in his moving tribute to targets of the new McCarthyism.

In parallel, comic relief of the “Mars Attacks” variety was provided by expectations of free speech on Twitter being saved by the benign intervention of Elon Musk. Techno-feudalism is one of the overarching themes of my latest book, Raging Twenties – published in early 2021 and reviewed here in a very thoughtful and meticulous manner. Cancel culture is inbuilt in the techno-feudalist project: conform to the hegemonic narrative, or else. In my own case regarding Twitter and Facebook – two of the guardians of the internet, alongside Google — I knew a day of reckoning was inevitable, because like other countless users I had previously been dispatched to those notorious “jails”.

On one Facebook occasion, I sent a sharp message highlighting that I was a columnist/analyst for an established Hong Kong-based media company. Some human, not an algorithm, must have read it, because the account was restored in less than 24 hours. But then the account was simply disabled – with no warning. I requested the proverbial “review”. The response was a demand for proof of ID. Less than 24 hours later, came the verdict: “Your account has been disabled” because it had not followed those notoriously hazy “community standards.” The decision was “reviewed” and “it can’t be reversed”. [..] My hit-by-a-Hellfire missile Facebook page clearly identified for the general public who I was, at the time: “Geopolitical analyst at Asia Times”.

The fact of the matter is Facebook algorithms canceled a top columnist from Asia Times – with a proven record and a global profile. The algos would never have had the – digital – guts to do the same with a top columnist from The New York Times or the Financial Times. Asia Times lawyers in Hong Kong sent a letter to Facebook management. Predictably, there was no response. Of course becoming a target of cancel culture – twice – does not even remotely compare to the fate of Julian Assange, imprisoned for over three years in Belmarsh under the most appalling circumstances, and about to be dispatched for “judgment” in the American gulag for the crime of committing journalism. Yet the same “logic” applies: journalism that does not conform to the hegemonic narrative must be taken down.

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They’re coming for him from all sides. By definition, that means they’re coming for his dad, too, even if they don’t recognize it.

Feds Subpoenaed Hunter Biden Paternity Documents, Including Tax Returns (CBS)

Prosecutors investigating Hunter Biden subpoenaed documents from a paternity lawsuit that included tax records for the president’s son, according to documents and an attorney involved in the matter. “They wanted every record relating to Hunter Biden we had,” Clint Lancaster told CBS News. Lancaster represented Lunden Roberts, a woman who filed suit against Hunter Biden in 2019 alleging he was the father of her child. A December 2020 subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Delaware, obtained by CBS News, requested all documents “regarding [Hunter] Biden’s income, assets, debts, obligations, and financial transactions… and all personal and business expenditures.” The request specified January 2017 to the present. The subpoena also requested a wide range of tax documents pertaining to Hunter Biden.

“All federal, state, local and foreign tax documentation related to Biden,” the subpoena reads, “including but not limited to, IRS Forms 1099, income and payroll tax returns, state tax returns, and amended tax returns.” Hunter Biden’s personal and business conduct have been the subject of scrutiny — and the target of Republican political attacks — since the earliest days of the 2020 presidential campaign. The move by federal authorities to obtain these records offers a new, if narrow, glimpse into the long-running investigation into the president’s son — a probe that began as a tax inquiry several years ago. Lancaster told CBS News that in the fall of 2021, the Assistant U.S. Attorney in Delaware, Lesley Wolf, traveled to his Arkansas law office, joined by at least two federal agents, one from the FBI and the other an IRS enforcement agent.

Lancaster said he and his client spent about half a day answering questions about Hunter Biden and his business practices. Lancaster said that in the meeting, investigators asked for information about several companies affiliated with Hunter Biden, including Rosemont Seneca Partners, a firm where he worked for several years. The line of questioning tracks with a separate 2019 federal subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Delaware. The subpoena, obtained by CBS News, sought “all records, documents and accounts pertaining to all financial/banking transactions” between 15 business entities and Hunter Biden, the president’s brother James, as well as two business partners dating back to 2014, when Joe Biden was vice president.

Lancaster said that during the paternity suit Hunter Biden had supplied an “affidavit of financial means,” which detailed his finances through income statements and a breakdown of monthly expenses. Lancaster said the tax records he and his client supplied overlapped with the time period of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. Roberts testified before a Delaware grand jury in February of this year, according to her lawyer. An Arkansas court filing from November 2019 states, “DNA testing has established with scientific certainty” that Hunter Biden is the father of Roberts’ child. The child is believed to be around 3 years old today. The paternity case was settled in 2020. Some of the records in the case are under seal.

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Defund.

Black Lives Don’t Matter To BLM (Blaze)

It had even more corporate and cultural support than the vaccines and Ukraine. It was the greatest juggernaut in politics that even ensnared many Republican politicians. Yet never have we seen a movement that accomplished the opposite of what it was purported to do in such a short time frame. It turns out that as a result of the BLM-induced crime wave, reversing a generation-long trend of reduced crime, there were thousands of excess black homicide victims, a body count that is still climbing. Hannah Meyers, director of the policing and public safety initiative at the Manhattan Institute, told Fox News’ Emma Colton that there were nearly 2,500 excess black murders in 2020 over the previous year and the 10-year average. Here is a breakdown of the data from Fox:

In 2019, at least 7,484 Black Americans were murdered. That number shot up to at least 9,941 murders in 2020, meaning there was an increase of 2,457 Black Americans murdered over the previous year. The number of Black murders was also far higher than White murders in 2020. The FBI data shows there 7,043 White people murdered that year, meaning 2,898 more Black people were killed compared to Whites. Between 2010 and 2019, there was an average of 5,954 White murders, which is roughly 16% lower than the 10-year average of Black murders. During that same time period, an average of 6,927 Black Americans were murdered each year, meaning Black murders shot up by 43% in 2020 compared to the previous 10-year average.

What is evident from this analysis is that there were two periods of abnormal increases in black homicides: one in 2015 after Ferguson and Freddie Gray and then a much sharper increase in 2019 with George Floyd. In other words, every time they promote the anti-police and anti-incarceration message, it backfires, and black people are harmed the most. Preliminary numbers from 2021 show an even greater increase in homicides. And given that major cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia set new records, it’s very likely that black victims accounted for an even greater share of the excess.

Republicans stupidly squandered the Trump years trying to outflank the Democrats on de-incarceration in an effort to pander to the black vote. They wrongly focused on the fact that blacks are disproportionately incarcerated, even though that is an unfortunate reflection of the crime rate. What they should have focused on is that black victims of crime are disproportionately affected by jailbreak policies. Despite composing just 13% of the population, they account for the majority of the homicide victims. Releasing career criminals ensures that the body count goes up.

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“Tesla today has a market value of $1.1tn, following a 1,300% rise in its share price since the target was set in January 2018..”

Elon Musk To Collect $23bn Bonus As Tesla Beats Targets (G.)

Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla and the world’s richest person, is set to collect a $23bn bonus after the Californian electric car company’s first-quarter results exceeded performance targets. Musk, who is already sitting on an estimated $249bn fortune, is in line for the bonus share payout after Tesla hit share price and financial growth milestones in its earnings on Wednesday night. Tesla made an adjusted profit of $5bn on revenue of $18.8bn in the first quarter of the year – an 81% increase on the same period a year earlier. The results, combined with the growth in Tesla’s share price performance, mean Musk has hit targets that should lead to a bonus share payout worth about $23bn.

The company outlined an extraordinary deal for Musk in 2018 that would pay him an unprecedented $55.8bn bonus if he built the business into a $650bn company within a decade. He achieved that milestone early, in January 2020. Tesla today has a market value of $1.1tn, following a 1,300% rise in its share price since the target was set in January 2018. It means Musk, who collects no salary, should now have unlocked the final three parts of the 12-tranche bonus scheme. Each tranche gives Musk the right to buy 8.4m Tesla shares at $70, a huge discount on the current $977 share price. His profit on each tranche could be $7.7bn or a combined value of $23bn. The payments need to be signed off by the board, and he must hold on to the shares for five years before selling.

Musk, who is attempting to buy Twitter for more than $43bn, said he was not in talks with Tesla’s board over a new bonus scheme after completing the 2018 deal early. “There are no discussions underway about incremental compensation for me,” he said on the company’s earning call. “The future is very exciting,” Musk said in the call with investors. “I’ve never been more optimistic or excited about the future of Tesla than I am right now.”

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Clinton campaign ad, October 15, 2016.

 

 

Haney suicide

 

 

Greeks eat lamb for Easter

 

 

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

 

 

 

Mar 222016
 
 March 22, 2016  Posted by at 8:59 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  6 Responses »


NPC Ford Motor Co., McReynolds & Sons garage, L Street, Washington DC 1926

US Existing Home Sales Tumble 7.1% In Warning For Housing Market (Reuters)
Companies Haven’t Fudged Their Numbers This Much Since 2009 (Yahoo)
Beware of Draghi Dropping Hints (FT)
Central Banks Creep Toward Uncomfortable Role as Central Planners (WSJ)
The ECB and The Mississippi Company Bubble (Macleod)
Germany Must Leave Eurozone To Save It: Mervyn King (CNBC)
Government Debt Could Bring China’s Credit Party To A Halt (MW)
China’s Debt Burden Is Only Going To Get Bigger (BV)
Home Is Where the Inflation Is (BBG)
Get Ready For An Australian Recession By 2017 (Steve Keen)
Regulator Warns Canadian Banks on Oil and Gas Reserves (WSJ)
Petrobras Posts Record $10 Billion Loss (Reuters)
Erdogan To Include Journalists, Politicians in ‘Terrorist’ Definition (Ind.)
The Uses of Disorder (Jim Kunstler)
Carbon Emission Release Rate ‘Unprecedented’ In Past 66 Million Years (G.)
The EU’s Deal With Turkey Is a No-Win Situation (Fortune)
Greece Appeals For EU Logistics Aid For Migrant Deal To Work (Reuters)
EU Rights Chief Demands More Protection For Refugees (AP)
Greece Sets Up Detention Camps As Refugee Deal Hits Delays (AP)

The US will keep doing what it can to prop up this bubble.

US Existing Home Sales Tumble 7.1% In Warning For Housing Market (Reuters)

U.S. home resales fell sharply in February in a potentially troubling sign for America’s economy which has otherwise looked resilient to the global economic slowdown. The National Association of Realtors said on Monday existing home sales dropped 7.1% to an annual rate of 5.08 million units, the lowest level since November. Sales have been volatile and prone to big swings up and down in recent months following the introduction in October of new mortgage regulations, which are intended to help homebuyers understand their loan options and shop around for loans best suited to their financial circumstances. February’s decline weighed on investor sentiment, with the S&P 500 stock index falling after the data was released. Sales fell across the country, including a 17.1% plunge in the U.S. Northeast.

Economists had forecast home resales decreasing 2.8% to a pace of 5.32 million units last month. Sales were up 2.2% from a year ago. The median price for a previously owned home increased 4.4% from a year ago to $210,800. The housing report runs counter to data showing strong job growth and a stabilization of factory output, which had taken a hit from weaker demand overseas and a strong U.S. dollar. Housing continues to be supported by a tightening labor market, which is starting to push up wage growth, boosting household formation. But a relative dearth of properties available for sale remains a challenge. “Finding the right property at an affordable price is burdening many potential buyers,” said NAR economist Lawrence Yun.

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Beware when accountants become society’s most creative people.

Companies Haven’t Fudged Their Numbers This Much Since 2009 (Yahoo)

Almost all of the companies in the S&P 500 have announced their quarterly earnings, and now Wall Street’s number crunchers are finalizing their conclusions as to what actually happened during the last three months of 2015. Unfortunately, it’s become an increasingly challenging task to understand the true financial performance of the big publicly traded companies because of the widening of something called the “GAAP gap.” Don’t worry: this topic isn’t as scary a concept as it sounds. In a nutshell, there’s a standard known as generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, which encourages some uniformity in how companies will report financial results. Unfortunately, the strict standards of GAAP often force companies to report big one-time, non-recurring items that will distort quarterly earnings, in turn making them a poor reflection of underlying operations.

And so, many companies will make adjustments for these items and separately report adjusted or non-GAAP financial results. All of that’s well and good. But there’s an unsettling trend we’ve been witnessing: the gap between GAAP and non-GAAP numbers is widening. Specifically, this “GAAP gap” is widening in such a way that more and more costs and expenses are being removed to make underlying profits look higher. “The gap between GAAP (reported) and pro forma (adjusted) EPS continued to widen in 4Q, with the GAAP/Pro forma ratio of 0.74 still at its most extreme levels since 2009,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Savita Subramanian said on Monday. “Trailing four-quarter (2015) GAAP EPS came in at $87 vs. $118 for pro forma EPS.”

It’s jarring to hear that any metric has returned to levels last seen during the financial crisis. Unfortunately, it’s hard to conclude what the implications are here because the issues are tied to just a few industries that are facing their own unique issues. “As was the case last quarter, the chief contributor to “GAAP gap” has been Energy asset impairments/write-downs, followed by M&A costs within Health Care,” Subramanian continued. “The Energy sector alone contributed to nearly half of the “GAAP gap” this quarter.” While this is certainly a top worth keeping an eye on, it would probably be a mistake to jump to any sweeping conclusions about the market and the economy. “We found that while a widening GAAP gap is not a leading indicator of a market downturn, companies with increasing deviations tend to systematically underperform the market,” Subramanian said.

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One day we’ll understand just how crazy this is.

Beware of Draghi Dropping Hints (FT)

It is a risky game, taking central bankers at their word. Investors should be wary of what central bankers appear to be saying or signalling. Like some politicians, economists and even journalists, they often change their mind. Mario Draghi, the president of the ECB, is a case in point. Don’t be fooled by Mr Draghi when he signals that interest rates have been cut as low as they can go, as he did at the ECB’s March policy meeting. After reducing the deposit rate to minus 0.4%, he could not have been clearer when he said: “We don’t anticipate that it will be necessary to reduce rates further.” Although he kept the option of further cuts open, he outlined his unease about negative rates and their impact on the region’s commercial banks. Consequently, some investors and commentators think interest rates have hit their floor in the euro zone.

But Mr Draghi has made similar assertions after cutting rates before. In June 2014, he reduced rates to minus 0.1% and said: “For all practical purposes we have reached the lower bound.” In September 2014, he dropped rates to minus 0.2% and said: “We are at the lower bound where technical adjustments are not going to be possible any longer.” There is an obvious pattern. Mr Draghi signals the floor has been reached, only to change his mind later. The likely reason for his “no lower” signals is that he does not want to scare markets. Bank stocks, bonds and credit default swaps, which are a kind of insurance against default, have all been rocked by worries about negative rates and their impact on the banking business. There are also concerns for banks in euro zone countries such as Austria, Portugal and Spain, where mortgage rates could go negative in the event of the ECB cutting further, as these mortgages are linked to euro zone money market rates.

In other words, banks in Austria, Portugal and Spain may end up paying customers for lending to them, which would be bad news for their balance sheets. The Bank for International Settlements warned in a report this month that there was great uncertainty over the potential for deeper cuts into negative territory. However, “Life Below Zero”, a research paper by HSBC, the bank, suggests that the ECB could cut rates much further. It says that the Swiss National Bank currently operates the most negative rate of all the world’s leading central banks (minus 0.75%). If the costs incurred by Swiss banks were applied to the euro zone banking system, then the ECB’s deposit rate would be much more negative, at minus 1.8%. The ECB could also tier rates. At the moment, the ECB charges about 90% of its bank reserves at negative rates.

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“It’s capitalism with Chinese characteristics.”

Central Banks Creep Toward Uncomfortable Role as Central Planners (WSJ)

Are central banks heading back to an era of rationing money? The question may sound daft when policy makers are pumping gushers of cash into several of the world’s major economies. But as the central banks become more desperate to boost inflation and growth, they are starting to break one of the modern tenets of the profession by funneling that cash directly to what they regard as “good” uses. The past two weeks brought interventions by the Bank of Japan and ECB, which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The Bank of Japan’s conditions for companies to qualify for exchange-traded funds it would like to buy sound like they come from a well-meaning government minister, not a monetary authority concerned about overall growth and inflation.

Companies could qualify by offering an “improving working environment, providing child-care support, or expanding employee-training programs.” The central bank wants financiers to create a new breed of ETFs it would like to buy. The ETFs would hold only shares of companies that are increasing capital spending, expanding spending on research and development or boosting what the Bank of Japan calls “human capital.” The latter means pay raises for staff, taking on more people or improving human resources. All these are eminently reasonable things to demand of companies, especially Japanese firms. All would probably be good for the economy, too. However, they have nothing to do with monetary policy. The basic aim of central banks is to adjust the overall economy while leaving the market and government to decide the best use of capital, decisions that are inherently political.

The problem, as Neal Soss, vice chairman of research at Credit Suisse, puts it, is “these are very, very challenging times for the economic orthodoxy,” and if governments won’t step up with an expansionary fiscal policy, central banks have little choice but to fill the gap. To be fair, Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda is hardly drawing up a Soviet-style five-year plan. Only ¥300 billion ($2.7 billion) a year will be spent “with the aim of supporting firms that are proactively investing in physical and human capital.” The worry is that the Bank of Japan has only just begun. “It’s a massive politicization of credit: Here are the legitimate things for lending, and here are the illegitimate things,” said Russell Napier, an independent strategist and author of “Anatomy of the Bear,” a study of 70,000 Wall Street Journal articles during major bear markets. “It’s capitalism with Chinese characteristics.”

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It’s awfully similar indeed. So why do we allow it to happen?

The ECB and The Mississippi Company Bubble (Macleod)

Last week, the ECB extended its monetary madness, pushing deposit rates further into negative figures. It is extending quantitative easing from sovereign debt into non-financial investment grade bonds, while increasing the pace of acquisition to €80bn per month. The ECB also promised to pay the banks to take credit from it in “targeted longer-term refinancing operations”. Any Frenchman with a knowledge of his country’s history should hear alarm bells ringing. The ECB is running the Eurozone’s money and assets in a similar fashion to that of John Law’s Banque Generale Privée (renamed Banque Royale in 1719), which ran those of France in 1716-20. The scheme at its heart was simple: use the money-issuing monopoly granted to the bank by the state to drive up the value of the Mississippi Company’s shares using paper money created for the purpose.

The Duc d’Orleans, regent of France for the young Louis XV, agreed to the scheme because it would provide the Bourbons with much-needed funds. This is pretty much what the ECB is doing today, except on a far larger Eurozone-wide basis. The need for government funds is of primary importance today, as it was then. In Law’s day, France did not have a central bank, such as the Bank of England, managing the issue of government debt, let alone a functioning government bond market. The profligate spending of Louis XIV had left the state three billion livres in debt, which was the equivalent of 1,840 tonnes of gold. This was about 85% of the world’s estimated gold stock at that time, at the livre’s conversion rate into Louis d’Or. John Law would almost double that by June 1720, with unbacked livre notes issued by his bank.

Today, the assets being overvalued for the governments’ benefit are government bonds themselves, but the principal is the same. There is no need to use a separate, Mississippi-style vehicle, because there is a fully functioning government bond market. Banque Generale created the bank credit for France’s upper and middle classes to buy Mississippi Company shares, driving up the price and making yet higher prices a certainty. Law had set up a money-making machine for those with a modicum of wealth, but the ten% down-payment required to subscribe for Mississippi shares made speculation available to the servant classes as well. The result was virtually everyone in Paris was caught up in the speculative fever, and Mississippi shares increased from the 15 livres deposit to 18,000 livres fully paid at the peak in June 1720. The term “millionaire” dated from that time.

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Simplistic. if Germany goes, so must Holland. And Austria. And then Belgium. France.

Germany Must Leave Eurozone To Save It: Mervyn King (CNBC)

Germany has grown too powerful and should leave the euro zone in order to save the union, former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said Monday. “That would be the best way forward, and I would hope that many of my American friends would stop pushing the Europeans to throw money at the problem and say we must make the euro successful,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” The tragedy of the euro zone, said King, is that Germany entered the project in a bid to bind itself into Europe so that no European country would ever again fear the country’s power. But now Germany is more powerful economically and politically than it was when the euro was adopted, he said. Germany also sacrificed the Deutsche mark in the process, “the one really successful symbol of post-war German reconstruction,” he said.

While the United States, the U.K., and some European countries need to export and invest more while consuming less, Germany and China need to spend more and export less, King said. “Unless we’re prepared to tackle that problem head-on, which will involve some restructuring of the economy, then we shall just continue down this path of ever-lower rates and no growth,” he said. Last week, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi warned European leaders that monetary policy alone would not be enough to jump-start the economy and that governments needed to do their job by pushing through structural reforms. “I made clear that even though monetary policy has been really the only policy driving the recovery in the last few years, it cannot address some basic structural weaknesses of the euro zone economy,” Draghi told reporters.

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It’s just a matter of what comes first: run out of credit or run out of growth. Since ever more credit is needed to produce one ‘unit’ of growth, diminishing returns rule the day.

Government Debt Could Bring China’s Credit Party To A Halt (MW)

China’s economy may have run out of growth before it ran out of credit, but no one told its companies. One of the biggest China puzzles today is the seemingly never-ending ability of its corporates to access new supplies of credit, without running into trouble or someone saying no. Some analysts warn that we are looking in the wrong place for distress; it could be building in the government bond market. This year, China’s easy money policy has been most graphically on display through an unprecedented overseas buying spree by its companies. The latest Chinese company throwing its checkbook around is insurer Anbang with a $13.1 billion cash offer for Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Earlier ChemChina broke China’s record for outbound merger and acquisition activity with an offer to buy Syngenta in cash for $44.1 billion.

In fact, in the first three months of this year, China outbound M&A activity has rocketed to $102.7 billion, almost equal to the record total of $107.5 billion for the whole of 2015, according to data from Dealogic. Heavily geared balance sheets appear no hindrance to connected mainland companies being able to access funding. On Monday, Shanghai shares rallied after more, cheaper money was promised to China’s brokers for margin financing. Yet it was possible to detect a hint of caution from the central bank governor at the weekend after the chorus of upbeat commentaries on the economy from China’s leaders in recent weeks. Zhou Xiaochuan said that “lending as a share of [gross domestic product], especially corporate lending as a share of GDP, is too high” and also that a high leverage ratio is more prone to macroeconomic risk.

Corporate gearing in China is now widely estimated at some 160% of GDP. It is these kinds of concerns that have led Moody’s to downgrade the outlook on China’s sovereign rating at the beginning of March. Other analysts are also turning their attention to central government debt — which has long been viewed as manageable — as these funding needs could emerge as a new fault line of distress. Societe Generale said in a new report the government bond market faces an unprecedented supply glut due to combined local and central government bond issuance. As the market has yet to factor in this exponential growth in government paper, it could lead to disruption, which could potentially spill over into the corporate bond market, they warn.

The upswing in issuance is due to an expanded local government debt swap program (where bad loans from special funding vehicles were swapped for debt) and central and local government fiscal deficits. In total, SG calculates this year could see a total net issuance of 7.58 trillion yuan, up by 2.66 trillion yuan from 2015. And this paper will keep coming. The latest audit report put the amount of local government debt eligible for being swapped into bonds at a massive 15.4 trillion yuan.

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Until it no longer can.

China’s Debt Burden Is Only Going To Get Bigger (BV)

China’s debt burden is only going to get bigger. Total borrowing has grown rapidly to reach about 250% of GDP last year, raising concerns about runaway credit. But pressure to meet unrealistic economic growth targets will delay any sustained effort to bring debt back down. The government’s latest five-year plan highlights the dilemma. Prime Minister Li Keqiang pledged that the world’s second-largest economy will expand by at least 6.5% a year, in real terms, until 2020. Meanwhile, planners expect total “social financing” – a broad measure of private sector credit – to grow by 13% in 2016 alone. So even if inflation reaches the optimistic target of 3%, debt will outstrip nominal GDP.

Extend those trends, and borrowing will hit about 290% of annual output by 2020. Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan has expressed concerns about rising corporate debt levels but there’s little sign that China is reining in credit. Banks extended new loans worth 3.5 trillion yuan ($540 billion) in the first two months of 2016, a third more than in the same period of last year. Meanwhile, Chinese companies are using domestic debt to help finance an overseas M&A binge which totals nearly $100 billion this year, according to ThomsonOne. Though a healthier stock market would allow corporations to deleverage by issuing more equity, the collapse of last year’s bubble has made investors understandably skittish.

The government could perhaps take on a greater burden: official borrowing was about 44% of GDP last year, according to Breakingviews calculations based on data from the Bank for International Settlements. That’s well below the level in developed countries. However, this excludes borrowing by state-owned entities and local governments. Moody’s puts these contingent liabilities at between 50 and 70% of GDP. That leaves consumers, whose borrowings are just 39% of GDP. So households have plenty of scope to load up on mortgages and credit cards. A consumer credit boom might help deliver growth targets while also shifting the economy towards greater consumption. Whoever does the borrowing, however, debt levels will keep rising. As in the rest of the world, deleveraging will have to wait.

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More or less correct.

Home Is Where the Inflation Is (BBG)

The U.S. Federal Reserve has had a tough time getting inflation back up to desired levels. There’s one area, though, where it may be having a bigger effect than some of its major foreign counterparts: house prices. Comparing house prices across borders can be a fraught enterprise, given the idiosyncratic nature of housing markets and statistics. That said, after the U.S. housing bust tanked the global economy, the Bank for International Settlements started collecting and publishing data for a large number of countries. Though still imperfect, the data allow for some rough comparisons. The latest numbers, updated Friday, show the U.S. on a run: Over the year through September 2015, house prices exceeded consumer-price inflation by 5.9% – more than in the euro area, Japan or the U.K.

That put them up almost 15% in inflation-adjusted terms since the economy hit bottom in mid-2016, just short of the U.K. Although many factors can affect house prices, much of the difference is probably attributable to central-bank policy – pushing up house prices, after all, is one of the goals of monetary stimulus. The Fed and the Bank of England moved quickly and decisively to push down short-term and long-term interest rates in 2009 and beyond, while the ECB was relatively slow to respond to economic malaise and the Bank of Japan had already used much of its ammunition (though Japan’s demographics play a role, too).

The question, then, is whether higher house prices will do any good. In the short term, they increase inequality, because the benefit accrues to relatively wealthy property owners and raises the bar for poorer folks who want to own. The expectation is that this wealth effect will translate into greater spending and investment that will benefit everyone. There are some signs that may be happening – the U.S. economy is certainly doing better than the euro area’s. Still, real median household income – though rising – only slightly exceeds its pre-recession level. Price gains are undoubtedly a relief for millions of U.S. homeowners who came out of the crisis owing more on their mortgages than their houses were worth. Now the rest of the economy just has to catch up.

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I’m sure Steve will come back to the BIS source data, this time for other countries.

Get Ready For An Australian Recession By 2017 (Steve Keen)

For the last 25 years, Australian politicians of both Liberal and Labor hue have been able to brag that, under their stewardship, Australia has avoided a recession. Those bragging rights are about to come to an end. During the life of the next Parliament -and probably by 2017- Australia will fall into a prolonged recession. Whichever party is in opposition at the time will blame the incumbent, but in reality this recession has been set up by the sidestep both parties have used to avoid downturns for the past quarter century: whenever a crisis has loomed, they’ve avoided recession by encouraging the private sector to borrow and spend.

The end product of that is starkly evident in a new database on private and government debt published by the Bank of International Settlements. Australia’s most famous recession sidestep was during the GFC, when it was one of only two countries in the OECD to avoid experiencing two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth (the other country was South Korea). Since then, the private sectors of the advanced countries have collectively de-levered, reducing their debt levels from about 170 to 160% of GDP. Australia, in stark contrast, has levered up. Our private debt to GDP ratio is now more than 20% higher than when the GFC began, and more than 50% higher than in the USA (see Figure 1).

This credit sidestep has worked because the extra debt-financed expenditure lifted aggregate demand and income well above what it would have been in the absence of a debt binge (see Figure 2).

Unfortunately for Australia’s next Prime Minister, there are two catches to this trick. The obvious catch is that getting that much extra demand out of credit necessarily increases debt much faster than it increases income — hence the runaway ratio of debt to GDP shown in Figure 1 —and this can’t go on forever. The less obvious one is that when debt is at stratospheric levels that apply in Australia today, total demand falls even if the debt ratio merely stabilises. The logic is pretty simple: your spending in a year is the total of what you earn plus what you borrow, and the same maths applies to the economy as a whole. If nominal GDP grows this year at the 2.8% rate it has averaged for the last five years, then GDP in 2016 will be roughly $1,634 billion. If private debt continues to grow at its average rate of 6.9% per year, it will reach $3,414 billion —an increase of $220 billion over the year.

Total private sector demand (which is spent on both goods and services and asset purchases) will be $1,855 billion. What about 2017, if private debt grows at the same rate as GDP itself, so that the debt ratio stabilises? Then GDP will be $1,680bn, and private debt will rise from $3,414bn to $3,509bn — an increase of just $96bn over the year (compared to $220bn the year before). The sum of the two will be $1,775bn — 4.3% less than the year before. This is the inevitable debt crunch coming Australia’s way, but conventional economists are oblivious to this danger because they’ve brainwashed themselves to ignore private debt as just a “pure redistribution”, to quote Ben Bernanke. This deluded textbook thinking is why Bernanke didn’t see the GFC coming.

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But American banks’ exposure is much higher.

Regulator Warns Canadian Banks on Oil and Gas Reserves (WSJ)

Canada’s banking regulator is urging the country’s major banks to review their accounting practices to ensure they have sufficient reserves as the commodity-price collapse takes a toll on the economy. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions wants lenders to scrutinize their collective allowances, reserve funds that act as cushions to absorb potential future loan losses, the regulator’s chief said in an interview. “We want them to take a good look at their accounting practices,” said Superintendent of Financial Institutions Jeremy Rudin. “They should support loss-absorbing capacity and the ability to manage through difficult times in general,” he added.

The regulator is giving the country’s six biggest banks this guidance on their accounting as they face mounting criticism from some analysts that they haven’t amassed enough reserves to cover soured loans to the energy sector. That criticism was a recurring theme during calls following their fiscal first-quarter results, in which many banks warned of rising provisions for credit losses but assured investors their rainy-day cushions were adequate. Canadian bank shares have tumbled over the past year as the price of oil has collapsed, but the S&P/TSX Composite Bank Index is now up about 16.77% from its low in February, reflecting a rebound in oil. Still, oil prices remain an overhang for banks, underscoring the size of the energy industry in the Canadian economy and concerns that lenders will eventually be stung by higher loan losses.

Energy loans totaled 49.7 billion Canadian dollars ($38.2 billion) for the country’s six biggest banks during the November-to-January quarter, according to a report by TD Securities. Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada’s third-largest bank by assets, has the biggest direct oil and gas exposure at 3.6% of total loans. Some analysts are skeptical about the lenders’ reserving practices in part because U.S. banks, including J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo, have set aside millions more for their reserves as they brace for bigger energy-related losses.

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Brazil is a game of dominoes.

Petrobras Posts Record $10 Billion Loss (Reuters)

Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petrobras posted its biggest-ever quarterly loss on Monday after booking a large writedown for oil fields and other assets as oil prices slumped and refinery projects faltered. Petróleo Brasileiro as the company at the epicenter of Brazil’s massive corruption scandal is commonly known, had a consolidated net loss of 36.9 billion reais ($10.2 billion) in the fourth quarter, according to a securities filing. The bigger-than-expected shortfall was 48% larger than the 26.6 billion-real loss a year earlier, the previous record. It also turned the company’s full-year 2015 result, which was positive through September, into a full-year loss. For a second year in a row, CEO Almir Bendine said, Petrobras will not pay dividends to either its government or non-government investors and it plans to make no bonus payments to employees.

The result caught analysts and investors by surprise. The largest fourth-quarter loss expected in a Reuters survey of analysts was 9.7 billion reais. Petrobras common shares fell 5.5% in after-hours electronic trading in New York, after the results were released. The red ink at Petrobras was driven by a 46% decline in the price of benchmark Brent crude oil, a drop that has driven up losses and caused writedowns throughout the global oil industry. Of the 46.4 billion reais written off in the quarter, 83% was for oil fields. A year earlier, writedowns were also the cause of Petrobras losses, although they were largely related to the giant price-fixing, bribery and political kickback scandal that has roiled the company and help fuel calls for the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

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Who needs enemies with friends like…

Erdogan To Include Journalists, Politicians in ‘Terrorist’ Definition (Ind.)

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan has claimed the definition of a terrorist should be changed to include their “supporters” – such as MPs, civil activists and journalists. It comes after three academics were arrested on charges of terrorist propaganda after publicly reading out a declaration that reiterated a call to end security operations in the south-east of Turkey, a predominantly Kurdish area. Mr Erdogan has said the academics will pay a price for their “treachery”. A British national was also detained on Tuesday despite having ordered the arrests, after he was found with pamphlets printed by the Kurdish linked People’s Democratic Party (HDP). “It is not only the person who pulls the trigger, but those who made that possible who should also be defined as terrorists, regardless of their title,” President Erdogan said on Monday, adding that this could be a journalist, an MP or a civil activist.

His comments came the day after a suicide bomb attack in the country’s capital of Ankara killed at least 34 people and wounded 125 others when a car bomb was detonated near a main square in the Kizilay neighbourhood. Violent action between the government and the PKK – which is being blamed by authorities for the Ankara bombing – has reached its worst level for 20 years since fighting restarted last July. Hundreds of civilians, militants and security forces have been killed since the summer. President Erdogan has already threatened the future of Turkey’s highest court after it ruled that holding two journalists in pre-trial detention was a violation of their rights to freedom of expression. The journalists, Cumhuriyet newspaper editor Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul, were arrested on charges of revealing state secrets and attempting to overthrow the government. They reportedly face calls for multiple life sentences from prosecutors and will stand trial later in March.

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“It would be an awesome and wondrous event if the nation landed on November 8 with both parties in complete disarray..”

The Uses of Disorder (Jim Kunstler)

Many thoughtful and patriotic citizens entering the Kubler-Ross free-fire zone of desperate bargaining with reality are at work attempting to chart an orderly course around the Godzilla-like figure of Trump looming outside the desecrated once-shining city of American democracy. I doubt there is such an orderly way through this political bad weather. When storms hit, things break up. It can be argued endlessly whether times produce the man or vice versa, but except in the most schematic and wishful sense, is there any question that Donald Trump is unfit for the office he’s seeking? Personally, I am tortured by the question: why him? Why this vulgarian who can’t string together two sequentially coherent thoughts? Are there in this land of 320 million-plus people no other men or women with comfortable fortunes and better minds bold enough to take on the matrix of mafias running our affairs into the ground? Apparently not.

Then there is the question — only nascently theoretical at this point — of where such an orderly course of decision and action might lead this country. For Trump, it seems to be a restoration of the 1950s, when armies of “breadwinner” factory workers churned out cornucopias of Maytag washers and Zenith black-and-white televisions, and the less numerous Wogs of the outside world busied themselves with basket-weaving, and Atoms For Peace would make electric power “too cheap to meter,” and popular entertainment came in the chaste form of Dinah Shore urging the upward-aspiring masses to “see the USA in your Chevrolet!” That was, of course, the time of Trump’s childhood (and my own), and if there is anything more certain than night following day, it is that America is not going back to that sunny moment.

Trump and I are way past done growing up as human organisms and America is done growing as a techno-industrial political economy. People decline and die and are replaced by new people, and political economies wither and morph into sets of new activities and relations. The forces of history want to take us to this new disposition of things, and just about everything on the American scene these days is a manifestation of resistance to that journey. The destination is a much re-scaled and down-scaled edition of daily life in a de-globalized economy, with far fewer luxuries and a greater demand for earnestness, purposeful work, generosity-of-spirit, and plain dealing. These are not qualities exhibited by Trump, who represents only the poorly-articulated and grandiose wish to “make America great again.”

The institutional collapse of the Republican Party is in full swing now thanks to Trump. By the way, it could easily be matched by an equally brutal collapse of the Democratic Party if the head of the FBI makes any criminal referrals in the matter of the Clinton Foundation’s entanglements in official State Department business via an email slime trail. It would be an awesome and wondrous event if the nation landed on November 8 with both parties in complete disarray and more than a couple of rump factions posting candidates with dubious legitimate credentials to stand for election. In over two hundred years we have not seen a national election postponed, or canceled.

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Not since the dinosaurs died off. [..] “at the start of the PETM, no more than 1bn tonnes of carbon was being released into the atmosphere each year. In stark contrast, 10bn tonnes of carbon are released into the atmosphere every year by fossil fuel-burning and other human activity.”

Carbon Emission Release Rate ‘Unprecedented’ In Past 66 Million Years (G.)

Humanity is pumping climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere 10 times faster than at any point in the past 66m years, according to new research. The revelation shows the world has entered “uncharted territory” and that the consequences for life on land and in the oceans may be more severe than at any time since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Scientists have already warned that unchecked global warming will inflict “severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts” on people and the natural world. But the new research shows how unprecedented the current rate of carbon emissions is, meaning geological records are unable to help predict the impacts of current climate change. Scientists have recently expressed alarm at the heat records shattered in the first months of 2016.

“Our carbon release rate is unprecedented over such a long time period in Earth’s history, [that] it means that we have effectively entered a ‘no-analogue’ state,” said Prof Richard Zeebe, at the University of Hawaii, who led the new work. “The present and future rate of climate change and ocean acidification is too fast for many species to adapt, which is likely to result in widespread future extinctions.” Many researchers think the human impacts on the planet has already pushed it into a new geological era, dubbed the Anthropocene. Wildlife is already being lost at rates similar to past mass extinctions, driven in part by the destruction of habitats. “The new results indicate that the current rate of carbon emissions is unprecedented … the most extreme global warming event of the past 66m years, by at least an order of magnitude,” said Peter Stassen, a geologist at the University of Leuven in Belgium, and who was not involved in the work.

The new research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, examined an event 56m years ago believed to be the biggest release of carbon into the atmosphere since the dinosaur extinction 66m years ago. The so-called Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) saw temperatures rise by 5C over a few thousand years. But until now, it had been impossible to determine how rapidly the carbon had been released at the start of the event because dating using radiometry and geological strata lacks sufficient resolution. Zeebe and colleagues developed a new method to determine the rate of temperature and carbon changes, using the stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon. It revealed that at the start of the PETM, no more than 1bn tonnes of carbon was being released into the atmosphere each year. In stark contrast, 10bn tonnes of carbon are released into the atmosphere every year by fossil fuel-burning and other human activity.

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“Franck Düvell is an associate professor and senior researcher at The University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society.”

The EU’s Deal With Turkey Is a No-Win Situation (Fortune)

As of this year, 2.7 to 3.5 million Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans, and others have escaped to Turkey from the various evils and conflicts in the region, while 1 million moved on to the European Union. Policy failed to prevent this, and the EU is now entrenched in a moral panic over what is equivalent to a mere 0.2% of the population. Its recent deal with Turkey to send back irregular migrants in exchange for visa-free travel and billions in aid is not only a human rights violation, but could turn out to be a total PR stunt. The primary root of the refugee crisis stems back to the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. But a secondary root lies in the lack of access to protection in the countries outside of the EU. Notably in Turkey, non-Syrians have to wait eight years for asylum interviews, Syrians only get temporary protection, and access to regular employment and social services is restricted for both groups.

They endure severe poverty and years in limbo. Meanwhile, the continuation of the flow is partly driven by women and children following their husbands who made the journey last year. Until the summer of 2015, the EU failed to agree on preventive policies, and Turkey bemoaned that it was left alone with the refugee crisis while failing to stop the outflow. Meanwhile, the EU kept relatively quiet, embracing an almost laissez faire attitude. But then numbers exploded and borders were practically overrun, eventually collapsing under the sheer weight of the number of people. In some incidences, refugees protested, occasionally hurling stones, replicating the actions during the Arab Spring and once more demonstrating for human dignity. Their suffering added a Ghandi-esc dimension to their claims. Human agency supported by a myriad of facilitators proved stronger than state policy.

The EU-Turkey “deal” refers to stopping and returning “irregular migrants” and “migrants not in need of international protection” in exchange for refugees to be resettled from Turkey. But 85% of all arrivals are from countries with many refugees, so the numbers affected would be comparably small. But then it also lists Syrians, hence refugees, to be returned. So far, Turkey has already struggled to stop the outflow within the limits of the law, and now turns to violent and illegal measures. The deal is thus inconsistent—and in case refugees are returned—highly legally questionable. The deal is also practically questionable. Which border gates will be used? Are there ferries, planes, and busses available to ship tens of thousands of people back to Turkey? Where will the returned be kept? How will their human dignity be secured?

How will the people who are resettled in exchange from Turkey to Europe be selected? Does Turkey have the political will and capacity to prevent human rights violations like destitution, or to change its legislation and extent refugee status to non-Europeans? In order to make the deal work, Turkey would (a) need to grant a refugee status that complies with EU and international law, and (b) rapidly develop and, more importantly, implement an integration strategy that could justify containing and simultaneously convincing refugees to stay in Turkey. And in the EU, many political parties and several governments need to drop their objections to visa liberalization for Turkey. And Member states that have so far refused to resettle refugees would need to change their position. All of this seems rather unrealistic.

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Insane that this was not done BEFORE the deal was signed.

Greece Appeals For EU Logistics Aid For Migrant Deal To Work (Reuters)

Greece appealed to EU partners on Monday for logistical help to implement a deal with Turkey meant to stem an influx of migrants into Europe, as people – many unaware of the tough new rules – continued to come ashore on Greek islands. Economically battered Greece, for months at the epicenter of Europe’s biggest migrant crisis since World War Two, is struggling to mount the massive logistics operation needed to process asylum applications from the many hundreds of migrants still arriving daily along its shoreline. Turkish officials arrived on the Greek island of Lesvos on Monday to help realize the deal, which requires new arrivals from March 20 to be held until their asylum applications are processed and for those deemed ineligible to be sent back to Turkey from April 4 onwards.

“We must move very swiftly and in a coordinated manner over the next few days to get the best possible result,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said after meeting EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos in Athens. “Assistance in human resources must come quickly.” Under the EU-Turkey roadmap agreed last Friday, a coordination structure must be created by March 25 and some 4,000 personnel – more than half from other European Union member states – deployed to the islands by next week. Avramopoulos said France, Germany and the Netherlands had already pledged logistics and personnel. “We are at a crucial turning point … The management of the refugee crisis for Europe as a whole hinges on the progress and success of this agreement,” he said.

However, on Monday, the day after the formal start of an agreement intended to close off the main route through which a million refugees and migrants arrived in Europe last year, authorities said 1,662 people had arrived on Greek islands by 7 a.m. (0500 GMT), twice the official count of the day before.

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Too late.

EU Rights Chief Demands More Protection For Refugees (AP)

The Council of Europe commissioner for human rights is calling for additional measures to protect the rights of migrants now that a deal has been reached by the EU and Turkey. Nils Muiznieks said the deal’s legal and procedural safeguards should apply to all people – not just Syrians – reaching Greece or any EU country. Such safeguards should likewise extend to anyone who is returned to Turkey. He also called on Greece and Turkey to limit the use of detention of migrants to “exceptional” cases and take steps to ensure there are no collective returns. Muiznieks described the deal, which officially came into effect on Sunday, as “just a patch to plug one of the holes in the highly dysfunctional approach of European states to migration.”

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People come to you for help and you lock them up?!

Greece Sets Up Detention Camps As Refugee Deal Hits Delays (AP)

Greece detained hundreds of refugees and migrants on its islands Monday, as officials in Athens and the European Union conceded a much-heralded agreement to send thousands of asylum-seekers back to Turkey is facing delays. Migrants who arrived after the deal took effect Sunday were being led to previously open refugee camps on the islands of Lesbos and Chios and held in detention, authorities on the islands said. EU countries are trying to avoid a repeat of the mass migration in 2015, when more than a million people entered the bloc. Most were fleeing civil war in Syria and other conflicts, traveling first to Turkey and then to the nearby Greek islands in dinghies and small boats. Efforts to limit migration have run into multiple legal and practical obstacles.

Under the deal, Greek authorities will detain and return newly arrived refugees to Turkey. The EU will settle more refugees directly from Turkey and speed up financial aid to Ankara. The two sides, however, are still working out how migrants will be sent back. “We are conscious of the difficulties,” EU Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said in Brussels. “And we are working 24-7 to make sure that everything that needs to be in place for this agreement to be implemented soon is happening.” Commission officials said support staff needed to implement the deal -including hundreds of translators and migration officers- would not start arriving until next week. Returns, they said, cannot start until Greece changes its law to recognize Turkey as a “safe country” for asylum applications.

The human rights group Amnesty International sharply criticized the plan. “Turkey does not offer adequate protection to anyone,” Iverna McGowan, the head of Amnesty’s EU office, told The Associated Press, accusing Turkey of routinely forcing Syrians back across the border.

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