Sep 032023
 
 September 3, 2023  Posted by at 9:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  34 Responses »


Claude Monet Bain à la Grenouillère 1869

 

Biden’s Use Of Fake Names In Email Could Cost Him (Turley)
Zelensky Sponsor Kolomoysky Charged With Money Laundering (RT)
Russia Is ‘Absolutely Invincible’ – Putin (RT)
US Laying Groundwork for Defeats in 2 Wars of Choice, vs Russia & China (Sp.)
Moscow Warns Of Direct Clash With NATO (RT)
Ukraine’s Western Backers Are ‘Pro-Nazi Coalition’ – Medvedev (RT)
Is Ukraine Losing Because Foreign Fighters Are Walking Away? (ZH)
Funny Old Man Borrell Typifies The Arrogant Mediocrities Running The EU (Bordachev)
German Chancellor Says Nuclear Power ‘Dead Horse’ Despite Energy Crunch (Sp.)
Sanctions Against Russia Turning Germany Into ‘Kamikaze’ – MP (RT)
EU Migration System ‘Has Been Broken For Years’ – Austria (RT)
Alexander Dugin: Global Liberalism in Crisis (Sp.)
7 Civilisations -1 Against 6 (Alexander Dugin)
Why They Hate Imran Khan? A Short Note. (Haider Mehdi)

 

 

 

 

Imagine Putin doing this. Or Trump. What excuses this behavior?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1697988586425954547

 

 

 

 

RFK Pfizer trial
https://twitter.com/i/status/1698081641296437328

 

 

 

 

Maui

 

 

 

 

“People under 50 kilograms banned from the streets in China due to Typhoon Saola”

 

 

 

 

Look who’s back…

”..Obama has 30 days to bar the release of the emails and to help shield his former vice president in a growing corruption scandal ..”

Biden’s Use Of Fake Names In Email Could Cost Him (Turley)

Last year, at an event at the White House, former president Barack Obama jokingly referred to the current president as “Vice President Biden.” At the time, it was described as the more popular politician “reminding Biden who’s boss.” Yet, this needling carried an added bite, given reports of Obama’s private doubts about Biden’s judgment. In 2020, Obama had famously warned fellow Democrats, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f— things up.” Obama is now being asked to bail Biden out from another debacle of his own making, going back to his time in Obama’s administration. Various committees and private groups are seeking more than 5,000 emails from Biden in which he used an array of aliases during the Obama administration.

Under the Presidential Records Act, Obama has 30 days to bar the release of the emails and to help shield his former vice president in a growing corruption scandal over the influence-peddling operation run by Biden’s son, Hunter. Recently, it was learned that Joe Biden went by a variety of code names and false names, including Robin Ware. Robert L. Peters, JRB Ware, Celtic and “The Big Guy.” House investigators believe that may only be a partial list. For many Americans, it is understandably unnerving to learn that their president has more aliases than Anthony Weiner. However, while the number seems unusual, the practice is not unprecedented. Top officials have used such aliases in the past for emails, including former Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.

During the Obama administration, the practice was defended by then-White House press secretary Jay Carney, who assured the public that any such emails would still be subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and congressional inquiries. He added, “We do not use and should not use private email accounts for work.” The problem is that there was “work” being discussed on some of these emails, including official foreign travel plans and the hiring of associates of Hunter for high-level positions. More importantly, some emails are relevant to the clients of Biden’s son. Biden has previously lied that he knew nothing of these dealings, but these emails could reveal even more about his knowledge and involvement.

Congress is investigating more than $20 million that was transferred to members of the Biden family from foreign sources through a labyrinth of shell companies and accounts. Even the Washington Post has been forced to admit that the president has lied in the past about aspects of Hunter’s dealings. Devon Archer recently confirmed that Joe Biden’s long-standing denial of any knowledge of their business dealings is “categorically false.” Most reporters now admit that Hunter was clearly engaging in influence-peddling, Washington’s favorite form of corruption. Yet in the face of this growing evidence, Democrats insist that Hunter and his associates were merely selling “the illusion of influence,” not actual access or influence over Joe Biden. Obviously, these foreign clients believed that they were buying more than an illusion for the millions they spent. One corrupt Ukrainian figure said that Hunter Biden was dumber than his dog, but that he paid him anyway for access to his father.

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Is Kolomoysky the target, or Zelensky?

Zelensky Sponsor Kolomoysky Charged With Money Laundering (RT)

Ukrainian authorities have informed oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, whose support helped Vladimir Zelensky secure the presidency, that he is suspected of fraud and real estate laundering amid Kiev’s ongoing crusade against rampant corruption. In a statement on Saturday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that the billionaire – whom it described as the “de facto owner of a large financial and industrial group” – had legalized more than 500 million Ukrainian hryvnia ($13.5 million) by “transferring it abroad, while using the infrastructure of banking institutions controlled by him.” Ukrainian officials stated that Kolomoysky, who has Cypriot and Israeli citizenship, was informed that he is suspected on two counts – fraud, and legalization of property obtained by criminal means.

The development was also confirmed by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, which said that Kolomoysky was “served with a motion to choose pre-trial restrictive measures,” adding that the agency is continuing its investigation into the matter in coordination with the SBU and Economic Security Bureau. This comes after Kolomoysky’s home was searched by SBU operatives in early February, according to local media reports. At the time, the raid reportedly focused on Kolomoysky’s potential involvement in the alleged embezzlement of 40 billion hryvnia ($1.1 billion) and evading customs duties at the oil companies Ukrtatnafta and Ukrnafta. Kolomoysky burst on to the political scene in 2014, when he was appointed governor of the southeastern Dnepropetrovsk Region following a Western-backed coup in Kiev.

A year later, however, he was dismissed from his post over a conflict with then-Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko amid a struggle for control of Ukrnafta and state-owned oil pipeline operator Ukrtransnafta. In 2016, Ukrainian authorities also nationalized Kolomoysky’s PrivatBank after declaring it a major threat to the country’s financial system following allegations of large-scale fraud. Kolomoysky is also widely considered to have played a major role in the rise to power of incumbent President Vladimir Zelensky. Before launching his political campaign in 2019, Zelensky was a comedian, whose show was hosted by a Kolomoysky-controlled media holding. The magnate himself said he “wanted” Zelensky to become president, but denied close contacts with him.

In 2021, the US State Department sanctioned both Kolomoysky and his family members, citing his involvement “in corrupt acts that undermined rule of law and the Ukrainian public’s faith in their government’s democratic institutions.” In July 2022, media in Ukraine reported that he was stripped of his Ukrainian passport. However, while the news was confirmed by several officials in Kiev, the relevant presidential decree is classified while the oligarch himself dismissed the reports as “nonsense.”

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Talking about the spirit of the Russian people. Ergo, WWII.

Russia Is ‘Absolutely Invincible’ – Putin (RT)

Russia has always been and remains “absolutely invincible,”President Vladimir Putin told a group of students at an open lesson marking the start of the academic year on Friday. The mentality of the Russian people makes it impossible for the country to be defeated by anyone, he added. The president recalled the history of his own family, telling students about his ancestors who lived through World War II. According to Putin, his grandmother was fatally shot by a Nazi soldier but, even as she was dying, she was still thinking about her husband and told Putin’s grandfather “not to cry” in order not to upset her in her final moments. “Do you understand the depth of these relationships between the ordinary people, this love?” the president said, adding that, even in the face of death, his grandmother was caring for her loved one.

“How can we not take that for a model?” he added. Putin also said that all members of his family felt deep respect for each other and had a “strong inner culture.” Putin also said he believes most families in Russia are like this. “And here I understood why we won the Great Patriotic War,” the president said, referring to the Soviet struggle against Nazi Germany in World War II. “One cannot defeat a people with such a mentality,” he said, adding that “we have been absolutely invincible. And we remain as such now.” His words came as Russia has been locked in a conflict with neighboring Ukraine for more than a year and a half. The latest developments have seen Kiev’s forces unable to breach Russian defenses in nearly three months since the start of the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive.

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“..US establishment politicians maintain that “if the US does not defend Ukraine, China will invade Taiwan”, a theory the report says is flawed.”

US Laying Groundwork for Defeats in 2 Wars of Choice, vs Russia & China (Sp.)

In an effort to live up to its promise to “fight Russia to the last Ukrainian,” the Biden administration is “laying the groundwork for defeats in two more wars of choice, against Russia and China,” a US report has asserted. The Democrat POTUS has been burning through cash (although national debt stands at $33 trillion), and munitions stockpiles in an effort to prop up the Kiev regime. The US announced a new package of military assistance for Ukraine on 29 August, worth $250 million, that includes AIM-9M missiles for air defense, munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition, mine-clearing equipment, Javelin and other anti-armor systems and rockets, three million rounds of small arms ammunition, as well as other items.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated on 29 August that the US and its allies “will stand united with Ukraine, for as long as it takes”. Some of the contenders for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination fully support this stance – former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley recently stated: “A win for Russia is a win for China. We have to know that. Ukraine is the first line of defense for us.” According to the report, US establishment politicians maintain that “if the US does not defend Ukraine, China will invade Taiwan”, a theory the report says is flawed. “If China does make a move on Taiwan in the next few years, stockpiles already reduced by Ukrainian aid will make aiding Taiwan more difficult and expensive if policy makers decide to do so. The foreign policy establishment that lost in Iraq and Afghanistan is laying the groundwork for defeats in two more wars of choice, against Russia and China—both nuclear powers, putting human civilization on the line,” the American media outlet highlighted.

The US military aid donated to Ukraine thus far amounts to more than $41 billion, with a further $100 billion appropriated for supporting Kiev, the report’s author emphasized. But by continuing to pile military aid worth billions upon Kiev the US is purportedly fast-depleting its own military stockpiles of various weapons. Accordingly, America’s own manufacturers are left “struggling” to replace the hollowed-out weapons caches. Amid its botched counteroffensive, launched on 4 June, Ukraine has been rapidly chewing through all the weapons funneled from the West. However, Kiev still has no territorial gains to show for it, with its military sustaining tremendous losses. As of 30 August 2023, Ukraine has reportedly lost 466 airplanes, 247 helicopters, 6,234 unmanned aerial vehicles, 433 air defense missile systems, 11,570 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, as well as 12,528 special military motor vehicles since the beginning of the special military operation.

Macgregor

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“Anything could happen. Nothing is ruled out amid such an intense proxy-standoff between NATO and Russia..”

Moscow Warns Of Direct Clash With NATO (RT)

The military confrontation in Ukraine has reached a point where it could easily spiral into a full-blown conflict between Russia and NATO, Moscow’s deputy envoy to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said on Friday. The diplomat blamed the US-led military bloc’s ever deeper involvement in the fighting between Moscow and Kiev. “We have repeatedly warned that the situation is quite dangerous and there is a big risk of a direct clash between Russia and NATO,” Polyansky said while answering questions on X (formerly Twitter). The US-led alliance is already supporting Ukrainian forces by every means possible, except for direct troop deployment, he said.

Moscow sees “many indications that there are some instructors, mercenaries” in Ukraine, the deputy envoy stated. He also pointed to some “strange messages” about the deaths of NATO officers and generals. “That does raise major suspicions,” he said, adding that “we cannot rule out that they [NATO specialists] are participating in certain actions in Ukraine,” Polyansky added, without naming any specific examples. Polyansky also claimed that the current situation is “very bad” for the Ukrainian military and that “Western aid is their only salvation.” Many people in the US and elsewhere “are starting to understand that the Kiev regime is losing,” he added.

“Anything could happen. Nothing is ruled out amid such an intense proxy-standoff between NATO and Russia,” the diplomat warned. Ukraine’s Western backers maintain that they are not directly participating in the conflict despite having sent more than $100 billion in arms to Kiev. Moscow has repeatedly said that continued weapons supplies only prolong the conflict and extend human suffering as well as increase the risks of a direct confrontation between Russia and the US-led military bloc. It has also blasted the US and its allies, accusing them of enabling Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian civilians, and labeling them as “sponsors of terrorism.”

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“..Russia should not “lapse into sweet daydreaming” about achieving reconciliation with the West and joining what he called a “big polyamory family of non-binary genders.”

Ukraine’s Western Backers Are ‘Pro-Nazi Coalition’ – Medvedev (RT)

Washington and its allies in Europe and elsewhere continue to support Kiev despite it acting increasingly like the Nazis during World War II, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in a Telegram post on Saturday. Moscow should abandon hope of reconciling with the West and see it for what it is, he believes. The leaders of Ukraine are “increasingly talking about ‘holding all Russians accountable’,” Medvedev said, adding that Kiev sees all Russian citizens as ‘Russians’ regardless of their ethnic background. In a thinly veiled reference to the Nazis’ plans for the Soviet Union, the former president said that the world had already seen similar aspirations. Medvedev noted that Ukraine is still being supported by almost every single Western leader, as well as by the heads of Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

All of them “are direct and obvious Nazi accomplices,” he stated, adding that “they should be treated as the leaders of a pro-Nazi coalition.” The former president, who now serves as the deputy head of Russia’s National Security Council and the Military Industrial Committee, then insisted that Russia should not “lapse into sweet daydreaming” about achieving reconciliation with the West and joining what he called a “big polyamory family of non-binary genders.” Medvedev had earlier condemned what he called open glorification of Nazism in Ukraine, pointing to an initiative calling for the establishment of the Stepan Bandera Order that would supposedly be awarded to Ukrainian servicemen.

Bandera was a notorious Ukrainian nationalist leader during World War II whose organization was responsible for mass killings of Jews and Poles in Ukraine. The petition requesting the creation of such an order in Ukraine appeared on the official website of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in May. It has since received nearly 2,300 signatures of the required 25,000. Medvedev blasted the initiative by comparing it to Germany establishing an order of Adolf Hitler or Italy introducing an order of Bennito Mussolini. “What is there to be ashamed of?” Medvedev mockingly wrote on Telegram at the time. “Let’s just glorify all European Nazis at once. This appears to be the new European ideology,” he added.

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“..One potential explanation is the sheer number of foreign fighters joining with Ukraine last year that are now gone..”

Is Ukraine Losing Because Foreign Fighters Are Walking Away? (ZH)

It has been almost 3 months since the launch of Ukraine’s long anticipated counter-offensive which many “experts” claimed would be the fatal blow that would remove Russian forces from the country altogether. The initial action gained little; around 90 square miles of territory in June and a handful of villages, and at great cost. There are no accurate casualty reports for Ukraine, which is by design, but estimates suggest that the nation’s military has doubled its number of dead since the counter offensive began. Official numbers from the DoD claim that Ukraine has lost over 100,000 troops since the beginning of the conflict (almost double the amount of US dead during the entirety of the Vietnam War). Other estimates are far higher.

Foreign fighters back from the front lines report a mismanaged and chaotic Ukrainian military using ill conceived tactics. Some say that the units they were assigned to have lost 80% or more of their men in recent months. Ukraine military leadership has also been misusing their fleet of tanks and armored vehicles from NATO, sending them ‘straight into mine fields’ in some cases. As volunteers note, the Ukrainians were given training on how to operate the vehicles, but no training on how to use them effectively in a fight. There is also a flurry of reports suggesting that friendly fire has been doing significant damage, so much so that “mercenaries” have taken to covering themselves in reflective blue or yellow tape so that they aren’t mistaken for Russian troops.

This disorganization seems to be far removed from the precision shown by Ukraine in their 2022 offensive, which forced Russia to reposition a large number of forces and give up over 3000 square miles of territory. Numerous successful strikes on Russian armored columns were widely publicized, all with a suspicious level of expertise employed by Ukraine. Yet, by 2023 their momentum was stopped cold. They were tied up in Bakhmut where they lost thousands of soldiers. And now, Ukraine’s hyped up counter action has been effectively dragged down to a crawl. You wouldn’t know it by reading sensationalized western media reports and propaganda, but Ukraine is losing, badly. So what happened? What changed since the end of 2022?

One potential explanation is the sheer number of foreign fighters joining with Ukraine last year that are now gone. While the data on volunteers is limited, multiple sources claim at least 20,000 mercenaries (many with prior combat experience) joined with Ukraine in 2022. Then, there are the covert operatives – At least one General out of the UK let slip that Royal Marine units were in fact deployed on high risk operations in Ukraine. Sources also indicate that US special operations teams have been stationed out of the US embassy in Kyiv since the beginning of the war. Though officials claim that the soldiers do not go to the front lines and stay near the embassy (which begs the question – what’s the point of having them there?). The presence of highly trained western covert ops troops in Ukraine would help explain the far more effective offensive in 2022.

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“..You are already in paradise, fellow Western Europeans, what more do you need?..”

Funny Old Man Borrell Typifies The Arrogant Mediocrities Running The EU (Bordachev)

Josep Borrell, the head of the European Union’s diplomacy, known and loved by us, in Moscow, for his paradoxical statements, has reported on the effectiveness of his bloc’s economic war against Russia. In the first lines of his message, he claims that “sanctions are working” and that those who claim otherwise are simply telling untruths. But the main indicator of the effectiveness of sanctions for Borrell is not even the dynamics of the Russian economy. The emphasis in the report is on the reduction of Russia’s bilateral trade with EU countries: This is what particularly pleases their chief diplomat. However, for him, it doesn’t matter that Russia’s trade with the rest of the world, with the exception of the US, has grown at the same time (even Japan and South Korea do not show a significant decline in trade turnover).

The EU’s chief diplomat is known to live in his own ‘Garden of Eden’, and everything outside this hallowed ground has no meaning for him. One could simply mock the degradation of the Western European perception of the surrounding reality embodied in Borrell’s remarks. But this approach is not an aberration; it reflects the whole philosophy of the EU’s relations with the rest of the world. It is only now that we have seen the inadequacy of such a strategy in a reality which there will never again be a center and a vast periphery to serve its interests. We are now really opening our eyes to the – to put it politely – uniqueness of our partners in Western Europe. What the Russian foreign policy culture, in a delicate manner, has tried not to talk about for the past 30 years is becoming public knowledge.

The question is what lessons can be learned for the future when the active military phase of relations with the West subsides somewhat? This will happen sooner or later, unless the world really splits into opposing closed camps. And then it will be extremely dangerous for us to harbor illusions about the fundamental intentions of our Western neighbors towards the rest of humanity. Josep Borrell is a somewhat caricatured but still credible embodiment of the nature of EU foreign policy. This funny old man is certainly a product of his time – the ‘beautiful 80s and 90s’ in Spanish and European history. In those days, either the most backward or the least ambitious, went into politics. And they are a product of a Western European order which educates its elite in a spirit of exclusivity and contempt for others.

From the point of view of mass psychology, exceptionalism is a very good means of control. Those who consider themselves special, the best and unparalleled in their superiority, never compare their own position with others. This means that they are ready to accept not only aggression against “outsiders,” but also the restriction of their rights: they are still the best in the world. You are already in paradise, fellow Western Europeans, what more do you need?

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It will get dark in Germany. Too late to prevent it now.

“..Anyone who wanted to build new nuclear power plants would need 15 years and would have to spend €15-20 billion ($16.2-21.6 billion) each..”

German Chancellor Says Nuclear Power ‘Dead Horse’ Despite Energy Crunch (Sp.)

Berlin’s move to join the West’s energy sanctions against Russia and ditch Moscow’s reliable and abundant energy supplies, along with the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage and the “green agenda” aimed at replacing fossil fuels and phasing out nuclear energy, have all contributed to Germany’s dismal economic data and looming deindustrialization. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has insisted that nuclear energy “is over” in Germany, and firmly dismissed calls from Free Democrats (FDP) lawmakers in his coalition government to re-embrace the technology in light of the ongoing energy crunch. “The issue of nuclear energy in Germany is a dead horse. Anyone who wanted to build new nuclear power plants would need 15 years and would have to spend €15-20 billion ($16.2-21.6 billion) each,” the chancellor said in an interview for German radio.

He added that the phase-out “has been done by law… I don’t need to put my foot down at all.” The issue of nuclear energy has fired off a fierce debate among Germany’s coalition partners in the government: Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Free Democrats, and the Greens. The energy crisis and soaring electricity costs have prompted the FDP to argue the need for halting the dismantling of Germany’s nuclear power plants. The door for resorting to nuclear power ought to be left open, the FDP – a proponent of the technology – has argued. The FDP’s parliamentary group approved a policy statement earlier in the week that called on Germany “to stop the dismantling of the nuclear power plants that are still fit to use,” adding: “That is the only way we will remain capable of acting in every situation.”

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“..Germany should “react accordingly to the new multipolarity.” “Germany and Europe need a sovereign foreign policy that is no longer subordinate to the US and NATO..”

Sanctions Against Russia Turning Germany Into ‘Kamikaze’ – MP (RT)

Western sanctions have failed to destabilize Russia and are now backfiring on the countries that imposed them, including Germany, Sevim Dagdelen, a German MP from the Left Party (Die Linke) wrote in an op-ed for the Berliner Zeitung published on Friday. According to the lawmaker, Russia’s economy has successfully weathered the restrictions and is steadily adjusting to the new economic realities. “In order to ruin Russia, it was hoped that the punitive measures that violate international law will have a long-lasting effect. But the reality is different. Even the Russian auto industry is recovering. Chinese companies are stepping in for the German manufacturers who leave Russia,” Dagdelen wrote. “Contrary to what was hoped, Russia has not been ruined. The consequences of the sanctions are evident, but on our side.

“While Germany’s economy collapsed by 0.3% in the last quarter and stagnation is also threatening the Eurozone, Russia is now forecast to grow by 2.5% this year. As is often the case, a merciless idealism characteristic of the German ruling party obscures the view of reality.” According to the lawmaker, the sanctions are strengthening Russia while the German government “is ruining domestic economy with open eyes.” “The federal government acts here like a kamikaze pilot, replacing politics with dubious morality and is happy about a friendly nod from Washington,” she stated, noting that double-digit inflation in Germany is the product of sanctions, as well as the “ever increasing military support for Ukraine.” Dagdelen also noted that the sanctions war has prompted the largest redistribution of capital in the country, with large corporations boosting profits while ordinary German consumers suffer from a drop in real wages and a cost-of-living crisis.

The lawmaker criticized the government that “wants nothing to do with diplomacy” and urged Berlin to distance itself from Washington and NATO. She suggested closer ties with BRICS, a G7 rival economic bloc of countries that includes Russia and that will represent nearly 40% of global GDP after it officially admits new members at the beginning of next year. According to Dagdelen, Germany should “react accordingly to the new multipolarity.” “Germany and Europe need a sovereign foreign policy that is no longer subordinate to the US and NATO. Supporting the BRICS peace initiative would be a first step towards freeing ourselves from the socially and politically fatal paternalism of the US. It would represent a step towards democratic sovereignty. No war is our war, not even this one.”

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No solutions here.

EU Migration System ‘Has Been Broken For Years’ – Austria (RT)

The EU must urgently fix its dysfunctional asylum system to prevent another iteration of the 2015 migration crisis that could potentially lead to the collapse of the entire bloc, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in an interview published on Saturday. Speaking to Welt am Sonntag, Nehammer railed against the current EU regulations, claiming that the bloc’s “asylum system has been broken for years” and calling for immediate action. He admitted that while European policymakers have finally got “more sense of reality” and had started discussing migration, “the road is far from over.” According to the chancellor, migration is among the serious issues that need to be addressed at the European level, “as irregular migration can be an issue that can divide and possibly even destroy the European Union.”

To solve the problem, Nehammer proposed a list of changes, including the creation of effective border protection, rapid asylum procedures both at the EU’s external borders and in third countries, and concluding agreements with other nations allowing for the rapid deportation of migrants. He also strongly opposed an initiative supported by Germany and the EU Parliament that would exempt women with children from these suggested practices, branding it “impractical and ultimately counterproductive.” According to Nehammer, such an exemption would result in women and children being sent off by their relatives “on the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean and helplessly handed over to unscrupulous traffickers.”

“Such a derogation would be practically an invitation for women with children to risk illegal migration to Europe – and, if protection is granted, to bring the entire family to join them,” Nehammer told the German newspaper. The bloc saw a sharp increase in asylum applications between June 2022 and May 2023, according to EU data. The number is approaching the record levels of the 2015 crisis, when some 1.3 million migrants sought refuge in the EU. In 2022 alone, the number of asylum applications in the bloc hit almost one million, with the most people coming from Syria, Afghanistan, and Türkiye. Furthermore, the bloc’s social welfare system remains under severe pressure from refugees who fled to the EU from Ukraine.

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“.. there is no other possible vision of the future in the modern Western liberal civilization outside of global decay..”

Alexander Dugin: Global Liberalism in Crisis (Sp.)

Liberalism is headed for “catastrophe” following decades of global ideological hegemony, political philosopher Alexander Dugin told Sputnik’s New Rules podcast. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 allowed liberalism to emerge as the undisputed, dominant global ideology. Over the past several years, however, the ideology’s future has come increasingly under question. Populist upheavals in the United States and Europe exposed growing discontent with the inability of liberal institutions to cope with foreign policy and economic failures. At the same time, new emerging powers such as Russia, China, and India among others have begun to put forth their own ideological alternatives. Dugin said that liberalism had no solutions for the problems it helped create – a fact that is implicitly admitted by the ideology’s own supporters.

Liberalism’s only path forward, he warned, was to double down on its mistakes. “If we consider the futuristic vision in the cinema and the art made by the Liberal West, we don’t see a single positive scenario. Everything is a ‘Mad Max’, everything is Armageddon – atomic catastrophe, atmospheric catastrophe, or ecological catastrophe,” he said. “So, there is no other possible vision of the future in the modern Western liberal civilization outside of global decay. That offers a revelation of liberalism’s inner void because liberalism started as an individualistic version of humanism, but now it is approaching anti-human, transhuman individualism.” “That is precisely the political agenda of [Joe] Biden, of Kamala Harris, of modern day progressives in the United States that are openly post-human,” he added.

“They are trying to destroy history, the family, the sexes, and all kinds of traditional institutions. It is just a kind of imperative, political imperative of destruction of humanity. So, that is the catastrophe [of liberalism].” Dugin argued that liberalism was a “disguised path to the abyss” from the very beginning due to its intrinsic desire to tear down all forms of collective identity, such as religion, family, and nationality, in the name of individualism. The Russian philosopher insisted that it was only a matter of time before the ideology began trying to deconstruct the very concept of humanity. “The last thing [liberals] needed to accomplish on their way is to liberate individuals from their human identity – precisely because it is the last form of collective identity,” he said. As evidence of liberals’ increasingly “anti-human” worldview, Dugin pointed to the growing popularity of transhumanism, a movement that advocates for the use of emerging technologies to remake human beings, and radical environmentalism among Western elites.

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“..Fukuyama is left only doomed to lecture the Ukrainian neo-Nazis, the last hope of globalists to stop the onset of multipolarity..”

7 Civilisations -1 Against 6 (Alexander Dugin)

But at the XV summit, held from 22 to 24 August 2023 in Johannesburg, the final formation of the multipolar club took place. The entry of three Islamic powers – Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia and the UAE – was fundamental. Thus, the direct participation in the multipolar world of the entire Islamic civilisation, represented by both branches – Sunnism and Shiism – was assured. In addition, along with Portuguese-speaking Brazil, Spanish-speaking Argentina, another strong and independent power, joined the BRICS. Even in the mid-twentieth century, theorists of South American unification into a consolidated “Greater Space” – primarily Argentine general Juan Perón and Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas – considered a decisive rapprochement between Brazil and Argentina to be the first principle of this process. If this is achieved, the process of integration of the Latin American ecumene (term of A.Buela) will be irreversible. And that is exactly what is happening now in the context of the accession of the two major powers of South America, Brazil and Argentina, to the multipolar club.

The admission of Ethiopia is also highly symbolic. It is the only African country that remained independent throughout the colonial era, preserving its sovereignty, its independence and its unique culture (Ethiopians are the oldest Christian people). Combined with South Africa, Ethiopia strengthens by its presence in the multipolar club the African continent as a whole. In fact, the new composition of the BRICS gives us a complete model of uniting all poles – civilisations, “Greater Spaces”, with the exception of the West, which desperately seeks to preserve its hegemony and unipolar structure. But now it faces not disparate and fragmented countries, full of internal and external contradictions, but a united force of the majority of humanity, determined to build a multipolar world. This multipolar world consists of the following civilisations:

— The West (the USA+EU and their vassals, which includes, alas, the once proud and sovereign Japan now degraded to passive puppet of the Western conquerors);
— China (+Taiwan) with its satellites;
— Russia (as an integrator of the entire Eurasian space);
— India and its zone of influence;
— Latin America (with the core of Brazil+Argentina);
— Africa (South Africa+Ethiopia, with Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, etc., liberated from French colonial influence).
— Islamic world (in both versions – Shiite Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia and UAE).

At the same time, one civilisation – the Western one – claims hegemony, while the other six deny it, accepting only a multipolar system and recognising the West as only one of the civilisations, along with others. May be still strongest (relatively and not for too long) but not unique. So the rightness of Samuel Huntington, who saw the future in the return of civilisations, has been confirmed in practice, while the fallacy of Fukuyama’s thesis, who believed that the global hegemony of the liberal West (the end of history) has already been achieved, has become obvious. Therefore, Fukuyama is left only doomed to lecture the Ukrainian neo-Nazis, the last hope of globalists to stop the onset of multipolarity, for which Russia in Ukraine is fighting today.

August 2023 can be considered the birthday of the multipolar world. Multipolarity is established and somehow institutionalized. It is time to take a closer look at how the civilisational poles themselves interpret the situation in which they find themselves. And here we should take into account that virtually every sovereign civilisation has its own idea of the structure of history, the nature of historical time, its direction, the goal and the end. Contrary to Fukuyama, who ambitiously proclaimed a single end of history (in his liberal version), each sovereign civilisation operates with its own understanding, interpretation and description of the end of history.

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X thread.

Why They Hate Imran Khan? A Short Note. (Haider Mehdi)

*Why they hate Imran Khan? A Short Note. Haider Mehdi. 1 Sep 2023*

He took away religion from the Molvis. Took away Spirituality from the Sufis. Took away intellectualism from the intellectuals. Took away social welfare from the socialists/ leftists / communists. Took away patriotism from the Military. Took away machismo from the so called hulks. Took away fame from the rich and famous.

Every man, father, husband, brother hates him because their wives, sisters and daughters fell madly in love with him! He left everybody without their pretentious personas. Naked! Except the poor. To whom he gives dignity and compassion and well being. And the Youth to whom he gives hope and pride. And the Nation to whom he gives self respect and honour! He’s a rare one. Value him. Save him. Fight for him. Sacrifice for him.

Salaams and Prayers
Haider Mehdi

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Windows
https://twitter.com/i/status/1697966780788924516

 

 

Future or climate killer?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Apr 262023
 


Mark Chagall Peace window, UN 1967

 
 
 

Andrew Korybko:

 

The US’ Weaponization Of Anti-Russian Fake News Against Germany

The Washington Post (WaPo) pushed several conspiracy theories in their recent piece alleging that “Kremlin tries to build antiwar coalition in Germany, documents show”. Citing what they claim to be “a trove of sensitive Russian documents largely dated from July to November that were obtained by a European intelligence service”, WaPo reported that elements within Germany’s left-aligned Die Linke and its right-leaning AfD are cooperating due to some shadowy Kremlin plot.

All three parties denied this accusation, which builds upon Reuters’ similarly conspiratorial report from early January alleging that “Pro-Putin operatives in Germany work to turn Berlin against Ukraine”. Taken together, these two articles can be interpreted as part of a wider information warfare offensive aimed at discrediting the natural trend of political forces pragmatically putting aside their differences on specific issues in order to cooperate on shared ones like ending NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine.

Three Interconnected Conspiracy Theories

This development was first observed over the last decade, during which time three interconnected conspiracy theories were invented by those gatekeepers with a self-interested stake in perpetuating traditional partisan divisions. They claimed that this is all due to the mischievous work of Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who supposedly weaponized the so-called “horseshoe theory” in order to assemble what’s been smeared as the “red-brown alliance”.

The first-mentioned forms the basis of countless conspiracy theories due to the false claim that he’s “Putin’s brain”, which preconditioned targeted audiences to extend credence to the wildest claims about him and his work. The second concept, meanwhile, refers to the theory that the far left and far right are secretly aligned. As for the third, those previously mentioned gatekeepers throw this term around in order to discredit all instances of left-right cooperation as supposedly being due to Dugin’s meddling.

Unipolar Liberal-Globalism vs. Multipolar Conservative-Sovereigntism

In reality, the global systemic transition has shattered the previous polarization between the left and right by giving birth to two different diametrically opposed concepts: unipolar liberal-globalism (ULG) and multipolar conservative-sovereigntism (MCS). This analysis here explains the differences between them more at length, but the present piece will now summarize them for the reader’s convenience due to its relevance in debunking the conspiracy theories pushed by Reuters and WaPo.

ULG believe in the “hegemonic stability theory” (unipolarity), are against any restrictions on socio-cultural issues like the aggressive imposition of LGBT+ propaganda onto children (liberalism), and want to force everyone to follow their models (globalism). By contrast, MCS believe in decentralizing International Relations (multipolarity), restricting some socio-cultural issues like the aforesaid example (conservatism), and respect every society’s right to choose their own models (sovereigntism).

The Real Reason For Growing Left-Right Cooperation In Germany

The genuine left and right, and not those ULG gatekeepers who masquerade as either (but mostly as leftists), generally embrace MCS. Even if they differ on economic and socio-cultural issues, they’re united in opposing unipolarity and globalism since those two concepts represent an existential threat to their respective ideological interests. Accordingly, they’re increasingly cooperating on shared MCS interests such as bringing an end to NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine as soon as possible.

This explains the latest trend in Germany that Reuters and WaPo are trying to discredit through their tacit weaponization of those three earlier described interconnected conspiracy theories. Both US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets are ULG to the core, which is why they’re waging their information warfare campaign against Germans’ embrace of MCS, especially since its emerging manifestation there could have far-reaching strategic consequences if it fully matures.

The electoral rise of any MCS movement in that country could lead to them recalibrating its foreign policy in a much more strategically autonomous direction exactly of the sort that French President Macron regularly suggests and most recently talked about after his latest trip to China. The consequence of the EU’s de facto leader doing such a thing is that American hegemony over Europe would be immensely weakened if Germany finally began putting its own interests and the continent’s over the US’.

The Patriotic Motivations Driving The Latest Trend

By failing to do so over the past year, Chancellor Scholz and Foreign Minister Baerbock – both of whom are diehard ULG – inflicted crippling damage to their country’s economic model that was responsible for its astronomical rise in the first place. Germany no longer receives affordable energy from Russia, which in turn raises the costs of doing business in all respects, thus eroding its global competitiveness. Die Linke and the AfD are patriotic parties that keenly understand this, unlike the ruling ULG in berlin.

Elements within them are increasingly cooperating precisely because ending NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine holds the chance of reviving Germany’s prior energy cooperation with Russia and thus restoring its global economic competitiveness. Viewed from this perspective, their motivations are therefore purely patriotic and not due to any shadowy Kremlin plot or so-called “Duginist meddling”. The only people who push those conspiracy theories are ULG gatekeepers in the media and among the left.

Exposing The “Compatible Left”

Regarding the latter, the reader should be informed of the CIA’s decades-long attempt to manufacture a so-called “compatible left”, which is envisaged as doing the US’ bidding in a “plausibly deniable” way by serving as a “controlled opposition”. This mission has made enormous progress over the years and especially since 2016 after Trump’s election. “Sleeper cells” within the left awoke at that time and began actively allying their movements with the US Democrats, who are the standard-bearers of ULG.

This explains why the three interconnected conspiracy theories regarding “horseshoes”, the “red-brown alliance”, and “Duginism” all emerged from superficially leftist figures who are really bonafide ULG in disguise. They receive media approval and sometimes even tangible privileges like academic tenures and book deals from their ideological overlords for pushing Russophobia while simultaneously securing their status as faux leftist gatekeepers by manipulating the dogma of their movements’ members.

Debunking The “Compatible Left’s” McCarthyist Witch Hunt Narratives

To that second-mentioned end, they regularly carry out McCarthyist witch hunts against those genuine leftists who express any foreign policy views similar to those shared by someone who influential figures in their movement earlier smeared as “fascist”. Those gatekeepers “justify” these never-ending purges, which have the effect of pressuring people into self-censoring their views out of fear that they’ll become the next target of their toxic ad hominem attacks, on the basis of ensuring “ideological integrity”.

According to them, “no true leftist would ever have any idea in common with anyone who isn’t an official member of a (ULG gatekeeper-approved) leftist movement”, thus making those who do supposedly “fake leftists” at best or (“Duginist”) “fascist infiltrators” at worst. In reality, most traditional leftist movements (especially in the West) were hijacked by ULG “sleeper cells” after Trump’s election and turned into “compatible leftist” ones, thus dealing unprecedented damage to the genuinely leftist cause.

Germany Might Be Pioneering The Next Pan-Continental Political Trend

Elements within Die Linke realized this and are therefore doing their utmost to liberate the German left from US-controlled ULG for patriotic reasons related to ultimately restoring their country’s strategic autonomy after its current rulers crippled it by capitulating to America’s demands over the past year. For that to happen, however, they must pragmatically cooperate with likeminded MCS elements from movements like the AfD in order to eventually have a chance of changing Germany’s relevant policies.

This isn’t due to the “horseshoe theory”, which is discredited upon reconceptualizing the New Cold War’s ideological dichotomy as being between ULG and MCS instead of left and right like during the Old Cold War, nor is it attributable to the “red-brown alliance” and “Duginist” conspiracy theories either. It’s simple patriotic pragmatism that’s driving those two’s increasing cooperation on issues of shared interests, which is setting a powerful example that might soon be emulated all throughout Europe.

 

 

 

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Dec 312022
 
 December 31, 2022  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  70 Responses »


Edvard Munch Ashes 1894

 

Forecast 2023 — Get Out of the Way if You Can’t Lend a Hand (Kunstler)
Ukraine Lashes Out At Orbán’s Pro-Peace Stance On Russia-Ukraine Conflict (ZH)
Zelensky Gives His Government More Censorship Powers (RTN)
Ukraine Is ‘First Multipolar’ Conflict – Dugin (RT)
MIT Adopts Free Speech Resolution (Turley)
Fauci Leaves a Broken Agency for His Successor (Makary)
Trump Tax Returns Released By House Committee: He Paid Little In Taxes (NBC)
Trump’s Tax Returns Reveal President’s Foreign Bank Accounts (Az.)
President Bites Agent (Turley)
Ex-Stripper Seeks To Change Name Of Hunter’s Child To Biden (RT)
Biden Family Disowns Hunter’s 4-Year-Old Daughter (ZH)
Uncharged J6 Witness Ray Epps Transcript Released (ZH)
He’s Cooked… (Denninger)

 

 

 

 

Anti Energy

 

 

 

 

 

 

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
– Charles Darwin

 

 

 

 

“Will mysteries be revealed in 2023? Personally, I think so. Things are lining up in that direction, though who knows whether the damage can even be reversed at this point.”

Forecast 2023 — Get Out of the Way if You Can’t Lend a Hand (Kunstler)

“The powerful are panicking, and so they should. Their secrets are leaking.” —Miranda Devine

“It’s all just snake oil. We want to save the planet, and the life upon it, but we’re not willing to pay the price and bear the consequences. So we make up a narrative that feels good and run with it.” — Raul Ilargi Meijer

“2023 could be a pivotal year for USA if the pervasive lies can be exposed, digested, and believed. All that exposure has to happen amidst continuing boondoggles toward the Great Reset agenda.” – Truman Verdun

“More borrowing only ever makes sense if you are expecting a larger economy in the future. All economic expansion is based on energy. Countries with energy can expand, those without cannot.” — Chris Martenson

“To be an enemy to America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.” — Henry Kissinger

It’s hard to contemplate 2023 without spiraling into nausea, tachycardia, and cold sweat. But it is an inescapable duty here to lay out the probabilities ahead. I’ve been doing this forecast thing for some years now, and, of course, I am often wrong, so take some solace in that and relax. Maybe the new year will be all unicorns, rainbows, talking gerbils, and candied violets. 2022 sure was a cold shower. The long emergency I talk so much about finally got up to cruising speed, with the ectoplasmic “Joe Biden” revving our country into economic, political, and cultural collapse — a hat-trick of calamity — and he did it more swiftly and directly than any emperor managed in late-day Rome, with policies and actions 180-degrees contra to America’s public interest — cheered on by a thinking class that had obviously lost it consensual mind.

Was it simply to do the opposite of what the loathed and detested Mr. Trump would do? Could it be that simple or that automatic? The thinking class’s eyes have a zombified glaze these days. It’s obvious, you might agree, that “Joe Biden” is not in charge of anything, really. He’s an animatronic figure programmed to read a teleprompter and not much else. Half the time, he can’t even find his way off-stage after doing that one trick. The claque pulling his strings just may be the crew you see around him (you know, WYSIWYG): Susan Rice, Ron Klain, Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, and company. Ms. Rice has kept herself completely hidden backstage at the White House for two years. Nobody ever hears about her or sees her. Weird, a little bit, for the Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

Or else, are there puppeteers deeper in the shadows, say, “JB’s” former boss Barack Obama, Der Schwabenklaus and his WEF retinue, Bill Gates and other tech billionaires, the “systemically important” bankers, George Soros…? Or some coven of super-elite warlocks we’d never heard of? The US leadership dynamic is truly mystifying and has been for two whole years. Will mysteries be revealed in 2023? Personally, I think so. Things are lining up in that direction, though who knows whether the damage can even be reversed at this point. And now onto the shape of things to come….

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“Ukraine can continue fighting only as long as the United States supports them with money and weapons. If the Americans want peace, then there will be peace.”

Ukraine Lashes Out At Orbán’s Pro-Peace Stance On Russia-Ukraine Conflict (ZH)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been harshly criticized by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, according to remarks published on the ministry’s website on Tuesday, Dec. 27, German news agency dpa reports. Orbán’s statements “demonstrate a pathological disregard for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people who are fighting against Russian aggression,” the Ukrainian ministry said, accusing the Hungarian leader of “political short-sightedness.” As Denis Albert reports at Remix News, the comments came in response to a statement by Orbán that the war could end if the United States stopped supplying arms to Ukraine. Orbán was working in this way towards Ukraine’s defeat, even if it would increase the danger of Russian aggression directed at Hungary, the Ukrainian ministry said.


“The Hungarian leader should ask himself if he wants peace,” the ministry said in a statement. In an earlier interview Orbán said, “Ukraine can continue fighting only as long as the United States supports them with money and weapons. If the Americans want peace, then there will be peace.” As Remix News reported, in a recent interview Orbán said that while it is important for his government that Russia poses no security threat, continued economic relations is essential for not only Hungary, but also for the entire European economy. “The answer to the question of whether we are on the right or wrong side of history is that we are on the Hungarian side of history. We support and help Ukraine, it is in our interest to preserve a sovereign Ukraine, and it is in our interest that Russia does not pose a security threat to Europe, but it is not in our interest to give up all economic relations with Russia. We are looking at these issues through Hungarian glasses, not through anyone else’s,” Orbán said.

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“A state that would apply such provisions simply has no place in the European Union..”

Zelensky Gives His Government More Censorship Powers (RTN)

On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed off a controversial bill that substantially increases the government’s regulatory authority over the news media. The new law will give the government new censorship powers and is a fresh blow to press freedoms in the country. The legislation significantly increases the powers of Ukraine’s state broadcasting regulator to allow it to regulate both the print and online news media. Further, it allows for fines to be imposed on media outlets, their licenses to be revoked without due process, and even some websites to be temporarily blocked without going through the courts. Finally, it gives the regulator authority to order search giants such as Google and other social media platforms to remove content.

Zelensky’s actions are already being criticized by press freedom advocates. As this bill moved through Parliament, members of international organizations such as the European Federation of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists expressed their concerns about its provisions. “The coercive regulation envisaged by the bill and in the hands of a regulator totally controlled by the government is worthy of the worst authoritarian regimes. It must be withdrawn. A state that would apply such provisions simply has no place in the European Union,” said EFJ General Secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez. “Media regulation should be implemented by a body independent of the government and its objective should be media independence, not media control,” Gutiérrez added.


“Ukraine’s media bill seriously imperils press freedom in the country by tightening government control over information at a time when citizens need it the most,” remarked Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in a statement. “Ukrainian legislators should abandon the bill, or at least pause its progress in parliament until the European Union can weigh in with recommendations.” Members of Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists strongly opposed the bill due to its potential to reduce fundamental freedoms within the country. Nevertheless, Yevheniia Kravchuk, the deputy chairperson for Parliament’s Information Policy Committee contradicted those worries by stating that Ukraine’s media legislation had not been updated since the absence of the internet 16 years prior. This new broader bill was needed to bring their media laws up to date and provide greater access to accurate information and technologies.

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“Multipolarity is “not against the West as such,” Dugin said, but “against the claim of the West to be the model, to be the unique example” of history and human understanding..”

Ukraine Is ‘First Multipolar’ Conflict – Dugin (RT)

The conflict in Ukraine is the world’s “first multipolar war,” in which Russia is fighting for the right of every civilization to choose its own path while the West wishes to maintain its totalitarian hegemonic globalism, Aleksandr Dugin told RT in an exclusive interview on Friday. Multipolarity is “not against the West as such,” Dugin said, but “against the claim of the West to be the model, to be the unique example” of history and human understanding. The current Russophobia and hatred of Russia, he argued, are a relic of Cold War thinking and the “bipolar understanding of the architecture of international relations.” When the Soviet Union self-destructed in December 1991, it left the “global Western liberal civilization” in control of the world, Dugin noted.

This hegemon is now refusing to accept the future in which it would be “not one of the two, but one of [the] few poles,” put in its proper place as “just a part, not the whole, of humanity.” Dugin described the West as “pure totalitarian liberalism,” which pretends to have the absolute truth and seeks to impose it on everyone. “There is inherent racism in Western liberalism,” the philosopher told RT’s Donald Courter, because it “identifies the Western historical, political, cultural, experience [as] universal.” “Nothing universal exists in multipolarity,” Dugin insisted, explaining that each civilization can and should develop its own values. Russia specifically needs to overcome centuries of Western ideological dominance, he said, and create something “new, fresh, creative” that would nonetheless stand “in direct refutation of the Western liberal hegemony, against open society, against individualism, against liberal democracy.”

He rejected the “dogmatic” approaches of Marxism, fascism or liberalism to politics and economics, saying that Russia ought to strive for a “holistic” approach in which the spiritual would be more important than the material. Obsession with material goods ends up enslaving people, Dugin told RT. Dugin lamented the December 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as a “suicide” perpetrated by the power-hungry bureaucrats in Moscow. He echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s description of it as a “geopolitical disaster” and described it as a major victory for “Sea Power.” While the USSR was the polar opposite of the Russian Empire in terms of ideology, he explained, in geopolitical terms the two were one and the same, the strongest power in what English geographer Harold Mackinder described as the global Heartland.

While some Western observers have dubbed Dugin “Putin’s brain,” the 60-year-old philosopher and author has no official relationship with the Kremlin. He is an outspoken supporter of the current military operation in Ukraine – whose independence he considers a Western imperial project aimed against Russian sovereignty. Dugin’s daughter Darya, 29, was assassinated in August by a car bomb planted by Ukrainian agents. Though Kiev has officially denied it, US intelligence officials later said they believe someone in the Ukrainian government was responsible.

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MIT Adopts Free Speech Resolution: “We Cannot Prohibit Speech as Offensive or Injurious.”

MIT Adopts Free Speech Resolution (Turley)

We recently discussed schools joining the University of Chicago free speech alliance. Now, the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have adopted a resolution defending freedom of speech and expression, including speech deemed “offensive or injurious.” It is a triumph for free speech. However, while 98 faculty voted for the resolution, 52 professors voted against the free speech principles. The Free Expression Statement is a balanced affirmation of the essential role of free speech in higher education. “A commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be harmful to some. This commitment includes the freedom to criticize and peacefully protest speakers to whom one may object, but it does not extend to suppressing or restricting such speakers from expressing their views. Debate and deliberation of controversial ideas are hallmarks of the Institute’s educational and research missions and are essential to the pursuit of truth, knowledge, equity, and justice.”

What is unnerving is that a third of the faculty disagreed with the resolution despite the following reservation: “MIT does not protect direct threats, harassment, plagiarism, or other speech that falls outside the boundaries of the First Amendment. Moreover, the time, place, and manner of protected expression, including organized protests, may be restrained so as not to disrupt the essential activities of the Institute.” However, the statement makes the key acknowledgment that “we cannot prohibit speech that some experience as offensive or injurious.” That is clearly unacceptable for many in academic. Silencing opposing views or voices has become a core principle for many professors who now refer to free speech as an ever present danger on campuses. MIT has not always stood by free speech. As we previously discussed, the university yielded to cancel culture by barring a guest lecture to be given by University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot in 2021.

MIT also attracted criticism over abandoning standardized testing to achieve greater diversity. It later reversed that decision. The new resolution is a victory for the “MIT Free Speech Alliance,” which has fought to defend free speech against a growing number of faculty. University of Chicago emeritus biology Professor Jerry Coyne raised some good-faith objections on his Why Evolution Is True blog, including the resolution “calling for ‘civility and mutual respect’, as well as ‘considering the possibility of offense and injury’. You simply cannot have free speech without offense and injury. Abbot’s invitation provoked precisely such offense and injury, with many people supporting his deplatforming.” However, the references are part of a graph that refers to the personal responsibility of faculty to maintain civility and mutual respect. It follows an express protection for offensive speech:

“We cannot prohibit speech that some experience as offensive or injurious. At the same time, MIT deeply values civility, mutual respect, and uninhibited, wide-open debate. In fostering such debate, we have a responsibility to express ourselves in ways that consider the prospect of offense and injury and the risk of discouraging others from expressing their own views. This responsibility complements, and does not conflict with, the right to free expression. Even robust disagreements shall not be liable to official censure or disciplinary action. This applies broadly. For example, when MIT leaders speak on matters of public interest, whether in their own voice or in the name of MIT, this should always be understood as being open to debate by the broader MIT community.”

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“..we still don’t have randomized trials for so many drug recommendations, including the new bivalent vaccine, COVID vaccine boosters in young people, the optimal vaccine dosing interval, and even the antiviral drug Paxlovid in vaccinated people.”

Fauci Leaves a Broken Agency for His Successor (Makary)

After 54 years at the NIH, tomorrow marks Dr. Anthony Fauci’s last day in office as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). While many were angered by his changing and conflicting recommendations, I am not. They are mere symptoms of a much larger and deeper problem. Dr. Fauci’s agency failed to promptly fund key research during the pandemic. That research would have abruptly ended many of the COVID controversies that divided our country. In a study of NIH funding published in The BMJ, my Johns Hopkins colleagues and I found that in the first year of the pandemic, it took the NIH an average of five months to give money to researchers after they were awarded a COVID grant. This should be unacceptable during a health emergency.

Consider the question of how COVID spread—was it airborne or spread on surfaces? (Remember all those people wiping down their groceries?) It lingered as an open question without good research for months, as Fauci spent hundreds of hours on television opining on the matter. Finally, on August 17, 2021—a year and a half after COVID lockdowns began—Dr. Fauci’s agency released results of a study showing the disease was airborne. Thanks for that. The announcement on the NIAID website, titled “NIH Hamster Study Evaluates Airborne and Fomite Transmission of SARS-CoV-2” came 18 months too late. Imagine if, in February 2020, Dr. Fauci had marshaled his $6 billion budget, vast laboratory facilities, and teams of experts to conduct a definitive lab experiment to establish that COVID was airborne.

On this question and many others throughout the pandemic, our problem was not that the science changed—it’s that it wasn’t done. NIH funding for COVID research was also erratic. The NIH spent almost $1.2 billion on long COVID research, but virtually nothing on masks, natural immunity, COVID in children, or vaccine complications. Ironically, the NIH spent more than twice as much on aging research as it did on COVID research in the first year of the pandemic, according to my team’s analysis. I’m all for aging research, but not when a novel virus is killing thousands of Americans per day. A randomized controlled trial is the gold-standard method to establish a drug’s effectiveness. Yet remarkably, for COVID, we still don’t have randomized trials for so many drug recommendations, including the new bivalent vaccine, COVID vaccine boosters in young people, the optimal vaccine dosing interval, and even the antiviral drug Paxlovid in vaccinated people.

More disturbing, our country has been deeply divided for years about whether to mask children. The partisan arguing and harm to children could have been avoided if a proper study settled the science early. Because the NIH moved at glacial speed, most of our COVID knowledge came from overseas. The critical discovery that steroids reduce COVID mortality by one-third came only after European researchers did a randomized trial that Fauci’s agency should have commissioned quickly. Similarly, a conclusive study showing that Vitamin D reduces COVID mortality, published last month, arrived two years too late.

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Zeroburger.

Trump Tax Returns Released By House Committee: He Paid Little In Taxes (NBC)

A House committee on Friday made public six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, which showed he paid relatively little in federal taxes in the years before and during his presidency. The House Ways and Means Committee had voted to make the thousands of pages of federal returns public in a party-line vote last week, but their release was delayed while staffers redacted sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers from the documents. Friday’s release, the culmination of years of legal wrangling and speculation, included both personal and business records. Trump on Friday blasted the release in a statement and on his Truth Social platform, saying “the Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people.”

He also maintained the returns he fought to keep hidden — despite modern precedent that presidents make their returns public — “show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises.” The panel’s top Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, called the release of the documents “unprecedented,” and said Democrats had unleashed “a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president, overturning decades of privacy protections for average Americans.” “This is a regrettable stain on the Ways and Means Committee and Congress, and will make American politics even more divisive and disheartening. In the long run, Democrats will come to regret it,” Brady said.

The returns confirm much of what was contained in a 39-page report from the Joint Committee on Taxation released last week, including summaries from Trump’s personal tax forms and business entities, but also some new information as well. The returns show that in the 2020 tax year, Donald and Melania Trump reported $78 million in gross income from 16 foreign countries — including the United Kingdom, Ireland and St. Martin, where Trump has properties. The gross income also included a reported $1.2 million from “other countries” — abbreviated as “OC” — that were not specified.But the couple also appeared to owe nothing in federal taxes, after reporting large deductions and expenses that resulted in a net loss of $15 million. Trump then claimed a $5 million refund, according to the return.

Trump also reported zero charitable donations that year, the returns show. That was an outlier for Trump during his time in office — he reported $1.8 million in charitable giving in 2017, and just over $500,000 in charitable donations in 2018 and 2019, the returns show. Trump pledged to donate his $400,000 presidential salary while in office, money he gave to various government agencies.

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You can bet it’s all legal.

Trump’s Tax Returns Reveal President’s Foreign Bank Accounts (Az.)

Newly released tax returns for former President Donald Trump have shed light on his business losses, complicated tax set-ups and tax payments during his White House years. However, they are unlikely to have a major political impact as he eyes another presidential run, experts say. The documents confirmed that Mr Trump paid no federal taxes in 2020 and only $750 (£622) in 2016 and 2017. He paid close to $1m in 2018, however. A long legal battle led to the release of the records, and Mr Trump criticised the disclosure, warning that it will deepen the US political divide. He added that the returns “show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises.”

Although there’s no law requiring it, it is tradition for presidents to publish their tax returns. US presidents are paid a salary like any worker, but many also earn income from their personal businesses and investments. The newly released documents include tax returns and related documents for Donald Trump, the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust and seven corporate entities. They represent only a fraction of the former president’s over 400 separate business interests. Previously released figures show that Mr Trump paid a total of $1.1m (£906,587) in federal income taxes from 2016 to 2019, all but $1,500 of which was paid in one year. He paid no taxes in 2020, the final year of his presidency.


The documents also show that Mr Trump, who had international business dealings, held bank accounts in Ireland, the United Kingdom and China for a period that ran from 2015-17. The overseas accounts were notable, as Mr Trump held the White House in 2017, giving him significant power over US foreign policy. From 2018 onward, Mr Trump only reported having an account in the UK.

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“The President is quoted as saying “Look, the Secret Service are never up here. It didn’t happen.“

“..female agents complained about his exposing himself to them by insisting on swimming in the nude..”

President Bites Agent (Turley)

“It didn’t happen.” According to published excerpts, President Joe Biden is denying an account of the Secret Service about an agent being attacked by his German Sheppard, Major, at the White House. The statement from the President raises some interesting legal questions after he effectively called an agent a liar about an official report on one of many bite incidents with the Biden dogs. If the quote is accurate, the criticism could not only be viewed as defamatory but another unfounded attack on the integrity and veracity of federal employees by the President. This should not be dismissed as some sensational “President Bites Agent” story. It raises long-standing concerns over the lack of recourse for agents endangered or abused by protected individuals. Indeed, the controversy raises some of the issues litigated during the Clinton Administration over the status of Secret Service agents.

The book, “The Fight of His Life,” by author Chris Whipple details Biden’s continued mistrust of the Secret Service and his alleged avoidance of saying anything in front of agents. Biden has long had tense relations with the Secret Service, particularly after female agents complained about his exposing himself to them by insisting on swimming in the nude. The book claims that Biden has his own “deep state” conspiracy theories. Biden reportedly views the Secret Service as essentially the enemy within, suggesting that it is populated by “MAGA sympathizers” due to the fact that the service “is full of white ex-cops from the South who tend to be deeply conservative.”

However, this is a major escalation in that reportedly strained relationship. Some of us previously discussed the problem of the Biden dogs (including his other dog Champ) biting agents, attacks that would ordinarily lead to liability. In one eight-day period, agents were bitten every day. Indeed, outside of the White House, the Biden dogs would qualify for strict liability under the common law as displaying a vicious disposition. Under the common law, the Bidens could claim that Major and Champ were entitled to “one free bite.” The “one free bite rule” is a commonly misunderstood torts doctrine — suggesting that you are not subject to strict liability until after the first time your dog bites someone. In fact, you are subject to strict liability whenever you know or have reason to know of the vicious propensity of your animal. That can be satisfied by conduct such as frequent snapping or aggressive behavior.

[..] Now Biden is quoted as saying that he does not trust the Secret Service and believes that one agent is outright lying about one attack by Major. The President is quoted as saying “Look, the Secret Service are never up here. It didn’t happen.” The incident was reported by the agent and photos were taken to document that attack. The President’s denial of the location ignores the confirmed attack itself. Other agents complained about the disregard of the agents by the Bidens in the repeated attacks, including on agent who reportedly insisted that the president personally pay to repair a ripped coat after one attack on March 6, 2021.

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What a loser. No, not the mother.

Ex-Stripper Seeks To Change Name Of Hunter’s Child To Biden (RT)

Lunden Roberts, the former exotic dancer who gave birth to Hunter Biden’s love child in 2018, is reportedly seeking legal permission for her daughter to use her father’s surname. The 4-year-old girl, who has never met her father or her paternal grandfather, US President Joe Biden, would “benefit from carrying the Biden family name,” Roberts said this week in an Arkansas court filing. The request, which was first reported by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette on Thursday, was filed in a paternity case that Hunter Biden reopened in September to seek a reduction in his child support payments. The “Biden name is now synonymous with being well educated, successful, financially acute and politically powerful,” Clinton Lancaster, a lawyer representing the ex-stripper, said in the filing.

He added that while the daughter remains estranged from her father’s family, “to the extent this is misconduct or neglect, it can be rectified by changing her last name to Biden so that she may undeniably be known to the world as the child of the defendant and member of the prestigious Biden family.” Roberts, now 31, filed her paternity case in 2019, after Biden denied that he fathered her child. At one point, he claimed to have “no recollection” of meeting the woman, a former college basketball player who was performing under the stage name ‘Dallas’ at a Washington strip club. At the time, he was reportedly dating the widow of his deceased brother, Beau Biden. A DNA test showed that Hunter Biden was the child’s father. He agreed in January 2020, when his father was running for president, to pay child support to Roberts.


He married a South African woman, environmental activist Melissa Cohen, in May 2019, just six days after meeting her. The couple had a son in March 2020. Last September, Biden asked the Arkansas court to cut his child support payments because he could no longer afford them. He cited a change in his “financial circumstances, including but not limited to his income.” His young daughter currently goes by the name Navy Joan Roberts. President Biden reportedly refused to provide Secret Service protection for the girl, even after she and her mother received threats. The elder Biden has been criticized for refusing to acknowledge his granddaughter.

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A bit more of this. Because this may prevent Hunter from walking away.

Note: he denies being the father, despite the DNA, and the family even disowns the child?! What a graceful step.

“Roberts has requested a list of Hunter’s residences for the past 10 years, along with vehicles he’s owned or driven for the past five years in order to obtain evidence of his “well-established history of a lavish lifestyle.”

Biden Family Disowns Hunter’s 4-Year-Old Daughter (ZH)

The woman who mothered Hunter’s secret lovechild, Lunden Alexis Roberts, filed paperwork on Tuesday requesting that an Arkansas court allow the child, Navy Joan Roberts, be given the Biden name, claiming that the toddler would “benefit from carrying the Biden family name” because it’s “now synonymous with being well educated, successful, financially acute, and politically powerful.” The Bidens, meanwhile, have completely ignored the President’s grandchild – striking her attendance from the 46th presidential inauguration and allegedly refusing to offer security aid to the mother-daughter pair, despite domestic violence threats from Roberts’ ex. The filing cites President Biden, Jill Biden and Hunter’s late brother Beau as examples of successful individuals bearing the last name, and says that the Biden family remains “estranged from the child.

To the extent this is misconduct or neglect, it can be rectified by changing her last name to Biden so that she may undeniably be known to the world as the child of the defendant and member of the prestigious Biden family.” Roberts, originally from Batesville and an Arkansas State University graduate, met Hunter Biden while she was living in Washington, D.C., and worked for him, Lancaster previously said. The child, initially referred to in the case as “Baby Doe,” was born in August 2018; the paternity suit followed in May 2019, days after Hunter Biden’s marriage to a South African filmmaker, the former Melissa Cohen. A DNA test showed, “with near scientific certainty,” that Biden is Baby Doe’s father, Judge Holly Meyer declared in a January 2020 order. That month the parties agreed on temporary child support until the issue was resolved. -Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Hunter Biden wrote in his 2021 book “Beautiful Things” that he fought Roberts’ paternity suit because, being a crackhead, he had no recollection of the incident that led to the pregnancy. “The other women I’d been with during rampages since my divorce were hardly the dating type. We would satisfy our immediate needs and little else,” wrote Hunter, adding “I’m not proud of it.” According to Roberts, Hunter has a “long, and lengthy, history of attempting to avoid discovery by filing endless and recurrent motions for protective orders. Additionally, this case was finally resolved the first time when this court denied the defendant’s motion for a protective order relating to discovery.”

Roberts has requested a list of Hunter’s residences for the past 10 years, along with vehicles he’s owned or driven for the past five years in order to obtain evidence of his “well-established history of a lavish lifestyle.” “[Biden] objects and refuses to provide all the requested information. Instead, [Biden] seeks a protective order,” reads a filing. She’s also requested information related to a federal investigation into Hunter’s “tax affairs.” “This information is relevant to determine if, as Federal authorities insinuated, the defendant failed to disclose all his income as this goes to earning capability and Mr. Biden’s credibility.”

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This case stinks like few others.

Uncharged J6 Witness Ray Epps Transcript Released (ZH)

Ray Epps, the uncharged man identified as a key instigator behind the January 6, 2020 Capitol Breach for telling people to storm the Capitol, said in a text message to his nephew that he “orchestrated” things, according to newly released witness transcripts from the January 6th Committee. “At that point, I didn’t know that they were breaking into the Capitol,” Epps told Congressional investigators, adding “I didn’t know anybody was in the Capitol. … I was on my way back to the hotel room.” But the night before, Epps was seen going around to various groups of Trump supporters, telling them they need to storm the capitol. In two interviews with the FBI in 2021, Epps explained his actions on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. He admitted he was guilty of trespassing on restricted Capitol grounds and confessed to urging protesters to go to—and into—the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Epps also told members of the Committee that he found himself playing peacekeeper between Trump supporter “Baked Alaska” and the police – who called Epps a Fed. “I was trying to find some common ground,” said Epps. “This guy was trying to turn people against me…he was calling me ‘boomer,’ and it’s his generation’s fault that we’re in the position we’re in.” Despite the admissions, the FBI never arrested Epps and he was not charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with any Jan. 6 crimes. The non-action has fueled a crop of theories that he might have been working for the FBI or another agency. Epps, 61, has repeatedly denied those suggestions through his attorney. Speculation that Epps was a ‘fed’ intensified after a Revolver News reported with the headline: “Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears To Have Led The Very First 1/6 Attack On The U.S. Capitol”


“Revolver also determined, and will prove below, that the the FBI stealthily removed Ray Epps from its Capitol Violence Most Wanted List on July 1, just one day after Revolver exposed the inexplicable and puzzlesome FBI protection of known Epps associate and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes. July 1 was also just one day after separate New York Times report amplified a glaring, falsifiable lie about Epps’s role in the events of January 6. Lastly, Ray Epps appears to have worked alongside several individuals — many of them suspiciously unindicted — to carry out a breach of the police barricades that induced a subsequent flood of unsuspecting MAGA protesters to unwittingly trespass on Capitol restricted grounds and place themselves in legal jeopardy. -Revolver News. As speculation over Epps grew, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) claimed that Epps had “cooperated with the Jan 6 committee,” and was removed from the FBI’s most wanted list “because apparently he broke no laws.”

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SBF.

He’s Cooked… (Denninger)

Sam is done. Two of his chief lieutenants, including his former lover, have turned on him, pled guilty to criminal offenses that will almost-certainly lead to a decade or more in prison, and are cooperating against him. Among the offenses they pled guilty to are installing specific bypasses of the risk-control and auto-liquidation rules on certain accounts which were utterly essential to propagate the robbery of client funds. Absent that most, if not all of the loss would not have occurred, with Alameda being forced into liquidation before the damage was severe enough to implicate customer money. That’s an intentional act and the other two admitted to being involved in doing it so its perfectly legitimate to state it as fact rather than speculation.

How far down the rabbit hole this all goes is an open question, but the real underlying issue is that the sort of nonsense with so-called “stable coins” and similar games have repeatedly been exposed and the entire house of cryptocurrency “value” rests on said claims that this is not the case. It is the case, however, and only an idiot after seeing it happen several times sequentially has any reason to believe its not present in every single one of these instances. At the core of the issue is that somewhere everyone has to get paid for what they do. If you think you found an example where this is not the case you are being scammed; you just haven’t figured out how or why yet. If there’s enough indirection you can hide this for a good long time, but eventually the market will turn against you.


This is the essence of why “cryptocurrencies” are all valueless; each transaction has a cost, someone has to pay said cost, the more complex and secure the system is the higher said cost is and all of those costs exceed that of other currency systems thus without some means of cheating so your transaction “appears” to be inexpensive to process compared against the alternatives nobody would use it unless what they were doing is fundamentally illegal and thus to use any of the “legitimated” currency systems exposes said person to immediate arrest and prosecution. What’s possibly worse, however, is that all crypto systems by definition result in an indelible and immutable forensic transaction trail that fully meets all requirements to be admissible in court and therefore the claim that somehow they are “safe” to use for illegal acts is also both false and thus an active fraud.

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Phasmid
https://twitter.com/i/status/1608822281496850432

 

 

 

 

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Aug 232022
 
 August 23, 2022  Posted by at 8:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  71 Responses »


Samuel Peploe Paris-plage 1907

 

Fly Like An Eagle, Darya Dugina (Escobar)
The Coming Of The Ukrainian ISIS (Escobar)
Darya Dugina Killer Identified – War Of Attrition Continues (MoA)
The World Is Splitting In Two (Macleod)
Epic Asset Collapses, Higher Inflation, Poverty & Social Unrest (Von Greyerz)
The Great Patriotic War as Seen Through Soviet Cinema (Saker)
Dr. Fauci To Step Down By End Of The Year (JTN)
More Billions to Ukraine as America Falls Apart (Ron Paul)
Nearly 9,000 Ukrainian Troops Killed So Far, Says Kyiv (Y!)
UK Inflation To Top 18% In Early 2023 – Citi (R.)
UK GDP Saw Its Biggest Drop In 300 Years (RT)
Judge Rejects DOJ Plea To Keep Entire Trump Raid Affidavit Sealed (JTN)
‘STOP the review’: Trump Statement On Motion To Appoint ‘Special Master’ (JTN)
Crazyland (Jim Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Ron Johnson

 

 

 

 

“..whom I met in Moscow and had the honor to cherish as a friend..”

Fly Like An Eagle, Darya Dugina (Escobar)

Darya Dugina, 30, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a smart, strong, ebullient, enterprising young woman, whom I met in Moscow and had the honor to cherish as a friend, has been brutally murdered. As a young journalist and analyst, one could see she would carve for herself a glowing path towards wide recognition and respect (here she is on feminism). Not so long ago, the FSB was directly engaged in smashing assassination attempts, organized by the SBU, against Russian journalists, as in the case of Olga Skabaeyeva and Vladimir Soloviev. It’s mind-boggling that Dugin and his family were not protected by the Russian intelligence/security apparatus.

The key facts of the tragedy have already been established. A Land Cruiser Prado SUV, owned by Dugin and with Darya at the wheel, exploded in a highway near the village of Bolchie Vyazemy, a little over 20km away from Moscow. They were both coming from a family festival, where Dugin had delivered a talk. At the last minute, Darya took the SUV and Dugin followed her in another car. According to eyewitnesses, there was an explosion under the SUV, which was immediately engulfed in flames and hit a roadside building. Darya’s body was burned beyond recognition. The Russian Investigative Committee soon established that the IED – approximately 400g of TNT, unencapsulated – was planted under the bottom of the SUV, on the driver’s side.

The investigators consider that was a premeditated car bombing. What is not already known is whether the IED was on a timer or if some goon nearby pressed the button. What is already known is that Alexander Dugin was a target on the Myrotvorets list. Myrotvorets stands for a Center for Research of Signs of Crimes against the National Security of Ukraine. It works side by side with NATO collecting info on “pro-Russian terrorists and separatists”. Denis Pushilin, the head of the DPR, took no time to accuse “the terrorists of the Ukrainian regime” for Darya’s assassination. The inestimable Maria Zakharova was more, well, diplomatic: she said that if the Ukrainian lead is confirmed, that will configure a policy of state terrorism deployed by Kiev.

In several essays – this one being arguably the most essential – Dugin had made extensively clear the enormity of the stakes. This is a war of ideas. And an existential war: Russia against the collective West led by the United States. The SBU, NATO, or quite probably the combo – considering the SBU is ordered by the CIA and MI6 – did not choose to attack Putin, Lavrov, Patrushev or Shoigu. They targeted a philosopher and ended up murdering his daughter – making it even more painful. They attacked an intellectual who formulates ideas. Proving once again that Western Cancel Culture seamlessly metastasizes into Cancel Person.

It’s fine and dandy that the Russian Ministry of Defense is about to start the production of the hypersonic Mr. Zircon as it continues to churn out plenty of Mr. Khinzals. Or that three Mig-31 supersonic interceptors have been deployed to Kaliningrad equipped with Khinzals and placed on combat duty 24/7. The problem is the rules have changed – and the SBU/NATO combo, facing an indescribable debacle in Donbass, is upping the sabotage, counter-intel and counter-diversionary dial.

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Part 2 of the article above.

The Coming Of The Ukrainian ISIS (Escobar)

The cokehead comedian has duly pre-empted any Russian reaction, according to the NATO script he’s fed on a daily basis: Russia may try to do something “particularly disgusting” this coming week. That’s irrelevant. The real – burning – question is to what extent the Kremlin and Russian intel will react when it’s fully established SBU/NATO concocted the Dugin plot. That’s Kiev terrorism at the gates of Moscow. That screams “red line” in bloody red, and a response tied to the reiterated promise, by Putin himself, of hitting “decision centers”. It will be a fateful decision. Moscow is not at war with the Kiev puppets, essentially – but with NATO. And vice-versa. All bets are off on how the tragedy of Darya Dugina may eventually accelerate the Russian timetable, in terms of a radical revision of their so far long-term strategy.

Moscow can decapitate the Kiev racket with a few hypersonic business cards. Yet that’s too easy; afterwards, who to negotiate the future of rump Ukraine with? In contrast, doing essentially nothing means accepting an imminent, de facto terrorist invasion of the Russian Federation: the Darya Dugina tragedy on steroids. In his next before last post on Telegram, Dugin once again framed the stakes. These are the key takeaways. He calls for “structural, ideological, personnel, institutional, strategic” transformations by the Russian leadership. Drawing from the evidence – from the increased attacks on Crimea to the attempts to provoke a nuclear catastrophe in Zaporozhye – he correctly concludes that the NATO sphere has “decided to stand on the other end to the end. They can be understood: Russia actually (and this is not propaganda) challenged the West as a civilization.”

The conclusion is stark: “So we have to go all the way”. That ties in with what Putin himself asserted: “We haven’t really started anything yet.” Dugin: “Now we have to start.” Dugin proposes that the current status quo around Operation Z cannot last for more than six months. There’s no question “the tectonic plates have shifted”. Darya Dugina will be flying like an eagle in an otherworldly sky. The question is whether her tragedy will become the catalyst to propel Putin’s strategic ambiguity to a whole new level.

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“The killer, one Natalya Vovk, is associated with the Azov Nazis of Ukraine. So is her brother.”

Darya Dugina Killer Identified – War Of Attrition Continues (MoA)

It seems that Russian authorities have found the killer of Darya Dugina. The killer, one Natalya Vovk, is associated with the Azov Nazis of Ukraine. So is her brother. Both are in Ukraine right now but will probably flee elsewhere. Yelensis has details that point to willful murder of Darya Dugina:´

“[A]n important clarification was already delivered by the experts: As to the question whether the bomb was on a timer or remote control, the answer already came in: Remote control. This fact has huge ramifications. WarGonzo blogger Semyon Pegov points out that the person who pressed the remote-control button to ignite the bomb, would have been in visual contact with the car and its occupant: “In other words, the terrorists who were supposedly out to blow Dugin up in his own car, would have observed, how Darya got into the car instead. Not the original target. And then they would have had to make a decision: To blow up, or not to blow up? And they took the decision: Go ahead and blow up the daughter. So, Darya became the new target. And this is, it goes without saying, an entirely new level of terrorism. Not even your average ISIS terrorist would take such a low step.”

Aleksandr Dugin, Darya’s father, as well as his daughter had been threatened: “The Ukrainians threaten and blacklist everybody in the world who doesn’t give them full and unconditional support. Dugin, however, is a special case, and particularly hated by the West and their proxies. Both Dugin and his daughter are on American/British “sanctions” lists. Dugin has been the recipient of non-stop hate-speech for years now. Westies hate and demonize him because of his philosophical ideas and anti-Liberal ideology. Darya herself has a degree in Political Philosophy and shared her father’s ideology. Both were strong supporters of the Russian “Special Military Operation” against the Ukraine. Which would have made them “fair game” according to the usual Ukrainian standards. However, nothing has been proved yet, so we shall just have to wait and see.” In the continuation of this story, we will discuss Dugin’s “harmful” ideas, some interesting history of his political career; and how the Westie press is inhumanely revelling in his grief.”

Meanwhile the fighting in Ukraine continues with recent Russian offenses launched on all fronts. In the north the slow move to Karkiv continues. The Russian forces in the south move towards Mykolaiv (Nikolaev). In the east attacks against Soledar and Bakhmut continue. All these moves are supported by intense strikes on every Ukrainian headquarter and troop concentration the Russian military intelligence can find. This hunting down and killing of complete battalions and brigades behind the immediate frontline is costing a lot of Ukrainian soldiers’ lives and is preventing any Ukrainian countermoves. This is on top of the daily massive artillery use against Ukrainian frontline positions.

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“Putin will only stop when the Europeans realise that America is sacrificing them in the pursuit of its hegemony.”

The World Is Splitting In Two (Macleod)

I look at geopolitics from President Putin of Russia’s viewpoint, since he is the only national leader who seems to have a clear grasp of his long-term objectives. His active strategy conforms closely with Halford Mackinder’s predictive analysis of nearly 120 years ago. Mackinder is regarded by many experts as the founder of geopolitics. Putin is determined to remove the American threat to his Western borders by squeezing the EU to that end. But he is also building political relationships based on control of global fossil-fuel supplies — a pathway opened for him by American and European obsessions over climate change.

In partnership with China, the consolidation of his power over the Eurasian landmass has progressed rapidly in recent weeks. For the Western Alliance, financially and economically his timing is particularly awkward, coinciding with the end of a 40-year period of declining interest rates, rising consumer price inflation, and a deepening recession driven by contracting bank credit. It is the continuation of a financial war by other means, and it looks like Putin has an unbeatable hand. He is on course to push our fragile fiat currency based financial system over the edge.

Ukraine was an unusual instance of Putin taking the initiative in acting against the American-led NATO alliance. But in the run-up to Ukraine, he had seen Britain leave the EU. Britain was America’s vicar on the EU’s earth, so Brexit represented a significant decline in the US’s ability to influence Brussels. Following Brexit, President Biden precipitously exited Afghanistan, taking the rest of NATO with him. Therefore, America was on the run from the Heartland. The way was open for Putin to push further and expel America from Russia’s western borders. To do this, he needed to confront NATO. And there is little doubt this was on Putin’s mind when he escalated his “special military operation” against Ukraine.

He must have anticipated NATO’s reaction to impose sanctions, from which Russia has profited greatly. At the same time, it is the EU which has been badly crushed, a squeeze which he can intensify at will. The drama is still playing out. He needs to keep up some pressure on Ukraine to keep the squeeze going. He is not ready to compromise. Winter in the EU will be tougher still, with energy and food shortages likely to lead to increasing riots by the EU’s citizens. Putin will only stop when the Europeans realise that America is sacrificing them in the pursuit of its hegemony. Zelensky is little more than a puppet in this drama.

With respect to the war on the ground, Russia has already secured its access from the Black Sea by cultivating her relationship with Turkey. As a NATO member, Turkey is hedging its bets. The Black Sea is vital to her economic interests. For this reason, Turkey is maintaining her relationship with Russia, while cooling down her antipathy to Israel (President Herzog visited Ankara in March) and mending her fences with the UAE — it’s all part of the World Island coming together.

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“..Germany used to be the economic and financial engine of Europe but is now on the way to becoming a basket case..”

Epic Asset Collapses, Higher Inflation, Poverty & Social Unrest (Von Greyerz)

The lack of statesmen and strong leadership in the US and EU has created an absurd situation with the EU not just biting the hand that feeds them but actually biting it off totally. With many European countries being dependent on Russian gas, oil, cereal and fertilisers, EU’s left hand doesn’t know what the right one is doing. Not only is this a human and economic catastrophe of major proportions but one which will have major implications for Europe for a long time. Germany used to be the economic and financial engine of Europe but is now on the way to becoming a basket case. But sadly they haven’t discovered it yet. Scholz inherited ludicrous Marxist policies from Merkel. For example to close down both nuclear energy and coal was always a recipe for disaster with no medium term viable alternatives.


And her immigration policy will not only be economically ruinous for Germany but also lead to major social unrest. The demographics of Germany is also another irreparable problem. With the lowest fertility rate in Europe combined with the highest life expectancy, Germany is entering a long term cycle of economic contraction. Add to this that Germany has financed a major part of the Mediterranean EU countries’ woes through the Target2 transfer payment system. As the Target2 graph shows below, the transfer payments to Italy of €596 billion, Spain €526b, to the ECB €358b, Greece €107b and Portugal €69b have been mainly financed by Germany to the extent of €1.2 trillion.

Add to that the balance sheet of the ECB which has grown more than 8X since 2004 to €8.7 trillion and we can confidently state that the whole European Economic Community -ECB- has now become -EDC- or the Economic Debt Community.

It is clear that the old basket cases of Greece, Italy and Spain which were forced by Brussels to change leadership and to take on more debt are the immediate danger to the EU and the Eurozone. If we just take Italy, their debt has doubled since 2000 to €2.7 trillion which at 150% of GDP means that the country is on the verge of bankruptcy. But it is not only Italy’s debt that has surged, but even worse, the cost of financing it. Since September 2021, 10 year Italian bond yields have gone up 6X from 0.5% to 3.4%. This is obviously more than Italy can afford!

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For history buffs. Lots of movies.

The Great Patriotic War as Seen Through Soviet Cinema (Saker)

As the western world descends ever deeper into a morass of ignorance, stupidity, obliviousness and inanity, accelerated by wilful amnesia and the cancellation of history and Russian culture, we feel it is indispensable to rekindle, commemorate and celebrate some of the great and noble achievements of Russia – for the future sake of Human Civilisation… The younger generations in the West may never have even heard of the Great Patriotic War – a decisive feat that has enabled them to live in relative peace and comfort. And they might find it difficult to even imagine the number of the 27 million lives it cost. And even fewer may know about the Siege of Leningrad, which began on 8 September 1941 and lasted nearly 900 days… when the Red Army succeeded in breaking the blockade on 27 January 1944.

The winter of 1941 – 1942 was bitterly cold and as many as 100,000 people a month died of starvation. In their desperation, the citizens ate everything from petroleum jelly and wallpaper glue to rats, pigeons and household pets. For warmth, they burned furniture, wardrobes and even the books from their personal libraries. Amongst the relics discovered later was a journal kept by a 12-year-old Leningrader named Tanya Savicheva who recorded the progressive dates of the deaths of all her family members. After the death of her mother, she wrote: “The Savichevs are dead. Everyone is dead. Only Tanya is left.”

Because of the blockade, the only way to feed the city was to bring fresh supplies across the frozen Lake Ladoga, the only open route into the city – forged over the ice by sleds and ploughs. This was known as the “Road of Life” – in spite of the fact that the trucks and sleds transporting food and fuel were to also become frequent targets of Nazi aerial attack. Altogether an estimated 75,000 bombs were dropped on Leningrad during the period of the siege and killed many – but more died from hunger and hunger-facilitated illnesses. In total, the siege of Leningrad killed an estimated 800,000 civilians. Historian Michael Walzer summarized that “The Siege of Leningrad killed more civilians than the bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.”

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He should not have one peaceful moment in the remainder of his life.

Dr. Fauci To Step Down By End Of The Year (JTN)

Chief White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci announced Monday that he plans on stepping down from his duties in the federal government by the end of this year to “pursue the next chapter.” The 81-year-old Fauci, who has also severed almost four decades as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also made clear in his announcement that he doesn’t plan to retire. “While I am moving on from my current positions, I am not retiring. After more than 50 years of government service, I plan to pursue the next phase of my career while I still have so much energy and passion for my field,” he wrote.


President Joe Biden in a statement said that during his time as vice president he worked closely with Fauci in response to the Zika and Ebola viruses. “As he leaves his position in the U.S. Government, I know the American people and the entire world will continue to benefit from Dr. Fauci’s expertise in whatever he does next,” Biden wrote. Fauci said he plans on continuing to put his full effort into his current job over the next several months, but he did not indicate his future plans. Last month, Fauci said he planned on retiring at the end of President Biden’s term. Fauci has faced heightened scrutiny for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both House and Senate Republicans have vowed to investigate Fauci if they take control of Congress after the midterm elections this fall.

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“..the eighteenth weapons package to Ukraine in six months…”

More Billions to Ukraine as America Falls Apart (Ron Paul)

There is a video clip making the rounds showing President Biden speaking at a recent NATO summit about the seven billion dollars the US government had – at that time – provided to Ukraine. Attached to that is another clip showing the horrific state of several US major cities, including in Pennsylvania, California, and Ohio. The video of American cities is shocking: endless landscapes of filth, trash, homelessness, open fires on the street, drug-addicted zombies. It doesn’t look like the America most of us remember. Watching Biden bragging about sending billions of dollars to corrupt leaders overseas with American cities looking like bombed-out Iraq or Libya is US foreign policy in a nutshell.

The Washington elites tell the rest of America that they must “promote democracy” in some far-off land. Anyone who objects is considered in league with the appointed enemy of the day. Once it was Saddam, then Assad and Gaddafi. Now it’s Putin. The game is the same, only the names are changed. What is seldom asked, is what is in this deal for those Americans who suffer to pay for our interventionist foreign policy. Do they really think a working American in Ohio or Pennsylvania is better off or safer because we are supposedly protecting Ukraine’s borders? I think most Americans would wonder why they aren’t bothering to protect our own borders. A reported 200,000 illegals crossed the border into the US in July alone. You can believe they are learning quickly about the free money provided by the US government to illegals. They’ll probably get a voting card as well.

Last Friday the Pentagon announced that yet another $775 million would be sent to Ukraine. As Antiwar.com reported, it was the eighteenth weapons package to Ukraine in six months. Has there ever been a more idiotic US intervention in history? Supporters of this proxy war may celebrate more aid to Ukraine, but the reality is that it is in no way aid to Ukraine. That’s not how the system works. It is money created out of thin air by the Fed and appropriated by Congress to be spent propping up the politically-connected military-industrial complex. It is a big check written by middle America to rich people who run Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Americans watch their budget being stretched to the limit while the Beltway fat-cats loosen their belts to continue enjoying the gravy train.

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Off by a factor of…

Nearly 9,000 Ukrainian Troops Killed So Far, Says Kyiv (Y!)

Nearly 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia invaded, the country’s top military officer said Monday, as Moscow accused Kyiv over the assassination of the daughter of a leading hardliner. The European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell meanwhile told reporters in Spain that the bloc was considering military training for Ukraine’s forces. General Valeriy Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, said Ukraine’s children needed particular attention “because their fathers have gone to the front and are maybe among the nearly 9,000 heroes who have been killed”. Zaluzhny’s comments on the Ukrainian death toll, reported by Interfax-Ukraine news agency, was the first indication of Kyiv’s military losses since April.


On Wednesday, Ukraine will mark its independence day — and six months since Russian troops invaded. After Ukrainian resistance thwarted an early Russian push on the capital Kyiv, Moscow’s forces have focussed on gaining ground in the east of the country. The shockwaves of the war are being felt around the world with soaring energy prices and food shortages. Russia’s FSB security services on Monday accused Ukraine of being behind Saturday’s car bombing in the outskirts of Moscow that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of hard-line Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin. “The crime was prepared and committed by Ukrainian special services,” the FSB said in a statement Monday carried by Russian news agencies.

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“It is difficult to see how many will cope with the coming winter..”

UK Inflation To Top 18% In Early 2023 – Citi (R.)

British consumer price inflation is set to peak at 18.6% in January, more than nine times the Bank of England’s target, an economist at U.S. bank Citi said on Monday, raising his forecast once again in light of the latest jump in energy prices. “The question now is what policy may do to offset the impact on both inflation and the real economy,” Benjamin Nabarro said in a note to clients. Consumer price inflation was last above 18% in 1976. The front-runner to become Britain’s next prime minister, Liz Truss, is likely to come up with measures to support households hit by surging energy prices, which might slightly lower the peak rate of inflation, Nabarro said. Energy regulator Ofgem is due to set out new maximum tariffs for households on Friday, which will take effect in October.


The last tariff increase in April raised the annual bill for a typical household to 1,971 pounds ($2,322) from 1,278 pounds, following a surge in natural gas prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The next increases are likely to be steeper still, after a 15% rise in natural gas prices over the past week. Citi forecasts Ofgem will raise the tariff cap to the equivalent of 3,717 pounds from October, with further increases to 4,567 pounds in January and 5,816 pounds in April 2023. Energy analysts Cornwall Insight also raised their forecasts for Ofgem’s regulated tariffs to 3,554 pounds for October, 4,650 pounds for January and 5,341 pounds for May. “It is difficult to see how many will cope with the coming winter,” Cornwall Insight consultant Craig Lowrey said.

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“..the UK’s largest GDP slump since 1709..”

UK GDP Saw Its Biggest Drop In 300 Years (RT)

The British economy shrank by 11% in 2020, its largest drop in 300 years, revised data from the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed on Monday. The previous reading had been a 9.3% decline. This happened to be the biggest drop since the ONS began keeping records and the UK’s largest GDP slump since 1709, the year of the ‘Great Frost,’ when the country’s economy shrank by 13.4%, according to historical data provided by the Bank of England. The downward revision was triggered by new data showing the effect the Covid-19 pandemic had on healthcare and individual retailers.


“The health service faced higher costs than we initially estimated, meaning its overall contribution to the economy was lower,” ONS analyst Craig McLaren explained, adding that retailers also faced higher costs, which prompted statisticians to revise their contribution to the economy. In 2021, the British economy largely returned to its pre-pandemic levels. However, since the start of this year, it has been increasingly battered by rising inflation, and analysts now fear the country could tip into recession by the end of the year. The ONS is due to publish its updated growth figures for 2021 and the first half of 2022 in September. The agency routinely updates its GDP estimates when it obtains more data.

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Too much even for Reinhart.

Judge Rejects DOJ Plea To Keep Entire Trump Raid Affidavit Sealed (JTN)

Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Monday formally rejected the Justice Department’s plea to keep sealed the entire affidavit used for the search warrant to raid former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. In a filing Monday morning, Reinhart, who originally approved the warrant, said he rejects “the government’s argument that the present record justifies keeping the entire affidavit under seal,” Fox News reported. The decision was expected, considering Reinhart last week ordered the department to deliver a redacted copy of the affidavit.


Justice officials opposed unsealing the entire affidavit, or even a redacted one, arguing such a move would “provide a roadmap” of the investigation into whether Trump had classified White House documents on the estate and could “chill” other possible witnesses. Reinhart on Monday said the affidavit needs to be at least partially released given the “intense public and historical interest” in the “unprecedented” FBI raid. The department has until Thursday to propose redactions to the affidavit. “Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that by the deadline, the Government shall file under seal a submission addressing possible redactions and providing any additional evidence or legal argument that the Government believes relevant to the pending Motions to Unseal,” the Florida judge wrote in his motion.

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“..immediately STOP the review of documents illegally seized from my home..”

‘STOP the review’: Trump Statement On Motion To Appoint ‘Special Master’ (JTN)

Former President Donald Trump on Monday blasted the FBI’s raid on his home as political persecution in a statement he issued explaining his motion to appoint a special master to review documents the FBI took. The former president on Monday announced that he was seeking the appointment of a “special master” to review the documents the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. “We are demanding the appointment of a SPECIAL MASTER to oversee the handling of the materials taken in the raid,” he said in his Monday statement. “We are now demanding that the Department of “Justice” be instructed to immediately STOP the review of documents illegally seized from my home. ALL documents have been previously declassified,” he continued.

Trump has claimed that he imposed a standing order to declassify documents he took with him to his residence after normal working hours and has pointed to presidential discretion as a basis for claiming legitimate possession of the documents. “The wrongful, overbroad warrant was signed by a Magistrate Judge who recused himself just two months ago, from a MAJOR civil suit that I filed, because of his bias and animus toward me,” Trump wrote. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who issued the warrant, previously recused himself in a civil case Trump brought against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others regarding the Russia collusion scandal.

“This Mar-a-Lago Break-In, Search, and Seizure was illegal and unconstitutional, and we are taking all actions necessary to get the documents back, which we would have given to them without the necessity of the despicable raid of my home, so that I can give them to the National Archives until they are required for the future Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Museum,” the former President continued.

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“In the end, Mr. Obama remained an enigma, passing the baton to Her Inevitableness in 2016 — which she commenced to blow utterly in overestimating her own political charm — she had none —..”

Crazyland (Jim Kunstler)

Something weird happened starting in 2004 when one Barack Obama came onstage at the Democratic convention that nominated the haircut-in-search-of-a-brain called John Kerry. The new star lit up the joint posing as a Great Uniter. And four years later he made a fool of Hillary, cutting her off at the pass from seizing her supposedly ineluctable turn — and supreme glass-ceiling-breaking triumph — as president. Where’d he come from? This pavement-pounding community organizer with the 1000-watt smile? In retrospect, Barack Obama appears to have been manufactured out of some misty Marxist cabal of the Far Left that infested a sub-basement of the Democratic Party. He came on-board in 2009, just as all that skeezy financialization blew up the banks and launched the era of government rescue operations that heaped previously unimaginable quantities of debt on the USA’s already unmanageable burden. Republican George Bush II got the blame for all that and Mr. Obama proceeded to make it a lot worse.

Barack Obama served as liberalism’s bowling trophy, the capstone of the great civil rights crusade: a black president, proof of America’s moral uprightness. He managed to do next to nothing to change the conditions that had wrecked black America — namely, the paternalistic policies that shattered families — but he put up a good front while the country teetered economically. And notice that his DOJ, under Attorney General Eric Holder, managed to avoid prosecuting anyone but mortgage vampire Anthony Mozilo for all the banking crimes of the day. Meanwhile, President Obama took care of Hillary by anointing her Secretary of State, from which perch she grifted tens of millions of dollars into the coffers of the janky Clinton Foundation. Smooth moves there.

In the end, Mr. Obama remained an enigma, passing the baton to Her Inevitableness in 2016 — which she commenced to blow utterly in overestimating her own political charm — she had none — and underestimating the appeal of her opponent, the Golden Golem of Greatness, Donald Trump. Mr. Trump’s astonishing victory apparently disordered Hillary’s mind. She was reportedly too drunk late that election night to even appear at the podium to make the excruciating concession speech. But her Russian Collusion operation ginned up months earlier had already set in motion a great vengeance machine which partisans in the DOJ, FBI, CIA, and State Department ran with through the whole of Mr. Trump’s term in the White House, climaxing in the orchestrated election frauds of 2020, which installed Barack Obama’s empty vessel of a stand-in “Joe Biden” as president.

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LuLa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Aug 212022
 
 August 21, 2022  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Giambologna Colossus of the Apennines 1579-80 (35ft tall)

 

Car Blast Kills Daughter Of Russian Philosopher Dugin (RT)
Modern Empires Keep Taking What They Want From ‘Lesser’ Powers (Kovalik)
Russian Soldiers In Ukraine Hospitalized With Severe Chemical Poisoning (RT)
Two Lives: Victoria and Victorine (Batiushka)
Russia Continues To Stockpile Forex Reserves (RT)
UN Recruited Over 100,000 Digital First Responders to Push COVID Narrative (SN)
Houston, We Have a Problem – Part 1 of 3 (Ethical Skeptic)
Insufficient Vitamin D Linked To Fourfold Increase In Covid-19 Mortality (IT)
China Backs African Union Bid To Join The Group of 20 (SCMP)
Chinese Ambassador Outlines BRICS Vision (RT)
Millions Could Be Left Without Heat And Food In Winter, London Mayor Warns (RT)
Just How Bad Could Things Get This Winter? (RT)
Swiss Revolt Warning Issued (RT)
Amish Farmer Fighting US Government For Right To Sell His All-natural Food (RN)
Dutch Farmers Confront Billionaire ‘Green’ Elite’s Food System Reset Plan (GZ)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biden’s bribe tapes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too early to say if the father was the intended target. But Putin can’t let cars be blown up near Moscow. He has to act.

Car Blast Kills Daughter Of Russian Philosopher Dugin (RT)

A powerful explosion ripped apart an SUV near Moscow on Saturday night, instantly killing its driver. According to preliminary reports, the victim was identified as Darya Dugina, the daughter of a veteran Russian political commentator Alexander Dugin, who is often painted in the West as one of the Kremlin’s “ideological masterminds.” The incident took place on a highway some 20 kilometers west of Moscow around 21:35 local time, with witnesses saying that the blast rocked the vehicle right in the middle of the road, scattering debris all around. The crippled car, fully engulfed in flames, then crashed into a fence, according to photos and videos from the scene. Emergency services said one person was inside the car and was instantly killed by the blast and crash – a female whose body was reportedly recovered burned beyond recognition.

Authorities have yet to officially confirm the identity of the victim, but multiple Russian Telegram channels and media sources reported that the victim was 30-year-old Darya Dugina (Platonova). Her father, Alexander Dugin, was spotted at the scene soon after the incident, visibly shocked, according to several videos circulating on social media. Preliminary reports suggested that a home-made explosive device might have been involved, but investigators have yet to confirm the cause of the blast, or any possible motive in case of a foul play. Earlier on Saturday evening, Aleksandr Dugin was giving a lecture on “Tradition and History”at a traditional family festival in the Moscow region, while his daughter attended the event as a guest. Some unconfirmed reports suggested that Dugin initially planned to leave the festival alongside his daughter, but later decided to take a separate car, while Darya took his Toyota Land Cruiser Prado.

Darya Dugina was a political commentator and daughter of Professor Aleksandr Dugin – a veteran Russian philosopher known for his staunch anti-Western and “neo-Eurasian” views. Western media repeatedly painted Dugin as one of the driving forces behind President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy over the past decade. Just in recent months, CBS dubbed him “the far-right theorist behind Putin’s plan,” while the Washington Post called him a “far-right mystical writer who helped shape Putin’s view of Russia.” n Russia, however, the supposed shadowy puppet master is largely considered to be a relatively marginal figure with some of his views deemed controversial even in nationalist circles. While he has served as an adviser to several politicians, Dugin never enjoyed official endorsement from the Kremlin.

Dugina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1561151146580152320

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“A child asks his parent, “Why are there pyramids in Egypt?” The parent answers, “Because they were too big to take to Britain.“

Modern Empires Keep Taking What They Want From ‘Lesser’ Powers (Kovalik)

There is an old joke which still has resonance. A child asks his parent, “Why are there pyramids in Egypt?” The parent answers, “Because they were too big to take to Britain.” Of course, many a true word is spoken in jest. Indeed, there is an apocryphal story that back in the day when Vladimir Lenin was in exile in London, he would enjoy taking friends to the British Museum and explaining to them how and from what far-flung lands all the antiquities there were stolen. One might have thought that these days of colonial plunder had ended, but one would be very wrong. Current examples abound. A notable one is, of course, the freezing by the US of $7 billion from the Afghanistan treasury – monies the US continues to hold even as it watches Afghans begin to die from starvation.

Apparently, the US believes that, after laying waste to Afghanistan through 20 years of war and, even before that by supporting the mujahideen terrorists, it is entitled to some compensation. This upside-down type of reasoning abounds in the minds of those in the West who simply believe they can take whatever they wish. Similarly, the US is now plundering Syria – another country utterly devastated in no small part by Washington-backed militants in a campaign to overthrow the elected president – of most of its oil, even as Syria suffers from severe energy blackouts. Thus, according to the Syrian Oil Ministry, “US occupation forces and their mercenaries,” referring to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), “steal up to 66,000 barrels every single day from the fields occupied in the eastern region,” amounting to around 83 percent of Syria’s daily oil production.

According to the ministry’s data, the Syrian oil sector has incurred losses of “about $105 billion since the beginning of the war until the middle of this year” as a result of the US oil theft campaign. Additionally, the statement added that alongside the financial losses incurred by the oil sector were “losses of life, including 235 martyrs, 46 injured and 112 kidnapped.” One of the biggest heists the US has carried out is against Russia. After the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the US seized an incredible $300 billion of Russian treasury funds which were deposited abroad. This was done, of course, without any due process, and to the great detriment of the Russian people – and with barely a critical word from Western pundits.

The US treatment of Venezuela abounds with other examples. As I write these words, the US is maneuvering to seize a commercial 747 airliner from Venezuela on the grounds that it once belonged to an Iranian airline which had some connection to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (which Washington has designated as terrorists) – which might sound like a tenuous justification, but the US really needs no reason. And this is simply the tip of the iceberg. The US has already seized Venezuela’s biggest single source of revenue – its US-based oil company CITGO – and is now in the process of selling off this company in pieces, even as Washington lifts restrictions on Venezuelan oil to shore up its own economy. The UK, meanwhile, has decided to keep over $1 billion in gold which Venezuela naively deposited in the Bank of England for safe-keeping. To add insult to injury, the US continues to criticize Venezuela for the hardships its people endure as a direct consequence of this plunder.

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Botulinum toxin.

Russian Soldiers In Ukraine Hospitalized With Severe Chemical Poisoning (RT)

Several Russian soldiers involved in the military operation in Ukraine have been hospitalized with severe chemical poisoning, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday. Traces of Botulinum toxin Type B, which is an “organic poison of artificial origin,” have been discovered in samples taken from the servicemen, the ministry said, accusing Kiev of “chemical terrorism.” The Russian troops were “hospitalized with signs of severe poisoning” after being stationed near the village of Vasilyevka in Zaporozhye Region on July 31, the statement said. “The Zelensky regime has authorized terrorist attacks with the use of toxic substances against Russian personnel and civilians” following a string of military defeats in Donbass and other areas, the ministry insisted.


Moscow plans to send laboratory tests from the soldiers to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Botulinum toxin, often called the “miracle poison,” is one of the most toxic biological substances known to science. Produced by the Clostridium botulinum bacteria, it blocks the release of the acetylcholine neurotransmitter, causing muscle paralysis. Botulinum toxin Type A has been used in medicine in small doses in recent decades, especially to treat disorders characterized by overactive muscle movement. It’s also well known in cosmetology under its shortened name, Botox. However, Botulinum toxin poses a major threat as a bioweapon due its ease of production and distribution, and the high fatality rate resulting from poisoning. Recovery is only possible after a lengthy period of intensive care.

Donbass residents

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“How does she sleep at night?”

Two Lives: Victoria and Victorine (Batiushka)

Victoria Jane Nuland was born in 1961 to Sherwin Nudelman, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, and a British-born mother, Rhona Goulston. Already in his teens Nudelman had changed his name to Nuland in order to carve out a career. With the British-named Victoria, an Anglo-Zionist was clearly in the making. Indeed, she duly studied at an elite private boarding school in Connecticut, whose alumni include many US politicians. Then she went to Brown University, where she studied Russian literature, political science and history. She married Robert Kagan, the future leading Jewish neocon. Her worldview relects exactly the folly of the US since 1990 under the influence of the neo-imperialist neocons and Blairite-Clintonian ‘liberal interventionists’.

This has resulted in mass poverty in the USA, as well as 9/11, and millions of deaths in wars and tensions outside the US with the Islamic world, Iran, Russia, China and anyone else that resists US imperialism. From 2003 to 2005, during the US rape of defenceless Iraq and the theft of its oil and gas, Mrs Kagan was a foreign policy advisor to the notorious Cheney. She must have many deaths on her conscience from that particular mess. The Iraq catastrophe led to terrorism and counterterrorism and disastrous new wars in Libya and Syria. Meanwhile, her husband was demanding an ever more warlike foreign policy against the background of US fears of the coming multipolar world, a world which it would no longer be able to dominate.

So Mrs Kagan, who yearned for permanent NATO expansion and the encirclement of Russia, was deeply involved in the US ‘regime-change’, that is, the plot to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically-elected government by violence in 2014. This led to America’s responsibility for the ensuing civil war that had killed at least 14,000 people, women and children among them, even before 24 February 2022 and had left Ukraine the poorest country in Europe. Her $5 billion coup in 2014 in the wretched Ukraine, a strategic candidate for NATO on Russia’s border, was implemented through Oleh Tyahnybok’s neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and the new Right Sector militia. We do not forget that it was Tyanhnybok who had delivered a speech praising Ukrainians for fighting Jews and ‘other scum’ during World War II.

In February 2014 their protests in Kyiv’s Maidan Square turned into running battles led by neo-Nazis and extreme right-wing forces that the US had financed and orchestrated. A mob led by the Right Sector militia marched on Parliament and the President and others fled for their lives. Facing the possible loss of its naval base in Sevastopol in the Crimea, Russia accepted the overwhelming result (a 97% majority) of an internationally-observed referendum in which Crimea voted to leave the Ukraine and rejoin Russia, of which it had been a part from 1783 to 1954. The Russian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, part of Russia until the terrorist Communists had given them away to the Ukraine in 1922, similarly declared independence from Neo-Nazi Kiev. This starting a bloody war between US-backed separatists in Kiev and the local Eastern Ukrainian people.

Mrs Kagan wants an ever-more dangerous War with Russia and China to justify her militarist foreign policy and Pentagon budgets. She relies on her mythical version of Russian aggression and US ‘democratic’ intentions. She claims that Russia’s military budget, one-tenth of that of the US, is proof of ‘Russian confrontation and militarisation’. She wants ‘permanent bases along NATO’s eastern border’ and sees Russia’s desire to defend itself after so many successive (and failed) Western invasions as an obstacle to NATO’s expansionism. In short, the deluded Mrs Kagan has with others unleashed intractable violence, chaos and the risk of nuclear war. How does she sleep at night?

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Feb 2022: $643.2 billion. Half of that was frozen. Now it’s back up to $580.6 billion. In assets that can’t be frozen.

Russia Continues To Stockpile Forex Reserves (RT)

Russia’s international holdings have reached $580.6 billion as of August 12, according to data published by the country’s central bank on Thursday. Moscow has been boosting its reserves as a shield against sanctions. The central bank regularly publishes updates on its reserves with a one-week lag. International reserves consist of foreign-currency funds, special drawing rights with the IMF and monetary gold. Total reserves surged by $5.8 billion from the previous week, the regulator said, noting that the 1% rise was due to a positive market revaluation.


The historical maximum of $643.2 billion was recorded in February 2022. Russia lost access to roughly half of its foreign reserves in early March after they were frozen by Western central banks as part of sanctions introduced by the US and its allies in response to the conflict in Ukraine. Despite this, the Russian Finance Ministry said the country would be able to cope with sanctions thanks to its abundant reserves.

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“..we’ve recruited 110,000 information volunteers..”

UN Recruited Over 100,000 Digital First Responders to Push COVID Narrative (SN)

At the height of the pandemic, the United Nations recruited over 100,000 “digital first responders’ to push the establishment narrative on COVID via social media. The revelation actually slipped out in October 2020 during a World Economic Forum podcast called ‘Seeking a cure for the infodemic’, although it is only going viral on Twitter today. In the podcast, Melissa Fleming, head of global communications for the United Nations, explains how the COVID pandemic and lockdowns created a “communications crisis” in addition to a public health emergency. Fleming acknowledged that in order to fight so-called “misinformation” about the pandemic, the UN tapped up 110,000 people to amplify their messaging across social media.

“So far, we’ve recruited 110,000 information volunteers, and we equip these information volunteers with the kind of knowledge about how misinformation spreads and ask them to serve as kind of ‘digital first-responders’ in those spaces where misinformation travels,” Fleming stated. That was nearly 2 years ago. It is not known how many ‘digital first responders’ have been recruited up to this point. Similar efforts to create astroturf campaigns to push a specific message are nothing new, but when entities such as oil companies engage in it, they are lambasted for rigging the discussion. However, when globalist technocrats at the UN or the WEF do it, apparently it’s fine.

Last year, it was revealed that the British government used “propagandistic” fear tactics to scare the public into mass compliance during the first COVID lockdown, according to a behavioral scientist who worked inside Downing Street. Scientists in the UK working as advisors for the government admitted using what they later conceded to be “unethical” and “totalitarian” methods of instilling fear in the population in order to control behavior during the pandemic.

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Epic from The Ethical Skeptic. “The following work is the result of thousands of hours of dynamic data tracking and research..”

Houston, We Have a Problem – Part 1 of 3 (Ethical Skeptic)

Seven of the major eleven International Classification of Diseases codes tracked by the US National Center for Health Statistics exhibit stark increase trends beginning in the first week of April 2021 – featuring exceptional growth more robust than during even the Covid-19 pandemic time frame. This date of inception is no coincidence, in that it also happens to coincide with a key inflection point regarding a specific body-system intervention in most of the US population. These seven pronounced increases in mortality alarmingly persist even now.

The following work is the result of thousands of hours of dynamic data tracking and research on the part of its author. The reader should anticipate herein, a journey which will take them through the methods and metrics which serve to identify this problem, along with a deductive assessment of the candidate causal mechanisms behind it. Alternatives as to cause which include one mechanism in particular, that is embargoed from being allowed as an explanation, nor even mere mention in some forums. At the end of this process, we will be left with one inescapable conclusion. One which threatens the very fabric and future of health policy in the US for decades to come.

On March 21st 2021, a longtime mentor, friend, and business partner of mine, an otherwise healthy 68 year old male, unexpectedly suffered an autoimmune cascade which ended up shutting down his pancreas, liver, kidneys, and finally heart. He had just received his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on that Thursday prior. Carl quickly descended into a coma, and then died on March 26th.1

On May 29th 2021, a rather odd signal began to develop in my regular Covid-19 tracking models. The change which alerted me resided inside the magnitude of the ‘Symptoms, signs and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings, not elsewhere classified (R00-R99)’ ICD death code group. About this time and as a result of this observation, I began to track R00-R99 deaths, along with eleven other ICD-10 death codes, non-natural cause deaths (suicide, overdose, assault, etc.), and finally a statistic called ‘Excess Non-Covid Natural Cause Deaths’. As the reader reviews the calculated trends featured inside each of these death categorizations, they should note that this was indeed both a prescient and sound decision.

On December 1st of 2021, attending a business meeting at client’s medical complex, passing through the facility I took notice that their large oncology department waiting room was slammed full with patients. This queue of persons awaiting their oncology appointments spilled out into the hallway and finally on into the building atrium.2 While tempted at first blush to pass this off as a result of patients and their physicians ‘catching up on deferred screenings’ and/or ‘Covid-limited office days/hours effect’, my prior observational lessons suggested that I hold-off on such a knee-jerk inference, at least until the CDC – National Center for Health Statistics data (three bullet point sources below) proved out over the coming months. This as well, proved to be a wise decision.

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Is there even one country today with a Vit. D program? This article, too, does not define a satisfactory level. Why is it so hard?

Insufficient Vitamin D Linked To Fourfold Increase In Covid-19 Mortality (IT)

Covid-19 patients with low vitamin D levels are more likely to suffer severe disease and death, according to a study by Irish scientists. Unvaccinated Caucasian adults with low vitamin D have higher mortality due to Sars CoV-2 pneumonia, according to the small-scale study by researchers at Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown and Technological University Dublin. This is not explained by confounders such as age or obesity and is not closely linked to inflammation, they say. Having an insufficient level of vitamin D was associated with a greater than fourfold increased mortality risk, according to the study, published in the journal Nutrients.

The study looked at the outcomes of 232 unvaccinated patients at Connolly hospital, all of whom had Covid-19 and required supplemental oxygen. Patients on steroid treatment were not recruited for the study in order, the authors say, to eliminate the effect their use might have on measures of both vitamin D and inflammation. The mortality rate among patients aged under 70 and who had “insufficient” vitamin D levels (less than 30 nanomoles per litre) was 11.8 per cent, compared to 2.2 per cent who had higher vitamin levels (greater than 30 nanomoles per litre). Among over-70s, the mortality rate for those with insufficient vitamin D levels was 55 per cent, compared to 25 per cent for those with high vitamin D levels.

“Unvaccinated Caucasian adults with a low vitamin D state have higher mortality due to Sars CoV-2 pneumonia, which is not explained by confounders and is not closely linked with elevated serum CRP (C-reactive protein, an indicator of inflammation),” the authors state. The authors say their data adds to a growing body of literature that appears to support a causal link between low vitamin D status and Covid-19 disease severity and death. Although the research was conducted only on unvaccinated patients, they say vitamin D supplementation may play a vital role in protecting both unvaccinated patients and patients in whom the effect of vaccination wanes. Vitamin D is available from sunlight and in foods such as fish, eggs and fortified cereals. About half the Irish population is deficient in the vitamin.

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As NATO tries to get Zelensky in.

China Backs African Union Bid To Join The Group of 20 (SCMP)

Beijing will support the African Union in its decades-long quest to join the G20, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Thursday, as China vies with other powers for influence on the continent. South Africa is the only representative of the continent in the Group of 20 despite the African Union pushing for inclusion since its creation in 1999. Indonesian President Joko Widodo said last month he would invite the African bloc, representing 55 countries and 1.4 billion people, to the G20 summit in Bali in November to help the continent’s bid. The G20 comprises 19 countries and the European Union. European Council president Charles Michel also voiced his support last month for the AU’s bid for the G20.

Wang’s pledge also came as Widodo told Bloomberg on Thursday that Chinese President Xi Jinping planned to attend the Bali summit in person, along with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Xi could meet US President Joe Biden, who is also expected to attend the gathering. If so, it would be the first in-person meeting for the two leaders since Biden took office last year. Beijing and Washington are at odds on everything from Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While the Biden administration has moved to expand its global alliances to counter China’s rise, Beijing has responded by focusing on shoring up ties with developing countries in Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. A seat for the African Union at G20 is believed to be in Beijing’s interests in rallying support to counterbalance the US-led West.

Speaking at a virtual meeting with his African counterparts, Wang hailed African support for Beijing’s “one-China principle” and described their ties as “a pillar force” in defending the rights and interests of developing countries. “In the face of the various forms of hegemonic and bullying practices, China and Africa have stood with each other shoulder to shoulder,” he said. In a veiled swipe at US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Africa early this month, he also tried to present Beijing as an alternative to Washington and defend his country’s expanding presence there. “What Africa wishes for is a favourable and amicable cooperation environment, not the zero-sum cold war mentality. What Africa would welcome is mutually beneficial cooperation for the greater well-being of the people, not major-country rivalry for geopolitical gains,” he said.

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As the west disintegrates, east and south unite.

Chinese Ambassador Outlines BRICS Vision (RT)

Russia and China remain key pillars of BRICS, an international alliance also comprising India, Brazil and South Africa, the Chinese ambassador to Moscow wrote in a guest opinion piece for Russia’s TASS news agency, published on Saturday. The two nations are the major “drivers” behind the development of the group, which is gradually becoming a leading force in the international arena, Zhang Hanhui, added. The BRICS countries account for 42% of the world’s population and 25% of the global economy, Zhang said, adding that they account for roughly half of global economic growth, meaning that “the value of cooperation within BRICS is constantly rising.”

The group of emerging economies is increasingly attracting the attention of other nations, the envoy said, noting that representatives of 50 countries took part in various BRICS+ events in the first half of this year alone. He also welcomed the development of the BRICS+ format, which allows other countries to join the group’s permanent members in certain discussions. Three such events this year were attended by the leaders of 13 non-BRICS states, Zhang said. International challenges, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine conflict and rising tensions between major world powers, demand that Moscow and Beijing “strengthen their strategic cooperation,” the ambassador said, adding that BRICS should also “support efforts opposing hegemony and contribute to the establishment of real multilateralism” in international relations.

The ambassador pointed out that since the start of 2022, the BRICS nations have agreed on several initiatives in the field of economic digitalization and technology sharing. Beijing, which heads the group this year, has put forward a number of initiatives that would further enhance cooperation between members in the fields of innovation, he added. The Covid-19 pandemic also demonstrated the need for closer cooperation in medical research, the ambassador said, pointing to the need for sharing healthcare products with developing nations to help them overcome the pandemic. Zhang noted that in March, the BRICS countries launched a joint vaccine development center, offering joint research and development platforms to developing nations.

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Hey, Khan! Talk to Putin!

Millions Could Be Left Without Heat And Food In Winter, London Mayor Warns (RT)

Millions of people in the UK could find themselves unable to put food on the table and heat their homes this coming winter if the government doesn’t intervene, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Saturday. “We’ve seen nothing like this before,” Khan wrote on Twitter, referring to soaring energy prices and record inflation of more than 10%. “We’re facing a winter where for millions it won’t be about choosing between heating or eating but tragically being able to afford neither,” he warned. “This can’t happen,” the mayor insisted, adding that the British government “needs to step in so that people can meet their basic needs.”

He accompanied the post with a data from the Auxilione energy consultancy, predicting that energy bills in the UK could increase by 80% in October, exceeding £3,600 ($4,292) per year on average. For comparison, the cap set by energy industry regulator, Ofgem, in October 2021 stood at £1,400 per year. Khan also spoke on the same issue on Friday while visiting a warehouse that distributes supplies to food banks in one of London’s boroughs. He gave assurances that his administration is“committed” to providing support for struggling Londoners, but called on the government to work harder, as there is “no sign of this rise in costs slowing down”.

“Ministers must act now to help prevent this cost of living crisis becoming a national disaster,” the mayor said. Economic difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe have been further exacerbated by Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine and the subsequent decrease in Russian natural gas supplies to the EU.

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“Europe really needs to act as a negotiator between NATO, Russia and Ukraine, and include China in the discussions..”

Just How Bad Could Things Get This Winter? (RT)

Natural gas prices across Europe have quadrupled this year. Looking ahead to winter and imagining the new heights energy values may hit, consumers are starting to opt for an alternative (old) form of heating – wood. Huge demand for combustibles, as well as for wood stoves, has been detected in several Western states. In Germany, where almost a half of homes are heated with gas, people are turning to a more guaranteed energy source. Firewood sellers tell local media that they are barely coping with the demand. The country is also witnessing a rise in cases of wood theft. Next door, in the Netherlands, business owners note that their clients are buying wood earlier than ever. In Belgium, wood producers are struggling with demand, while prices are going up – as they are across the region.

In Denmark, one local stove manufacturer told the media that, while demand for his product was on the rise since the start of the Covid pandemic, this year’s profit is forecast to reach over 16 million kroner (€2 million), compared with 2.4 million in 2019. A huge increase. Even Hungary, a country that didn’t support the EU’s decision to phase out Russian fossil fuels and agreed a new gas purchase with Moscow this summer, is making preparations for a tough winter. The country has announced a ban on the export of firewood and relaxed some restrictions on logging. The World Wildlife Fund Hungary has expressed its concern on the matter, declaring: “There has been no precedent for such a decision in our country for decades.” In fact, the conflict in Ukraine is not the only reason for the energy crisis. The increase in prices had already been observed in 2021.

“It was the effect of supply chain interruptions due to COVID, a very cold winter, very hot summer and China’s energy crisis, that led to [the] buying [of] huge amounts of LNG around the world,” says Professor Phoebe Koundouri, Director of the Research laboratory on Socio-Economic and Environmental Sustainability at Athens University of Economics and Business, and President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. When the conflict in Ukraine came about, the sanctions against Russia – followed by Moscow’s response to the restrictions – sent prices through roof. “Europe really needs to act as a negotiator between NATO, Russia and Ukraine, and include China in the discussions, in order to find a solution that is meaningful for the millions of people that are being affected by this geopolitical crisis,” Prof. Koundourisays.

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“It is conceivable that the population would rebel or that there would be looting..”

Swiss Revolt Warning Issued (RT)

Swiss people may revolt and resort to looting if the Alpine nation is hit by a severe energy crunch this winter, the police chief of one of its cantons told local media on Saturday. Fredy Fassler, the head of the Security and Justice Department in the canton of St. Gallen, told German-language daily Blick that a blackout would have “far-reaching consequences.” “Imagine, you can no longer withdraw money at the ATM, you can no longer pay with the card in the store or refuel your tank at the gas station. Heating stops working. It’s cold. Streets go dark. It is conceivable that the population would rebel or that there would be looting,” he said, adding that the country’s authorities should take measures to prepare for such extreme scenarios. According to Fassler, while he does not think such a disaster is likely, police have prepared for such an eventuality.


Exercises that were conducted in 2014 to prepare for a blackout scenario revealed major shortcomings, including lack of emergency generators for police, hospitals and other critical infrastructure and services, he said. “These shortcomings have been addressed in recent years, so the security forces are ready,” the police chief added, noting that his agency is even prepared to provide the Swiss with cash if they are unable to use cards in stores, given that relevant agreements with banks have been signed. Fassler’s comments come after Swiss authorities said last week that they may place restrictions on energy consumption this coming winter, signaling that “power shortages [are] among the most serious risks” for the landlocked country. Earlier, Werner Luginbuhl, the head of Switzerland’s electricity regulator ElCom, complained that electricity was being used “completely thoughtlessly,” and urged citizens to stock up on candles and firewood due to possible power outages in the country this winter.

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“..I think going through your regulatory process will actually hurt the quality of my food and that’s what I’m being paid top dollar for, it is this high quality food.”

Amish Farmer Fighting US Government For Right To Sell His All-natural Food (RN)

Miller’s Organic Farm is located in the remote Amish village of Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania. The farm supplies everything from grass-fed beef and cheese, to raw milk and organic eggs, to dairy from grass-fed water buffalo and all types of produce, all to roughly 4,000 private food club members who pay top dollar for high quality whole food. The private food club members appreciate their freedom to get food from an independent farmer that isn’t processing his meat and dairy at U.S. Department of Agriculture facilities, which mandates that food be prepared in ways that Miller’s Organic Farm believe make it less nutritious. Amos Miller, the farm’s owner, contends that he’s preparing food the way God intended — but the U.S. government doesn’t see things that way. They recently sent armed federal agents to the farm and demanded he cease operations. The government is also looking to issue more than $300,000 in fines — a request so steep, it would put the farm out of business.

“There’s this farmer named Amos Miller and he’s been farming for 25 years. No electricity, no fertilizer, no gasoline. He has really, really impressive crop yields using only the only the oldest of methods, totally organic. He has milk, he has beef, he has different types of sheep. He has chicken, all types of vegetables. And he has a private buyers club of about 4,000 people all across the country that pay him top dollar for his food. And the government doesn’t like this idea of a private buyers club. They have raided his farm with armed federal agents and they have said he needs to stop selling his meat until he gets regulated by the federal agencies whose job it is to, you know, regulate food.

And he says, “you know, the way you guys regulate it, it kind of hurts the nutrition of the food — you know, you wash it in these things, you’ve given these vaccines and the cows get all types of medicine, I don’t do any of that. So I think going through your regulatory process will actually hurt the quality of my food and that’s what I’m being paid top dollar for, it is this high quality food.” So they are fining him hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they’ve actually sent armed federal agents there to take inventory of his meat, of his dairy, and they visit him to make sure that he’s not selling anything and that he’s not ramping up his production in any way. So that’s where he is now. He’s figuring out how to fight the federal government, what he’s going to do. And you know, he’s been put in this really tight spot along with the people who, you know, look to him for this food. They’re not getting their meat and dairy right now because of the government.

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“No farms, no food.”

Dutch Farmers Confront Billionaire ‘Green’ Elite’s Food System Reset Plan (GZ)

Dutch farmers’ protests offer a preview of the resistance to come as transnational “green” billionaires advance a “reset” of the global food system. The elite agenda threatens to deepen an international cost of living crisis and spark unrest well beyond The Netherlands. Ingrid de Sain is a Dutch farmer who lives in the Northern Holland town of Schellinkhout, where she and her family tend to a 62 acre farm with about 100 dairy cows. Like thousands of fellow citizens in her industry, she now finds herself locked in an existential conflict with her government. “Farming is in your heart,” de Sain told The Grayzone. “And you don’t want to do something else. You’re a farmer or you’re not.” She says she will oppose any efforts requiring her to give up a farm that guarantees prosperity for future generations of her family.

The Dutch government announced plans to slash nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions in June 2022, enforcing an ambitious agenda in the name of protecting the climate. The imposed reductions could spell devastating consequences for the country’s farming industry and add enormous stress to already chaotic global food supply chains. Today, the Netherlands is Europe’s top exporter of meat and the second largest agricultural exporter overall in the world, right behind the US. The tiny nation’s agricultural success is the product of its traditional dependence on generously sized farms that use nitrogen-rich fertilizer to produce heavy yields. Such methods were encouraged by Brussels through the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, which prioritized the growth of cattle lots, incentivized the use of chemical fertilizers, and pushed many smaller family farmers out of operation.

In 2019, a Dutch court order declared in 2019 that nitrogen-compound fertilizer was a top threat to the climate and biodiversity, and mandated a 70-80% decrease in its use. If implemented in the country, the proposed reductions could destroy a full third of its farming output and eliminate somewhere between 30 and 50% of Dutch livestock. The stage was set for open conflict. Once the pro-EU coalition government of Dutch PM Mark Rutte took steps to implement the restrictions in June 2022, local farmers responded immediately with ferocious mass protests that have blocked roads, airports, and grocery distribution centers. Since the outbreak of demonstrations, supermarkets shelves have gone empty as the farmers’ cry of “No farms, no food” reverberates nationwide.

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Same bike, same couple – 1955 and 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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