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Debt Rattle April 9 2022

Apr 092022

April 9, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:08 am Finance Tagged with: atrocity, Azov, Biden, Bucha, Durham, Le Pen, Shanghai, Tiddlywinks, warlord 55 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Head and guitar 1927

• “The Russians” Commit Yet Another “Atrocity” (Saker)

• US Oil Imports From Russia Increase By 43% (AMD)

• US Lawmakers Welcomed Georgian Warlord Who Boasts Of War Crimes In Ukraine (GZ)

• Leviathan Floundering (Kunstler)

• Worsening Food Price Increases Gain Global Attention (CTH)

• 833 Athlete Cardiac Arrests and Serious Issues, 540 Dead, Following Jab (DE)

• Shanghai Reports 7th Day Of Record Cases

• Billionaires Are Backing Bitcoin Over “Fiat Fraud” (ZH)

• Durham Seeks to Force Clinton Campaign and DNC to Turn Over Evidence (Turley)

• Hunter Biden Makes Watergate Look Like ‘Tiddlywinks’ – Rep. Tenney (NM)

• French Elections: Marine Le Pen Gains Ground On ‘Feverish’ Macron (Exp.)

• The Death of Representative Democracy (ITT)

BIDEN: "I was in the the foothills of the Himalayas with Xi Jinping, traveling with him, that's when I traveled 17,000 miles when I was Vice President. I don't know that for a fact." pic.twitter.com/hoiGCUGckR

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 8, 2022

These things have numbers written on them. Should be easy to find out.

• “The Russians” Commit Yet Another “Atrocity” (Saker)

The big news today is that those evil Russkies have fired a Tochka-U missile with a cluster warhead at the city of Kramatorsk, killing scores of innocent civilians. The “entire civilized world” is disgusted and immediately announced even MORE sanctions, MORE condemnation and MORE anti-Russian virtue signalling. Minor problem: Russia does not have Tochka-U missiles, which are 30 year old Soviet missiles which have been far surpassed by modern Russian missiles (of which Russia has plenty enough). How do we know that it was Tochka-U which was used? Because of the tail section which separates from the warhead during the flight. Here it is:

No Russian tactical missile in service with such a tail section, and only the Ukrainian Tochka-U have.

Tochka-U tail and control surfaces

How much of a problem is that for the Empire of Hate and Lies? Very minor, really. Remember that their PSYOPS are directed at two kind of people: • Those with low intelligence • Those who don’t care about the truth. Russia did not have the old-model Buk which allegedly shot down MH-17 either, which did not stop the Empire of Hate and Lies to instantly blame the shooting down on Russia. And Russia has long liquidated her chemical weapons stores, unlike the US or the UK, by the way. But who cares about that when hating Russia and Russians is all which really matters? In fact, this is straight out of the western PSYOPs book:

• Execute a false flag, then • INSTANTLY blame Russia and lean on all your colonies to do the same in the name of western “solidarity” Thereby make absolutely certain that no real investigation can take place or, if it does, it will be so far down the road that nobody will care. So we have a major false flag in Bucha, and now we have that Tochka-U in Kramatorsk. What will come next? God only knows, but the goal is to associate “Russians” with “atrocities” in what is left of the mind of the eagerly scatophaging serfs in Zone A.

When you weren’t looking….

• US Oil Imports From Russia Increase By 43% (AMD)

According to the Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Mikhail Popov on Sunday, the US increased its imports of Russian oil by 43% in the last week, totaling 100,000 barrels a day. Popov told Komsomolskaya Pravda news that “the US forced Europeans to introduce anti-Russian sanctions, while not only continuing to import oil from Russia but increasing volume of [oil] deliveries for the past week by 43% up to 100,000 barrels per day!” The Deputy Secretary also detailed that Washington imported fertilizers from Russia while listing them as essential goods. The US last month announced a ban on Russian oil, natural gas, and coal imports as a response to the Russian operation in Ukraine.

Former US colonel and Eurasia Center Vice President, Earl Rasmussen, said the European Union’s latest sanctions and economic retaliation against Russia will backfire and cause a massive recession in Europe. Rasmussen, who previously said that US troop deployment to Ukraine deters efforts to solve the conflict, said the European sanctions against Russia will throw Europe into a “historical recession”. The colonel stated that despite repeated assurances from Biden, Washington is in no condition to replace Russia’s plentiful and cheap supplies of natural gas to Europe with any alternative energy supply that is remotely comparable in either scale or cost.

2017.

• US Lawmakers Welcomed Georgian Warlord Who Boasts Of War Crimes In Ukraine (GZ)

Having taken up arms against Russia for a fifth time, Georgian Legion commander Mamuka Mamulashvili has bragged on video about his unit carrying out field executions of captured Russian soldiers in Ukraine. While Western media pundits howled about images of dead bodies in the city of Bucha, echoing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy’s accusation that Russia is guilty of “genocide,” they have largely overlooked the apparent admission of atrocities by an avowed ally of the United States who was welcomed on Capitol Hill by senior lawmakers overseeing congressional foreign policy committees.

Having fought in four wars against Russia, and despite allegations that he played a leading role in the massacre of 49 protesters in Kiev’s Maidan Square in 2014, Mamulashvili has taken multiple trips to the United States, where he received a warm welcome from members of Congress, the New York Police Department, and Ukrainian diaspora community. In an interview this April, Mamulashvili, was asked about a video showing Russian fighters who had been extrajudicially executed in Dmitrovka, a town just five miles from Bucha. Mamulashvili was candid about his unit’s take-no-prisoners tactics, though he has denied involvement in the specific crimes depicted.

“We will not take Russian soldiers, as well as Kadyrovites [Chechnyan fighters]; in any case, we will not take prisoners, not a single person will be captured,” Mamulashvili said, implying that his fighters execute POWs. “Yes, we tie their hands and feet sometimes. I speak for the Georgian Legion, we will never take Russian soldiers prisoner. Not a single one of them will be taken prisoner,” Mamulashvili emphasized Executions of enemy combatants are considered war crimes under the Geneva Convention. Western governments continue to block a Russian request for a United Nations investigation into alleged massacres in Bucha, where scores of corpses were photographed following the Russian withdrawal from the city, some with hands bound and shot execution style – as Mamulashvili described doing to prisoners.

While the events in Bucha have become a source of outrage and heated contention, a clear case of war crimes by Ukrainian forces which took place just five miles down the road on March 30 as Russian troops withdrew has received a more muted response despite coverage by the New York Times. The macabre footage shows Russian paratroopers dead or bleeding out in the road, some with their hands clearly bound — reportedly the handiwork of the Georgian Legion.

Zelensky Azov

“..our broke-down Bretton Woods fiat money system becomes the new “barbarous relic” of global finance..”

• Leviathan Floundering (Kunstler)

Is it true, as is hotly rumored now, that the mRNA shots lead uniformly to autoimmune deficiency syndrome? Ditto the alarming rise in cancer cases among the vaxxed… ditto heart damage, organ damage, grievous neurological damage? We’ll know a lot more about this in May and June, and it’s hard to imagine what the collective emotional reaction will be if all that turns out to be true. Never in history will so many face the prospect of an untimely death, and at the hands of such banal bureaucratic villainy. Will they just compliantly check out of this world, the same way they lined up for their vaxxes and boosters, or finally rage against that machine?

The latest venture in unreality these days spills out of Russia’s operation in Ukraine. The mind-fuckery over it sure seems advantageously amplified here as a cover for the tragic developments in the Covid-19 vaxx melodrama and other domestic torments. All the evidence suggests that our country’s leadership wanted this war to happen in the worst way. We set up the provocations in Donbas and let’er rip. Now we posture on the sidelines, crying crocodile tears, pretending to help while sabotaging peace talks. What’s followed in our attempts to punish The Evil Putin (the source of all our problems) is the most feckless fiasco of unanticipated consequences since Kaiser Wilhelm gave the go-ahead to Austria to punish Serbia over the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. Voila: a World War. Only in this case it’s looking more like a suicidal economic war by Western Civ on itself.

How are those sanctions working out? No fuel for German industry… no fertilizer for Iowa farmers… no nickel and other metals to make machine parts for Europe and America…. And suddenly, having kicked Russia out of the international trade payment clearing system (SWIFT), we’ve provoked them to resort to backing the ruble with gold, meaning that our broke-down Bretton Woods fiat money system becomes the new “barbarous relic” of global finance, leaving the West to pound sand down a rat hole, while the other two-thirds of the world do actual business for commodities that modern life can’t do without. The result of all that? America and its partners in Western Civ resign from modern life and go medieval. Everything about America is looking more and more medieval — our rough living conditions, our lawlessness, our violent entertainments, our Hobbesian racketeering, our occult sexual preoccupations, our depraved elites, our quack science. Our center has not been holding for so long that hardly anyone even remembers where the center used to be. And now the bottom is falling out.

This is what topples governments.

• Worsening Food Price Increases Gain Global Attention (CTH)

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported on Friday they are recording the highest Food Price Index since they started recording thirty years ago. With record highs in prices for cereals, vegetable oils, dairy and meats. This issue has been a slow burning fuse toward the biggest powder keg in modern history, and it is about to get very serious. We have been warning about it since last fall {Go Deep}. In the most deliberate and painstaking ways possible, we have been urging everyone to take this issue seriously. The background cause is complex and started with the 2020 government response to the pandemic. U.S. and international government intervention in the food supply process has been FUBAR from the beginning.

Every action taken since early 2020 has been one bad policy after another; building failure upon failure, crisis upon crisis, bad decision upon bad decision, bringing us to a precipice summed up by saying “the absence of food will change things.” Some will say the food prices we are about to experience –and the crisis it will create– was deliberate. Others will say this was the cumulative outcome of major failures on the part of the government. At this point the former makes more sense, and the latter looks like a justification and excuse, because if government entities were really serious about food prices and shortages, they would be taking pragmatic steps to mitigate the problem; they are not.

There are simple things government could do, such as helping farmers offset targeted fertilizer costs, providing relief for diesel fuel and energy costs, and taking other simple steps that would help the agricultural industry. Instead of responding with the urgency this would demand, the collective government action has been to ignore the problem (talk soundbites), and give speeches about using subsidies to offset the end result (consumers) – without ever addressing the root cause. All this while fueling conflict in Ukraine and chasing radical energy policies under the guise of global climate change.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) keeps track of food prices and projections using a global index. What they are calculating, and what they are projecting based on the current calculations, is a major increase in food prices combined with a major increase in food scarcity due to the unaffordability of food products. The baseline of 100 is the monthly rate of change for a basket of food products using the period from 2014 to 2016. The current rate of change is indexing at 159.3, meaning the monthly increases in price are almost 60% higher than the base period. Trying to chart this rate of index is almost impossible, as it seems literally exponential. (red line in graphic) In 2020, the monthly rate of change increased to an index of around 110. In 2021, the monthly rate of increase went from 110 to around 135. In the first three months of 2022, the index has jumped from 135 to almost 160 (in three months), and there is no end in sight.

“We’re doing this anonymously because we’ve seen people viciously attacked and threatened for doing things like this, so we’re not going to open ourselves or any of our contacts to that.”

• 833 Athlete Cardiac Arrests and Serious Issues, 540 Dead, Following Jab (DE)

A total of 15 players were unable to finish the Miami Open 2022 tennis tournament, including the male and female favourites. All of the players must be “fully vaccinated” to compete, the Liberty Daily wrote, “just as we’ve noted for several months, most major sports have been hit with ‘inexplicable’ medical conditions popping up in young and otherwise healthy athletes, including our report that three cyclists fell in March alone.” The so-called health professionals running the Covid “vaccine” programs around the world keep repeating that “the Covid vaccine is a normal vaccine and it is safe and effective.” But as of the end of last month, Good Sciencing has recorded 833 athletes, worldwide, who have had cardiac arrests or other serious issues, with 540 dead, post-Covid injection.

Post-vaccination injuries in athletes include cardiac arrest; blood clots or thrombosis; stroke; irregular heartbeat; arrhythmia; neuropathy; and, death. With most of the post-injection injuries being cardiac arrests. Good Sciencing is a small team of investigators, news editors, journalists, and truth seekers. They state on their website: “It doesn’t really matter who we are. What really matters is that we care carrying on an investigation and we’re presenting the evidence we’ve found, almost all of it documented in mainstream media publications. We’re doing this anonymously because we’ve seen people viciously attacked and threatened for doing things like this, so we’re not going to open ourselves or any of our contacts to that.”

As well as receiving new cases and updates from alert readers, they note that they are also receiving hate mail and death threats. Good Sciencing has a non-exhaustive and continuously growing list of mainly young athletes who had major medical issues in 2021/2022 after receiving one or more Covid injections. You can view the list HERE. “Initially, many of these were not reported. We know that many people were told not to tell anyone about their adverse reactions and the media was not reporting them. They started happening and ramping up after the first Covid vaccinations. The mainstream media still are not reporting most, but sports news cannot ignore the fact that soccer players and other stars collapse in the middle of a game due to a sudden cardiac arrest. Many of those die – more than 50%.

“..the city reported more cases on Thursday than the entire country saw earlier in the week.”

• Shanghai Reports 7th Day Of Record Cases

The better part of a week has passed since local authorities announced on Monday that they would be extending the lockdown in Shanghai “indefinitely”. But despite authorities’ best efforts (or perhaps, because of them) COVID case numbers have continued to climb at a record pace, with Shanghai recording another 20K+ COVID cases on Thursday, topping the 20K mark for the second day in a row. Authorities reported 21,222 new cases in Shanghai alone on Thursday, marking a 7th straight daily record. For context, the city reported more cases on Thursday than the entire country saw earlier in the week. The number of symptomatic cases has also increased substantially. Shanghai, the new epicenter of China’s latest coronavirus outbreak, has recorded more than 131,000 cases since the flare-up started on March 1.

According to the latest developments reported by the SCMP, the city has converted conference centers and public facilities into temporary quarantine and treatment facilities with tens of thousands of bunks, adding to the 77,000 hospital beds already set aside in the city of 25 million residents. Meanwhile, rumors have emerged on social media – sourced from unwittingly leaked military documents – that the military is taking over the city……and that the lockdown will persist at least until May. Should the lockdown persist for the entirety of April, China’s GDP could suffer a hit of more than one percentage point, as Goldman analysts determined that every four weeks of lockdown in the city would shave 1 percentage point off the country’s GDP, given Shanghai’s importance to the Chinese economy.

Rumors that the military is taking over Shanghai are circulating on social media. State media debunked the rumors, but unverified surveillance footage showed troops are entering Shanghai by train. Netizens on Weibo confirmed that their community was already taken over. pic.twitter.com/Qyl7NPJvWr

— Chu Yang (@ChuYang_Journ) April 7, 2022

The city has recorded more than 131,000 COVID cases since the flare-up began on March 1. Health authorities are taking no chances, even if the vast majority of the infections – daily symptomatic cases were in triple digits – showed no symptoms, and there had been no fatality in the current wave. “The battle against the outbreak is still very tough,” according to a Thursday speech by Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan, who had been overseeing the anti-pandemic work in Shanghai since last weekend. “Any sign of relaxation or complacency is unacceptable.”

“Unfortunately, it’s curtains for the US. Sell your shitcoins, and buy bitcoin.”

• Billionaires Are Backing Bitcoin Over “Fiat Fraud” (ZH)

[..] while many crypto enthusiasts belong to the younger generation, millennials and Gen X, billionaires like Mexico’s third-richest man, Ricardo Salinas, have visceral memories of the failures of fiat – namely, hyper-inflation. And they shared this experience with his audience. “I have a big grudge against fiat, I call it the fiat fraud,” Salinas, the owner of Mexico’s Banco Azteca, said on Thursday. He then shared a story about how his salary as a young business school graduate in Mexico during the 1980s declined from around $2,000 a month to just $20 during a period of six years. “That’s hyperinflation,” he said. Echoing Peter Thiel’s controversial comments, Salinas also spoke to the religiosity of its high priests in his keynote address.

“This fiat religion has its high priests, and you can see them right there. And their religion is not tolerant,” Salinas explained. “They hate anyone who is a heretic. There’s a lot of heretics in this room right now.” Closing his thoughts, Salinas warned the crowd of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). “If the CBDC is issued these people will have full control over how you can spend your money,” he cautioned. Why does Salinas think they are so bad? Because you lose all sovereignty in the use of your funds. “They think it’s a bad idea, they close your capacity to spend your money,” Salinas predicted. That being said, Salinas noted that not all crypto is created equal: “Unfortunately, it’s curtains for the US. Sell your shitcoins, and buy bitcoin.”

Salinas added that 60% of his investment portfolio is now in bitcoin or bitcoin-linked equities. According to Bitcoin Magazine, that’s up from 10% in 2020. Salinas also denounced bonds as toxic and a “terrible investment” that he wouldn’t “touch with a 10-foot pole.” Of course, he’s not the only high-profile investor to say as much about bonds in the era of inflation (short-dated Treasuries just endured one of the rockiest first quarters in modern history).

“..using attorney-client privilege to withhold evidence in a case where the former partner is accused of using his status of counsel to conceal information from the government.”

• Durham Seeks to Force Clinton Campaign and DNC to Turn Over Evidence (Turley)

It is always good to have a “lawyer acquaintance” when things get tough. In “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the character Stanley Kowalski famously assures to Blanche DuBois that he has “a lawyer acquaintance” who will protect her. The same appears to be true for the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. Special Counsel John Durham is fighting to get access to evidence related to his prosecution of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann. The documents are being withheld by the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Fusion GPS, and Perkins Coie. There are 1,455 withheld documents, but only 18 reportedly involved a lawyer. However, they are arguing that their “lawyer acquaintances” shield their communications from disclosure to the Special Counsel.

Sussmann’s defense recently took a body blow from Durham after the Special Counsel revealed that Sussmann did not just conceal the role of the Clinton campaign in pushing a debunked Russian collusion allegation but put that same alleged lie into writing. In both a text message and the later meeting, Sussmann is accused of lying about not representing any client despite billing the time to the campaign. Sussmann faces a single charge under 18 U.S.C. 1001 for lying to the FBI in a meeting with the then-FBI General Counsel James Baker. In the indictment, Sussmann is accused of “mak[ing] a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement or representation” in conversations with Baker. Durham argued that “the defendant provided the FBI General Counsel with purported data and ‘white papers’ that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and a Russia-based bank.”

That institution was Alfa Bank and Sussmann’s effort paralleled the work of his partner at the law firm Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, in pushing the Steele Dossier in a separate debunked collusion claim. The Federal Election Commission recently fined the Clinton Campaign and the DNC for hiding the funding of the dossier as a legal cost by Elias at Perkins Coie. The Clinton Campaign’s Alfa Bank conspiracy was found to be baseless but the FBI did not know that it was being offered by someone being paid by the campaign to spread the claim. Had they known, Durham alleges the department might have been able to avoid the investigation costs and effort spent on the Alfa matter.

Durham told the court that these sources (and tech executive Rodney Joffe) have refused to turn over documents as protected by attorney-client or work product privilege. Durham can use the crime/fraud exception to compel disclosure but he is first asking the court to review the documents in camera. Attorney-client privilege is generally raised by clients but can be raised in some circumstances by third parties under some circumstances. However, the exchange must be “for the purpose of obtaining legal advice from the lawyer.” Likewise, the work product doctrine protects documents that were “prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial” by third parties on behalf of the client.

[..] the campaign and Perkins Coie are using attorney-client privilege to withhold evidence in a case where the former partner is accused of using his status of counsel to conceal information from the government.

“This is about the president of the United States potentially being involved in money laundering and RICO claims..”

• Hunter Biden Makes Watergate Look Like ‘Tiddlywinks’ – Rep. Tenney (NM)

The revelations coming out about President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, reveal a pattern of corruption that makes “Watergate look like a game of tiddlywinks,” and censorship of the story by Big Tech and the mainstream media cost former President Donald Trump the 2020 election, Rep. Claudia Tenney said in a Newsmax interview Friday. “This is about the president of the United States potentially being involved in money laundering and RICO claims,” the New York Republican said on Newsmax’s “National Report.” “[He is] the ‘big guy’ as is defined in some of these authenticated emails, even by The New York Times.”

“Even Tony Bobulinski, who was a partner with the Bidens, said this is who it is, the big guy,” she added, referring to a story in The New York Post in 2020 when Bobulinski called Biden a liar and said he was the “big guy” referred to in one of his son’s emails that discussed payments. “Joe Biden got 10% laundered through his son,” Tenney maintained. “[That] was millions of dollars held by Hunter Biden so that they wouldn’t implicate Joe Biden, the president of the United States, the leader of the free world. This has to come out.” Biden has denied that his son has done anything wrong, and the White House is standing behind him on that claim, reports The Hill.

Meanwhile, Tenney on Friday said that after The New York Post broke the news of Hunter Biden’s laptop, where the incriminating emails were discovered, Facebook and Twitter censored the story, which came out shortly before the 2020 election. “Incredibly 51 former intelligence agents, people who are involved in inside information with our federal government, claimed that this was a clear case of rushing this information and they signed a letter saying that this should not be put out for public consumption, which is a bit of a form of censorship,” said Tenney. She added that, according to a Media Research Center poll, at least 10% of Biden’s supporters had said they would not have voted for him had they known about the allegations about his son.

“This election came down to about 42,000 votes when you look at the key swing states,” she said. “Big Tech oligarch Mark Zuckerberg put over $419 million in key swing state areas to prime the pump to move voters in the direction of Joe Biden enough to change the results of this election.” It’s critically important, she added, that such censorship not be allowed to happen through “Big Tech and Big Tech oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg to prevent us from knowing the truth before we get to an election as critical as 2020 was.”

First round on Sunday.

• French Elections: Marine Le Pen Gains Ground On ‘Feverish’ Macron (Exp.)

Voters in France will go to the polls on Sunday to elect a president for the next five years with the election taking place over two rounds. On the last day of campaigning before voters go to the ballot boxes, a poll had Marine Le Pen just two points behind Emmanuel Macron. Ms Le Pen was runner-up to Emmanuel Macron in 2017, and this time, she is once again his closest rival. There are 12 candidates taking part in Sunday’s election, eight men and four women. Of the six main contenders, three are from the right of French politics and two are from the left. A month ago, Marine Le Pen was trailing President Macron by 10 points and fighting for a place in the second round against him.

Now she’s seen as the clear favourite to challenge him for the presidency ahead of Sunday’s first round. If she does make it through to the 24 April run-off, opinion polls suggest for the first time that a Le Pen victory is within the margin of error. “Nothing is impossible,” President Macron has warned, as polls suggest his far-right rival is closer than ever before to winning the presidency. On Friday, Ms Le Pen took to the streets in Narbonne as she completed the final leg of campaigning. When asked by The Telegraph what she thought of her main rival Emmanuel Macron likening the chance of her victory to Brexit, the 53-year old nationalist reiterated a mantra from her final rally the previous night: “When the people vote, the people win.”

History lesson.

• The Death of Representative Democracy (ITT)

Democracy has nothing to do with voting to elect representatives. Democracy does not require that citizens are represented by anyone because the people make all political decisions themselves. Many national governments pretend that they value democratic principles. They often claim a right to defend democracy or promote democracy in other countries. None of the governments that make such claims are democratic. Their pretensions often result in war. Democracy isn’t currently practised in any nation state. Instead, we suffer something called “representative democracy.” In a democracy the people are the government and protect themselves, from their own potential errors and excesses, through the checks and balances inherent to the rule of law, which again, is judged solely by the people.

In a representative democracy the government claims the authority to “govern” the people, forming autocratic states. So-called representative government “allows” the people to select their political leaders once every 4 or 5 years. In the intervening years this tiny group of “representatives” exercise executive power and rule over everyone else. This is called an oligarchy and it is the antithesis of a democracy. Nonetheless, the people have been “educated” to believe that the oligarchy is a democracy and have become attached to the idea. The oligarchy, or “representative government,” supposedly honours some foundational principles which are, in and of themselves, worthy. These are often referred to as democratic ideals.

Democratic ideals have been shaped, over thousands of years, by political leaders, reformists and philosophers. In their modern form they were described by the British sociologist T. H. Marshall in his 1949 essay Citizenship and Social Class. Marshall described these ideals as a functioning system of rights. While democratic ideals are far from an adequate substitute for democracy, in a representative democracy they do at least suggest some protection for the citizen from the whims of the oligarchy they are permitted to elect.

Democratic ideals include the right to liberty, to free speech, freedom of thought and expression, the right to peaceful protest, to justice and equal opportunities. Apparently, these rights are essential because, without them, representative democracy cannot function. The oligarchs govern to protect and promote the interests of the establishment. This ensures that the wealthiest individuals and families, the multinational corporations they own, the non-governmental organisations they fund and the banks they control can rule.

Callender

“Oh my gosh”… what is going on in the US military..? pic.twitter.com/PakOUcB0bA

— Pelham (@Resist_05) April 8, 2022

Pilots

Pilots are unfit to fly planes after having the shots pic.twitter.com/KovUI8bOnz

— Anne Lyall (@LyallLyall3) April 8, 2022

Elon Musk

Elon Musk on Putin, nuclear power, and love pic.twitter.com/CuBgx3hKe6

— Insider News (@InsiderNews) April 8, 2022

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Debt Rattle April 6 2022

Apr 062022

April 6, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:37 am Finance Tagged with: adverse events, cartoon, Durham, hypersonic, Milley, Pfizer, Psaki, Security Council, Shanghai, Sussman, Zelensky 49 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Standing nude 1928

• Zelensky Tells Security Council that “Russians Killed for Pleasure” (GR)

• Biden’s Folly In Ukraine (Gen. Douglas Macgregor)

• …But It Rhymes. Russia, Ukraine and Nazi Europe Mark II (Leslie)

• Gen. Milley Says Risk of Conflict ‘Between Great Powers’ Is Increasing (Antiwar)

• Australia, US, UK Military Alliance to Develop Hypersonic Missiles (Antiwar)

• What Would It Take for Military Spending in America to Go Down? (Astore)

• Jen Psaki Should Resign (WE)

• Pfizer Hired 600+ People to Process Vaccine Injury Reports (CHD)

• President Xi Faces An Impossible Dilemma In Shanghai COVID Outbreak (ZH)

• 10,000 Health Workers Sent To Help Control Shanghai Outbreak (AP)

• Durham Lowers the Boom on Former Clinton Counsel Michael Sussmann (Turley)

• Sussmann Doesn’t Want Steele Dossier Brought Up During Durham Trial (WE)

• ‘If I Did 1/100 Of What Hunter Biden Did, I’d Be In Jail’ – Eric Trump (JTN)

• When A Country Is Destroyed By Its Own Propaganda (Ugo Bardi)

The west: “Russia executed 410 people in Bucha!!!”

Russia: “No we didn’t, but we’d be more than happy to convene the security council and open up internationally recognized institutional channels for thorough investigation.”

The west: “No”

Gonzalo Lira “YouTube bans any open discussion about the Bucha false flag”

We live inside a cartoon.

• Zelensky Tells Security Council that “Russians Killed for Pleasure” (GR)

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has shown the UN Security Council on Tuesday a harrowing video from Ukraine in an apparent attempt to embarrass Russia and rally world opinion. The clip lasted about a minute and showed image after image of dead Ukrainians – including some burned and disfigured bodies. Speaking to the Security Council for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, he said Russian troops have killed civilians and raped women. Zelensky’s comments follow his visit to the town of Bucha on Monday, where the bodies of dead Ukrainian civilians were seen. He claimed that in the town people were shot in the street, in their homes, thrown into wells, and crushed by tanks in the middle of the road “just for the pleasure” of the Russian soldiers.

“The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our country,” he said, as Russia’s UN ambassador was looking on. Joe Biden called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes on Monday following the killings of civilians in the city of Bucha, Ukraine. Biden said the images coming from Bucha warranted calling Putin a “war criminal,” adding, “but we have to gather the information. We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue the fight and we have to get all the details so this can be an actual…war-crime trial.” “This guy (Putin) is brutal and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone’s seen it,” Biden said.

Meanwhile, the United States ambassador to the UN called for Russia’s expulsion from the UN Human Rights Council. “Russia should not have a position of authority in a body whose very purpose is to promote respect for human rights. Not only is it the height of hypocrisy, it is dangerous,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said addressing the Security Council Tuesday. “Every day, we see more and more how little Russia respects human rights,” she added. “Russia’s participation on the Human Rights Council hurts the Council’s credibility. It undermines the entire UN. And it is just plain wrong.”

“Moscow can no more lose the war with Ukraine than Washington could lose a war with Mexico.”

• Biden’s Folly In Ukraine (Gen. Douglas Macgregor)

Americans find it difficult to determine whether the Biden administration’s policy decisions regarding Ukraine are the product of a deliberate strategy, extraordinary incompetence, or some combination of both. Threatening Russia, a nuclear armed power, with regime change and then annunciating a nuclear weapons policy that allows for the United States’ first-strike use of nuclear weapons under “extreme circumstances”—responding to an invasion by conventional forces, or chemical or biological attacks—suggests President Biden and his administration really are out of touch with reality. American voters instinctively grasp the truth that Americans have nothing to gain from a war with Russia, declared or undeclared. A short trip to almost any supermarket or gas station in America explains why. Last week, inflation hit its highest point in nearly 40 years and gas prices have skyrocketed since the conflict in Ukraine began.

Thanks to the Western media’s non-stop dissemination of unfavorable images of Russia’s leaders and its military, it would appear that President Biden is able to espouse any narrative that suits his purpose. Obscuring the true origins of this tragic conflict, however—NATO’s eastward expansion to include Ukraine—cannot alter strategic reality. Moscow can no more lose the war with Ukraine than Washington could lose a war with Mexico. Ukraine’s proximity to Russia gives Moscow unconstrained and immediate access to Russia’s reserves of military manpower, equipment, and firepower. Notwithstanding Moscow’s determination to avoid unnecessary collateral damage to Ukraine’s population and infrastructure, Russian Air and Ground Forces are at liberty to methodically destroy Ukrainian resistance in detail.

Russia’s commodity-based economy, with its abundance of food, energy, minerals, and other resources, creates enormous strategic depth for Moscow on the Eurasian landmass. These resources make Moscow Beijing’s natural strategic partner, thus securing Moscow’s Asian border. Moscow’s role in stabilizing Central Asia also makes Russian strength indispensable for the success of China’s Belt and Road Initiative rooted as it is in the historical Silk Road, linking the economies of East Asia to Europe, Africa, and the Near East. At the same time, Washington’s frequent use of financial sanctions have severely weakened, if not wrecked trust in the U.S. led global financial system. It is far more likely that countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa will either bypass sanctions to buy discounted Russian and Belorussian commodities or simply refuse to enforce them.

To minimize the impact of financial sanctions imposed by Washington and the European Union, Russia began “de-dollarizing” its economy years ago. Unburdened by the kind of odious sovereign debt that plagues Washington, Moscow has been able to stabilize the ruble with interest rate increases, and links to gold reserves. Now, de-dollarization is spreading. China, India, and Saudi Arabia are introducing de-dollarization policies as an anti-sanction measure. Saudi Arabia’s offer to sell oil in Chinese yuan raises real questions about the future of the petrodollar. Despite Japan’s public display of solidarity with Washington, Tokyo really made its bed with Eurasia when Tokyo signed on to membership in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Program (RCEP), the world’s largest trade bloc. Predictably, Tokyo already declared it will not ban Russian oil and natural gas imports and Japan will continue to work with Russia on important joint economic projects.

“Do you see the core and the rings? Do you see the suppression of everything Russian (Hitler never banned Russian music) and the weaponisation of the despicable ukro Nazi ideology? History might not repeat but it has just provided the rhyme of the century.”

• …But It Rhymes. Russia, Ukraine and Nazi Europe Mark II (Leslie)

Before I set off on my brief journey through history, there is a general point I want to address: There is a lot of anxiety floating around. Well-meaning people (including yours truly) are riding the waves of war, experiencing exaltation and dejection with every Russian triumph and setback. This is completely understandable and I would be less than honest if I did not admit to being utterly exhausted by worry and seesawing emotions. At the same time, I’ve come to understand one thing. My willing Russia to win will not make one bit of difference – well, perhaps it might. Russia is what it is – a great, fascinating, freedom-loving land of endless steppes and kind people whose mission is to rid the world of evil, full stop. As such, Russia must prevail, and it will.

However, such a great accomplishment – that no other country or civilization is close to being able to emulate – must come at a cost. This means that Russia’s struggle will (as always) involve setbacks, errors, losses, treachery and perhaps even tragedies. This is not something the Russians or their supporters want to countenance but please, hear me out. I am trying to desensitise you to the maelstrom of emotionally-charged information that can be very harmful if digested uncritically. Be strong but be prepared – like Russia – to sustain emotional losses that this long and immensely dangerous undertaking must produce. In the end, all we have is the belief that good must prevail and we should let that belief carry us all the way to victory.

[..] It was only the heroic offensive by the Red army that broke the back of the Euro beast – at a very high cost. However, not even they could break the back of the fanatical Ukrainian Nazis who continued with open terror until about 1956 and then went underground to await a fresh opportunity. Ukrainian terror against Russians which started in the 1910s has never stopped. Funded and supported by the Vatican, Austria-Hungary, Imperial Germany, Hitler’s Germany and Poland, the UK, US and West and the current German state, the Ukrainian Nazi virus was released again as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed (note the similarities with Yugoslavia and Croatia). Many Russians refused to see the truth and continued to support the increasingly anti-Russian ukro regimes in the name of “brotherhood” inculcated during Soviet times.

This is a simple replay of 1918, 1939, 1945 and 2014 when the Soviets/Russians forgave their hangmen only to have to fight the same battle again and again. This fully explains President Putin’s demand for a full denazification of the Ukraine. I can only hope that he completes this historic task fully. Can you see it yet? Do you see the geopolitical pattern that is currently forming? A deeply Russophobic Euro Reich centred on Germany, France and the Vatican (with a wholehearted Anglo-American support) is rapidly being turned into an anti-Russian fortress. Do you see the core and the rings? Do you see the suppression of everything Russian (Hitler never banned Russian music) and the weaponisation of the despicable ukro Nazi ideology? History might not repeat but it has just provided the rhyme of the century.

And he’s stoking it.

• Gen. Milley Says Risk of Conflict ‘Between Great Powers’ Is Increasing (Antiwar)

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley warned Congress on Tuesday that the chances of a “significant international conflict between great powers” are increasing. Milley warned that both China and Russia are threats to the so-called “rules-based” global order. “We are now facing two global powers: China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities both who intend to fundamentally change the rules-based current global order,” Milley told the House Armed Services Committee. “We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable. The potential for significant international conflict between great powers is increasing, not decreasing.” The hearing was focused on the Pentagon’s $773 billion budget request for 2023, part of the $813 billion in military spending President Biden has asked Congress for.

Milley said the budget is in alignment with the new National Defense Strategy (NDS) that was recently briefed to Congress but has yet to be declassified. In a fact sheet on the new NDS, the Pentagon named China as the top “threat” facing the US military, while Russia was second. The US military’s shift in focus towards “great power competition” was first outlined by the 2018 NDS, which put China and Russia as equal concerns. The Pentagon has plans to boost the US military’s presence in the Asia Pacific to counter China and in Eastern Europe to face Russia. While done in the name of deterrence, US military buildups in the regions will only make a conflict more likely. This is demonstrated by the fact that one of Russia’s main justifications for invading Ukraine was Kyiv’s alignment with NATO and the military alliance’s presence in the region.

Miles behind China and Russia. But trillions more for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon.

• Australia, US, UK Military Alliance to Develop Hypersonic Missiles (Antiwar)

The US, Britain, and Australia announced on Tuesday that they will work together to develop hypersonic missiles under the recently created AUKUS military alliance. President Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the plan in a joint statement. The leaders said they are “committed today to commence new trilateral cooperation on hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, and electronic warfare capabilities, as well as to expand information sharing and to deepen cooperation on defense innovation.” US military leaders have been calling for more investment in the development of hypersonics and other advanced weaponry, which they see as vital for competing with China and Russia.

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said Tuesday that the US Air Force recently successfully tested a hypersonic cruise missile made by Lockheed Martin. The AUKUS military pact was signed by the three countries last September and is focused on increasing military technology ties to counter Beijing. Under the deal, Australia will get access to technology to build nuclear-powered submarines, which could be used to patrol waters near China. When asked about the AUKUS hypersonic plan, China’s UN Ambassador Zhang warned that such measures could lead to a crisis similar to what’s happening in Ukraine. “Anyone who do not want to see the Ukrainian crisis should refrain from doing things which may lead the other parts of the world into a crisis like this,” he said.

Nothing that I can see.

• What Would It Take for Military Spending in America to Go Down? (Astore)

I have a question for you: What would it take in today’s world for America’s military spending to go down? Here’s one admittedly farfetched scenario: Vladimir Putin loses his grip on power and Russia retrenches militarily while reaching out to normalize relations with the West. At the same time, China prudently decides to spend less on its military, pursuing economic power while abandoning any pretense to a militarized superpower status. Assuming such an unlikely scenario, with a “new cold war” nipped in the bud and the U.S. as the world’s unchallenged global hegemon, Pentagon spending would surely shrink, right? Well, I wouldn’t count on it. Based on developments after the Soviet Union’s collapse three decades ago, here’s what I suspect would be far more likely to happen.

The U.S. military, aided by various strap-hanging think tanks, intelligence agencies, and weapons manufacturers, would simply shift into overdrive. As its spokespeople would explain to anyone who’d listen (especially in Congress), the disappearance of the Russian and Chinese threats would carry its own awesome dangers, leaving this country prospectively even less safe than before. You’d hear things like: we’ve suddenly been plunged into a more complex multipolar world, significantly more chaotic now that our “near-peer” rivals are no longer challenging us, with even more asymmetrical threats to U.S. military dominance. The key word, of course, would be “more” — linked, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, to omnipresent Pentagon demands for yet more military spending.

When it comes to weapons, budgets, and war, the military-industrial complex’s philosophy is captured by an arch comment of the legendary actress Mae West: “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” Even without Russia and China as serious threats to American hegemony, you’d hear again about an “unbalanced” Kim Jong-un in North Korea and his deeply alarming ballistic missiles; you’d hear about Iran and its alleged urge to build nuclear weapons; and, if those two countries proved too little, perhaps the war on terror would be resuscitated. (Indeed, during the ongoing wall-to-wall coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea did test a ballistic missile, an event a distracted media greeted with a collective shrug.) My point is this: when you define the entire globe as your sphere of influence, as the U.S. government does, there will always be threats somewhere.

But who still recognizes why?

• Jen Psaki Should Resign (WE)

The career path of White House press secretary-turned-TV pundit isn’t new. Tony Snow worked for Fox News and then moved to the George W. Bush White House. Dana Perino did the reverse. But never before has a chief press secretary for the president of the United States leveraged the position to negotiate a career move to cable news. That’s exactly what Jen Psaki has done, according to Axios . Psaki will soon be heading off to what’s likely a very lucrative contract with MSNBC. The White House press secretary should have resigned last week when this news broke. Let’s be clear — this is an unprecedented breach of public ethics. Unfortunately, most of Psaki’s colleagues in the press briefing room seem to be OK with it. Psaki was only questioned briefly by CBS News reporter Ed O’Keefe on the possible ethical ramifications of these negotiations.

Then everyone simply moved on. Psaki’s move and the media’s nonchalant apathy about it explain so much about what is wrong with the incestuous nature of the Washington media’s relationship with the Biden White House. In turn, it helps explain why the public reputation of both institutions is hovering somewhere just above the popularity of bubbling street sewage. That media watchdogs such as CNN’s Brian Stelter see no conflict of interest here speaks more about corporate media’s agenda bias than it does about Psaki. It’s worth noting that Psaki is a former CNN contributor, serving the network after leaving the Obama administration’s State Department.

Psaki is not a free agent a la the world of sports. Her podium is not for sale to the highest media bidder. Any job in the executive branch is a job paid for by the people. But we know what comes next. Psaki will move from spinning for the Biden White House in the White House to spinning for the White House at MSNBC. And think about this: Psaki has been in her role as press secretary for just a little over a year. That means negotiations with MSNBC likely began not soon after she started! Consider something else: What’s the likelihood that NBC White House reporters Peter Alexander or Kristen Welker will aggressively challenge someone they know that they’ll soon share office space with? The very possibility of this concern is outrageous by itself. Equally absurd is the hypocrisy.

They know much more about adverse events than they let on.

• Pfizer Hired 600+ People to Process Vaccine Injury Reports (CHD)

Pfizer hired about 600 additional full-time employees to process adverse event reports during the three months following the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of its COVID-19 vaccine, newly released documents reveal. According to the documents, Pfizer said, “More are joining each month with an expected total of more than 1,800 additional resources by the end of June 2021.” The information was contained in a 10,000-page document cache released April 1 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and made public as part of a court-ordered disclosure schedule stemming from an expedited Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The latest revelations appeared in a document, “Cumulative analysis of post-authorization adverse event reports” of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, highlighting such adverse events identified through Feb. 28, 2021.

The document was previously released in November 2021, but was partially redacted. The redactions included the number of employees Pfizer hired and/or was planning to hire. According to the unredacted document released April 1: “Pfizer has also taken a multiple actions [sic] to help alleviate the large increase of adverse event reports. This includes significant technology enhancements, and process and workflow solutions, as well as increasing the number of data entry and case processing colleagues. “To date, Pfizer has onboarded approximately 600 additional full-time employees (FTEs). “More are joining each month with an expected total of more than 1,800 additional resources by the end of June 2021.”

The unredacted version also revealed the number of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses shipped worldwide between December 2020 and February 2021: “It is estimated that approximately 126,212,580 doses of BNT162b2 [the Pfizer EUA vaccine] were shipped worldwide from the receipt of the first temporary authorisation for emergency supply on 01 December 2020 through 28 February 2021.” The number of shipped doses previously was redacted.

“..backing down from its lockdown in Shanghai would mean admitting that the “Zero COVID” approach has been an abject failure..”

• President Xi Faces An Impossible Dilemma In Shanghai COVID Outbreak (ZH)

In the span of just over a week, CCP authorities have gone from denying plans for a citywide lockdown of Shanghai to announcing what was supposed to be a two-part staggered lockdown – to simply locking down the entire city and sending in the military and a contingent of medical workers as locals accuse the government of violating its social compact to put the people’s interests first. Now, as the entire city of roughly 26 million faces what’s already shaping up to be the most punishing lockdown in China since the original three-month Wuhan lockdown nightmare, Nikkei reports that Beijing has found itself in an incredibly difficult position. On Sunday, Shanghai counted 9,006 mainly asymptomatic infections, more than two-thirds of the national tally.

The reason the situation in Shanghai presents such a difficult conundrum is that backing down from its lockdown in Shanghai would mean admitting that the “Zero COVID” approach has been an abject failure. But continuing with the heavy-handed lockdown risks spurring even more unrest – something the CCP has bent over backwards to avoid. For the CCP, it’s an impossible dilemma. Already, social media has been flooded with reports of locals dying from neglect as hospital resources have been stretched thin (and not from COVID; it’s other ailments that are killing people now). While the entire city has been locked down for less than a week, many individual residential compounds have been locked down for much longer – some since mid-March.

“It is so uncharacteristic of Shanghai to have to go through this,” said Zhong Lei, a teacher in the city, whose residential compound was locked down even earlier, in mid-March. On Tuesday, authorities reiterated that they must try to keep the city’s port and its factories running at full capacity. But accomplishing this – as we have already reported – will require even more draconian measures like forcing workers to essentially live inside the city’s factories.

10,000 health workers for a city of 25 million.

• 10,000 Health Workers Sent To Help Control Shanghai Outbreak (AP)

China has sent more than 10,000 health workers from around the country to Shanghai, including 2,000 from the military, as it struggles to stamp out a rapidly spreading outbreak in its largest city under its zero-COVID strategy. Shanghai was conducting a mass testing of its 25 million residents Monday as what was announced as a two-phase lockdown entered its second week. Most of eastern Shanghai, which was supposed to re-open last Friday, remained locked down along with the western half of the city. While many factories and financial companies have been allowed to keep operating if they isolate their employees, concern was growing about the potential economic impact of an extended lockdown in China’s financial capital, a major shipping and manufacturing center.

The highly contagious omicron BA.2 form of the virus is testing China’s ability to maintain its zero-COVID approach, which aims to stop outbreaks from spreading by isolating everyone who tests positive, whether they have symptoms or not. Shanghai has converted an exhibition hall and other facilities into massive isolation centers where people with mild or no symptoms are housed in a sea of beds separated by temporary partitions. China on Monday reported more than 13,000 new cases nationwide in the previous 24 hours, of which nearly 12,000 were asymptomatic. About 9,000 of the cases were in Shanghai. The other large outbreak is in northeastern China’s Jilin province, where new cases topped 3,500. The Shanghai lockdown has sparked numerous complaints, from food shortages to limited staff and facilities at hastily constructed isolation sites. Some people who tested positive have remained at home for extended periods because of a shortage of isolation beds or transportation to take them to a center, the business news publication Caixin said.

Lying to the FBI…which was busy propagating its own lies.

• Durham Lowers the Boom on Former Clinton Counsel Michael Sussmann (Turley)

In a Monday night filing, Durham revealed that he has an incriminating statement by Sussmann that dramatically undermined his defense. In the text message, Sussmann denied that he was representing anyone before his critical meeting with the FBI. He then repeated the false statement in that meeting as he pushed a false Russian collusion claim against Donald Trump. Sussmann has been seeking the dismissal on the single charge under 18 U.S.C. 1001 for lying to the FBI in a meeting with the then-FBI General Counsel James Baker. In the indictment, Sussmann is accused of “mak[ing] a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement or representation” in conversations with Baker. Durham argued that “the defendant provided the FBI General Counsel with purported data and ‘white papers’ that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and a Russia-based bank.”

That institution was Alfa Bank and Sussmann’s effort paralleled the work of his partner at the law firm Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, in pushing the Steele Dossier in a separate debunked collusion claim. The FEC recently fined the Clinton Campaign and the DNC for hiding the funding of the dossier as a legal cost by Elias at Perkins Coie. The Clinton Campaign’s Alfa Bank conspiracy was found to be baseless but the FBI did not know that it was being offered by someone being paid by the campaign to spread the claim. Had they known, Durham alleges the department might have been able to avoid the investigation costs and effort spent on the Alfa matter.

Sussmann has sounded a lot like Michael Flynn in court as he argued that this was trivial and inconsequential comment. On Monday night, Durham lowered the boom. He revealed that, before the meeting, Sussmann sent “the same lie in writing” that his effort was “not on behalf of a client or company.” Durham is seeking the introduction of a text message to Baker that said: “Jim—it’s Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss. Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow? I’m coming on my own—not on behalf of a client or company—want to help the Bureau. Thanks.” Thus, Durham writes that “on September 18, 2016 at 7:24 p.m., i.e., the night before the defendant met with the General Counsel, the defendant conveyed the same lie in writing and sent the following text message to the General Counsel’s personal cellphone.”

He was actively pushing the dossier. The campaign paid for it.

• Sussmann Doesn’t Want Steele Dossier Brought Up During Durham Trial (WE)

The Democratic cybersecurity lawyer charged by special counsel John Durham with lying to the FBI about working for the Clinton campaign doesn’t want British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier brought up at the trial following indications from the special counsel that it will be. Michael Sussmann was indicted last year on charges of concealing his clients, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and “tech executive” Rodney Joffe, from FBI general counsel James Baker when he pushed since-debunked claims of a secret backchannel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank. He has pleaded not guilty. Steele created his now-discredited dossier after being hired by opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was itself hired by Perkins Coie and Marc Elias, the general counsel for Clinton’s campaign.

Durham appears to be building a case that many collusion claims can be sourced back to Democratic operatives or linked to the Clinton campaign. Sussmann’s lawyers asked a federal judge on Monday to preclude three categories of evidence: the gathering of domain name system data by Joffe and others; the accuracy of that data and conclusions based on it; and “Christopher Steele and information he separately provided to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (including the so-called ‘Steele Dossier’).” The defense team argued: “The single false statement charge brought against Mr. Sussmann surely does not flow from the gathering of data, the accuracy of that data, the accuracy of the conclusions based on that data, or any information Mr. Steele may have provided to the FBI.”

The lawyers argued Sussmann did not have “any awareness” that Steele was “separately providing information to the FBI.” “The Special Counsel has not charged a substantive scheme to defraud the government, nor has he charged a conspiracy to defraud the government,” Sussmann’s lawyers argued. “The manner in which the data was gathered, the objective strength and reliability of that data and/or conclusions drawn from the data, and the information that Christopher Steele separately provided to the FBI all have no bearing on the only crime the Special Counsel chose to charge.” Sussmann’s lawyers said that during a phone conference last month, Durham indicated that “he intends to introduce evidence and argument pertaining to reports and information” that Steele provided to the FBI, adding that Durham “presumably” intends to call Steele as a witness.

Anyone want to question this?

• ‘If I Did 1/100 Of What Hunter Biden Did, I’d Be In Jail’ – Eric Trump (JTN)

Eric Trump, son of former President Donald Trump, called out what he sees as a double standard between him and President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. “If I did 1/100 of what Hunter Biden did, I’d be in jail for the rest of my life,” Eric Trump told NTD’s “Capitol Report.” Records Just the News obtained Wednesday show Hunter Biden and his business partners attempted to make millions off of the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014. A report surfaced Monday that the Secret Service is paying more than $30,000 per month to rent a mansion in Malibu to provide security for Hunter. A retired intelligence officer told Just the News that the U.S. government was concerned the contents from Hunter Biden’s laptop could compromise the first family. “The mainstream media hasn’t mentioned Hunter Biden’s name in 258 days. There’s a serious problem with that. They let him skirt by. They carry Joe Biden’s water,” Eric Trump told NTD over the weekend.

“Based on their approval rating, [the mainstream media] is really damaged because they’ve got 7 percent approval rating in this country. It’s horrible,” he said. “People don’t trust them anymore.” He also said that the establishment media has been covering up for Hunter Biden’s father. He told NTD that if Donald Trump had said 1/100 of the “stupid things” that President Joe Biden has, the media would call for him to be removed from office under Article 25. “But again, they’re on that side, and they’ll do anything to cover up for him and let him get away with just about anything under the sun,” Eric Trump said. “You don’t have equal scales of justice in this country. You don’t have equal media coverage,” he said. “The media is the propaganda wing of the left-wing party. And I think that [has] become very clear to all Americans.”

“..their destiny was in the “place in the sun,” the way Ethiopia started to be described (as if Italy didn’t have enough sun)..”

• When A Country Is Destroyed By Its Own Propaganda (Ugo Bardi)

let’s put ourselves in the shoes of British admiralty in the 1920s. We have this problem. This British-created creature, Italy, that was supposed to be just a counterweight against France, now has started to behave like a golem. And to disobey her creators. It needs to be controlled before it is too late. Fine, but how? We already said that at, the time of the unification of Italy, the French ruler, Louis Napoleon, had been controlled by using a beautiful woman. But Mussolini didn’t seem to be the kind of man who would easily fall under a woman’s spell. He was closer to the prototypical “mad dictator,” more interested in power than in sex. So, to influence him, one needed to use his craving for power. As we enter this line of thought, we find an interesting event.

In 1925, there was an “exchange of notes” between Britain and Italy regarding Ethiopia. Known as the “Anglo-Italian Agreement” it essentially said that Ethiopia was part of the Italian sphere of influence. This agreement had a deep strategic significance. Essentially, the British were telling Italians, “go ahead, you can do whatever you want in Ethiopia. We won’t stop you” Perfidious Albion? I think so. VERY perfidious. We cannot know what went on inside Mussolini’s mind but, by 1932, he had taken the fateful decision of accepting Britain’s offer and invade Ethiopia. A major propaganda campaign started with the idea of convincing the public that Italy had a manifest destiny that consisted in re-creating the Roman Empire, and that this could be done by conquering Ethiopia and getting rid of the inferior races who lived there.

It involved slander campaigns against Ethiopia, scientific studies showing the inferiority of the black races in comparison to the white ones, and how modern Italians were the true heirs of the noble Roman warriors who had created and defended the greatest empire in history. That kind of thing. The slander campaign implied painting Ethiopians as insects to be exterminated with insecticides (it was done for real, using chemical weapons). After three years of campaign, the Italian public was completely bamboozled into believing that, yes, their destiny was in the “place in the sun,” the way Ethiopia started to be described (as if Italy didn’t have enough sun). You have to read the documents of the time to understand how well it worked. People were completely hypnotized. Just imagine yourself in 1934 asking the question, “you know, folks, before we attack Ethiopia, wouldn’t it be a good idea to carry out a cost-benefit analysis?” And you would have discovered that propaganda reduces the level of the discussion to that of the most stupid person involved in it.

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Debt Rattle April 1 2022

Apr 012022

April 1, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:30 am Finance Tagged with: Durham, Hunter Biden, ivermectin, Pakistan, power balance, Putin, reserve currency, ruble, war crimes 41 Responses »

Rembrandt van Rijn The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp 1632

• Ukraine: Transfer of Power Balance from West to East (Leckie)

• The New, Resource-Based Global Reserve Currency (Escobar)

• Putin Says Russia to Keep Supplying Gas Amid Shift to Rubles (BBG)

• German Chemical Giant Warns Of “Total Collapse” If Russian Gas Supply Cut (ZH)

• 31 Years After End of Warsaw Pact, NATO Continues As Regional Disrupter (GT)

• Ukraine Journalist Finds Charred Remains Where War Crime Was Filmed (IC)

• Fight With Clinton Campaign And DNC Looms In Sussmann Case (Pol.)

• White House Stands By Biden’s Claim That Hunter Didn’t Profit Off China (WE)

• Pakistan Warns Of Foreign-backed Regime-change Attempt (M/P)

• WSJ Misleads Public on Ivermectin, Ignores Revelations About ‘Hidden Author’ (CHD)

It really is this simple.

• Ukraine: Transfer of Power Balance from West to East (Leckie)

The Russian military is running an “economy of effort” operation. It has effectively fixed in place the garrisons defending Ukraine’s major cities leaving them incapable of supporting the troops in the Donbass. Meanwhile Russia is progressively destroying the military infrastructure of the Ukraine (resupply, maintenance and command and control facilities and weapon systems such as air defense, artillery and armored vehicles) through a combination of air strikes, cruise missiles, rockets and traditional artillery across the breadth and depth of Ukraine. Approximately 60,000 of Ukraine’s best trained and equipped troops are located in the Donbass.

It would appear unlikely that this force is capable of anything other than localized tactical level manoeuvre at this point due to a combination of ever dwindling supplies of ammunition, fuel and rations, Russia’s dominance in the air and ground based combat power, and the effects of combat to date. Despite the alleged incompetence of the handling of the initial stages of the war, the Pentagon assesses that the Russian forces still retain nearly 90 percent of the initial combat power assigned to the invasion. With Russian forces on the verge of completing the capture of Mariupol, it will only be a matter of time before the Ukrainian forces in the Donbass are fully encircled and subsequently destroyed or forced to surrender.

Whilst there may be many weeks, or even months of fighting ahead, the writing is on the wall that Russia, barring outside intervention (i.e. NATO — which has repeatedly ruled out direct military intervention), will achieve its military objectives. The direct Russo-Ukraine conflict is however just one level of this conflict. Ukraine is actually an unfortunate pawn in the much bigger conflict. As long time Russia analyst Gilbert Doctorow notes this is a “full-blown proxy war between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, and it is about ending or perpetuating American global hegemony.” Whilst the war in Ukraine will end sooner or later, the implications at a global scale of this proxy war will be of much greater consequence for a much greater period of time.

“..trifecta (imminent blitzkrieg on Donbass; US bioweapon labs; Ukraine working on nuclear weapons) as the casus belli..”

• The New, Resource-Based Global Reserve Currency (Escobar)

The Russian Central Bank nationalized foreign exchange earnings of all major exporters. There was no default. The ruble keeps rising – and is now back to roughly the same level before Operation Z. Russia remains self-sufficient, food-wise. American hysteria over “isolated” Russia is laughable. Every actor that matters across Eurasia – not to mention the other 4 BRICS and virtually the whole Global South – did not demonize and/or sanction Russia. As an extra bonus, arguably the last oligarch capable of influence in Moscow, Anatoly Chubais, is gone. Call it another momentous historical trickery: Western sanction hysteria de facto dismembered Russian oligarchy – Putin’s pet project since 2000. What that implies is the strengthening of the Russian state and the consolidation of Russian society.

We still don’t have all the facts, but a case can be made that after years of careful evaluation Putin opted to really go for broke and break the West’s back – using that trifecta (imminent blitzkrieg on Donbass; US bioweapon labs; Ukraine working on nuclear weapons) as the casus belli. The freezing of foreign reserves had to have been forecasted, especially because the Russian Central Bank had been increasing its reserves of US Treasuries since November last year. Then there’s the serious possibility of Moscow being able to access “secret” offshore foreign reserves – a complex matrix built with Chinese insider help.

The sudden switch from dollars/euros to rubles was hardcore, Olympic-level geoeconomic judo. Putin enticed the collective West to unleash its demented hysteria sanction attack – and turned it against the opponent with a single, swift move. And here we all are now trying to absorb so many in-synch game-changing developments following the weaponization of dollar assets: rupee-ruble with India, the Saudi petroyuan, co-badged Mir-UnionPay cards issued by Russian banks, the Russia-Iran SWIFT alternative, the EAEU-China project of an independent monetary/financial system.

Not to mention the master coup by the Russian Central Bank, pegging 1 gram of gold to 5,000 rubles – which is already around $60, and climbing. Coupled with No Rubles No Gas, what we have here is energy de facto pegged to gold. The EU Chihuahuas and the Japanese colony will need to buy a lot of rubles in gold or buy a lot of gold to have their gas. And it gets better. Russia may re-peg the ruble to gold in the near future. Could go to 2,000 rubles, 1,000 rubles, even 500 rubles for a gram of gold.

No disruptions, but a lot of support for the ruble. Also from much higher prices. Who’s winning?

• Putin Says Russia to Keep Supplying Gas Amid Shift to Rubles (BBG)

Russia aims to keep supplying gas to European customers even as it demands they shift to payment in rubles, President Vladimir Putin said, easing fears that the shift could lead to disruptions from the continent’s biggest supplier. “Russia values its business reputation, we have complied and will comply in the future with obligations under all contracts, including gas contracts,” he told officials in televised comments laying out the new mechanism for ruble payments. “We will continue to supply gas in the volumes and at prices set down in the current long-term agreements,” he added, warning that shipments would be stopped for customers who don’t accept the new terms starting Friday.

European officials said the change isn’t likely to affect supplies. “For us, with regard to Putin’s threat or announcement or plan — one doesn’t really know what to call it anymore — to get paid in rubles, the main point is that the contracts are being kept,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said. When Putin first announced the ruble-payment demand last week, European officials rejected it, saying the move would violate contract terms. But the Kremlin Thursday published a presidential decree outlining the mechanism to allow foreign buyers to convert their dollars and euros into the Russian currency through a state-controlled bank. European benchmark gas jumped after the order was published but pared gains later. Fear of a possible cutoff of Russian gas — worsened by the threats on ruble payments — had driven prices higher in recent days.

An official at the French presidency, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the new mechanism doesn’t change the payments as mandated in the contracts, which will continue as before. But the official said France is preparing a contingency plan for gas, given all the uncertainties. Putin initially portrayed the move against “unfriendly countries” as retaliation for sweeping Western sanctions imposed over his invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin, seeking to use its leverage as Europe’s largest gas supplier, hinted it might cut off countries that refused. But the Group of Seven leading industrial nations flatly rejected the demand, saying it violated contractual terms. Authorities in Germany and Austria warned that the dispute could lead to an interruption in vital supplies.

Gas buyers were still seeking clarity on the change Thursday. Germany’s E.ON SE said it’s not clear which contracts are covered, while Denmark’s Orsted AS said it hasn’t been approached by Russian gas giant Gazprom and until that happens, assumes the contract conditions are unchanged. Payments for gas shipped in April are due late in the month or in May, depending on the contract, according to a person familiar with Russia’s supply deals. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who discussed the issue in a call with Putin, said Thursday, “in any case, it remains the case that companies want to, can and will continue to pay in euros.”

I just said: NO disruptions.

• German Chemical Giant Warns Of “Total Collapse” If Russian Gas Supply Cut (ZH)

CEO of Germany’s multinational BASF SE, the world’s largest chemical producer, has warned that curbing or cutting off energy imports from Russia would bring into doubt the continued existence of small and medium-sized energy companies, and further would likely spiral Germany into its most “catastrophic” economic crisis going back to the end of World War 2. Company CEO Martin Brudermuller issued the words in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper just ahead of German officials by midweek giving an “early warning” to industries and the population of possible natural gas shortages, as Russia appears ready to firmly hold to Putin’s recent declaration that “unfriendly countries” must settle energy payments in rubles, related to the Ukraine crisis and resultant Western sanctions.

According to Bloomberg he mused that while “Germany could be independent from Russia gas in four to five years” it remains that “LNG imports cannot be increased quickly enough to replace all Russian gas flows in the short term.” But in the meantime, Brudermuller described that “It’s not enough that we all turn down the heating by 2 degrees now” given that “Russia covers 55 percent of German natural gas consumption.” He emphasized that if Russian gas disappeared overnight, “many things would collapse here” – given that “we would have high levels of unemployment, and many companies would go bankrupt. This would lead to irreversible damage.” He continued:

“To put it bluntly: This could bring the German economy into its worst crisis since the end of the Second World War and destroy our prosperity. For many small and medium-sized companies in particular, it could mean the end. We can’t risk that!” The dire warning of coming disaster in the event Russian gas is shut off came in response being questioned over whether it’s at all possible to abandon Russian energy. Asserting that this issue is not “black and white” – and that the German economy stands on the brink of catastrophe, the BASF CEO said that if this standoff continues to escalate it will “open the eyes of many on both sides”…

View from China.

• 31 Years After End of Warsaw Pact, NATO Continues As Regional Disrupter (GT)

It has been 31 years since the formal dissolution of the military structures of the Warsaw Pact on March 31, 1991. NATO, another product of the Cold War era, however, has not dissolved with the end of the Cold War and the disbandment of the Warsaw Pact. NATO’s activities have aroused regional and global insecurities. And the ongoing Ukraine crisis was largely triggered by the bloc’s eastward expansion. The continued existence of NATO is mainly to serve the global military hegemony system of the US. Even in the era of the Cold War, the US-led NATO was not only meant to counter the Warsaw Pact, but also served as a tool to dominate the world militarily. This was reinforced after the end of the Cold War. Through military cooperation, Washington can put a grip on many Western countries, especially those in Europe.

As a member of the military group, Europe has been heavily impacted by the US in terms of defense policy and strategic decisions. As Washington has regarded Moscow as its foe and rival, it has exploited many European countries to contain and deter it. Today, NATO has become an instrument to maintain US’ military hegemony. NATO has set a target of 2 percent of a member state’s GDP to spend on defense. But many countries have failed to meet the target in the past several years, to the annoyance of the US. As a response to the Ukraine crisis, more countries vowed to raise spending to 2 percent. Furthermore, the US took advantage of the Ukraine crisis to sell more weaponry to Europe and ramp up its military deployment against Russia. It can be said that the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis has intensified Washington’s control over NATO members in Europe.

After the end of the Cold War, in a bid to prove the value and legitimacy of its existence, NATO has created various imaginary enemies and provoked regional conflicts many times, including the Ukraine crisis. Some experts said that the absolute security of NATO is the absolute insecurity of the rest of the world. With NATO’s eastward expansion, the bloc has intensified conflict with Russia and greatly suppressed its strategic space. This has worsened Russia-Europe relations and threatened the peace and stability of Eastern Europe. The pursuit of absolute security has indeed led to regional and global instability. French President Emmanuel Macron said in 2019 that NATO was experiencing “brain death.” On March 17, he told a press conference that he took “full responsibility” for what he said in 2019, but added that “Russia has just provided an electroshock … the awakening” with its military operations in Ukraine.

Even the alt media in the west feel obligated to start a report like this with: “Amid overwhelming evidence that Russian forces have committed war crimes during an unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine.. “

• Ukraine Journalist Finds Charred Remains Where War Crime Was Filmed (IC)

Amid overwhelming evidence that Russian forces have committed war crimes during an unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine, Ukrainian officials were confronted this week with video that appeared to show Ukrainian soldiers shooting captive Russian soldiers in the legs. Although Ukraine’s senior military leader and its domestic intelligence agency both insisted that the video posted on social networks on Sunday was “a fake” produced by Russia, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised that the government would investigate and punish those responsible if the incident did take place. On Monday, a well-known Ukrainian journalist, Yuri Butusov, published graphic video showing the charred remains of three men he identified as Russian soldiers, as Ukrainian forces recaptured the town of Malaya Rohan, outside Kharkiv, over the weekend.

Although Butusov made no mention of the video of the alleged war crime, a visual analysis of his footage shows that it was clearly filmed in the same location as the video of the prisoners being shot, some time after that incident. Reporting by open-source investigators and BBC News had already established that the video of the alleged war crime was recorded at a dairy processing plant in Malaya Rohan, which is about 3 miles east of Kharkiv. Multiple visual clues in Butusov’s video show that he discovered the burned bodies in precisely the same part of the dairy plant’s courtyard where, in the prior video, at least eight captives were filmed bleeding on the pavement, several with their hands bound behind their backs and bags over their heads.

According to Butusov, the editor of the Ukrainian news site Censor.net, he arrived in Malaya Rohan “a few hours after the battle” there. By that time, his footage shows, several of the buildings at the dairy factory had been partially destroyed by explosions or fire. Those same structures had not yet been damaged when the video showing the prisoners being shot was recorded.

Durham won’t let go.

• Fight With Clinton Campaign And DNC Looms In Sussmann Case (Pol.)

A looming legal battle could reveal new details about the decision by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign to commission a research project that produced a controversial dossier on Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. Prosecutors on special counsel John Durham’s team handling a criminal false-statement case against a top lawyer for Democratic causes, Michael Sussmann, indicated on Thursday that they planned to challenge claims of attorney-client privilege raised by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign. The issue has lingered for years, with the Democratic groups claiming that the investigative firm that produced the dossier, Fusion GPS, did so as part of attorney-requested research related to potential litigation.

However, Durham’s prosecution of Sussmann, a former Perkins Coie partner, may bring the question to a head as prosecutors seek to call witnesses from the law firm and Fusion GPS. “It’s obviously a bit of a hornet’s nest,” defense attorney Sean Berkowitz said on Thursday during a pretrial hearing for Sussmann, who’s accused of lying to the FBI by denying he was working for any client when in September 2016 he brought FBI general counsel James Baker computer data that hinted at links between Trump entities and Russia. Berkowitz said that on Wednesday night, Durham’s team indicated that it planned to contest the privilege claims in the lead-up to Sussmann’s trial, set to open May 16 in Washington. The defense attorney denounced the prosecution’s move as “wildly untimely” and “an ambush that could change the entire parameter and focus of the case.”

“We’re very concerned about it,” Berkowitz told U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper. During a House Intelligence Committee investigation in 2017, Clinton campaign general counsel Mark Elias, a Perkins Coie attorney, testified — with permission from the DNC and the campaign — that he selected Fusion GPS to do research on Trump and individuals in his orbit. He said Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook approved the work, but wasn’t involved in picking the firm. But details of who in Clinton’s orbit knew about the sensitive project, handled primarily by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, remain murky. “We have had conversations and have been unable to get comfort as to the grounding and basis of various privilege theories,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew DeFilippis told the judge.

“These issues are unavoidable and we’ve been working for quite some time to get to the bottom of them.” DeFlippis didn’t delve into the details of the dispute during the hearing held by videoconference on Thursday, but he gave one example: He said the Clinton campaign was asserting privilege over communications of Rodney Joffe, a tech executive who compiled the data Sussmann shared with the FBI. The campaign has asserted the privilege even over messages it was not copied on, DeFelippis said. Durham’s team is, to some extent, shooting in the dark. DeFilippis signaled on Thursday that prosecutors didn’t know the details of much of the information they might want to bring up at Sussmann’s trial because those statements are redacted in documents the prosecution team has access to. “We don’t have insight into what’s under the redactions,” DeFilippis said.

What use is denying at this point?

• White House Stands By Biden’s Claim That Hunter Didn’t Profit Off China (WE)

The White House is standing by then-candidate Joe Biden’s October 2020 assertion that his son had not made money in China despite clear evidence that his son had received millions from Chinese businessmen.
When Kristen Welker of NBC News, who moderated the presidential debate in which Biden made the claim, asked White House communications director Kate Bedingfield on Thursday whether the White House stood by Biden’s debate comments that there was nothing unethical about Hunter Biden’s business dealings and that his son had not made any money in China, Bedingfield confirmed the White House would “stand by“ the statement. “We absolutely stand by the president’s comment, and I would point you to the reporting on this, which referenced statements that we made at the time that we gave to the Washington Post who worked on this story,” Bedingfield said.

“But as you know, I don’t speak for Hunter Biden, so there’s not more I can say on that.” But executives from the Chinese Communist Party-linked CEFC energy company “paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle,” James Biden, the Washington Post confirmed earlier this week following reporting by the Washington Examiner and others. New documents, which include “a signed copy of a $1 million legal retainer, emails related to the wire transfers, and $3.8 million in consulting fees that are confirmed in new bank records and agreements signed by Hunter Biden — illustrate the ways in which his family profited from relationships built over Joe Biden’s decades in public service,” the outlet said. Bedingfield was asked whether there had been discussions inside the White House about possible pardons for James or Hunter Biden, a possibility she dismissed as a “hypothetical” she wouldn’t address from the podium.

Welker had asked Joe Biden during the 2020 debate, “There have been questions about the work your son has done in China and for a Ukrainian energy company when you were vice president. In retrospect, was anything about those relationships inappropriate or unethical?” Joe Biden would then falsely deny his son had made money from China. “Nothing was unethical,” Joe Biden replied, arguing at length he had done no wrong during his son’s lucrative time on the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma, before adding, “My son has not made money in terms of this thing about — what are you talking about — China. I have not had it. The only guy that made money from China is this guy. He’s the only one. Nobody else has made money from China.”

A nuclear power.

• Pakistan Warns Of Foreign-backed Regime-change Attempt (M/P)

While the world’s attention is understandably focused on the crisis in Ukraine, equally grave developments are taking place elsewhere. Perhaps the most consequential – and underreported – is a regime-change operation underway in Pakistan. This March, opposition lawmakers in Pakistan’s parliament launched a “no-confidence” motion aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Imran Khan. Khan, who was democratically elected in 2018, has warned that an “effort is being made to topple the government with the help of foreign funds in our country.” “Our people are being used. Mostly unknowingly, but some knowingly are using this money against us,” Khan said at a rally on March 27. He added that the government had proof of these payments. Khan argued that these external interests seek to reverse his independent foreign policy.

He recalled his predecessor Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a Pakistani prime minister who was overthrown in a US-backed coup in 1977, then executed following a show trial. Bhutto was punished “when he tried to bring in a free foreign policy to the country,” Khan declared. Khan specifically singled out the United States for meddling to try to remove him from power. He said he received a letter from Washington that threatened him for refusing to allow it to establish US military bases in Pakistan. He cautioned that the opposition is collaborating with the United States and other foreign countries in its no-confidence motion against him. These warnings came just over a month after Khan publicly criticized the US government for cynically using Pakistan to advance Washington’s interests. He also simultaneously praised China for always acting as a “friend” of Islamabad.

“Whenever the US needed us, they established relations, and Pakistan became a frontline state [against the Soviet Union], and then abandoned it and slapped sanctions on us,” Khan complained. On the other hand, “China is a friend which has always stood by Pakistan,” he contrasted. The idea that a regime-change plot could even be conceived of, let alone attempted, in a nuclear-armed country of more than 220 million may seem shocking and preposterous. On the surface, it strikes as incredulous considering that Islamabad is a major world capital, arguably the most powerful within the Muslim-majority world. Nevertheless, it is precisely these characteristics that make Pakistan so geopolitically important. The following is an analysis of the principal reasons for why hostile foreign elites have decided that Prime Minister Imran Khan must go

“..81 separate studies — involving a combined 128,000 participants — that demonstrated an average efficacy of 65% for several different outcomes..”

• WSJ Misleads Public on Ivermectin, Ignores Revelations About ‘Hidden Author’ (CHD)

The Wall Street Journal on March 18 published an article with this headline: “Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date.” Headline readers will easily reach the seemingly obvious conclusion: Drs. Anthony Fauci and Rochelle Walensky, along with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were right all along. However, for those who read beyond the headline and first few paragraphs, the story begins to morph. The headline clearly states the trial in question was the largest to date. However, this is not the case — as the article’s author, Sarah Toy, explains early in the piece:

“The latest trial, of nearly 1,400 Covid-19 patients at risk of severe disease, is the largest to show that those who received ivermectin as a treatment didn’t fare better than those who received a placebo.” This wasn’t the largest trial to date — it was only the largest trial to date among the subset of trials that have shown no benefit of ivermectin. Was this an oversight? Or was it a deliberate attempt to confuse the 42 million readers of The Wall Street Journal’s digital content? [..] Toy chose not to mention the 81 separate studies — involving a combined 128,000 participants — that demonstrated an average efficacy of 65% for several different outcomes. She also did not mention the 22 studies — involving nearly 40,000 people — around the outcome in question, hospitalization. Those studies showed an average efficacy of 39%.

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Debt Rattle February 23 2022

Feb 232022

February 23, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:57 am Finance Tagged with: Bill Gates, Blackwater, crypto, Donbass, Durham, Edward Dowd, Moderna, mRNA, People’s Convoy, Pfizer, Ukraine 50 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Le pigeon aux petits pois (Pigeon with Peas) – stolen May 20 2010 1911

• Pfizer & Moderna Investors Run for the Exits (Hope)

• Multiple Brokerage Houses Now Investigate MRNA Jabs (Paine)

• 17,000 Physicians and Medical Scientists Declare “COVID National Emergency Over” (GCS)

• Bill Gates-Linked Lab Developing Vaccine That Spreads Like a Virus (NP)

• The Day Russia’s Patience Ran Out (Orlov)

• Blackwater is in Donbass with the Azov Battalion (Dinucci)

• Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Tyranny (WSJ Op-ed)

• Trudeau Style Tyranny Is Already Here (Kelly)

• Conservatives Force Trudeau To Defend And Vote On Emergency Powers Again (TSun)

• Pentagon Considers Sending National Guard To DC Ahead Of US Freedom Convoy (DM)

• John Durham Sent A Message To The Attorney General And The Country (Hill)

• What Canada Means for Crypto (Doomberg)

Nawaz: Power gets to define reality
https://twitter.com/i/status/1495922272732950530

Oz “91% had other health issues on death certificates”

“91% had other health issues on death certificates”

It’s crumbling. pic.twitter.com/EfG5tqLjMT

— Cain Marko (@CainMarko88) February 22, 2022

Find an enemy

Tucker on how leaders want to keep their unprecedented powers pic.twitter.com/QpiRB4ep3a

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) February 22, 2022

Justus Hope on Edward Dowd. Who compares the vaccines to the 2008 mortgage crisis, and says the FDA play the same role as the ratings agencies back then. But there is one difference, which I don’t think he stresses enough: ratings agencies are companies, enterprises; the FDA is literally the government. He sort of touches on it, “I believe the fraud has moved on to central banks and governments”, but not enough.

• Pfizer & Moderna Investors Run for the Exits (Hope)

Wall Street investors are dumping their Moderna and Pfizer stock faster than the world can drop the mandates. Moderna is down 70 percent from its high, while Pfizer is off 19 percent. Former Blackrock Executive and investment adviser Edward Dowd calls for Moderna to go to zero and Pfizer to end under ten dollars per share. How is this possible given that Pfizer now enjoys record earnings per share and a market capitalization of some $270 billion, making it the 29th largest corporation globally? With nothing but profits in sight for the Pharmaceutical giant, what could be the problem? After all, in December, a Forbes’ headline read, “The Vaccine Maker Can Dominate The Covid Market For Years to Come, Wells Fargo Predicts.” In addition to the enormously profitable mRNA vaccines, Pfizer is rolling out potent antivirals like Paxlovid, which could earn $22 billion in 2022.

Compared to the $81 billion in 2021 revenue, the earnings from the vaccines and the antivirals could top $102 billion for 2022, which is music to shareholders’ ears. However some are hearing shrieks, and these happen to be Wall Street’s finest, the smart money that beats the rest of the herd to the exits like clockwork. These sophisticated investors make it their business to not go with the conventional wisdom but to do their own research, which often pays spectacular dividends. [..] Dowd has sounded the alarm on Moderna and Pfizer as sinking ships that investors need to abandon. So what does the man who foresaw the dot com and the subprime mortgage crisis have to say about Moderna and Pfizer, and what trouble could exist in the paradise of COVID vaccine profits?

Here are Dowd’s words: I want to liken here to what’s gone on in the Great Financial Crisis. We had rating agencies, third-party verification sources that were able to perpetuate the fraud because the money got too big, their institutions became corrupted with the institutional imperative, and they got triple-A ratings which we all know in hindsight were not triple-A ratings – let’s move forward to today. The FDA is the trusted third-party verification of pharmaceutical products. 50% of their budget comes from Pharma…due to the institutional imperative that was in place at the time and the speed with which they tried to approve these unproven products with this unproven technology, fraud did occur, and what’s my proof of that? The FDA, together with Pfizer, were trying to hide the clinical data.

And it’s come out recently…that the all-cause mortality for the Pfizer product failed – that means there were more deaths in the vaccine group than the placebo group. Normally in such a case, you have NO drug approval for such drugs. It’s the gold standard. I’ve been told by all my people in the Biotech Industry they were horrified… And unfortunately, that is not all. Dowd feels that although he has successfully predicted three large frauds in his career, he now expects a global financial market collapse with the debt bubble getting ready to burst. “So I’ve seen three frauds; the corporate fraud of the dot com boom, the bank fraud of the Great Financial Recession, and I believe the fraud has moved on to central banks and governments – because that’s the nature of our monetary system – you have to constantly create credit to keep this thing going.”

More Dowd. $14 billion hedge fund, former Blackrock. Will make some FDA people nervous, and Pfizer/Moderna too.

• Multiple Brokerage Houses Now Investigate MRNA Jabs (Paine)

EXCLUSIVE: Wall Street Taps Pfizer Whistleblower to Help Probe Alarming Details of Fraud During VAX Clinical Trials; Former Blackrock’s Edward Dowd Drops More Bombs as ***MULTIPLE*** Brokerage Houses Now Investigate MRNA Jabs

Anyone seen Fauci lately?

• 17,000 Physicians and Medical Scientists Declare “COVID National Emergency Over” (GCS)

After two years of scientific research, clinical data and evidence from frontline medical professionals treating hundreds of thousands of patients, the international alliance of more than 17,000 physicians and medical scientists have concluded that the highly treatable COVID-19 illness, which is better addressed with natural immunity and proven medication, no longer requires national emergency status. Vaccines have failed to reduce spread of COVID-19 and pose several health risks, while natural immunity for children and healthy adults has proven more effective. Moreover, treatment protocols that use well-studied, FDA approved medications are now proven to be effective in preventing severe illness and death from Covid-19.

With the success of treatments and broad natural immunity amidst waning strength of COVID-19 variants, there is no longer a credible need for a national emergency in the U.S. On March 13th, 2020, Donald Trump used an Executive Order under the National Emergency Act to declare a national emergency concerning COVID-19. On February 24, 2021, the order was extended by President Biden. Since then, the constitutional rights of Americans have been trampled on by allowing governments aligned with pharmaceutical companies to exploit its citizens. Biden’s extension of the national emergency on February 18th, 2022 ignores the extensive medical and scientific data, confirming a non-medical agenda by the White House.

The over 17,000 independent physicians and medical scientists, who reject the corporate interests of pharmaceutical companies, are calling on Congress to reject President Biden’s extension of the national emergency that was declared by President Trump, to reinstate our constitutional democracy, restore doctor-patient relationships, medical privacy and personal medical choice, and end coercive tactics and mandates.

Dr. David Martin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1494212959912050697

To vaccinate anti-vaxxers.

• Bill Gates-Linked Lab Developing Vaccine That Spreads Like a Virus (NP)

An international team of researchers are working on an experimental self-spreading vaccine that could stop the virus leaping from rats to humans — a phenomenon scientists call zoonotic spillover. The drive to develope self-spreading vaccines is not without controversy. The DHSC paper notes: ‘Self-spreading vaccines are less lethal but not non-lethal: they can still kill. ‘Some people will die who would otherwise have lived, though fewer people die overall. ‘The other issue is there is no consent (for vaccination) from the majority of patients.’ But some ethics experts say there are parallels for ‘treating’ mass populations for public health issues without first getting individual consent.

For example, the fluoridation of mains drinking water to prevent tooth decay already happens in some parts of the UK and the Government is considering extending it to all of England. ‘Nobody is asked whether they give consent, even those who disagree with it,’ says Professor Dominic Wilkinson, a medical ethics specialist at Oxford University. ‘Instead, we entrust elected officials to examine the likely health benefits and make decisions based on the evidence.

‘I don’t think that there is anything intrinsically different when it comes to the idea of self-spreading vaccines.’ However, some scientists have serious misgivings about the risk that weakened viruses could mutate into a more potent form once they are free to spread in the population. Dr Filippa Lentzos, a senior lecturer in science and international security at King’s College London, warns of a danger that the science behind self-spreading vaccines could be hijacked to make biological weapons. ‘Such a self-spreading weapon may prove uncontrollable and irreversible,’ she says.

“There were also over two million Donbass refugees in Russia, more than one million in the Ukraine and around 50 thousand in Belarus.”

• The Day Russia’s Patience Ran Out (Orlov)

Today’s date, commonly written out as 22.02.2022, will be an easy one for future schoolchildren to remember. Various people will remember it in various ways. The residents of Donetsk and Lugansk, the two formerly Ukrainian, now once again Russian cities that have been subjected to conditions bordering on genocide since the US-instigated government overthrow of 2014 will remember jubilantly dancing in the streets, shooting off lots of fireworks, waving Russian flags and hollering the Russian national anthem. For them, this is the day on which new hope arrived that their eight-year nightmare would soon be over and life would finally return to normal.

The badly informed new German chancellor inadvertently helped to resolve the situation by saying that the idea of a Ukrainian-caused genocide in the Donbass is ridiculous. Given the history of the region, the public spectacle of a German leader using the words “genocide” and “ridiculous” in the same sentence made the moment pregnant with possibilities. Here is the information the seemingly rather dim-witted chancellor was missing. There were 9,282 dead on the Donbass side (70% of them civilians) and 114 children. The dead on the Ukrainian side (the Ukrainian troops and various assorted mercenaries that had been attacking and laying siege to the Donbass since 2014) numbered 20,186. This was prior to the renewed Ukrainian shelling of recent days. There were also over two million Donbass refugees in Russia, more than one million in the Ukraine and around 50 thousand in Belarus.

Most Russians will also remember this day with relief as the day their government finally—finally! after eight literally bloody years!—determined that a negotiated settlement in the Ukraine would simply never happen and that there was no point in waiting any further before going ahead and cleaning it up. It was cathartic for them to hear their president unleash a torrent of truth about the Ukraine, calling it a Bolshevist concoction of mostly historically Russian lands that was simply never intended for independent statehood, pointing out that it never paid its share of Soviet-era foreign debt (Russia paid it off on its behalf), that it refused to turn over Russian assets with which it incidentally ended up, and instead soaked up several hundred billion dollars of Russian subsidies, that it extorted money for the use of its Soviet-built gas pipeline that it got free of charge, and that it has squandered and stolen the rest of its vast Soviet patrimony.

He also mentioned was the Ukraine’s stated ambitions simultaneously to join NATO and to invade Crimea—automatically triggering a world war. He mentioned its stated ambition to use plutonium from its spent nuclear fuel stockpiles and rockets left over from the Soviet times to concoct weapons of mass destruction—a situation that simply had to be dealt with. Finally, he made clear that all of the Ukrainian war crimes of the past eight years have been carefully documented and that all of these war criminals will be brought to justice.

Tucker Putin

Tucker: It may be worth asking yourself… why do I hate Putin.. Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? pic.twitter.com/0jlXfS0PYy

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 23, 2022

A $10 billion plan. In case you wonder why Putin did what he did.

• Blackwater is in Donbass with the Azov Battalion (Dinucci)

The phone call between President Biden and Ukrainian President Zelensky “did not go well”, CNN headlines: while “Biden warned that a Russian invasion is practically certain in February, when the frozen ground makes it possible for tanks to pass through”, Zelensky “asked Biden to lower his tone, arguing that the Russian threat is still ambiguous”. As the Ukrainian president himself takes a more cautious stance, Ukrainian armed forces are massing in the Donbass near the area of Donetsk and Lugansk inhabited by Russian populations. According to reports from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, obscured by our mainstream which only talks about the Russian deployment, Ukrainian Army and National Guard units, amounting to about 150 thousand men, are positioned here. They are armed and trained, and thus effectively commanded, by US-NATO military advisers and instructors.

From 1991 to 2014, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, the U.S. provided Ukraine with $4 billion in military assistance, which was added to by over $2.5 billion after 2014, plus over a billion provided by the NATO Trust Fund in which Italy also participates. This is only part of the military investments made by the major NATO powers in Ukraine. Great Britain, for example, concluded various military agreements with Kiev, investing among other things 1.7 billion pounds in the strengthening of Ukraine’s naval capabilities: this program provides for the arming of Ukrainian ships with British missiles, the joint production of 8 fast missile launchers, the construction of naval bases on the Black Sea and also on the Sea of Azov between Ukraine, Crimea and Russia. In this framework, Ukrainian military spending, which in 2014 was equivalent to 3% of GDP, increased to 6% in 2022, corresponding to more than $ 11 billion.

In addition to the US-NATO military investments in Ukraine, there is the $10 billion plan being implemented by Erik Prince, founder of the private US military company Blackwater, now renamed Academy, which has been supplying mercenaries to the CIA, Pentagon and State Department for covert operations (including torture and assassinations), earning billions of dollars. Erik Prince’s plan, revealed by a Time magazine investigation [1], is to create a private army in Ukraine through a partnership between the Lancaster 6 company, with which Prince has supplied mercenaries in the Middle East and Africa, and the main Ukrainian intelligence office controlled by the CIA. It is not known, of course, what would be the tasks of the private army created in Ukraine by the founder of Blackwater, certainly with funding from the CIA. However, it can be expected that it would conduct covert operations in Europe, Russia and other regions from its base in Ukraine.

Even @TheBabylonBee can’t compete with this satire pic.twitter.com/mNSDwfGiIb

— MONETARY MAYHEM™ (@MONETARY_MAYHEM) February 23, 2022

The WSJ editors have had enough.

• Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Tyranny (WSJ Op-ed)

Modern liberals can hurtle from extravagant tolerance to suppression without batting an eye. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dramatizes the tendency.

Every trucker blockade in Canada has been cleared, yet Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal government isn’t giving up the emergency powers it claimed to criminalize the protest movement against vaccine mandates. “This state of emergency is not over,” Mr. Trudeau said, citing the risk of future blockades. This isn’t how a nation of laws is supposed to function. Mr. Trudeau’s new powers rely on defining the disruptive but peaceful truckers as a security threat akin to violent terrorists. His emergency law, a broad prohibition on public assemblies and even indirect support for them, ensnares tens of thousands of Canadians as “designated persons” whose assets must, per another of his new laws, be found and frozen by any financial institution, without due process or court supervision. There isn’t an appeals process in case of error, and so far 200 accounts are frozen.

Pressed for details, Justice Minister David Lametti initially explained that “pro-Trump” big donors “ought to be worried.” Now the government says it is targeting only the truckers, but its power has no limiting principle. Mr. Lametti says, “We took measures that had been applied to terrorism and applied them to other illegal activity.” This is how a trucker who violated traffic laws or committed “mischief” becomes the target of financial tools designed to disable al Qaeda cells. Bank-account freezes weren’t necessary to clear the blockades. That required police only to arrest those blocking traffic and to requisition tow trucks (already authorized by Canada’s criminal code). The asset freezes serve not to end an emergency but to incapacitate and intimidate protesters after the fact.

Parliament declined Monday night to revoke Mr. Trudeau’s emergency. He prevailed with the support of the socialist New Democratic Party, which once prided itself like others on the left as a defender of civil liberties. “We understood absolutely that we do not want to trigger an election,” said leader Jagmeet Singh, cowed by Mr. Trudeau’s threat. “That would be the worst thing to do in this crisis.” The vote captured the left-liberal pas de deux that has led to abuse of emergency powers. Ottawa’s police chief was a progressive and, as progressives do, he let protesters violate the law with impunity—for weeks. This exasperated Canadians who wanted order and commerce restored. The Liberals blamed foreign interference and lambasted the truckers along trendy American lines as racists and insurrectionists. Then Mr. Trudeau stepped in to curtail the rights of political enemies.

Kenney

Premier of Alberta, Canada (Jason Kenney) rejects Justin Trudeau and Klaus Schwab and the entire set of proposals referred to in 'The Great Reset'.

Sound ON pic.twitter.com/jftbEmp9DN

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) February 22, 2022

“The comparisons are stark.”

• Trudeau Style Tyranny Is Already Here (Kelly)

In a recent court motion, Joe Biden’s Justice Department changed the official name of its investigation into the protest at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Originally designated the “Capitol breach” probe, the department just replaced “breach” with a more sinister word: siege. “The ‘Capitol Siege’ refers to the events of January 6, 2021, when thousands of individuals entered the U.S. Capitol and U.S. Capitol grounds without authority, halting the Joint Session and the entire official proceeding of Congress for hours,” Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote in a footnote to a February 10 filing. Graves commended Capitol and D.C. Metro police for “clear[ing] the Capitol of rioters” that afternoon. But courtroom rhetoric isn’t the only thing Graves is heating up.

The Justice Department has opened a “Capitol Siege Section” in the agency’s criminal division and wants to hire at least 20 more lawyers to help prosecute Americans for any involvement in what happened on January 6. Qualified attorneys will be employed on a temporary basis and could earn as much as $176,000 per year. “Capitol siege” prosecutors will complement an army of thousands of Justice Department employees, including FBI agents from 56 field offices across the country, handling what Attorney General Merrick Garland warned is the biggest investigation in the department’s history. More than 730 people have been arrested so far—amounting to more than three times the number of federal arrests related to the 2020 “mostly peaceful” riots that lasted for months and resulted in far more death and destruction—and the first major trial of a January 6 defendant starts next week.

As freedom-lovers justifiably recoil at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s crackdown on vaccine mandate protesters, Americans worry the same sort of political retribution could happen here. I’m sorry to report, it already has. The scenes from Ottawa are matched or surpassed by the images here, including thuggish cops attacking January 6 protesters with mace and explosive devices. The difference? Instead of mounted police trampling a woman, ours merely shot and killed one woman and beat up a few more. What the Trudeau regime is now unleashing against the truckers and their supporters has been underway in America for more than a year. Using January 6 as a pretext, the Biden regime is brandishing its authority to crush political dissent. Now, it appears Trudeau and his apparatchiks are stealing the U.S. Justice Department’s playbook of power and pain.

The comparisons are stark. Take, for example, the words of Steve Bell, acting chief of the Ottawa police department. He told a reporter over the weekend how the government will hunt down those who stood in defiance of Trudeau’s vaccine mandates. “If you were involved in this protest, we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges, absolutely,” Bell said during a press briefing on February 19. “This investigation will go on for months to come. It has many many different streams from a federal level from a financial level from a provincial licensing level to a criminal code level from a municipal breach of . . . court order level. It will be a time consuming and complicated investigation that will go on for a period of time.”

The NDP holds the balance. And their leader is WEF.

• Conservatives Force Trudeau To Defend And Vote On Emergency Powers Again (TSun)

If Justin Trudeau wants to keep the Emergencies Act for the full 30 days, Candice Bergen and the Conservatives are going to make him explain himself to Canadians again next week. Immediately following the vote to extend the federal government’s new powers, Bergen tabled a motion to rescind those very powers. That may seem odd given that she and the Conservatives had just lost the vote 185-151 but it was in fact a very strategic move. Under Section 59 of the Emergencies Act, any group of 10 Senators or 20 members of the House of Commons can sign a request to revoke the government’s emergency powers. By tabling the motion on Monday night immediately after the vote, Bergen has ensured that there will be another debate and another vote next week on the need for these powers.

“Liberal and NDP MPs will need to explain to Canadians why they are continuing to enforce a national state of emergency that gives the federal government far-reaching powers and authority,” Bergen said. Given that the area around Parliament is cleared out, the borders are all clear, there really isn’t the need for the emergency powers to continue. That’s a position held by some in Trudeau’s own Liberal caucus and several New Democrats as well. The government could rescind their powers before we even get to that point but it does put Trudeau on notice that he will have to continue defending his extraordinary power grab. He had trouble doing so on Monday when asked by reporters.

In fact, Trudeau turned to tow trucks as the first reason for needing the act to continue to be used when asked what was so vital in the act that he needed it to continue. Of course, the trucks have all left the Parliamentary precinct and there is no need for tow trucks. His next line of reasoning was that people might come back. Well then, use regular policing powers and stop them. Trudeau then turned to the ability to keep border crossings like the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor clear. That bridge was cleared away before he even invoked the Emergencies Act and existing federal and provincial laws are sufficient to keep border crossings clear and operating. “The Emergencies Act was not necessary to clear the blockades. The government already had all the tools they need under current Canadian law,” Bergen said.

It’ll be fun.

• Pentagon Considers Sending National Guard To DC Ahead Of US Freedom Convoy (DM)

The Pentagon could commission the National Guard to help manage thousands of big rigs expected to descend upon the nation’s capital this week in protest of government mandates. Following the path of a Canadian convoy of anti-vaccine long haulers who congested Ottawa’s streets for weeks this month, a group of fed-up American truckers from throughout the country are setting out Wednesday to launch their own mass protest in Washington, D.C., and plan to congest popular thoroughfares – including the Capitol Beltway. The Pentagon has been asked to help manage the protests by deploying the National Guard, according to Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.

‘The Department is analyzing a request for assistance from the U.S. Capitol Police and the DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency,’ Kirby said in a statement. ‘Those agencies have asked for National Guard personnel to provide support at traffic control points in and around the District to help the USCP [U.S. Capitol Police] and D.C. government address potential challenges stemming from possible disruptions at key traffic arteries.’ Although it’s not clear how many people will participate in the protests, it could number in the thousands, Fox News reported. Those leading the movement have requested a National Park Service permit that could accommodate up to 3,000 truckers in D.C., according to the report. This comes as officials also plan to reinstall the fencing that surrounded the Capitol complex last year ahead of Biden’s March 1 State of the Union address.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1496280231040393218

“He has provided hope that accountability in D.C. — rare as a MAGA sticker on a Prius — actually might happen.”

• John Durham Sent A Message To The Attorney General And The Country (Hill)

John Durham has been a special prosecutor for almost a year and a half — not a long time, but plenty of time for a drumbeat to begin that he was showing little progress against his orders to examine the origins of the debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative that convulsed a presidency. His few indictments so far have been directed against peripheral players, feeding a fear among Donald Trump’s supporters that elites higher up the stack are going to get away with their chicanery. The problem for Durham is that these perceptions were providing the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) with increasing political top cover to shut down the special prosecutor’s office as an unproductive, politics-driven exercise in futility that is wasting taxpayer dollars.

If Durham were to be terminated, the American people might not even push back much since no one had a clue whether his investigation was bearing meaningful fruit. Attorney General Merrick Garland already had undercut Durham’s investigation once by taking steps to rehabilitate the reputation of fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a key figure in the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion debacle. The Biden DOJ is not friendly to the goals of Mr. Durham. Durham couldn’t hold a news conference or pen an op-ed touting progress; that’s just not done by investigators in the middle of an investigation. So, he turned to a readily available vehicle — a routine, fairly innocuous motion filed with the court — to embed an explosive message to the DOJ and the American people. It landed like fireworks at a funeral. No one saw it coming.

Tucked inside the court filing, John Durham laid out a good chunk of the case he’s building, and it was stunning. Durham revealed the outlines of a corrupt conspiracy by operatives linked to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The exposed conspiracy allegedly made a contrived, fraudulent and shocking attempt to entice the FBI and CIA to use their powers against the rival Trump campaign and presidency. This recent filing by Durham was designed to have two effects. First, and most important, he has now made any decision by the president or attorney general to dump him much more difficult to undertake. The last time a president fired a special prosecutor who was making significant progress, he lost his presidency.

Second, Durham has signaled to the American people that his investigation has legs, despite perceptions of plodding inertia. He has provided hope that accountability in D.C. — rare as a MAGA sticker on a Prius — actually might happen.

Can Justin destroy bitcoin?

• What Canada Means for Crypto (Doomberg)

The digitization of currency ties each individual directly – transparently – to their money and empowers the state with decision power on whether any particular citizen is allowed to transact in modern society. Your money no longer represents stored wealth that can be exchanged for goods and services. Rather, it represents stored wealth that can be exchanged for goods and services as permitted by the state. Mostly gone is the anonymity that comes with transacting in physical cash – the ultimate manifestation of a decentralized currency. (Just try booking a hotel room with nothing but cash and a valid passport.) In its place we find myriad extrajudicial procedures and complex regulations that strip away our freedoms and, if left unchecked, will ultimately make way for the displacement of our representative democracies with totalitarian states.

In a staggering 56-part Twitter thread that recently went viral, an anonymous account by the name of @punk6529 drives home this point brilliantly. A link to the full thread is here. The core thesis is that one cannot have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, or freedom of religion without the freedom to transact. Robbing a citizen of his or her ability to transact is a devastating punishment, and for the government to claim it has the ability to do so without judicial review or any reasonable recourse is the functional equivalent of totalitarianism. The 18th and 19th tweets in the thread are particularly compelling:

As we described in our last piece, Justin Trudeau has crossed the Rubicon in this regard, and if his actions become normalized, the entire edifice of Western democracy will undoubtedly collapse. Lest our readers think this is hyperbole or that Trudeau’s behavior will be contained to Canada, we point you to an excellent piece called In Praise of Bitcoin written by Dr. Ben Hunt . In it, Hunt correctly likens the US Treasury to the Eye of Sauron. Here’s a critical passage (emphasis added):

“If there’s a Western governmental institution that is more unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality than the US Treasury, I am unaware of what that institution might be. But unlike Wall Street, which is motivated by Flow, the US Treasury has an entirely different (but highly compatible!) goal. The goal of the US Treasury is to see all of the money in the world. That’s really all it is. That’s what Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations are all about. That’s what Know Your Client (KYC) regulations are all about. That’s what Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) regulations are all about. That’s what the Treasury-led Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) is all about. That’s what the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) is all about. None of these programs are really about taxes. None of these programs are really about catching crooks or fighting terrorists. All of these programs are really about information for information’s sake regarding the greatest source of power in the world and the raison d’etre of every government on Earth: money.”

It is through a related lens that we have written skeptically about crypto in the past. We’ve marveled as US regulators allowed the crypto ecosystem to evolve, warned crypto participants that a crackdown is inevitable, and questioned how the “value” of one’s crypto holdings could be effectively transmitted back to the fiat world. Many have filled our Twitter feed and Substack comments section expressing the view that Trudeau’s descent into totalitarianism validates the need for cryptocurrencies. While we don’t doubt the demand for such exposure will increase because of his actions, we draw a more sobering conclusion. Trudeau’s actions destroy the concept that cryptocurrencies will ever be an effective medium of exchange. We recently summarized this view on Twitter:

Dr. Lee Merritt ft. Dr. Tom Cowan

Dr. Lee Merritt ft. Dr. Tom Cowan https://t.co/473gDF0rgc pic.twitter.com/SjHFo7EeIA

— DocJustice (@DoctorJustice1) February 22, 2022

RFKjr
https://twitter.com/i/status/1496113233287168005

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Debt Rattle February 16 2022

Feb 162022

February 16, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:22 am Finance Tagged with: catastrophe, coup plot, Djokovic, Durham, propaganda, Russia, Trudeau, Ukraine, Zero Hedge 163 Responses »

Leonardo da Vinci Ginevra de’ Benci 1474-78

• The Global Covid Vaccination Campaign Is Courting Catastrophe (Kohlmayer)

• New Research Points To Possible Reason For Long Covid (JPost)

• Ukraine Crisis: A Nightmare Caused by US Interventionism (Ron Paul)

• US Has New Ukraine Coup Plot Theory (RT)

• ‘West Has Been Destroyed Without A Shot Fired’ – Russia (RT)

• US Accuses Zero Hedge Of Spreading Russian Propaganda (AP)

• Protesters to End Border Blockades as Trudeau’s Threats Hit Home (BBG)

• Democrats, the More Effective Evil (Chris Hedges)

• Novak Djokovic’s Propensity For Self-sabotage Has Become A Defining Trait (G.)

• Special Counsel John Durham Has Triggered a Media Meltdown (Turley)

• ’60 Minutes,’ CNN, MSNBC, Downplayed, Criticized Durham Probe (Fox)

I was ‘barred’ from publishing anything on Fauci: Former Forbes contributor

I was ‘barred’ from publishing anything on Fauci: Former Forbes contributor pic.twitter.com/ItBgfP8p9G

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) February 15, 2022

Dowd: Summation of Major Insurance company corporate group policy Loss Ratios (Death Claims) Q4 rate vs 2019 rate:

Unum $UNM +36%
Lincoln $LNC +57%
Pru $PRU +41%
$RGA +21%
Hartford $HIG +32%
MetLife $MET +24%

Why are some insurance companies banking on more deaths?
Hear from former Blackrock Portfolio Manager @DowdEdward and see the whole report on @OnLocals, @rumblevideo or my website! pic.twitter.com/Xho3ttLW2f

— Kristi Leigh (@KristiLeighTV) February 16, 2022

“..Under the normal schedule, the Covid vaccines Phase III trials would be completed in April of 2024. If this phase went without a hitch, April of 2024 would be the earliest that anyone could justifiably start saying that the Covid vaccines are “safe and effective.”

• The Global Covid Vaccination Campaign Is Courting Catastrophe (Kohlmayer)

After receiving full approval, vaccines continue to be carefully monitored for adverse events in case some vaccinal flaw may have escaped detection during the multi-year trial phase. There have been a number of vaccines that were pulled from the market after they received full approval due to unexpected safety issues. Some of these include vaccines for Rotavirus, Lyme Disease, and Whole-Cell Pertussis among others. Therefore, for a vaccine to be justifiably declared “completely safe,” it must undergo at least five years of intensive testing in clinical trials and then several years of monitoring as it is administered in populations at large. The Covid vaccines, however, were publicly declared to be “completely safe” less than 8 months after the start of human clinical trials.

On the normal vaccine trial timeline, month 8 is in Phase 2 of the three-stage clinical trial regime. The claim that the Covid vaccines were “completely safe,” was, therefore, completely unjustifiable and unsubstantiated. Those who made this claim engaged in a deliberate and unconscionable act of public deception. And yet this claim was used as the basis for a worldwide campaign in which more than half of Earth’s inhabitants have been injected with experimental pharmaceuticals that did not undergo proper testing. The phrase “safe and effective” became the de-facto slogan of the planet-wide vaccination enterprise. Believing that the vaccines were “completely safe,” billions of people willingly – and even enthusiastically – lined up to receive their Covid injections.

Needless to say, not everyone was ready to accept the propaganda. Disregarding all reasonable objections, however, many governments decided that universal vaccination was their goal and decided that the unwilling needed to be coerced. This they sought to do through direct vaccines mandates and covid passports or digital certificates. The latter two were designed in such a way as to compel the hesitant to submit to the shots on pain of being excluded from the normal course of societal life. Government and public health officials justified this drastic approach by repeatedly stating that the vaccines were “completely safe” and effective, and because of this it was okay to force the shots even on those who did not want to take them.

The claim “safe and effective” was thus used as a means of allurement and coercion for the planet-wide Covid vaccination crusade. We need to pause here and contemplate the enormity of what the vaccinators have “accomplished.” Less than 22 months after the beginning of the clinical trials, they have managed to inject the plurality of mankind with their inadequately tested products. If things were being done properly, right now the vaccine developers would have been gearing for Phase III of clinical trials. This stage normally takes place between months 24 and 48 after the initiation of the trial process. This is how Johns Hopkins University describes what this stage is about: “Phase III clinical trials are critical to understanding whether vaccines are safe and effective.”

[..] Under the normal schedule, the Covid vaccines Phase III trials would be completed in April of 2024. If this phase went without a hitch, April of 2024 would be the earliest that anyone could justifiably start saying that the Covid vaccines are “safe and effective.”

“It runs from the brain throughout the entirety of the face and chest, reaching the abdomen.”

• New Research Points To Possible Reason For Long Covid (JPost)

Many symptoms of post-COVID syndrome could be caused by lasting damage sustained to one of the most important nerves in the human body during initial infection with coronavirus, new research has suggested. What is the vagus nerve? The vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve and is the longest and most complex of all of them. It runs from the brain throughout the entirety of the face and chest, reaching the abdomen. The vagus nerve serves as the main connection between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract, sending back information about the state of the inner organs.

As well as being crucial to the gastrointestinal system, as it controls the transfer of food from the mouth to the stomach and moves food through the intestines, the vagus nerve is also responsible for multiple other processes, such as controlling the heart rate, sweat production and the gag reflex, as well as certain muscle movements in the mouth, including those necessary for speech. New research set to be presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) investigates the connection between post-COVID syndrome, also known as long COVID, and the vagus nerve. The pilot study was authored by Dr. Gemma Lladós and Dr. Lourdes Mateu of the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital in Badalona, Spain. Its findings will be presented at the congress in Lisbon from April 23-26.

The study suggests that SARS-CoV-2-mediated vagus nerve dysfunction (VND) could be responsible for many of the symptoms of long COVID, including persistent voice problems, difficulty swallowing, dizziness, abnormally high heart rate (tachycardia), low blood pressure and digestive issues.

“..Or it’s coming next Tuesday, or Wednesday, or surely before the end of the Olympics.”

• Ukraine Crisis: A Nightmare Caused by US Interventionism (Ron Paul)

Over the weekend we heard that the US is evacuating its embassy in Kiev for fear of a Russian invasion. We also heard that Russia is evacuating its embassy in Kiev for fear of a US-backed provocation in eastern Ukraine that may lead to a Russian military response. We are in “uncharted territory” the media tells us. Yes, that is true. But it is uncharted because no one had ever imagined in the past that the US government would be so foolish to risk a thermonuclear war over the borders of a country – Ukraine – that have changed so many times over the past century. An urgent Biden-Putin phone call on Saturday did not lead to any breakthrough – as if anyone thought it would. Instead, it provided cover for Biden Administration hawks to claim they tried every diplomatic approach, but war seems to be the only option.

But this whole thing is a farce. As I see it, here is the Ukraine crisis in a nutshell: Biden to Putin: “Don’t invade Ukraine.” Putin to Biden: “We have no intention of invading Ukraine.” Biden to the US media: “Putin is about to invade Ukraine!” Then Biden’s top officials proceed to embarrass themselves by warning that the invasion was imminent. Or it’s coming next Tuesday, or Wednesday, or surely before the end of the Olympics. Does anyone think they have any credibility left with their constant hysterical warnings? Meanwhile “US intelligence” continues to leak incendiary information – likely self-serving – to a US media that has lost any interest in skepticism toward any “scoop” handed down by US government officials.

What the US media will not report is that this entire crisis – and the threat of a serious war – has all been brought about by US interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine, specifically the US-backed coup that overthrew an elected government in 2014. Every bit of unrest in Ukraine proceeded from that single foolish and immoral act by the Obama Administration.

“..the former presidential candidate called the suggestion “funny,” noting that his current job description is “director of a sanatorium.”

• US Has New Ukraine Coup Plot Theory (RT)

American intelligence believes that former MP Oleg Tsaryov could be made leader of a Ukrainian puppet regime after a successful Russian invasion causes the Kiev government to fall, Britain’s Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Citing an anonymous source in a Western intelligence agency, the outlet suggested that Tsaryov, who served in Ukraine’s parliament until 2014, would be made head of the country. Moscow “might position Oleg Tsaryov, and others, in leadership roles as part of this effort,” the source said, as quoted by FT. According to the newspaper, his name appeared in US intelligence materials that were shared with Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand, all members of Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

Tsaryov, who served in Parliament for twelve years, is best known for standing as a pro-Russia candidate in the 2014 presidential election until he withdrew after attacks from Ukrainian nationalists. He then defected to Donetsk, where he became the first speaker of the parliament of Novorossiya, a breakaway state in east Ukraine that lasted less than a year. He later moved to Crimea, where he now resides and runs a medical retreat. Speaking to the FT, the former presidential candidate called the suggestion “funny,” noting that his current job description is “director of a sanatorium.”

“15 February 2022 will go down in history as the day Western war propaganda failed..”

• ‘West Has Been Destroyed Without A Shot Fired’ – Russia (RT)

With Russia announcing that its troops are pulling back following the completion of exercises near the border with Ukraine, Moscow has insisted that predictions it could be just moments away from ordering a full-blown invasion have been proven false. In a fiery statement on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova poured scorn on weeks of reports and claims from US and European officials that Moscow’s armed forces could be just hours away from launching a strike against its neighbor. “15 February 2022 will go down in history as the day Western war propaganda failed,” she wrote. According to her, the West has been “shamed and destroyed without firing a single shot.”

At the same time, Moscow’s Ministry of Defense announced that a number of Russian troops had finished their training exercises in Belarus, close to the Ukrainian border, and will begin the process of withdrawing. Zakharova’s comments come after American business outlet Bloomberg reported on Saturday, citing unnamed officials, that an offensive against Ukraine could take place as early as Tuesday. The agency reported that a possible attack might include a provocation in the Donbass region or against Kiev. The White House’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, told CNN over the weekend that “sources” and “gathered intelligence” suggested “major military action” could “begin any day now.” He said that this included the coming week before the end of the Olympic games.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

• US Accuses Zero Hedge Of Spreading Russian Propaganda (AP)

U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday accused a conservative financial news website with a significant American readership of amplifying Kremlin propaganda and alleged five media outlets targeting Ukrainians have taken direction from Russian spies. The officials said Zero Hedge, which has 1.2 million Twitter followers, published articles created by Moscow-controlled media that were then shared by outlets and people unaware of their nexus to Russian intelligence. The officials did not say whether they thought Zero Hedge knew of any links to spy agencies and did not allege direct links between the website and Russia. Zero Hedge denied the claims and said it tries to “publish a wide spectrum of views that cover both sides of a given story.”

In a response posted online Tuesday morning, the website said it has “has never worked, collaborated or cooperated with Russia, nor are there any links to spy agencies.” The officials briefed The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence sources. It was the latest effort by President Joe Biden’s administration to release U.S. intelligence findings about Russian activity involving Ukraine as part of a concerted push to expose and influence the moves of Russian President Vladimir Putin. U.S. officials previously accused Putin of planning a “false-flag” operation to create a pretext for a new invasion of Ukraine and detailed what they believe are final-stage Russian preparations for an assault. It’s unclear whether U.S. efforts are changing Putin’s behavior.

And without releasing more proof of its findings, Washington has been criticized and reminded of past intelligence failures such as the debunked allegations that pre-war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Zero Hedge has been sharply critical of Biden and posted stories about allegations of wrongdoing by his son Hunter. While perhaps best known for its coverage of markets and finance, the website also covers politics with a conservative bent. In its response online, the website accused the AP of publishing a “bizarre hit piece” and said government officials were trying to distract from “our views of the current dismal US economic situation.” “The bottom line is that such hit piece accusations that we somehow work with or for the Kremlin are nothing new: we have repeatedly faced similar allegations over the years, and we can absolutely confirm that all of them are ‘errors,’” the website said.

According to Bloomberg, the truckers are utterly defeated.

“A lot of grown men were crying,” Klassen said. “We didn’t think he was going to enact that. We could lose everything.”

• Protesters to End Border Blockades as Trudeau’s Threats Hit Home (BBG)

Protesters against vaccine mandates at two border crossings in Western Canada plan to leave after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government invoked emergency powers that could freeze their bank accounts and suspend their insurance. A border crossing between Coutts, Alberta and Sweet Grass, Montana that had been closed Monday has partially reopened to traffic, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Gina Slaney said Tuesday by phone. Demonstrators have been at the border post since late January in a protest against vaccine mandates and Covid-19 restrictions. “People are going home,” Slaney said, noting traffic is moving slowly as there are still vehicles on the road. “Vehicles can get through north and southbound lanes right now and it seems that vehicles are crossing the border.”

Demonstrators at a border crossing between Manitoba and North Dakota are also preparing to leave in unison Wednesday with a police escort, said Jake Klassen, a truck driver who joined the protest out of frustration he can not visit his daughter receiving palliative care unless he is fully vaccinated. People are worried the government will seize their property and protesters plan to leave in a “slow roll” tomorrow and reopen traffic, Klassen said by phone. “A lot of grown men were crying,” Klassen said. “We didn’t think he was going to enact that. We could lose everything.” The Manitoba border to the U.S. at Emerson was still closed as of 12:14 p.m. New York time, according to the website of Canada’s border agency. “We accomplished something, I believe, but we didn’t accomplish what we went there to accomplish,” Klassen said.

Ezra Levant

Trudeau goes to war with truckers, invokes "Emergencies Act" for first time in Canada's history pic.twitter.com/WrI1b4J34A

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) February 15, 2022

“The war industry [..] is a bipartisan project. ”

• Democrats, the More Effective Evil (Chris Hedges)

The desperate measures to stave off an economic crisis are self-defeating. The bag of tricks is empty. Massive defaults on mortgages, student loans, credit cards, household debt, car debt and other loans in the United States is probably inevitable. With no short-term mechanisms left to paper over the disaster, it will usher in a prolonged depression. An economic crisis means a political crisis. And a political crisis is traditionally solved by war against enemies inside and outside the nation. The Democrats are as guilty of this as the Republicans. Wars can get started by Democrats, such as Harry S. Truman in Korea or John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, and perpetuated by Republicans. Or they can get started by Republicans, such as George W. Bush, and perpetuated by Democrats such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Bill Clinton, without declaring war, imposed punishing sanctions on Iraq and authorized the Navy and the Air Force to carry out tens of thousands of sorties against the country, dropping thousands of bombs and launching hundreds of missiles. The war industry, with its $768 billion military budget, along with the expansion of Homeland Security, the FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the National Security Agency, is a bipartisan project. The handful of national political leaders, such as Henry Wallace in 1948 and George McGovern in 1972, who dared to challenge the war machine were ruthlessly hounded into political oblivion by the leaders of both parties. Biden’s bellicose rhetoric towards China and especially Russia, more strident than that of the Trump administration, has been accompanied by the formation of new security alliances such as those with India, Japan, Australia, and Great Britain in the Indo-Pacific.

U.S. aggression has, ironically, pushed China and Russia into a forced marriage, something the architects of the Cold War, including Nixon and Kissinger with their opening to China in 1971, worked very hard to avoid. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, after meeting recently in Beijing, issued a 5,300-word statement that condemned NATO expansion in eastern Europe, denounced the formation of security blocs in the Asia Pacific region, and criticized the AUKUS trilateral security pact between the US, Great Britain and Australia. They also vowed to thwart “color revolutions” and strengthen “back-to-back” strategic coordination.

People with principles are dangerous today. But he sabotages himself by NOT getting vaxxed?!

• Novak Djokovic’s Propensity For Self-sabotage Has Become A Defining Trait (G.)

Over the past 11 years of men’s tennis, during which Novak Djokovic rose to dominance and improbably positioned himself as one of the greatest to play the game, the only time his success has been in doubt came after the summer of 2017 when he suffered through many months with an elbow injury. The injury became a point of contention between himself and his then-coach, Andre Agassi, who later said he had swiftly advocated for surgery. But Djokovic addressed the injury by resting for nearly six months, believing his body was built to heal itself naturally. It was not. After returning the next year to pain and early losses, Djokovic finally underwent surgery in February 2018. As he digested his guilt about agreeing to the surgery, he cried for days.

On Tuesday, Djokovic gave his first full interview since his deportation from Australia after arriving in the country without being vaccinated against Covid. Djokovic acknowledged that, as things stand in a worldwide sport that moves from country to country each week, his unvaccinated status means he is unable to play in the majority of tournaments. “That is the price I am willing to pay,” he said. In the same breath, Djokovic said with a smile that at such a critical moment in tennis history he understands his actions may deprive him of the possibility of winning the highest number of grand slam tournaments. He framed his decision in libertarian terms: “The principles of decision making on my body are more important than any title or anything else.”

Djokovic’s conversation with the BBC was a reminder that his propensity for self-sabotage has become a defining trait. The principles that made him so averse to surgery in 2017 were not in tune with reality. After his surgery, he won the final two majors of that 2018 season and he has won eight since. The most controversial on-court moment of his career so far, his disqualification from the 2020 US Open after unintentionally hitting a line judge with a ball, came after near misses from which he failed to learn. Here he is again, his own worst enemy. As Djokovic attempts to navigate the world while unvaccinated – and while his biggest rival, Rafael Nadal, just took advantage of his absence to win a historic 21st grand slam title at the Australian Open – according to the ATP 99% of the top 100 is now vaccinated. He stands alone.

“..to this day, many refuse to cover extensive evidence of how the Clinton campaign manufactured this story that largely occupied the entire term of President Donald Trump.”

• Special Counsel John Durham Has Triggered a Media Meltdown (Turley)

What is striking about the Durham filings is the audacity of the Perkins Coie operation. While the funding was buried away, the lawyers were seemingly unconcerned about approving such efforts or personally reaching out to sympathetic government and media figures. They were, to some degree, justified in their sense of immunity. Indeed, to this day, many refuse to cover extensive evidence of how the Clinton campaign manufactured this story that largely occupied the entire term of President Donald Trump. Before the Steele dossier was given to the FBI and the press, then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Obama on Clinton’s alleged “plan” to tie candidate Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” That operation appears to have been launched through Elias and Perkins Coie.

After the 2020 election, Democratic members and legal experts demanded the disbarring of a host of Republican attorneys for their spreading disinformation of a widespread election fraud. These same figures, however, are entirely silent about the role of Clinton lawyers in secretly funding the debunked Russian collusion claims. There is no interest in whether, as alleged by reporters, figures like Elias lied about the involvement of the Clinton campaign. Sussmann is now facing a trial on this role in the operation. Elias remains unindicted. With little sense of irony, he has established a law firm to deal with ethics and campaign disclosures. Durham’s continued investigation may be pushing the media to the final stage called “postsyncope,” which involves “protracted confusion, disorientation, nausea, dizziness, and a general sense of poor health.”

That has reflected in the flailing effort by some to deflect from the alarming disclosures. New York Times reporter Mike McIntire seemed to express alarm that the Durham story was “trending.” However, McIntire offered “a periodic reminder that Trump’s campaign chairman secretly met and shared info with a Russian intelligence agent.” The “info” was polling data on the campaign that Paul Manafort gave a person with Russian intelligence ties. That, of course, has no relevance to the question of whether the Clinton Campaign spied on the Trump Tower, campaign, or the White House itself. The “periodic reminder” seemed to be to other media that they needed to continue to hold their breath and not recognize a major story. Such “protracted confusion” is natural, but it will not dissipate any time soon. Durham apparently is calling more people into the grand jury.

Durham Zero

How much has the Durham report allegations against the Clinton campaign been covered by “mainstream” media? Zero. pic.twitter.com/v5yML0G8tS

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 15, 2022

“This is ’60 Minutes.’ We can’t put on things we can’t verify.”

• ’60 Minutes,’ CNN, MSNBC, Downplayed, Criticized Durham Probe (Fox)

The mainstream media is getting a wake-up call after new allegations in the Durham investigation that President Trump and his campaign were being spied on. Special Counsel John Durham released in a filing Saturday that the Hillary Clinton campaign hired techs to “infiltrate” Trump Tower and White House servers to establish a “narrative” to link Trump to Russia. The new findings contradict various doubtful media coverage from programs like CBS’ “60 Minutes.” In an October 2020 interview, Trump appeared on the newsmagazine to address the ongoing investigation and his claim his campaign was spied on. He was shot down by host Lesley Stahl, who insisted the president was spreading unverified information. “There’s no real evidence,” she said.

“This is ’60 Minutes.’ We can’t put on things we can’t verify.” Meanwhile, former CNN dynamic duo Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo criticized John Durham and the Trump administration back in December 2019 for being adamant about uncovering the truth, yet coming up short. “Nothing happens and they just move on to the next conspiracy theory,” Lemon said to Cuomo during a handover. “It is never going to end and guess what? People who want to believe that BS are going to believe it.” In an October 2021 episode of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow suggested the intention behind efforts to probe the investigation was always to re-route the investigation away from Trump himself. “It’s a boomerang,” she said.

“Because it’s apparently an ongoing, concerted Republican and pro-Trump project to try to turn the investigation of the Russia scandal into some kind of scandal itself.” Since Durham’s bombshell report dropped, media pundits on the left have gone largely quiet. Publications like the Washington Post and The New York Times have failed to commission any coverage of the latest allegations as of Monday, nor has CNN.

Kolakusic

https://t.co/mI9CfQgmeR

— LR (@gnallspiken56) February 15, 2022

Arthur C. Clarke

In this BBC Horizon documentary from 1964, Arthur C. Clarke made some remarkably accurate predictions about the future we now know, highlighting important breakthroughs, like the Internet [full video: https://t.co/T0FfHRJgco] pic.twitter.com/C31sra0P4N

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 15, 2022

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Debt Rattle February 13 2022

Feb 132022

February 13, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:53 am Finance Tagged with: Barry Manilow, bat virus, booster, Durham, Freedom Convoy, Hillary, police raid, truckers, Trump, Ukraine 161 Responses »

Giuseppe Arcimboldo Four elements – Earth 1566

• New Zealand Plays Barry Manilow To Repel Parliament Protesters (BBC)

• Canada Truckers Protest: After A Police Raid, What Next? (BBC)

• Blockades on Canada-US Border Continue As Protests Swell (AP)

• Democracy Demands That The Truckers Get A Fair Hearing (Burney)

• Biden Tells Putin Ukraine Invasion Would Bring Decisive Response (R.)

• Giant Ukrainian US Lobbying Campaign Revealed (RT)

• The Chinese Bat Virus That Never Shows Up in Any Chinese Bats (Geraghty)

• COVID Booster Loses Potency After 4 Months (Y!)

• Clinton Campaign Paid To ‘Infiltrate’ Trump Tower – Durham (Fox)

• Trump Demands Prosecutions, Reparations After Durham Revelations (JTN)

• John Durham Highlights the Tip of the Iceberg (CTH)

Maher Trudeau: They take up space
https://twitter.com/ezralevant/status/1492485385708052484

Early treatment 2 years in.

Protests all over the world.

Protests all over the world. MSM silent. Ask yourself, why? pic.twitter.com/GHimHfAtkt

— Bryan Ivermectin Pastor (@BryanACPastor) February 12, 2022

McCullough Vaccine deaths

Chris Saucedo asked about causation and I gave him my analysis on a more probable than not basis. The CDC holds all the data and the agency owes Americans an explanation. pic.twitter.com/WbWcPT94DA

— Peter McCullough, MD MPH (@P_McCulloughMD) February 13, 2022

24,200 reports of myocarditis in 2021

already in 2022… 8,392 reports of myocarditis. 1/3 of all reports in the first month.

Ardern attacks Babylon Bee. Or is it Babylon BBC?

• New Zealand Plays Barry Manilow To Repel Parliament Protesters (BBC)

Authorities in New Zealand have been playing Barry Manilow’s greatest hits in an attempt to dislodge protesters camped outside the parliament building. Songs by the US singer are being played on a 15-minute loop, along with the Spanish dance tune, Macarena. The demonstrators, who are angry at Covid-19 vaccine mandates, responded by playing songs such as Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It. The protests began on Tuesday when a convoy of vehicles drove to parliament. Inspired by large rallies against vaccine mandates in Canada, hundreds of protesters arrived in the capital, Wellington, to rally against Covid restrictions. They adopted the name “Convoy for Freedom” and blocked streets in the city.

By Wednesday their numbers had dwindled to the dozens, but they increased again at the weekend. On Thursday police arrested 122 people and charged many with trespassing or obstruction. Tactics used by the authorities to try and get rid of the protesters involved turning on the water sprinklers on the lawn where they were camped on Friday. But protesters retaliated by digging trenches and building makeshift drainpipes to re-route the water, the Associated Press news agency reports. With sprinklers proving ineffective, Parliament Speaker Trevor Mallard settled on a new approach: blasting out Barry Manilow’s greatest hits, which include Mandy and Could It Be Magic, as well as the 1990s hit Macarena and Covid vaccine messages.

The police raid failed. Now what?

“..vehicles are no longer the problem, says Jason Bellaire, deputy chief of operations for the Windsor Police Service. The problem is the people..

• Canada Truckers Protest: After A Police Raid, What Next? (BBC)

A police raid on the bridge blockade at Windsor, Ontario, failed to shut it down. With protesters in Ottawa also digging in, what will it take to get them to budge? They arrived by the bus load – police in balaclavas and carrying long guns, ready to oust dozens of protesters blocking roads leading to the Ambassador Bridge. There were pickups and SUVs festooned with Canadian flags, anti-vaccination slogans and anti-Trudeau epithets, as well as some heavy commercial trucks. About 100 vehicles have been parked along the roughly 2km (1.25 miles) of road leading up to the bridge for almost a week. The Freedom Convoy, as it’s been called, began as a protest against a mandate requiring truckers who cross the US-Canada border to be vaccinated.

But the group is not united by any one occupation – rather, they share a distrust of vaccines, a concern for government overreach and a general dislike of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. More than 12 hours after a court issued an injunction ordering the Windsor site to be cleared, the police moved in on Saturday morning. A number of vehicles agreed to leave immediately, although not without a loud honk or a shout of disapproval. More were ticketed and towed in the evening. But vehicles are no longer the problem, says Jason Bellaire, deputy chief of operations for the Windsor Police Service. The problem is the people, he says. “We need to make it exceeding clear they’re not welcome to stay here, they’re not welcome to disrupt our bridge traffic, they’re not welcome to disrupt our community,” he told the BBC

[..] “They’re going to have to move us out. We’ll be peaceful and we’ll lock arms and show unity,” said Dan, a protester who did not give his last name to the BBC. That leaves both sides in a standstill, with police trying to negotiate with protesters to go home. “We’re negotiating with them, we’re talking to them, we’re doing everything we can to resolve this peacefully and convince them to leave,” says Deputy Chief Bellaire. About 750km (466 miles) east in Ottawa, the protest group that has taken over the nation’s capital also shows no signs of slowing down. Unlike the Windsor crowd, which has been limited to a few hundred people occupying one major road, the Ottawa protest has essentially taken over the centre of a major city, with thousands of people flooding the streets with Canadian flags.

[..] But while French police fired tear gas to prevent their own Freedom Convoy from advancing, that’s a tactic Windsor police don’t seem to want to use. “It will take as long as it takes,” Deputy Chief Bellaire said. “I’m not giving them a timeline.” One thing working in police’s favour is Mother Nature. With temperatures dropping to -17C (1.4 F) overnight, it will not be a pleasant evening for those trying to tough it out.

““It’s a win-win,” Koss said. “The pandemic is rolling down right now, they can remove the mandates, all the mandates, and everyone’s happy. The government does the right thing, and the protesters are all happy.“

• Blockades on Canada-US Border Continue As Protests Swell (AP)

Protesters opposed to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other restrictions withdrew their vehicles from a key U.S.-Canadian border bridge Saturday though access remained blocked while other demonstrations ramped up in cities across Canada, including the capital, where police said they were awaiting more officers before ending what they described as an illegal occupation. The tense standoff at the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, eased somewhat early in the day when Canadian police persuaded demonstrators to move the trucks they had used to barricade the entrance to the busy international crossing.

But protesters reconvened nearby — with reinforcements — and were still choking off access from the Canadian side late Saturday, snarling traffic and commerce for a sixth day. About 180 remained late Saturday in the sub-freezing cold. In Ottawa, the ranks of protesters swelled to what police said was 4,000 demonstrators. The city has seen that on past weekends, and loud music played as people milled about downtown where anti-vaccine demonstrators have been encamped since late January. The protests at the bridge, in Ottawa and elsewhere have reverberated outside the country, with similarly inspired convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that truck convoys may be in the works in the United States.

[..] Surrounded by dozens of officers in Windsor, a man with “Mandate Freedom” and “Trump 2024” spray-painted on his vehicle left the bridge entrance early in the day as others began dismantling a small, tarp-covered encampment. A trucker honked his horn as he, too, drove off, to cheers and chants of “Freedom!” But hundreds more arrived to bolster the crowd and settled into a faceoff with police about two blocks away, waving flags and yelling. While there were no visible physical confrontations, the crowd still controlled the road to the bridge, and traffic had not resumed as of the evening.

Windsor police tweeted that no one had been arrested but urged people to stay away from the bridge: “We appreciate the cooperation of the demonstrators at this time and we will continue to focus on resolving the demonstration peacefully. Avoid area!” Protester Daniel Koss said shortly before police advanced that the demonstration had succeeded in bringing attention to demands to lift COVID-19 mandates and he was happy it remained peaceful. “It’s a win-win,” Koss said. “The pandemic is rolling down right now, they can remove the mandates, all the mandates, and everyone’s happy. The government does the right thing, and the protesters are all happy.”

“When law-abiding citizens are provoked by indefensible government edicts and denied any hearing by those in power what are they supposed to do? ”

• Democracy Demands That The Truckers Get A Fair Hearing (Burney)

The ability to choose whether or whether not to be vaccinated is a fundamental civil liberty and that is what the Canadian truckers’ “Freedom Convoy,” now being emulated in the U.S. and Europe, is about. The convoy has been infiltrated by a few disreputable elements and has been disruptive in such cities as Ottawa, but the movement has been largely law-abiding, even cheerful. As a Wall Street Journal editorial commented: “When you’ve lost even Canadians, arguably the most law-abiding people on the planet, you’ve lost the political plot.” The concerns protesters are expressing deserve respect from the government and not the prime minister’s dismissive comparison with demonstrations he has supported, such as those of Black Lives Matter.

BLM protests in America erupted into violent criminal behaviour, arson and extensive damage to public and private property in many cities. Having stunted Parliament for two years, the government seems afraid to face real opposition. The prime minister’s claim that the truckers are expressing “unacceptable views” has an authoritarian ring. “Unacceptable” by what definition and in violation of what law? Ottawa’s mayor declared a state of emergency, which he has limited power to enforce. His eminently sensible suggestion that an honest broker be appointed to mediate was ignored by the government. Astonishingly, former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney described the protest as “sedition,” whereas NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh uttered a peculiar dog whistle about white supremacy.

In an emotional, unsubstantiated rant, Ottawa’s police chief said the protest represented an “insurrection” (prompting the thuggish arrest of a great-grandfather for honking his horn). Comments like these debase legitimate public protests that have featured neither violence nor vandalism. When law-abiding citizens are provoked by indefensible government edicts and denied any hearing by those in power what are they supposed to do? [..] Before we condemn ourselves to a similar fate on the next pandemic, we need to take a deep breath and analyze carefully what went wrong and why. The political paralysis in Ottawa is mind-boggling. The prime minister cannot hide behind a “science” that is being overtaken by events. Give the truckers, now being joined by farmers and others across Canada, a fair hearing. That is what democracy demands, not pompous stonewalling by timid politicians.

@Nat_Vasilyeva· “Zelenskiy in a live broadcast on the US intel: “If you have additional, 100 percent-certain information about a Russian invasion of Ukraine, please share it with us. I cannot agree or disagree with what hasn’t happened yet. Right now there is no full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”

“BREAKING NEWS: Anonymous US intelligence sources say they have concrete evidence that the Russians will invade Ukraine yesterday.”

• Biden Tells Putin Ukraine Invasion Would Bring Decisive Response (R.)

U.S. President Joe Biden told Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Saturday that the West would respond decisively to any invasion of Ukraine, adding such a step would produce widespread suffering and isolate Moscow. In the latest effort to manage growing hostility, the two men spoke by phone for an hour a day after Washington and its allies warned that the Russian military, which has 100,000 troops massed near Ukraine, could invade at any moment. Moscow has dismissed those warnings as “hysteria.” Neither side said there had been any breakthroughs. A senior Biden administration official said the call was professional and substantive, but that there was no fundamental change.

The Kremlin said Putin told Biden Washington has failed to take Russia’s main concerns into account, and it had received no “substantial answer” on key elements including NATO’s expansion and the deployment of offensive forces to Ukraine. The senior Biden administration official said it was unclear whether Putin was committed to diplomacy even as he agreed to stay in touch with Biden. The call took place as Israel, Portugal and Belgium joined the list of countries that have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine immediately. The U.S. State Department ordered most of its embassy staff to leave Ukraine. The Pentagon said it was withdrawing about 150 military trainers.

Been going on for a long time. Hi, Hunter!

• Giant Ukrainian US Lobbying Campaign Revealed (RT)

Ukrainian lobbyists contacted US congressional offices, think tanks, and media figures over 10,000 times last year, according to an analysis of Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings reported by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft on Friday. The Quincy report pointed to the “extraordinary” scale of Ukraine’s lobbying campaign, noting that the lobbying efforts of Saudi Arabia – known as one of the largest foreign lobbies in Washington DC – pales in comparison. According to the report, most of Kiev’s persuasive efforts focused on members of Congress, who were deluged with over 8,000 contacts – emails, phone calls, and meetings – in an effort to convince them of the need to block the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, among other issues.

The Ukrainian Federation of Employers of the Oil and Gas Industry (UFEOGI), the country’s largest energy trade group, would reportedly cite Ukraine’s PM, arguing that the pipeline was “no less an existential threat” to Ukraine’s “security and democracy” than “Russian troops on the border.” The pipeline, which is completed but still has to receive the green light from German regulators, would allow Russia to export gas directly to Europe without having to pay Kiev billions for the transfer of gas. UFEOGI lobbyists apparently centered their efforts on Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who took just several days to channel the Ukrainian PM on social media. In his own message, Cruz likewise referred to the Russian pipeline as an “existential threat.”

The trade group also sought to reach out to senators who had previously backed legislation to thwart the completion of the pipeline, including several members of the Foreign Relations Committee with a history of anti-Russian votes. Cruz, Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) were all contacted at least 100 times last year, with some of these contacts resulting in their staffers meeting directly with Ukrainian energy lobbyists, the report claims. The bill proposed by Cruz would have imposed bans on doing business with US companies for those involved with the Nord Stream 2 project, in addition to travel restrictions and asset freezes. It failed to pass, however.

A separate legislative proposal, put forth by Senator Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) and dubbed “the mother of all sanctions,” would punish senior Russian officials and banks in the event of an invasion of Ukraine. The Quincy report noted that one of Menendez’s former staffers, Brittany Beaulieu, now represents UFEOGI, as well as the ‘Civil Movement for a Just Ukraine’. Apart from the US lawmakers, Ukrainian lobbyists also reportedly courted pro-NATO think tank the Atlantic Council, contacting it hundreds of times. The report noted that one of the richest men in Ukraine, Victor Pinchuk, is also one of the Atlantic Council’s international advisers, while his foundation is a major contributor to the think tank.

“To modify Jon Stewart’s memorable metaphor, this is like finding chocolate everywhere except in the Hershey’s factory.”

• The Chinese Bat Virus That Never Shows Up in Any Chinese Bats (Geraghty)

The MIT Technology Review offers a long and mostly even-handed look at the hunt for the origin of Covid-19, featuring many new quotes from Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and an account of a tour through the facility’s labs. The piece is generally skeptical of the lab leak theory, but notes that Peter Daszak, who is a prominent advocate of the natural origins theory, “has potential conflicts of interest,” “there are still concerns that the biosafety standards in the Wuhan lab might not have been rigorous enough to prevent research activities from causing the pandemic,” “some of the Wuhan institute’s behavior has certainly raised red flags,” and “instead of tackling the publicity crisis directly, China has exacerbated mistrust by running obfuscation and disinformation campaigns of its own.” It is worth reading in full.

But there’s one line in the MIT Technology Review article I want to focus upon for a moment: “But one year after the WHO’s visit to Wuhan, the disease detectives have yet to find the guilty animal or other indisputable evidence of natural origins.” The WHO team visit to Wuhan was in February 2021, so this means after two years of looking, and “tens of thousands” of samples, no one has found SARS-CoV-2 naturally occurring in animals in and around Wuhan, China. As noted earlier this week, SARS-CoV-2 is spreading like wildfire among American white-tailed deer. The CDC affirms “many mammals, including cats, dogs, bank voles, ferrets, fruit bats, hamsters, mink, pigs, rabbits, racoon dogs, tree shrews, and white-tailed deer can be infected with the virus.”

Gorillas at the Dallas zoo, snow leopards at a Bloomington zoo, lions at the Akron Zoo, – you name the animal, there’s a good chance they’ve caught Covid-19. And of course, we know how contagious this virus is among human beings. So why is this virus so hard to find in Chinese bats? If this virus originated in a bat, and naturally evolved to maximize its ability to infect bats, and is genetically most similar to other viruses found in bats in China… why is SARS-CoV-2 proving impossible to find in bats in China? To modify Jon Stewart’s memorable metaphor, this is like finding chocolate everywhere except in the Hershey’s factory.

Fauci’s reaction? “Vaccines and boosters have proven incredibly effective, and offer the highest level of protection..”

• COVID Booster Loses Potency After 4 Months (Y!)

A fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine might be necessary for some Americans. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds that the mRNA shot’s protection begins to decline after about four months, according to a study released Friday. Although vaccine effectiveness against COVID-related hospitalizations was at 91 percent during the first two months after a third dose, it decreased to 78 percent by the fourth month. The study, which was conducted during the Omicron-dominate phase of the pandemic, focused on those who sought medical treatment for COVID symptoms. It did not include a breakdown of age or whether their third dose was a booster or part of their primary inoculation series, which the CDC recommends for some immunocompromised people.

“There may be the need for yet again another boost — in this case, a fourth-dose boost for an individual receiving the mRNA — that could be based on age, as well as underlying conditions,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told reporters Tuesday. Fauci clarified that recommendations for a fourth dose will likely not be made “across the board for everyone,” adding: “It very likely will take into account what subset of people have a diminished, or not, protection against the important parameters such as hospitalization.”

The CDC’s update comes after the COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. surpassed 900,000 last week, less than two months after it reached 800,000. President Joe Biden urged Americans who hadn’t gotten their shots yet to get vaccinated as he marked the tragic milestone. “Vaccines and boosters have proven incredibly effective, and offer the highest level of protection,” he said. “Two hundred and fifty million Americans have stepped up to protect themselves, their families, and their communities by getting at least one shot — and we have saved more than one million American lives as a result.”

“The “Tech Executive” in the Durham filing is Rodney Joffe. Joffe’s direct point of contact with the Hillary campaign was Jake Sullivan. Yes, that Jake Sullivan.”

“Jake Sullivan’s wife is a top adviser to Merrick Garland. We have no idea if she has recused from any oversight of the John Durham probe.”

• Clinton Campaign Paid To ‘Infiltrate’ Trump Tower – Durham (Fox)

Lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a technology company to “infiltrate” servers belonging to Trump Tower, and later the White House, in order to establish an “inference” and “narrative” to bring to government agencies linking Donald Trump to Russia, a filing from Special Counsel John Durham says. Durham filed a motion on Feb. 11 focused on potential conflicts of interest related to the representation of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman, who has been charged with making a false statement to a federal agent. Sussman has pleaded not guilty.

The indictment against Sussman says he told then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016, less than two months before the 2016 presidential election, that he was not doing work “for any client” when he requested and held a meeting in which he presented “purported data and ‘white papers’ that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel” between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin. But Durham’s filing on Feb. 11, in a section titled “Factual Background,” reveals that Sussman “had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including a technology executive (Tech Executive 1) at a U.S.-based internet company (Internet Company 1) and the Clinton campaign.”

Durham’s filing said Sussman’s “billing records reflect” that he “repeatedly billed the Clinton Campaign for his work on the Russian Bank-1 allegations.” The filing revealed that Sussman and the Tech Executive had met and communicated with another law partner, who was serving as General Counsel to the Clinton campaign. Sources told Fox News that lawyer is Marc Elias, who worked at the law firm Perkins Coie.

60 Minutes

Another one for the “Trump was right” jar.

pic.twitter.com/N0y4Skk2GK

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) February 13, 2022

“provides indisputable evidence that my campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton Campaign in an effort to develop a completely fabricated connection to Russia..”

• Trump Demands Prosecutions, Reparations After Durham Revelations (JTN)

Former President Donald Trump demanded Saturday that there be prosecutions and reparations after Special Counsel John Durham revealed in an explosive court filing that Hillary Clinton’s campaign plotted to infiltrate the Trump campaign and White House computer servers years ago to concoct false Russia collusion allegations. Durham’s latest court filing “provides indisputable evidence that my campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton Campaign in an effort to develop a completely fabricated connection to Russia,” Trump said.

“This is a scandal far greater in scope and magnitude than Watergate and those who were involved in and knew about this spying operation should be subject to criminal prosecution,” he added. “In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death. In addition, reparations should be paid to those in our country who have been damaged by this.” Durham’s court filing said lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a technology company to “infiltrate” servers belonging to Trump Tower and the Trump White House to create an “inference” of Russia collusion in 2016-17, hoping to get federal agencies to investigate.

Obama arrest
https://twitter.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1492665540992770050

When will they try to silence Durham?

• John Durham Highlights the Tip of the Iceberg (CTH)

Against the latest court filings by John Durham, highlighting the tip of the political surveillance iceberg, I have been asked to re-post the deep dive into the totality of the scale of the iceberg. I will add some of the latest information into the outline to show how it all connects. Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; instead, what they did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so the weapons only targeted one side of the political continuum. Together they recalibrated the domestic surveillance capabilities, the internal spying systems, so that only their political opposition would be targeted. This point is where many people understandably get confused.

In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose. What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms so that only their ideological opposition became the target of the new national security system. This is a very important nuance to understand as you dig deeper into this research outline. Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01. DHS came along in 2002 and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the ODNI was formed.

When Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition. The preexisting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dept of Justice (DOJ) were then repurposed to become two of the four pillars of the domestic national security apparatus. However, this new construct would have a targeting mechanism based on political ideology. The DHS, ODNI, DOJ and FBI became the four pillars of this new institution. Atop these pillars is where you will find the Fourth Branch of Government.

We were not sleeping when this happened, we were wide awake. However, we were stunningly distracted by the economic collapse that was taking place in 2006 and 2007 when the engineers behind Obama started to assemble the design. By the time Obama took office in 2009, we sensed something profound was shifting, but we can only see exactly what shifted in the aftermath. The four pillars were put into place, and a new Fourth Branch of Government was quietly created. As time passed, and the system operators became familiar with their new tools, technology allowed the tentacles of the system to reach out and touch us. That is when we first started to notice that something very disconcerting was happening.

CNN rooting for the tank

Will Cain on how anyone who questions the high priests neoliberalism must be crushed at all cost pic.twitter.com/94UB7qMnC7

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) February 12, 2022

Canberra

Australia, hundreds of thousands of people to Parliament House in Canberra to end vaccine mandates. pic.twitter.com/xmK8pELQIC

— RadioGenova (@RadioGenova) February 12, 2022

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Debt Rattle January 29 2022

Jan 292022

January 29, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: Durham, Fauci, Horowitz, Israel, Neil Young, rubbery clots, Spotify, Ukraine, Von der Leyen, WHO 81 Responses »

Paul Gauguin Osny, rue de Pontoise, Winter 1883

• Old Man, Look at Your Life…. (Kunstler)

• WHO Director Thanks Neil Young For Pulling His Songs Off Spotify (Blaze)

• Veins & Arteries Filled with Never Before Seen Rubbery Clots (Kirsch)

• Fauci Says Kids Under 5 Might Need 3 Shots (CHD)

• Israel Is Overrun With Covid. The Vaccines Have Failed (Berenson)

• Let’s Face It: You Like It Salty (Denninger)

• EU Watchdog Orders Ursula Von Der Leyen To Reveal Texts With Pfizer CEO (DM)

• Outrage As Paris Hospitals Chief Raises Idea Of Charging Unvaccinated Patients (G.)

• Authoritarian Madness (Whitehead)

• DOJ IG Horowitz Withheld Key Evidence From Special Counsel Durham (ET)

• Why Are Armed Americans Operating In The Trenches Of Eastern Ukraine? (RT)

• Ukraine Asks West To Tone Down ‘Panic’ (RT)

Tucker Convoy

The cross-country trucker movement is growing pic.twitter.com/T3zdn0BkSl

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) January 29, 2022

Really? All truckers are fascists now? Wow.

Reinfection

Omicron variant leads to reinfection 16 times more than delta pic.twitter.com/L8feMcbsYS

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2019) January 28, 2022

How to take a virus and turn it into a pandemic.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1486428989849845766

Leaked Database Shows U.S. Military Disease Skyrocketing After Covid-19 Inoculations

“Alternate views are not tolerated, labeled “unacceptable” (Mr. Young put it exactly that way), and flagged as “misinformation” (ditto Mr. Young).”

• Old Man, Look at Your Life…. (Kunstler)

It’s worth paying attention to just how disordered Mr. Young’s thinking is because it summarizes everything that has gone awry on the political Left: He is wrong two ways: 1) morally, and 2) on the facts of the matter — which is as wrong as you can be. Like virtually everyone on the Democratic Party / Woke / Progressive axis, he is obviously in favor of suppressing free speech. Since when did that become okay for old hippies? If I remember correctly (cuz I was there) the youth movement of the 1960s was all about freedom to say pretty much anything, except yell “fire” in a crowded theater — based on the idea that ordinary people were equipped to sort out the truth. During the War in Vietnam, we hippies were especially averse to the official lying that emanated from the Department of Defense, the FBI, the CIA, and the White House under both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

We founded “alternative” newspapers in defiance of the establishment’s propaganda. We applauded Daniel Ellsberg’s purloined Pentagon Papers, revealing the mendacity of the war effort. Altogether, this activity made it more difficult for the government to prosecute that war, and to defend the strategy behind it. Today the Left is not only all-in on speech suppression, but also censorship of print and broadcasting, and is especially avid for the diverse punishments of cancellation — ruining careers, reputations, livelihoods, and families of anyone who opposes Woke right-think. Alternate views are not tolerated, labeled “unacceptable” (Mr. Young put it exactly that way), and flagged as “misinformation” (ditto Mr. Young). It’s gotten to the point where the word misinformation has acquired a distinct odor that signals bad faith in everyone who flogs it.

These days, the charge of misinformation is deliberate misinformation. Today, the Left is all-in for FBI home invasions, DOJ malicious prosecutions, CIA manipulations of public opinion, a fake president fronting for an unseen cabal, and a news media that wouldn’t know the actual shape and substance of reality if it jumped up and bit Jim Acosta on the lips. Ideas and principles don’t really matter to the Left; they’re just window-dressing for their sole interest, which is pushing other people around, in a word: coercion. That is the moral quagmire the Left is in and, having captured so many institutional transmitters of our polity, that is the nature of the evil they represent.

Rogan, Malone, McCullough would gladly dicuss everything. Silencing them is easier.

• WHO Director Thanks Neil Young For Pulling His Songs Off Spotify (Blaze)

The director general of the World Health Organization thanked legendary musician Neil Young for taking a stand against Joe Rogan’s podcast and pulling his music from Spotify. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted his message to Young on Thursday. “[Neil Young] thanks for standing up against misinformation and inaccuracies around #COVID19 vaccination. Public and private sector, in particular #socialmedia platforms, media, individuals – we all have a role to play to end this pandemic and infodemic,” Ghebreyesus tweeted. Young issued an ultimatum to Spotify to choose between his music or Rogan’s incredibly popular podcast. Spotify didn’t need much time to decide in favor of Rogan.

“I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them,” wrote Young in the open letter to his management team. “Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.” He later deleted the letter from his website. Some surprising entertainers came to Rogan’s defense, including radio talk show host Howard Stern who said he didn’t agree with Rogan’s stance on vaccines but was against all censorship. Joy Behar cited the First Amendment right to free speech when she defended Rogan even as she supported labeling his podcasts as “misinformation.”

Yikes!

• Veins & Arteries Filled with Never Before Seen Rubbery Clots (Kirsch)

I was chatting with Lt. Col. Theresa Long about this after being tipped off by Pierre Kory who sent me the photos. This is the real deal. I got a text of images from Pierre Kory. He asked me to guess what he sent. I thought they were images from Ryan Cole. Nope. He said these were from an embalmer and referred me to Lt. Col. Theresa Long who knows the embalmer. Funeral Director and embalmer Richard Hirschman reveals, for the first time ever, arteries and veins filled with unnatural blood clot combinations with strange fibrous materials that are completely filling the vascular system.

He has gone from seeing 50% of his embalmed cases with these types of blockages rise to almost 80%. It only started happening after the vaccines were rolled out. This doesn’t happen to everyone. Only those who die after vaccination. So he can tell who was vaccinated. This tells you everything you need to know. Watch the video here:

Repeat to emphasize that as long as Pfizer keeps the vaxx “on the mandatory childhood vaccine schedule” and under EUA, it is covered from all sides.

• Fauci Says Kids Under 5 Might Need 3 Shots (CHD)

[..] the push to authorize COVID vaccines for younger children could be tied to the fact that vaccine makers benefit from legal protections for childhood vaccines. Under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, when CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices places a vaccine on the mandatory childhood vaccine schedule, vaccine makers are shielded from liability for injury claims. However, as long as its COVID vaccine for children remains under EUA, Pfizer will also benefit from liability protections provided under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act — so either way, the vaccine maker won’t be held accountable if its product harms young children.

While the U.S. pushes for COVID vaccines for children as young as 6 months, Sweden’s public health authorities this week announced they will not recommend the vaccines for children between the ages of 5 and 11. Britta Bjorkholm, an official with Sweden’s Health Agency, stated “[w]ith the knowledge we have today, with a low risk for serious disease for kids, we don’t see any clear benefit with vaccinating them.” Norway opted to make COVID vaccines optional for children aged 5-11. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health stated the risk of severe illness in children that is brought on by COVID is small, and that as a result, the need for children to receive a COVID vaccine is limited. Norway’s announcement, in turn, prompted the Danish Pediatric Society to request that Denmark’s Health Authority revisit its decision to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for children in Denmark.

“Actually, science did win. Science always said you could not vaxx away a respiratory virus. They just refused to listen.”

• Israel Is Overrun With Covid. The Vaccines Have Failed (Berenson)

It’s over, okay? Israel is first, always. Other highly vaccinated and boosted countries are a few weeks behind, and their boosted patients may still have some partial protection against severe disease and death. (People who received two doses last winter or spring probably have none at this point, if the data out of Scotland and the United Kingdom are to be believed.) But that won’t last. The Israeli experience this month could not be clearer. A third dose does not provide long-term protection. When it fails, the boomerang effect is severe. Hospitals come under even more pressure than they would in a “natural” Covid wave, because the vaccine failure is highly synchronized – everyone becomes exposed at once. And so – insanity upon insanity – the Israelis are offering a fourth dose.

Why would anyone believe at this point that a fourth dose will help for more than a couple of weeks? Not months, weeks. The trend line was obvious even BEFORE Omicron arrived; and Omicron drives vaccine efficacy down even more quickly. In countries with good data, vaccinated people actually are more likely to be infected than the unvaccinated. Further, a fourth dose is likely to have MORE severe side effects – remember, the second and third doses produce notably increasing levels of heart inflammation in men, and mRNA therapeutics were repurposed as vaccines because of problems with toxicity after repeated dosing. It’s over. The vaccines have been proven ineffective for more than a few months against the wild-type virus. They appear to have negative efficacy against Omicron.

Forget all the black swans. Forget Marek’s. Forget antibody-dependent enhancement. Forget the strange rise in all-cause deaths last fall in highly vaccinated countries (which mercifully, seems to have stopped in the United Kingdom in the last couple of weeks – though that easing raises even more questions about why it happened at all). Forget the risk of long-term immunocompromise that might lead vaccinated people to be at higher risk for future Covid infections. Forget the nearly one million side effect reports now in the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. Judged SOLELY on the basis of the last year’s efficacy data, the mRNA vaccines are a failed product and should be withdrawn. Any future mRNA vaccines – against the Omicron variant or any other target- need to be tested for safety and efficacy in large-scale clinical trial for YEARS. Not months, years. This kind of billion-person experiment must never happen again. It’s over, okay? We didn’t get the Hollywood ending. Science didn’t win.

“..the infection rate went down when masks were removed instead of up as expected.”

• Let’s Face It: You Like It Salty (Denninger)

Covid-19 has finally exposed for everyone the scam that has been run on people for the last thirty years or more and you willingly bought into the con job, whether it be on masks or jabs. Masks were known one hundred years ago to be worthless against respiratory viruses; they were tried in 1918 and failed. Forty years ago in 1981 the Neil Orr study published which proved surgical masks worthless against wound infection in surgical suites where every single person using them was a trained professional and every item in the room was sterilized. Didn’t matter; the infection rate went down when masks were removed instead of up as expected. Today many school systems still insist on muzzling kids and the ******ned signs are still up in some stores and other businesses. Anyone stupid enough to think they should wear those ****ing things is too stupid to genetically pass to the next generation.

Masks are nothing more than performative art and might even spread infection by moving the virus from one place to another; if you like documenting that you’re ****ing stupid be my guest but that fact remains that if you wear one of these things to try to “protect others” you are stupid. Yes, an N95 might protect you provided you follow all of the rules. Nobody does or will in the general public because you can’t realistically do so. Without following all those rules (specifically, fit-testing, no re-use once removed, no leaving where you might have been exposed without replacement so you don’t bring the virus into each new potential risk area, treating of the mask as medical hazardous waste and time-in-use restrictions that typically are about 2 hours) even an N95 does nothing to protect you and even if you follow the rules it is personal protective equipment — it does not, because it cannot, protect others.

What’s likely far more effective is to stay the hell out of public restrooms since we know Covid-19 is in ****. We know its in there because cities are using sampling of the sewer to detect prevalence! I brought this up — that this had to be a primary vector source in March and April of 2020 after two highly-odd transmission events in the Far East which were only explained by the fact that the apartment buildings in question did not have P-traps on the sinks. Of course avoiding the restroom is not possible in a public setting, especially if you’re going to be there for more than a couple of hours or if you intend to eat or (especially) drink anything. Oh well. Humans are social animals. Facts don’t care about your feelings.

Nobody wants to face what we knew in the early months of this thing and which the CDC itself admitted along with multiple other sources (including Nashville) by the summer and fall of 2020: There were and are only two vectors that matter; first households which you obviously cannot cut off and second health care providers and facilities which is a very tough issue but we won’t and didn’t do anything effective about it despite my flagging it by May of 2020 as the decisive vector, based on data in multiple states when case counts were low enough that pegging how it was happening was possible. Statistically-speaking nothing else matters at all.

It’s a-dirty- trick: you can do deals for billions via text messages, and not keep them.

• EU Watchdog Orders Ursula Von Der Leyen To Reveal Texts With Pfizer CEO (DM)

An official EU watchdog has slammed Ursula von der Leyen for keeping secret text messages with Pfizer’s CEO about purchasing Covid vaccine doses, saying it ‘constituted maladministration’. The EU ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, issued a formal recommendation telling von der Leyen’s office to search for and hand over the texts under a freedom of information request lodged by a journalist. In April last year, the New York Times revealed that EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had exchanged text messages and calls about vaccine procurements for EU countries. The European Commission chief used ‘personal diplomacy’ to secure the deal for 1.8 billion Pfizer vaccines via texts with the CEO, the paper revealed.

Journalist Alexander Fanta of news site netzpolitik.org then asked the Commission for access to the text messages and other documents, but the executive branch did not provide them. The commission rebuffed the freedom-of-information request, refusing to say whether the texts existed – even though von der Leyen had referred to them herself in a media interview. According to the ombudsman’s inquiry, the Commission did not clearly ask von der Leyen’s cabinet to look for the text messages. Instead, the Commission said the only information they had was an email, a letter and a press release. ‘This falls short of reasonable expectations of transparency and administrative standards in the Commission,’ O’Reilly said.

‘When it comes to the right of public access to EU documents, it is the content of the document that matters and not the device or form. If text messages concern EU policies and decisions, they should be treated as EU documents. The ombudsman said the commission should ask von der Leyen’s office to again look for the texts, and if it found them, ‘the Commission should assess whether public access can be granted to them’ in line with EU rules. ‘The EU administration needs to update its document recording practices to reflect this reality.’

And everyone who eats at McDonald’s?

• Outrage As Paris Hospitals Chief Raises Idea Of Charging Unvaccinated Patients (G.)

The head of hospitals in Paris has raised the question of whether Covid patients who have refused to be vaccinated should be charged for emergency treatment if they become seriously ill with the virus. Martin Hirsch said the door to hospital treatment was open to all people but questioned whether this had to go hand in hand with “responsibility, allowing everyone to benefit,” in what he said was a “delicate debate”. “When a free prevention tool is available, can be used, is recognised as something useful by the scientific community, and you refuse it, do you do so without suffering any consequences? Or do we say we will treat you, but there is no reason why you should have no consequences when there will be for other patients who are having difficulty getting treatment and can do nothing about it,” Hirsch told the television programme C à vous.

His comments have provoked outrage and calls for his resignation, including from a number of candidates in the April presidential election. The Socialist party’s Anne Hidalgo said making the vaccine-hesitant pay for treatment was not the answer. “We have a strategy and we have to keep on educating people,” she said. Danièle Obono of the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI), was among those calling for Hirsch to resign, saying vaccinated and unvaccinated people had each contributed financially to pay for the health system. Julien Aubert, an MP for the mainstream-right Les Républicains, accused Hirsch of “mixing politics with administrative functions”.

About 30,000 people are being treated for Covid in hospitals in France. Non-vaccinated Covid patients are reported to represent 70% of patients in intensive care in Paris and Bordeaux and more than 90% in Marseille and Nice, according to doctors. One day in intensive care is estimated to cost the French taxpayer about €4,628 (£3,850), while a vaccine dose costs the state €20 (£16.60).

“You don’t have to be unvaccinated or a conspiracy theorist or even anti-government to be worried about what lies ahead.”

• Authoritarian Madness (Whitehead)

You don’t have to be unvaccinated or a conspiracy theorist or even anti-government to be worried about what lies ahead. You just have to recognize the truth in the warning: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is not about COVID-19. Nor is it about politics, populist movements, or any particular country. This is about what happens when good, generally decent people—distracted by manufactured crises, polarizing politics, and fighting that divides the populace into warring “us vs. them” camps—fail to take note of the looming danger that threatens to wipe freedom from the map and place us all in chains. It’s about what happens when any government is empowered to adopt a comply-or-suffer-the-consequences mindset that is enforced through mandates, lockdowns, penalties, detention centers, martial law, and a disregard for the rights of the individual.

The slippery slope begins in just this way, with propaganda campaigns about the public good being more important than individual liberty, and it ends with lockdowns and concentration camps. The danger signs are everywhere. Claudio Ronco, a 66-year-old Orthodox Jew and a specialist in 18th-century music, recognizes the signs. Because of his decision to remain unvaccinated, Ronco is trapped inside his house, unable to move about in public without a digital vaccination card. He can no longer board a plane, check into a hotel, eat at a restaurant or get a coffee at a bar. He has been ostracized by friends, shut out of public life, and will soon face monthly fines for insisting on his right to bodily integrity and individual freedom.

For all intents and purposes, Ronco has become an undesirable in the eyes of the government, forced into isolation so he doesn’t risk contaminating the rest of the populace. This is the slippery slope: a government empowered to restrict movements, limit individual liberty, and isolate “undesirables” to prevent the spread of a disease is a government that has the power to lockdown a country, label whole segments of the population a danger to national security, and force those undesirables—a.k.a. extremists, dissidents, troublemakers, etc.—into isolation so they don’t contaminate the rest of the populace. The world has been down this road before, too. Others have ignored the warning signs. We cannot afford to do so.

“It isn’t known why Horowitz would have taken a personal meeting from Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer.”

• DOJ IG Horowitz Withheld Key Evidence From Special Counsel Durham (ET)

A new court filing by special counsel John Durham reveals that Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz concealed crucial information from Durham in connection with the ongoing prosecution of Michael Sussmann, a former attorney to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The filing also reveals that Horowitz failed to disclose that his office is in possession of two cellphones used by former FBI general counsel James Baker. The phones may contain information that’s important to the Sussmann case, as well as to a separate criminal leak investigation of Baker that Durham personally conducted between 2017 and 2019.

Horowitz first came to public prominence in June 2018 when he issued a report on the FBI’s actions leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Horowitz followed up in December 2019 with another report on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the bureau’s pursuit of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Durham’s filing on Jan. 25 involves discovery issues surrounding Sussmann’s upcoming trial for allegedly making a materially false statement to the FBI’s then-general counsel James Baker. As part of Durham’s discovery obligations, the Special Counsel’s Office met with Horowitz and his team on Oct. 7, 2021, and subsequently requested any materials, including any “documents, records, and information” regarding Sussmann that may have been in the possession of the Office of Inspector General (OIG).

On Dec. 17, 2021, Horowitz’s office provided Durham with information that Sussmann had given the OIG information in early 2017, that an OIG “employee’s computer was ‘seen publicly’ in ‘Internet traffic’ and was connecting to a Virtual Private Network in a foreign country.” It isn’t clear what this information was about, why Sussmann would know about this information, or why he would have been interested in the internet activities of OIG employees. It also isn’t known why Sussmann, a private citizen, would have been seeking out the OIG shortly after he was pushing information detrimental to Trump to both the FBI and the CIA. At the time of the Dec. 17 disclosure, “the OIG represented to [Durham’s] team that it had “no other file or other documentation” relating to this cyber matter.”

However, last week, Sussmann’s attorneys informed Durham that there was additional information, including the fact that Sussmann had met with Horowitz in March 2017 to personally pass along the information about the OIG employee’s computer VPN use. This meeting between Horowitz and Sussmann hadn’t been disclosed by Horowitz to Durham during their previous meetings and interactions. It isn’t known why Horowitz would have taken a personal meeting from Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer. According to Bill Shipley, a former federal prosecutor, “[y]ou don’t generally just call the IG and get a meeting with him personally.” It also isn’t clear why Horowitz chose not to inform Durham of the meeting—particularly as it pertained directly to information that Horowitz’s office had been specifically requested to relay to Durham’s special counsel probe.

“I’m beginning to think you aren’t in Paris?”

• Why Are Armed Americans Operating In The Trenches Of Eastern Ukraine? (RT)

Staccato bursts of gunfire. Silence, darkness, beeping, flash, explosion. Dramatic music. Indistinct yelling. Volleys of artillery in the shadows. Jet fumes. Special forces operating in the dead of night. All put on display in the social media accounts of Forward Observations Group (FOG), which appear to be an uncontrollable oasis of military porn. “I’m beginning to think you aren’t in Paris?” read a screenshot of a text message the Group shared recently via Instagram stories, where they also happen to be broadcasting their current journey throughout eastern Ukraine. The conflict, often described as ‘frozen’, between government forces and separatists in the region, known as the Donbass, flared up in 2014, after violent street protests led to the Ukrainian government being overthrown.

Kiev sent troops to parts of the Russian-speaking Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which refused to recognize the new regime. The conflict had stalled by March 2015; however, sporadic fighting there has been occurring ever since. In recent months, Western leaders have been speculating that Moscow, which has been accused of controlling the separatists, is planning an all-out offensive against its neighbor. The allegations are based on the purported buildup of Russian troops close to the border. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the accusations. The US and UK began delivering ‘lethal aid’ to Ukraine last week in an effort to thwart supposed Russian aggression. Almost 100 tons of “lethal aid,” including ammunition intended for “the front line defenders of Ukraine,” were delivered on January 22, the US Embassy in Kiev said.

Given the circumstances, a string of photos from Donbass showing the group of Americans in combat gear holding firearms could not have gone unnoticed. Forward Observations, which apparently consists mostly of former American servicemen, came into the spotlight after Russian military-related social media communities started discussing their e-bravado over being in the conflict zone.

Zelesky has 2 fears: 1/ his economy is collapsing, and 2/ he will be replaced soon.

• Ukraine Asks West To Tone Down ‘Panic’ (RT)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has criticized the “slightly imbalanced” coverage of the situation surrounding his country exhibited by some Western politicians and media. He was speaking to foreign reporters during a major press conference on Friday. The former entertainer particularly emphasised his concerns about press coverage, and political statements, concerning an alleged Russian military build up near his country’s frontier. “Today we are not seeing any greater escalation than it has been before. Yes, the number of servicemen has increased, but I spoke about that at the beginning of 2021 when they talked about the military exercises of the Russian Federation,” Zelensky stated. “From media coverage, it looks like we are at war already, that troops are already on the road, that there’s mobilization, people going somewhere. It’s not the case. We don’t need this panic.”

Overhyping the tensions around Ukraine has already had a heavy impact on its economy, Zelensky insisted. Billions have been withdrawn from the country, in recent times, he added, without specifying whether he was referring to the domestic Grivna currency, or those of foreign nations. The president also touched upon phone talks with his US counterpart Joe Biden, which took place earlier in the day. Zelensky dismissed media reports that they didn’t go well, insisting that that there were no disagreements with the US president. “We do not have any misunderstanding with the president of the United States. Simply, I deeply understand what is happening in my country, and he understands well what is going on in the US,” Zelensky explained.

What is science?

This is only rivaled by the David Lynch cell phone video … pic.twitter.com/KqxlZSXv1v

— DarlingPlease (@DarlingPlease2) January 28, 2022

Cash
https://twitter.com/i/status/1486997477702131714

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Debt Rattle January 21 2022

Jan 212022

January 21, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:27 am Finance Tagged with: child deaths, crash call, Durham, HCQ, ivermectin, Jan 6, negative effectiveness, Omicron, Russia, selloff, sewage, triple jabbed, VAERS 90 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Portrait of Dora Maar pensive 1937

• How Many People Have Died Purely Of Covid (Farage)

• Sewage Surveillance Reveals Omicron Is Disappearing Fast (ZH)

• Investigate the Cause of the Spike in Child Deaths (Craig)

• Triple-Jabbed Over-30s Have Higher Infection Rates Than the Unvaccinated (DS)

• Over a Million Americans Were Injured by Covid Vaccines (Rescue)

• Journal Pulls COVID-19 Vaccine Adverse Events Analysis (ET)

• Ivermectin Could Destroy Justification for Lockdowns and Vaccine Mandates (ET)

• Unexpected Comeback in the FLCCC Early Treatment Protocol (CE)

• France To Lift Covid-19 Restrictions In February (Pol.eu)

• Top Russian Senator Blasts American’s ‘Amazing Stupidity’

• Germany’s Pivot From America (Pol.eu)

• Durham vs. Horowitz (Maté)

• Congress’s 1/6 Committee Claims Absolute Power (Greenwald)

• Jeremy Grantham Doubles Down on Crash Call, Says Selloff Has Started (BBG)

Hodkinson

Dr. Roger Hodkinson does not mince words "When that penny starts to drop, the general public are going to be revolted!" Watch. pic.twitter.com/QR9ePZH5ID

— Laura Lynn Tyler Thompson (@LauraLynnTT) January 20, 2022

Eva Vlaar

Legal philosopher @EvaVlaar: “A massive movement going on in Europe…people are aware of the fact that our constitutional rights are being set aside without an end-date…beginning phases of a Social Credit System. We are literally turning into China.”pic.twitter.com/iJJZoiTSj4

— Michael P Senger (@MichaelPSenger) January 19, 2022

17,000 deaths purely of Covid in the UK. Worldometer puts it at 152,000. 700,000 die of all causes every year in the UK.

• How Many People Have Died Purely Of Covid (Farage)

‘We’ve seen again and again, estimates of how bad this crisis could be that are nearly always massively over-exaggerated, but this has really made me sit up and think.’ Nigel Farage reacts to the amount of people who have died purely of Covid since the start of the pandemic.

“The end of omicron is imminent..”

• Sewage Surveillance Reveals Omicron Is Disappearing Fast (ZH)

Now, data gleaned from wastewater is being used by the CDC to help determine when the omicron variant may have arrived in the US. As Bloomberg reports, evidence of omicron appeared in US sewage samples collected as early as Nov. 21, according to data collected by state and local health officials from California, Colorado, Houston and NYC. That data was later shared with the CDC. The first infection of omicron in a US-based patient wasn’t confirmed until Dec. 1 (the patient was located in California). “The findings give strong early evidence that the omicron variant was likely present or more widely distributed in these communities than originally indicated by clinical testing alone,” the authors said in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The four health authorities were the first to find signs of the variant in their wastewater, according to the study. In its report on the findings, BBG added that “analyzing wastewater containing human feces can be an important way to look for warning signs of new mutations, as well as track those already spreading to determine how long existing surges will last.” Wastewater can also provide advanced warning of a COVID surge. Dutch researchers reported in March 2020 that they were able to find genetic material from the virus in wastewater before COVID cases were reported in the population. Like one BBG source said: “everybody poops”.

The technique “gives you a heads-up because people may not want to pick up the phone for surveys, but everybody poops,” said Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist at the John Hopkins Center for Health Security. “And it’s so unbiased because everybody uses the same sewer system.” The CDC now funds 43 health departments that participate in the National Wastewater Surveillance System, which provides data on COVID’s presence and trends in water systems. The great news is that the last week or so has seen the Boston wastewater RNA data plunge… The end of omicron is imminent… because everybody poops.

“Any marginal benefit of vaccination for the young must be considered outweighed by even a marginal increase in mortality.”

• Investigate the Cause of the Spike in Child Deaths (Craig)

In recent months, a trend has been noted in the England and Wales all-cause mortality data, which has rung some alarm bells. Young males aged 15-19 have shown a rising death rate compared to the five-year average 2015-2019. At the same time, a large insurance company in the U.S. has reported a significant increase in deaths in the under 40s. This is obviously of concern, whatever the cause, but one possible factor which needs to be urgently excluded is any link to vaccine injury. The association between myocarditis and the mRNA vaccines, especially in younger age groups and in males, is already well established. It is particularly urgent as second doses and boosters are being rolled out, possibly putting adolescents at even higher risk, and at a time when the Omicron variant is much milder.

Members of HART, the Health Advisory and Recovery Team, have joined with other senior academics and health professionals to call for an immediate investigation into the increasing death rate amongst 15-19-year-old males since May of this year. At the High Court on Thursday 13th January, the ONS (Office for National Statistics) confirmed that there has been a significant rise in the death rate for adolescent males over the last eight months, compared to the same time period of 2015-2019. There have been at least 65 extra deaths in England and Wales, though the figure may be higher due to reporting delays for coroners’ cases. During the same time frame there were only two deaths involving Covid.

The concern is that this time period coincides with the rollout of vaccinations to this age group, who are known to be at an increased risk of myocarditis (heart inflammation), especially after the second dose. Far from rushing to investigate these deaths as they have arisen, ONS has stated it intends to undertake that work “when more reliable data are available”. The rollout of vaccinations in this age group was always controversial, with risks and benefits finely balanced, but the Chief Medical Officers overturned the original advice, not on health grounds but to “reduce disruption to schools”. Any marginal benefit of vaccination for the young must be considered outweighed by even a marginal increase in mortality. With the reduced risk from Omicron, and with increased risk from second doses, the balance will have tipped still further.

That effectiveness is very negative.

• Triple-Jabbed Over-30s Have Higher Infection Rates Than the Unvaccinated (DS)

This week’s UKHSA vaccine surveillance report has landed – and this week a change. In the (in)famous Table 12, which shows rates of infections, deaths and hospitalisations per 100,000 by vaccination status, the data have suddenly switched to giving rates for triple-jabbed rather than two-or-more doses, meaning we no longer have continuity with our previous data. So sudden was the change in fact, that the report itself has not kept up with it, and the notes under the table still say the rates are for “people who have received either two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine or in people who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine”. The change means we have to start over in our week-by-week comparisons, so the infection rates by age for this period are depicted above and the unadjusted vaccine effectiveness figures are depicted below.

“We are slowly building a network of the injured..” Why does this make me think of 1984? Why does it have to move underground?

• Over a Million Americans Were Injured by Covid Vaccines (Rescue)

The blackout of news regarding covid shot injuries has been so universally successful that it’s almost always a surprise to the vaccine damaged when they find each other. “Travelers in the desert,” is how one put it. Brianne’s extraordinary efforts to connect the injured, tell her story, and correct false facts has taken some interesting turns. Last November she wrote to the New England Journal of Medicine, attempting to have the journal correct inaccuracies in a paper about the AstraZeneca trial it recently published. She wrote: “I was a participant in Astra-Zeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine trial. I suffered serious and severe adverse effects after the first dose…was disabled and remain so today.”

She went on to state that Phase 3 Safety and Efficacy of AZD1222…Covid-19 Vaccine, published at the NEJM, contains numerous errors including that “all serious adverse events” will be recorded through “day 730,” and that she “withdrew” from the trial. Some 180 others are also said by the reporting researchers to have dropped out of the study. In fact, she wrote, “I did not withdraw, I was withdrawn.” The smartphone app she was provided to report symptoms was disabled, she told the NEJM, and trial doctors stopped collecting her data after sixty days. And Brianne heard back right away, receiving a canned rejection note from none other than Dr. Eric J. Rubin, NEJM editor-in-chief and member of the FDA’s review committee that recommended covid shots be okayed for five-year-olds.

But she persisted, telling Rubin again that the article “omitted key safety data in my case” and another she is aware of, and that the NIH gave her a diagnosis of “vaccine injury.” “Omission of adverse reactions is a violation of a key tenet of clinical trial reporting,” she wrote back. But in the end, all the head doctor at the world’s most prestigious medical journal could offer was to forward her letter to the manufacturer and suggest that she herself write to AstraZeneca and the FDA. Despite the widespread social media muffling over “misinformation,” resulting in numerous vaccine-injury sites being silenced, Brianne has managed to discover over 12,000 vaccine-damaged individuals through the website she founded, reAct19.org, simply by word of mouth. She is also affiliated with The Unity Project, a California-based organization working to unify fragmented groups across the state to better fight covid vaccine mandates for children. “We are slowly building a network of the injured,” she said.

That current network, however, could be the proverbial tip of the iceberg. According to VAERS data, as of January 7, 2022, there are vast numbers of covid-19 shot harms, including 1,033,992 vaccine injures, 25,773 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis, 3,594 miscarriages, 11,055 heart attacks, and 21,745 deaths. Within a few weeks of coerced children’s vaccinations, Brianne was contacted by the parents of a number of children, ages five to eleven, experiencing heart damage, some of which doctors said “could lead to heart transplants in five years.” They contacted Brianne because she can put them in touch with doctors knowledgeable and willing to treat vaccine sufferers.

“The paper also called the vaccines “injectable biological products”—a reference to the fact that they are distinct from all other traditional vaccines.”

• Journal Pulls COVID-19 Vaccine Adverse Events Analysis (ET)

Jessica Rose didn’t ask for any of this. She started to analyze data on adverse reactions after COVID-19 vaccines simply as an exercise to master a new piece of software. But she couldn’t ignore what she saw and decided to publish the results of her analysis. The next thing she knew, she was in a “bizzarro world,” she told The Epoch Times. A paper she co-authored based on her analysis was withdrawn by Elsevier, the company publishing the academic journal that ran the article, under circumstances that raised eyebrows among her colleagues. [..] The paper’s conclusions are not necessarily controversial. A recent Danish study concluded, for example, an elevated risk of myocarditis for young people following the Moderna COVID vaccine.

It’s common, however, even for papers that examine potential issues with the vaccines to frame their results in a way that still endorses vaccination. “That’s what you have to say to get your work published these days,” Rose said. Her paper did no such thing. “As part of any risk/benefit analysis which must be completed in the context of experimental products, the points herein must be considered before a decision can be made pertaining to agreeing to 2-dose injections of these experimental COVID-19 products, especially into children and by no means, should parental consent be waived under any circumstances to avoid children volunteering for injections with products that do not have proven safety or efficacy,” the paper said.

The paper also called the vaccines “injectable biological products”—a reference to the fact that they are distinct from all other traditional vaccines. A traditional vaccine uses “whole live or attenuated pathogens” while the COVID vaccines use “mRNA in lipid nanoparticles,” Rose explained via email. She said the lipid nanoparticles include “cationic lipids which are highly toxic.” Pfizer, the manufacturer of the most popular COVID-19 vaccine in many countries, addressed the issue by saying the dose is sufficiently low to ensure “an acceptable safety margin,” according to the European drug authority, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (pdf). Rose also noted that the COVID-19 vaccines haven’t gone “through the 10-15 years of safety testing that vaccines have always had to go through … for obvious reasons.”

Pretty incredible that this is still seen as news. Then again, how many people know?

• Ivermectin Could Destroy Justification for Lockdowns and Vaccine Mandates (ET)

Federal health agencies haven’t recognized ivermectin as an effective treatment for COVID-19 patients. According to Doctor Leland Stillman, the reason is more political than scientific, because otherwise there would be no basis for lockdowns or vaccine mandates. “If ivermectin were recognized by the public health and academic establishment as the drug that it is, that treats acute viral illnesses, one of which is COVID-19, the entire justification for lockdowns, mandates, let alone vaccine research and development would evaporate overnight,” Stillman told The Epoch Times in a recent interview.

According to Section 564 of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can only issue emergency use authorization if certain criteria are met, including “there is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the product.” So if there’s an approved alternative, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—an agency in HHS—can’t issue emergency use authorization for COVID-19 vaccines. Stillman said it’s not a conspiracy theory or even an isolated opinion that ivermectin works for treating COVID-19, because tens of thousands of physicians all over the world have recognized its effectiveness. [..] Stillman explained why many doctors are silent on recognizing ivermectin as an effective drug for COVID-19[..].

“And the reality that’s really important for people to understand is that doctors can lose their licenses or lose their board certification, which is very important for their income based on insurance guidelines, for speaking out as I have chosen to,” Stillman said. Stillman said he is able to speak up because he’s one of very few doctors in the country who takes cash and doesn’t work with insurance companies. [..] “There’s a lot of politics on this,” Stillman said, referring to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. “And the way it’s been politicized is really disgraceful and unfortunate. At the end of the day, it’s all about how these corporations who are profiting immensely off of the pandemic.”

Stillman said freedom is the way out of the current problem. “Freedom is absolutely the solution,” Stillman said. “Because if you really allow doctors to treat patients on their own terms, without insurance companies, without all this, it can be very affordable, and it can be very effective. “Because the reality is that a lot of the care being provisioned right now, it’s just being provisioned based on some bureaucrat’s idea of what’s good medicine, not based on what the patients actually want and think is worth it to them.”

HCQ for the win.

• Unexpected Comeback in the FLCCC Early Treatment Protocol (CE)

If you have followed the development of early treatment protocols for COVID-19, you will be aware that for well over a year, Ivermectin was the central agent in the FLCCC protocol, for prevention and early treatment. Ivermectin is also part of the hospital level protocols. Very early on [..] Hydroxychloroquine was present in the protocol, but it was dropped mid-2020. This non-inclusion of Hydroxychloroquine appears to have been in part due to the bad publicity that Hydroxychloroquine was suffering from, as it was targeted by the mainstream media, especially in relation to the presidential campaign in the US – something that we covered extensively.

This January 19 2021, it’s therefore a bit of a surprise to see Hydroxychloroquine to re-appear in the FLCCC prevention and early treatment protocol. The move follows the experience of several frontline doctors who found that Hydroxychloroquine is particularly useful to deal with Omicron, in combination with Ivermectin and other agents, as indicated in the protocol. So, we see with this move a further alleviation of the rift that previously existed, and that had already nearly disappeared, among frontline doctors regarding the nature of the most appropriate agents to be included in early treatment protocols for COVID-19.

But not really.

• France To Lift Covid-19 Restrictions In February (Pol.eu)

French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced Thursday that the government will lift most of its COVID-19 restrictions in February, although the need for a vaccine pass and indoor mask-wearing will remain. The vaccine pass will come into effect on Monday, Castex said at a press conference. People will no longer be allowed to show a negative test to enter restaurants, bars, theaters, museums and stadiums or travel on trains — only proof of vaccination will be accepted. Starting February 2, stadiums, arenas and other large-capacity venues will be allowed to operate at full capacity again. Homeworking obligations will be lifted, though it will still be encouraged, and masks will no longer be required outdoors, as is currently the case in many cities.

On February 16, people will be allowed to eat and drink in stadiums, cinemas and on transport, as well as being allowed to drink while standing in bars. Nightclubs will be allowed to reopen, though the government was unable to specify whether masks would be required. France has had an average of 320,000 COVID-19 cases each day over the past week, an ever-rising number. But Castex said that of the two simultaneous waves hitting the country — of the Delta and Omicron variants — the former was receding, while the latter was starting to fall in the first regions where it appeared, including in Paris. “We are unquestionably in a new phase of the epidemic,” said the prime minister.

“It is difficult to find people in Russia who would dream of a life like the one in Ukraine now,” he stated. “It is impossible to envy it.”

• Top Russian Senator Blasts American’s ‘Amazing Stupidity’

American analysts following Russia and the former Soviet Union repeatedly fail to understand the mentality of people living in the world’s largest country, one of Moscow’s leading senators has raged as experts weigh in on events happening along the border with Ukraine. Taking to Telegram on Thursday, Alexey Pushkov poured scorn on a statement put forward by Michael McFaul, a well-known “Russia watcher” and Stanford professor who previously served as Washington’s ambassador to Russia during President Barack Obama’s era. McFaul’s tweet read that “Ukrainian democracy today, not Ukrainian membership in NATO in some distant future, is the real threat to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.” Similar remarks have been made by the notoriously anti-Russian academic in recent weeks.

The exchange comes as Moscow aims to seek guarantees from NATO that Ukraine’s long-term ambitions to join the US-led military bloc will not be granted. Hitting out at McFaul’s words, Pushkov blasted the “amazing stupidity of this thesis,” which he insisted is “repeated over and over again in the United States by pseudo-experts on Russia.” It says only one thing, the senator claimed – “they know nothing about the attitude of the vast majority of Russian citizens to what is happening in Ukraine and do not want to know.” He accused Western experts of living “in their false ideologies, where it is comfortable and convenient for them.” “It is difficult to find people in Russia who would dream of a life like the one in Ukraine now,” he stated. “It is impossible to envy it.”

“While the U.K. scrambles to deliver tanks, rocket artillery and other weaponry to the Ukrainians, Germany has refused to send even rifles.”

• Germany’s Pivot From America (Pol.eu)

Over the past decade, the idea that Germany could no longer fully rely on the U.S. for security amid America’s “pivot” to Asia became accepted wisdom among German leaders. The unfolding crisis in Ukraine reveals that reality cuts both ways. Germany’s allies hoped Olaf Scholz’s coalition, which includes the Russia-critical Greens, would back away from the accommodative policies toward Moscow that marked the Angela Merkel era. Recent days have shown such optimism to be misplaced. As Washington has tried to present a united Western front against Russian intimidation in recent weeks, Germany has been a conspicuous outlier. Under the influence of a potent cocktail of energy and commercial interests, and a political culture laced with good old-fashioned anti-Americanism, Germany has strayed from the Western fold.

To outward appearances, Berlin is far from AWOL on Ukraine. “After years of rising tensions, staying silent isn’t a sensible option,” Chancellor Scholz said on Wednesday in reference to Russia’s amassing of troops on the Ukrainian border, stressing that Germany was committed to Ukraine’s territorial integrity. “It’s hard not to see this as a threat,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said of the border buildup on a trip to Moscow this week. But when the cameras are turned off, Germany’s tone changes. While the U.K. scrambles to deliver tanks, rocket artillery and other weaponry to the Ukrainians, Germany has refused to send even rifles. And instead of locking arms with the U.S. and other transatlantic allies to help Ukraine prepare for an attack, Germany has sought to placate Russia by taking some of the West’s most powerful deterrents off the table.

As the crisis has intensified, German officials and politicians have strenuously opposed using the threat of suspending Russia from SWIFT, the Belgium-based international payments system, a step that would make it extremely difficult for Russian entities to engage in international commerce. Even Germany’s conservative opposition cautioned against using SWIFT as a bargaining chip. Friedrich Merz, leader of the center-right Christian Democrats, said suspending Russia’s access to the network would be the financial market equivalent of dropping an “atomic bomb.”

Very thorough from Aaron Maté. Durham is not sitting still, but he faces a lot of resistance.

• Durham vs. Horowitz (Maté)

As he documents the role of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in generating false allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, Special Counsel John Durham has also previewed a challenge to the FBI’s claims about how and why its counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign began. At stake is the completeness of the official reckoning within the U.S. government over the Russiagate scandal – and whether there will be an accounting commensurate with the offense: the abuse of the nation’s highest law enforcement and intelligence powers to damage an opposition presidential candidate turned president, at the behest of his opponent from the governing party he defeated.

The drama is playing out against the clashing approaches of the two Justice Department officials tasked with scrutinizing the Russia probe’s origins and unearthing any misconduct: Durham, the Sphinx-like prosecutor with a reputation for toughness whose work continues; and Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice inspector general, whose December 2019 report faulted the FBI’s handling of the Russia probe but nonetheless concluded that it was launched in good faith. The bureau’s defenders point to Horowitz’s report to argue that the FBI’s Trump-Russia conspiracy investigation, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, is untainted despite its extensive use of the discredited Clinton-funded Steele dossier. Though highly critical of the bureau’s use of Christopher Steele’s reports, Horowitz concluded that they “played no role in the Crossfire Hurricane opening,” which he said had met the department’s “low threshold” for opening an investigation.

But Durham has made plain his dissent. In response to Horowitz’s report, the special counsel announced that his office had “advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.” Durham stressed that, unlike Horowitz, his “investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department” and has instead obtained “information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.”

From Russiagate to 1/6 was a smooth transition.

• Congress’s 1/6 Committee Claims Absolute Power (Greenwald)

In its ongoing attempt to investigate and gather information about private U.S. citizens, the Congressional 1/6 Committee is claiming virtually absolute powers that not even the FBI or other law enforcement agencies enjoy. Indeed, lawyers for the committee have been explicitly arguing that nothing proscribes or limits their authority to obtain data regarding whichever citizens they target and, even more radically, that the checks imposed on the FBI (such as the requirement to obtain judicial authorization for secret subpoenas) do not apply to the committee. As we have previously reported and as civil liberties groups have warned, there are serious constitutional doubts about the existence of the committee itself.

Under the Constitution and McCarthy-era Supreme Court cases interpreting it, the power to investigate crimes lies with the executive branch, supervised by the judiciary, and not with Congress. Congress does have the power to conduct investigations, but that power is limited to two narrow categories: 1) when doing so is designed to assist in its law-making duties (e.g., directing executives of oil companies to testify when considering new environmental laws) and 2) in order to exert oversight over the executive branch. What Congress is barred from doing, as two McCarthy-era Supreme Court cases ruled, is exactly what the 1/6 committee is now doing: conducting a separate, parallel criminal investigation in order to uncover political crimes committed by private citizens.

Such powers are dangerous precisely because Congress’s investigative powers are not subject to the same safeguards as the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. And just as was true of the 1950s House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that prompted those Supreme Court rulings, the 1/6 committee is not confining its invasive investigative activities to executive branch officials or even citizens who engaged in violence or other illegality on January 6, but instead is investigating anyone and everyone who exercised their Constitutional rights to express views about and organize protests over their belief that the 2020 presidential election contained fraud.

Indeed, the committee’s initial targets appear to be taken from the list of those who applied for protest permits in Washington: a perfectly legal, indeed constitutionally protected, act. This abuse of power is not merely abstract. The Congressional 1/6 Committee has been secretly obtaining private information about American citizens en masse: telephone records, email logs, internet and browsing history, and banking transactions. And it has done so without any limitations or safeguards: no judicial oversight, no need for warrants, no legal limitations of any kind.

“..losses in the U.S. alone may reach $35 trillion.”

• Jeremy Grantham Doubles Down on Crash Call, Says Selloff Has Started (BBG)

Jeremy Grantham, the famed investor who for decades has been calling market bubbles, said the historic collapse in stocks he predicted a year ago is underway and even intervention by the Federal Reserve can’t prevent an eventual plunge of almost 50%. In a note posted Thursday, Grantham, the co-founder of Boston asset manager GMO, describes U.S. stocks as being in a “super bubble,” only the fourth of the past century. And just as they did in the crash of 1929, the dot-com bust of 2000 and the financial crisis of 2008, he’s certain this bubble will burst, sending indexes back to statistical norms and possibly further. That, he said, involves the S&P 500 dropping some 45% from Wednesday’s close — and 48% from its Jan. 4 peak — to a level of 2500. The Nasdaq Composite, already down 8.3% this month, may sustain an even bigger correction.

“I wasn’t quite as certain about this bubble a year ago as I had been about the tech bubble of 2000, or as I had been in Japan, or as I had been in the housing bubble of 2007,” Grantham said in a Bloomberg “Front Row” interview. “I felt highly likely, but perhaps not nearly certain. Today, I feel it is just about nearly certain.” In Grantham’s analysis, the evidence is abundant. The first sign of trouble he points to came last February, when dozens of the most speculative stocks began falling. One proxy, Cathie Wood’s Ark Innovation ETF, has since tumbled by 52%. Next, the Russell 2000, an index of mid-cap equities that typically outperforms in a bull market, trailed the S&P 500 in 2021.

Finally, there was what Grantham calls the kind of “crazy investor behavior” indicative of a late-stage bubble: meme stocks, a buying frenzy in electric-vehicle names, the rise of nonsensical cryptocurrencies such a dogecoin and multimillion-dollar prices for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. “This checklist for a super bubble running through its phases is now complete and the wild rumpus can begin at any time,” Grantham, 83, writes in his note. “When pessimism returns to markets, we face the largest potential markdown of perceived wealth in U.S. history.” It could, he said, rival the impact of the dual collapse of Japanese stocks and real estate in the late 1980s. Not only are equities in a super bubble, according to Grantham there’s also a bubble in bonds, “the broadest and most extreme” bubble ever in global real estate and an “incipient bubble” in commodity prices. Even without a full reversion back to statistical trends, he calculates that losses in the U.S. alone may reach $35 trillion.

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Debt Rattle December 23 2021

Dec 232021

December 23, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:36 am Finance Tagged with: Durham, ethics, Fauci, Gates, ivermectin, LNP, Monsanto, nukes, Omicron, RFK, SCOTUS, South Africa 97 Responses »

Claude Monet Camille on the Beach at Trouville 1870

• Omicron: Risk Of Hospitalization -80%, Risk Of Severe Illness -70% (Bl.)

• Risk Of Hospital Stay 40% Lower With Omicron Than Delta – UK Data (G.)

• US Army Creates Single Vaccine Against All COVID & SARS Variants (Defense One)

• mRNA-LNP Platform’s Lipid Nanoparticle Is Highly Inflammatory (NIH)

• Bill Gates, Fauci Quietly Built A Multi-billion Dollar Vaccine Empire (Mercola)

• How to Read RFK, Jr.’s Book in 5 Minutes (Kirsch)

• Dutch GPs Prescribe Ivermectin As A Corona Cure Despite Ban (RTL)

• Biden: 200 Million Americans Vaccinated, US Population 350 Million (CTH)

• Director of University Ethics Program Fired Over Vaccine Mandate (ET)

• 24 States Sue Biden Admin Over COVID-19 Mandates for Children (ET)

• Alex Berenson Sues Twitter For Acting ‘On Behalf’ Of US Govt (RT)

• Supreme Court To Hold Hearing Over Biden’s Vaccine Mandate On Businesses (JTN)

• Supreme Court Could Decide Fate of Monsanto/Bayer RoundUp Cancer Suits (ET)

• Russia Planning Nuclear Attack, Ukraine Claims (RT)

• Durham Zeroes In On Clinton Campaign, Could Call Some Aides To Testify (JTN)

• Capitol Building To Be Expanded To Hold All Pfizer Lobbyists (BBee)

“South Korea continues to see record high case numbers, despite 99% mask compliance and 85% of their entire population being vaccinated, which is odd because I’ve been told by CNN experts that masks prevent infections and that an 85% vaccination rate would get us past COVID”

Maxime Bernier

Cases among the vaccinated are called “breakthrough cases” because the vaccine was supposed to act as a barrier.

The barrier is gone and covid fascists now claim it was always meant to reduce the severity, not the transmissibility of the virus. LIARS!https://t.co/4gcVcs4jVZ

— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) December 22, 2021

Each of these states are over 85% vaxxed.

“..the situation may be different for other countries in comparison to South Africa, where under 50% of the population is vaccinated but many have experienced prior infection.”

No, that is the situation in most countries. Reported vaxx numbers are mostly exaggerated. To shame the unvaxxed.

And all the Omicron related new measures and mandates are now unadulterated totalitarianism. There’s no excuse for them.

• Omicron: Risk Of Hospitalization -80%, Risk Of Severe Illness -70% (Bl.)

People who contract the Omicron variant during this current wave of COVID-19 infections are much less likely to be hospitalized than they are if they contract other strains of the virus, according to a new study from South Africa. The study, released Wednesday by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, comes as countries around the globe grapple with how to handle the new strain, which appears to be more resistant to current COVID-19 vaccines. In the study, researchers compared Omicron infections with Delta and other variant infections from October to November and discovered that Omicron infections resulted in a considerable 80% decreased chance of hospitalization. “When compared to non-[Omicron] infections, we found that [Omicron] infections had an 80% lower odds of being admitted to the hospital,” South African researchers concluded.

Though the researchers did note that for patients admitted to the hospital in that period, those infected with Omicron had an equal chance of developing a severe illness compared to those with other variants. But when compared to Delta infections starting in April — when that strain dominated much of the world — Omicron infections were associated with a 70% lower odds of severe disease, even though the new strain appears to produce a higher viral load in infected patients. “Compellingly, together our data really suggest a positive story of a reduced severity of Omicron compared to other variants,” said Professor Cheryl Cohen, one of the study’s authors. It should be noted that the study is newly released and has yet to be peer-reviewed.

Cohen added that research was reinforced by medical data from the country that has shown significantly lower hospitalization and death figures in this latest wave of COVID-19 infections, during which Omicron has become the obviously dominant strain. But Cohen was careful to note that the situation may be different for other countries in comparison to South Africa, where under 50% of the population is vaccinated but many have experienced prior infection. “What is unclear is whether the picture will be similar in countries where there are high levels of vaccination but very low levels of previous infection,” she said during a media briefing, according to Reuters. Nevertheless, the new data, if proven accurate, is positive news and could perhaps foreshadow a turning point in the pandemic, as some scientists have predicted.

Last month, as mass hysteria broke out regarding the Omicron variant, Israeli immunologist Zvika Granot argued that the new variant may be “the light at the end of the tunnel,” since it appeared to be “highly infectious but maybe not as aggressive.” “When you look at the future and try to envision how this will end one day, it’s most likely not going to be because we got a fantastic vaccine,” Granot said. “It just doesn’t work this way and we have a lot of experience with viruses like the flu.” “The way that it will end, at least in my view, is when we encounter this new variant that is highly infectious but is not very aggressive, meaning that a lot of people will get infected but none of them will develop serious symptoms. And in a sense that will be the way the population will really gain herd immunity, and then the coronavirus will just fade away,” he argued.

Forbes South Africa

People who contract the omicron variant are 80% less likely to be hospitalized compared to previous variants and those hospitalized with omicron are at a 70% lower risk of severe disease than delta, according to a new study out of South Africa. pic.twitter.com/TXJReRSYmj

— Forbes (@Forbes) December 22, 2021

Notorious wanker Neil Ferguson gets rolled out once more to instill fear. Just cut the South Africa numbers in half. And then claim the SAGE numbers of 3,000 daily hospitalisations in England at the peak of the wave, are still valid. Merry Christmas.

• Risk Of Hospital Stay 40% Lower With Omicron Than Delta – UK Data (G.)

The Omicron variant of coronavirus appears to be milder, with a 20%-25% reduced chance of a hospital visit and at least a 40% lower risk of being admitted overnight, the first UK data of its kind has showed. But as daily Covid cases topped 100,000 for the first time on Wednesday, experts warned that high transmissibility means the NHS is still at risk of being overwhelmed. In what was described by scientists as a “qualified good news story”, two studies on Wednesday pointed to a lower risk of hospitalisation with Omicron. An Imperial College outbreak modelling team led by Prof Neil Ferguson analysed hospitalisations and vaccine records among all PCR-confirmed Covid cases in England between 1 and 14 December. The dataset included 56,000 cases of Omicron and 269,000 cases of Delta.

Their report found that the risk of any attendance at hospital was 20% to 25% lower with Omicron versus Delta, and 40%-45% lower when the visit resulted in admission for at least one night. For the small percentage of people who had neither been previously infected with Covid nor vaccinated, the risk of hospitalisation was about 11% lower for Omicron versus Delta. Ferguson said that while it was “good news”, the assessment did not substantially change Sage modelling pointing to 3,000 daily hospitalisations in England at the peak of the wave next month without restrictions beyond the plan B measures currently in place.

While the analysis shows evidence of “a moderate reduction” in the risk of hospitalisation associated with Omicron compared with Delta, Ferguson said, “this appears to be offset by the reduced efficacy of vaccines against infection with the Omicron variant”. “Given the high transmissibility of the Omicron virus, there remains the potential for health services to face increasing demand if Omicron cases continue to grow at the rate that has been seen in recent weeks,” he added.

What are the odds that Pfizer already has their greasy fingers in here somewhere?

“Walter Reed is working with a yet-to-be-named industry partner for that wider rollout.”

• US Army Creates Single Vaccine Against All COVID & SARS Variants (Defense One)

Within weeks, scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research expect to announce that they have developed a vaccine that is effective against COVID-19 and all its variants, even Omicron, as well as previous SARS-origin viruses that have killed millions of people worldwide. The achievement is the result of almost two years of work on the virus. The Army lab received its first DNA sequencing of the COVID-19 virus in early 2020. Very early on, Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch decided to focus on making a vaccine that would work against not just the existing strain but all of its potential variants as well. Walter Reed’s Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, completed animal trials earlier this year with positive results.

Phase 1 of human trials, which tested the vaccine against Omicron and the other variants, wrapped up this month, again with positive results that are undergoing final review, Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch, said in an exclusive interview with Defense One. The new vaccine will still need to undergo phase 2 and phase 3 trials. Unlike existing vaccines, Walter Reed’s SpFN uses a soccer ball-shaped protein with 24 faces for its vaccine, which allows scientists to attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains on different faces of the protein. “It’s very exciting to get to this point for our entire team and I think for the entire Army as well,” Modjarrad said. The vaccine’s human trials took longer than expected, he said, because the lab needed to test the vaccine on subjects who had neither been vaccinated nor previously infected with COVID.

Increasing vaccination rates and the rapid spread of the Delta and Omicron variants made that difficult. [..] The next step is seeing how the new pan-coronavirus vaccine interacts with people who were previously vaccinated or previously sick. Walter Reed is working with a yet-to-be-named industry partner for that wider rollout. “We need to evaluate it in the real-world setting and try to understand how does the vaccine perform in much larger numbers of individuals who have already been vaccinated with something else initially…or already been sick,” Modjarrad said. He said nearly all of Walter Reed’s 2,500 staff have had some role in the vaccine’s nearly-two-year development.

LNP. Avoid them.

• mRNA-LNP Platform’s Lipid Nanoparticle Is Highly Inflammatory (NIH)

Vaccines based on mRNA-containing lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are a promising new platform used by two leading vaccines against COVID-19. Clinical trials and ongoing vaccinations present with varying degrees of protection levels and side effects. However, the drivers of the reported side effects remain poorly defined. Here we present evidence that Acuitas’ LNPs used in preclinical nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccine studies are highly inflammatory in mice. Intradermal and intramuscular injection of these LNPs led to rapid and robust inflammatory responses, characterized by massive neutrophil infiltration, activation of diverse inflammatory pathways, and production of various inflammatory cytokines and chemokines.

The same dose of LNP delivered intranasally led to similar inflammatory responses in the lung and resulted in a high mortality rate, with mechanism unresolved. Thus, the mRNA-LNP platforms’ potency in supporting the induction of adaptive immune responses and the observed side effects may stem from the LNPs’ highly inflammatory nature.

“This is where Fauci’s power lies: in his capacity to fund, arm, pay, maintain and effectively deploy a large and sprawling standing army. The NIH alone controls an annual $37 billion budget..”

• Bill Gates, Fauci Quietly Built A Multi-billion Dollar Vaccine Empire (Mercola)

How does a private citizen, not an elected official, gain so much control over a global health agency like WHO? When it was founded, WHO could decide how to distribute its contributions. Now, 70% of its budget is tied to specific projects, countries or regions, which are dictated by the funders. As such, Gates’ priorities are the backbone of WHO, and it wasn’t a coincidence when he said of WHO, “Our priorities, are your priorities.” As of 2018, the cumulative contributions from the Gates Foundation and GAVI made “Gates the unofficial top sponsor of the WHO, even before the Trump administration’s 2020 move to cut all his support to the organization,” according to Kennedy. “Plus, Gates also routes funding to WHO through SAGE [Strategic Advisory Group of Experts] and UNICEF and Rotary International bringing his total contributions to over $1 billion.”

These tax-deductible donations give Gates both leverage and control over international health policy, “which he largely directs to serve the profit interest of his pharma partners.” Further, “Gate’s vaccine obsession has diverted WHO’s program contributions from poverty alleviation, nutrition and clean water to make vaccine uptake its preeminent public health metric. And Gates is not afraid to throw his weight around,” according to Kennedy. “… The sheer magnitude of his foundation’s financial contributions has made Bill Gates an unofficial — albeit unelected — leader of the WHO.” Gates’ power has grown further due to his decadeslong partnership with Fauci. Alone, both Gates and Fauci wield immense power in their fields. Together, they’re a formidable, if unfortunately nefarious, force.

As the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) — part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) — “Fauci has a $6.1 billion budget that he distributes to colleges and universities to do drug research for various diseases,” Kennedy says. “He has another $1.7 billion that comes from the military to do bioweapons research.” This is where Fauci’s power lies: in his capacity to fund, arm, pay, maintain and effectively deploy a large and sprawling standing army. The NIH alone controls an annual $37 billion budget distributed in over 50,000 grants supporting over 300,000 positions globally in medical research.

The thousands of doctors, hospital administrators, health officials and research virologists whose positions, careers and salaries depend on AIDS dollars flowing from Dr. Fauci, Gates and the Wellcome Trust (Great Britain’s version of the Gates Foundation) are the officers and soldiers in a mercenary army that functions to defend all vaccines and Dr. Fauci’s HIV/AIDS doxologies. Along with Gates, Fauci had the power to influence funding of U.S. foreign aid to Africa for AIDS, prioritizing that for vaccines and drugs instead of nutrition, sanitation and economic development. Yet, Fauci and his team, funded by Gates, have never created a vaccine for AIDS, despite squandering billions of dollars, and causing uncounted human carnage. In 2020, many of the Gates/Fauci HIV vaccine trials in Africa suddenly became COVID-19 vaccine trials.

“Fauci is the leader of the largest cabal of organized crime thugs to have ever walked the face of Earth..”

• How to Read RFK, Jr.’s Book in 5 Minutes (Kirsch)

Here are five methods to get the gist of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s best-selling book, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” quickly:

1. The first third shows that Fauci is the leader of the largest cabal of organized crime thugs to have ever walked the face of Earth. The middle third goes into more detail about the history of the establishment of Fauci’s criminal cabal. The final third ties together loose ends with more details and factual history. The overriding theme is that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization are all run and controlled by criminal thugs in concert with their criminal counterparts running Big Pharma.

3. Consider this excerpt: “Under Dr. Fauci’s leadership, the allergic, autoimmune, and chronic illnesses which Congress specifically charged NIAID to investigate and prevent, have mushroomed to afflict 54 percent of children, up from 12.8 percent when he took over NIAID in 1984. “Dr. Fauci has offered no explanation as to why allergic diseases like asthma, eczema, food allergies, allergic rhinitis, and anaphylaxis suddenly exploded beginning in 1989, five years after he came to power. “On its website, NIAID boasts that autoimmune disease is one of the agency’s top priorities. Some 80 autoimmune diseases, including juvenile diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, Graves’ disease, and Crohn’s disease, which were practically unknown prior to 1984, suddenly became epidemic under his watch.

“Autism, which many scientists now consider an autoimmune disease, exploded from between 2/10,000 and 4/10,000 Americans when Tony Fauci joined NIAID, to one in thirty-four today. “Neurological diseases like ADD/ADHD, speech and sleep disorders, narcolepsy, facial tics, and Tourette’s syndrome have become commonplace in American children. “The human, health, and economic costs of chronic disease dwarf the costs of all infectious diseases in the United States. By this decade’s end, obesity, diabetes, and pre-diabetes are on track to debilitate 85 percent of America’s citizens. “For this reason, all the drug companies and members of Congress (except Rand Paul) LOVE Fauci.”

5. My review: The book shows that Fauci is a really bad guy who has done a lot of bad stuff and he should be immediately fired. It also shows a completely corrupt system that is allowing dangerous drugs to be approved. We need to all stand up and oppose what is going on. The system is badly broken and corrupt and needs to be fixed ASAP. I haven’t read the entire book, but I have read sections and everything I have read so far aligns with the facts I know. It’s a devastating book, filled with details that few people knew about until now.

Google translate.

“The drug also has side effects that can be serious at high doses. For example, a decrease in consciousness…”

Wonder how many other drugs on the WHO essential medicine list are this dangerous…

• Dutch GPs Prescribe Ivermectin As A Corona Cure Despite Ban (RTL)

A group of Dutch general practitioners is prescribing the controversial drug ivermectin to people who are ill due to corona via a website. This practice goes against medical guidelines, so doctors are not allowed to do it. The Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ) is aware of this and has already issued a fine, but the website is still active Ivermectin is being circulated on various websites as a cure against corona, but is controversial because there is no sufficient scientific evidence for it. That is why most general practitioners do not prescribe it. If you still want it, you can still arrange it via the website ‘Self-care Covid-19’. On that website it is claimed that, among other things, zinc and vitamins C and D make resistant to corona. Will the virus still get you? Then you can get a telephone consultation with a GP for 30 euros.

Our research team tried this out and got a doctor from the collective on the phone. She did not ask about fever or breathing problems in that conversation, but did offer ivermectin after two minutes. Without our actively asking, as can be seen in this video: In their own words, Self-Care Covid-19 holds twenty to fifty such telephone consultations every day. Since the start in October 2020, there are approximately 2800. 10 to 20 percent of patients would only be advised to take supplements, 80 percent are prescribed a combination of ivermectin, antibiotic doxycycline and aspirin. In some cases, rheumatism medicine hydroxychloroquine is added on top of that.

Ivermectin is a drug that helps against scabies and other parasites, not viruses. “It is not a proven effective treatment for Covid, even if it is circulating on the internet,” says internist-infectiologist Mark de Boer of the Leiden University Medical Center. “There are sufficient indications that this is not effective. The drug also has side effects that can be serious at high doses. For example, a decrease in consciousness.” The doctors behind Self-care Covid-19 speak of ‘mild side effects’. Not all pharmacies cooperate in the distribution of ivermectin, but Self-Care Covid-19 has a solution for that too: they know a number that do sell the medicine.

40 million or 150 million? Not quite the same thing.

• Biden: 200 Million Americans Vaccinated, US Population 350 Million (CTH)

During an ABC interview today, Joe Biden told ABC News’ David Muir that as of right now, there are “200 million people fully vaccinated.” Counting illegal aliens, there are roughly 350 million Americans right now [Census Data]. If 200 million Americans are vaccinated (60%), that means there are approximately 150 million Americans NOT vaccinated (40%). During his speech yesterday, Joe Biden said: “Thanks to the progress on vaccinations this fall, we’ve gone from nearly 90 million adults in July who had not even started their vaccination process to fewer than 40 million today.” There’s a big difference between 150 million unvaccinated and “fewer than 40 million” unvaccinated. Can you reconcile the difference?

As we noted last week, with the CDC adjusting the numbers downward […] this would align with several tangential datapoints which have always seemed to be in conflict with the preferred government narrative. Additionally, there’s also an obvious motive on behalf of the government to overinflate vaccination in order to generate peer pressure and the self-fulfilling prophecy needed to garner vaccine acceptance. As now noted by Bloomberg: […] “CDC data show 240 million people with at least one shot, or about 72.5% of the population. But the agency says only 203 million are fully vaccinated, or 61.3%, an 11-percentage-point difference that is far larger than in other developed countries. State and local officials say it’s improbable that 37 million Americans got one shot without completing their inoculations. Instead, they say, the government has regularly and incorrectly counted booster shots and second doses as first doses.”

Perhaps this disparity reconciles why many people look quizzically at the high vaccine data while not finding any correlation to their own community, friends or family. Indeed, there has always been a disconnect between the number of people the government reports as having been vaccinated, when contrast against the open admissions of those who have not wanted to participate in this wide-scale vaccination program. Biden’s statement today aligns with the adjusted statements from the CDC of 200 million Americans being fully vaccinated. However, Biden’s statement today does not reconcile against his statement yesterday of “fewer than 40 million Americans” remain to be vaccinated. If the 200 million vaccinated number is accurate, then 150 million Americans are not vaccinated.

Ethics are not supposed to be discussed in the new Science?!

• Director of University Ethics Program Fired Over Vaccine Mandate (ET)

Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, the longtime professor of psychiatry at the University of California–Irvine School of Medicine who sued the university over its COVID-19 vaccine mandate because it made no exceptions for natural immunity, has been fired by the institution for refusing the vaccine. In a blog post titled “Farewell, University of California,” Dr. Kheriaty said he received notice of what he called his “arbitrary and capricious” firing on Dec. 16. It was effective the same day. The termination ends his UCI medical teaching career and his longtime role as director of the Medical Ethics Program at UCI Health. Kheriaty said he worked unpaid nights helping the UCI president’s office draft triage guidelines for scarce resources and vaccines during the pandemic.

When N-95 masks were so scarce that hospitals kept them under lock and key, Kheriaty said he found a supply at a local construction company and provided them to doctors and nurses. “Everyone at the university seemed to be a fan of my work, until suddenly they were not,” Kheriaty wrote. “Once I challenged one of their policies, I immediately became a ‘threat to the health and safety of the community.’ No amount of empirical evidence about natural immunity or vaccine safety and efficacy mattered at all. “The University’s leadership was not interested in scientific debate or ethical deliberation. When I was placed on unpaid suspension, I was not permitted to use my paid time off—that is to say, I was ordered to stay off campus because I was not vaccinated, but I also could not take vacation at home because… I was not vaccinated.”

[..] Kheriaty sued the University of California Board of Regents in federal court on Aug. 18, alleging the university’s vaccine mandate violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In July 2020, Kheriaty contracted COVID-19, so he now has natural immunity, which he argues is likely superior to protection from a vaccine. His lawsuit is working its way through U.S. District Court. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California refused Kheriaty’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the vaccine mandate. In his lawsuit, he highlighted the failure of vaccine mandates to account for the likely superior immunity possessed by COVID-19 survivors. His faculty colleagues at the University of California filed a 187-page declaration supporting the efficacy of natural immunity.

As a COVID-19 survivor, Kheriaty said, his immunity to the disease is between 95 and 99 percent effective. There is not one case on record of someone who recovered from COVID-19 and then was reinfected and transmitted the virus to someone else, he said in October. This sterilizing immunity is an advantage the human immune system has over any COVID-19 vaccine, he argued, noting the declining efficacy of the mRNA vaccines over time.

Talk about ethics.

• 24 States Sue Biden Admin Over COVID-19 Mandates for Children (ET)

Attorneys general (AG) from 24 states have filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration challenging COVID-19 vaccine mandates for early education staff and mask mandates for young children. Led by Louisiana AG Jeff Landry, the lawsuit argues that the mandates involving Head Start, the country’s largest early education program, are unlawful and exceed President Joe Biden’s statutory authority. Biden’s mandate, issued last month, applies to all preschool programs funded by the federal Head Start program and affects hundreds of thousands of staff, volunteers, and preschool students across the country. It mandates vaccinations for staff, volunteers, and others in contact with students by the end of January and requires masks for all adults and children aged two and above.

The mandate offers no alternative to vaccinations, and for those granted exemptions, funds are not provided for regular testing. It applies to staff regardless of whether they work in person or remotely. The Department of Health and Human Services provides funding to low-income families of preschool-age children under the federal Head Start program. The lawsuit argues that the president’s mandate is projected to lead to tens of thousands of Head Start agency staff losing their jobs and will cause programs to close or reduce capacity. “Like all of his other unlawful attempts to impose medical decisions on Americans, Biden’s overreaching orders to mask two-year-olds and force vaccinate teachers in our underserved communities will cost jobs and impede child development,” Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said in a statement on Tuesday. “If enacted, Biden’s authoritarianism will cut funding, programs, and childcare that working families, single mothers, and elderly raising grandchildren rely on desperately.”

“It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine…”

• Alex Berenson Sues Twitter For Acting ‘On Behalf’ Of US Govt (RT)

Former New York Times reporter and outspoken critic of the US response to the Covid pandemic Alex Berenson is suing Twitter for suspending his account, claiming the platform “acted on behalf of the federal government. In the lawsuit, filed this week in the Northern District of California, Berenson accused Twitter of breach of contract and of violating his First Amendment rights. The alleged breach of contract stems from the fact that Berenson claims a Twitter executive had repeatedly assured him that he would be free to express his views on the platform without fear of retaliation. “Despite the controversy around his statements, a senior Twitter executive repeatedly assured Mr. Berenson that the company backed his right to free expression and that he would continue to enjoy access to the platform,” Berenson’s lawyers said in the suit.

The independent reporter and best-selling author was reportedly suspended from Twitter in August over a tweet questioning whether Covid vaccines could actually prevent infection and transmission of the virus, referring to them as “therapeutic” drugs. A Twitter spokesperson at the time said Berenson was permanently suspended for “repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules.” In the tweet, Berenson wrote: “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it – at best – as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS.”

Berenson argues the platform acted on behalf of the Biden administration in censoring his posts, as the president himself had criticized “misinformation” about Covid spreading on social media only days before the author’s suspension. He is also claiming in his lawsuit that a California law applying to “common carriers” applies to Twitter. The legislation, dating back to 1872, regulates companies that “offer to the public to carry persons, property, or messages.” Berenson’s lawyers argue the legislation is relevant to the suit as the “courts have repeatedly applied the 1872 law to telephone companies and other technologies that did not exist at the time it was enacted,” adding that Twitter does not have the publishing freedom typically afforded due to the common carrier law.

“..affects 84 million Americans..”

• Supreme Court To Hold Hearing Over Biden’s Vaccine Mandate On Businesses (JTN)

The Supreme Court announced Wednesday it will hold a special hearing Jan. 7, 2022, on the legality of Biden administration vaccine mandates on healthcare workers and private companies with more than 100 people. The court’s decision to quickly take up the cases follows a series of different rulings in lower courts. The mandates will remain in place pending January’s oral arguments. The cases were rushed to the Supreme Court due to the time-sensitive nature of the Biden administration’s mandates. More than 17 million healthcare workers are required by the federal government to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4, 2022. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, meanwhile, announced over the weekend it was postponing until Jan. 10 the deadline for compliance with the vaccine mandate on private businesses with more than 100 employees, which affects 84 million Americans.

The cases against a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers — State of Louisiana et al v. Xavier Becerra, Sec. of HHS, et al and Joseph Biden, President of U.S., et al v. Missouri, et al — were brought to Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh. The healthcare workers’ cases were consolidated and will receive one hour total for arguments. Two cases against Biden’s business mandate were brought to Justice Kavanagh, who combined the cases and allotted one hour for arguments. Petitioners in all cases requested for the mandate to be stopped. Rather than stopping the mandate, the justices are delaying a decision until after hearing the cases in January.

Busy days for SCOTUS.

• Supreme Court Could Decide Fate of Monsanto/Bayer RoundUp Cancer Suits (ET)

On Dec. 13, the Supreme Court asked the Solicitor General to offer the United States’ views on “Monsanto vs. Hardeman”—the latest move in what could be a landmark case for multibillion-dollar litigation linking the herbicide RoundUp to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, if the Supreme Court agrees to review the case. After a call for the views of the solicitor general, that Justice Department official will often respond with a brief commenting on whether the Supreme Court should agree to review the case. The Epoch Times has reached out to the Solicitor General for comment. Monsanto, which was acquired by the German chemical company Bayer in 2018, filed its petition after a Ninth Circuit panel ruled in favor of California resident Edwin Hardeman, who claimed his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma resulted from exposure to RoundUp.

Ninth Circuit Judge Ryan D. Nelson, a Trump appointee, found that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) did not preempt California’s law, under which RoundUp and other products containing glyphosate must feature warnings about that ingredient’s reported cancer risk. While the state of California maintains that glyphosate is carcinogenic, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which enforces FIFRA, maintains glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer in humans. Monsanto’s petition to the Supreme Court challenges the Ninth Circuit’s ruling on preemption. It also argues that the Ninth Circuit admitted low-quality expert opinions on glyphosate and cancer, deviating from the practices of other appellate courts and violating Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

This idiocy fits the NATO narrative.

• Russia Planning Nuclear Attack, Ukraine Claims (RT)

One of Ukraine’s top politicians has alleged that signals coming from Russia indicate that Moscow could be plotting a full-blown nuclear attack against its Eastern European neighbor in a new sensational intervention. Speaking at a conference on Wednesday, the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk, remarked that “as of 1991, Ukraine had the third largest nuclear capability in the world,” referring to its inherited arsenal of warheads from the collapse of the Soviet Union. He noted that Kiev “voluntarily gave this up to become a non-nuclear state” just a few years later. However, the politician alleged that Russia, which “was the guarantor of such disarmament, hints that if we continue our democratic development, it may even launch a nuclear strike against us.”

The remarks from Stefanchuk come in the foreground of concerns from Western leaders and Kiev’s intelligence service that Moscow is planning to launch a full-blown offensive against Ukraine. However, the Kremlin has repeatedly denied allegations that Russia is massing its troops along the shared demarcation line in preparation for an invasion. Instead, Moscow has accused members of the US-led military bloc of shuttling a concerning amount of weapons toward Russia’s borders and said that Western states are encouraging Kiev’s officials to engage in provocations that could spiral into an all-out conflict. Last month, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that in Ukraine, “more and more forces and equipment are being accumulated on the line of contact in the Donbass, supported by an increasing number of Western instructors.” He warned that if these states cannot hold back Kiev, and are instead actually spurring it on, Moscow will “take all necessary steps to ensure our security.”

Someone better change lawyers.

• Durham Zeroes In On Clinton Campaign, Could Call Some Aides To Testify (JTN)

Hillary Clinton’s team long fought to keep its ties to Christopher Steele’s dossier from public view, but Special Counsel John Durham is now making clear he has a strong interest in her campaign’s behavior during the Russia collusion probe. He is even suggesting some of her aides could be summoned as trial witnesses. Durham’s earth-shaking revelation came inside a routine court filing this month in the case of Igor Y. Danchenko, a Russian analyst who was a primary source in 2016 for Steele’s now-infamous dossier. Danchenko has been charged with repeatedly lying to the FBI during the Russia collusion probe and has pleaded innocent.

Durham’s motion asked the presiding judge to determine whether Danchenko’s lawyers —Danny Onorato and Stuart Sears of the Schertler Onorato Mead & Sears law firm — pose a conflict of interest because the firm also represents the Hillary for America campaign as well as several former campaign officials in “matters before the special counsel.” “The Clinton Campaign financed the opposition research reports, colloquially known as the ‘Dossier,’ that are central to the Indictment against the defendant,” the Durham team stated in the motion. “Accordingly, for the reasons set forth below, the government respectfully requests that the Court inquire into the potential conflict issues set forth herein.”

[..] Prosecutors said they want to know what the Clinton campaign knew about the accuracy of the Steele dossier’s now-discredited allegations of Trump-Russia collusion and whether any campaign “representatives directed, solicited, or controlled” Danchenko’s activities assisting Steele. “The interests of the Clinton Campaign and the defendant could potentially diverge in connection with any plea discussions, pre-trial proceedings, hearings, trial, and sentencing proceedings,” the prosecutors told the court, often referring to the Steele dossier as “Company Reports.” “For example, the Clinton Campaign and the defendant each might have an incentive to shift blame and/or responsibility to the other party for any allegedly false information that was contained within the Company Reports and/or provided to the FBI,” the Durham filing stated.

“Moreover, it is possible that one of these parties might also seek to advance claims that they were harmed or defrauded by the other’s actions, statements, or representations.” For the first time, Durham also raised the possibility aides to Hillary Clinton could testify at Danchenko’s trial. “In the event that one or more former representatives of the Clinton Campaign (who are represented by defense counsel’s firm) are called to testify at any trial or other court proceeding, the defendant and any such witness would be represented by the same law firm, resulting in a potential conflict,” Durham’s team argued.

And for one of the first times, Durham’s team declares to a court what it believes was the political motive for the Clinton campaign to pay its law firm, Perkins Coie, to hire the Fusion GPS investigative firm to hire the retired MI6 agent Steele to write the anti-Trump Russia reports known as the dossier. “The Clinton Campaign, through Law Firm-1 and U.S. Investigative Firm-1, commissioned and financed the Company Reports in an attempt to gather and disseminate derogatory information about Donald Trump,” the filing stated.

They all seem to fit in already.

• Capitol Building To Be Expanded To Hold All Pfizer Lobbyists (BBee)

Senate leaders revealed today that Biden’s “Build Back Better” infrastructure plan will include $86 Billion for a brand-new Capitol Building construction project. The Capitol will be expanded to hold 100 Senators, 435 Representatives, and 1,423 Pfizer lobbyists. “Better. Build blur, uh, der der trunalimunumaprzure,” said Biden in a forceful speech defending the plan. “Derp rug abba loogey.” A hand then appeared from behind a curtain and injected Biden with some sort of medication, causing Biden to come to his senses.

“These Pfizer people, they’re good folks, folks! They know what they’re doing! We’re just gonna let them run the country for a while, I think. More time for me to watch Murder She Wrote on the television box!” Officials confirmed that to save time, the Biden administration plans to merge all regulatory agencies with Pfizer. They also confirmed that troops will arrive at your house tonight to administer your booster shot. Cool!

Viral blizzard

MSM at it again. This time the narrative is "Viral Blizzard". Dont fall for it peeps. Watch this snip-it taken from multiple news outlets and tell me its not a coordinated effort. pic.twitter.com/jfUiDHr9ZB

— Peter Cribbett (@PCribbett) December 22, 2021

Blackrock owns enough controlling interest in all.

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Debt Rattle December 21 2021

Dec 212021

December 21, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: Capitol Riot, Christmas, Durham, Fauci, myocarditis, Omicron, reelection, science, Vietnam 50 Responses »

Edouard Manet Berthe Morisot with a bouquet of violets 1872

• Omicron is Not Normal (eugyp)

• Omicron Accounted For 73% Of New US Infections Last Week (AP)

• No, 73% of US COVID-19 Cases Aren’t Omicron Yet (Prep.)

• The Omicron Fake-out (Jim Kunstler)

• Fauci’s War on Science: The Smoking Gun (Tucker)

• 5 Essential Truths About COVID-19 (McCullough)

• Pfizer Vaccines Withheld From Vietnamese Children After Deaths & AEs (TSN)

• 26-Year-Old’s Death From Myocarditis ‘Probably’ Caused by Pfizer Vaccine (CHD)

• How Biden Blew It (NR)

• Two More House Democrats Not to Run for Reelection, Total Now 23 (CTH)

• Alex Jones Sues Pelosi, US Capitol Riot Committee (RT)

• It’s Official: Durham Is Investigating The Clinton Campaign (Technofog)

Massie

Is anyone working on a vaccine to stop the spread of COVID?

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 20, 2021

Biden: “For the unvaccinated, you can expect a winter of death”

DeSantis: “You’re free to get vaccinated or not, but if you get sick either way, you can get monoclonal antibodies to survive. And if you can’t get vaccinated, you can always get Evusheld for protection.”

Malone Big Bird

“Big pharma has turned Big Bird into a child predator”@RWMaloneMD pic.twitter.com/fo51hwQNYy

— Melly (@Belondyy) December 18, 2021

Jordan/Makary

Congressman @Jim_Jordan During A Select Subcommittee…

You Might Want To Hear This… pic.twitter.com/Zng7qv6fSM

— Covid-1984 (@Orwells_Ghost_) December 20, 2021

“The balance of the evidence is that Omicron leaked from a lab engaged in SARS-2 vaccine research.”

• Omicron is Not Normal (eugyp)

Omicron is not normal. No immediate progenitors are known; its closest relatives are viruses last seen in early- to mid-2020. The orthodox explanation for this awkward fact, is that it has spent the last 18 months lurking “in a geography with poor genomic surveillance … or … in a chronically infected individual.” The simpler explanation is that it leaked from a laboratory. As el gato malo and others have indicated, evidence is strong that Omicron circulates preferentially in the vaccinated. In all likelihood, it is the result of gain-of-function research, in which SARS-2 was passaged repeatedly through convalescent or vaccinated plasma, in the hopes of helping the virus evade acquired immunity. The purpose of this research would be to anticipate future immune-escape variants that vaccines might target.

Omicron carries a series of highly unlikely and suspicious mutations in its spike protein. It is hard to imagine that these mutations can have arisen via natural processes, because all but one of them are nonsynonymous – that is, they code for different amino acid sequences. Starkly mutated variants favoured by natural selection should have a great many meaningless synonymous mutations as well. Omicron’s ancestors may have spent a significant amount of time adapting to mouse cells, before re-entering human hosts. Omicron appears selected to replicate primarily in the bronchial tract. Deeper in the human lung, it functions far less efficiently than Delta or the first strains from Wuhan. This is probably why it causes mostly mild illness, and it is reminiscent of techniques used to make live attenuated influenza vaccines safer for use in humans.

Such vaccines are cold-adapted, that is, selected to circulate primarily in the cooler upper respiratory tract rather than in the warmer, more vulnerable lungs. The balance of the evidence is that Omicron leaked from a lab engaged in SARS-2 vaccine research. There are many possibilities: It might represent a live, attenuated virus vaccine used informally among researchers, that mutated back to virulence and escaped; it might have been released accidentally; it could even be an attempt to develop a self-spreading vaccine to immunise animals or third world populations.

“..federal health officials said on Monday..”

Uh, no, they did not.

• Omicron Accounted For 73% Of New US Infections Last Week (AP)

Omicron is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the US, federal health officials said on Monday, racing ahead of Delta and other variants and accounting for 73% of new infections last week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a six-fold increase in Omicron’s share of infections in only one week. In much of the country, omicron’s prevalence is even higher. It’s responsible for an estimated 90% of new infections in the New York area, the south-east, the industrial midwest and the Pacific north-west. Since the end of June, the Delta variant has been the main version causing US infections. As recently as the end of November, more than 99.5% of coronaviruses were Delta, according to CDC data.

Scientists in Africa first sounded the alarm about omicron less than a month ago and on 26 November the World Health Organization designated it as a “variant of concern”. The mutant has since shown up in about 90 countries. Much about the omicron variant remains unknown, including whether it causes more or less severe illness. Early studies suggest the vaccinated will need a booster shot for the best chance at preventing omicron infection but even without the extra dose, vaccination still should offer strong protection against severe illness and death. “All of us have a date with Omicron,” said Dr Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “If you’re going to interact with society, if you’re going to have any type of life, Omicron will be something you encounter, and the best way you can encounter this is to be fully vaccinated.”

“..No humans at the CDC stood up in front of a podium and announced the 73% number, or wrote a press release. It came from the CDC’s automated COVID data tracker website.”

• No, 73% of US COVID-19 Cases Aren’t Omicron Yet (Prep.)

Something extremely odd happened this afternoon. The press, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Axios, reported that the CDC had announced that 73% of US COVID-19 cases were now being caused by the Omicron variant, and major public health gurus like Ashish Jha, Eric Topol, Florian Krammer, Eric Feigl-Ding, and Scott Gottlieb circulated the reports at face value. But that’s not really what’s happening. There was some kind of bug in an automated statistical algorithm at the CDC, known as the variant proportions Nowcast. Omicron isn’t really dominant in most of the USA yet (although all evidence continues to indicate it will be soon). And the bug in Nowcast went from a quiet database update on a quiet CDC web page, to a national press sensation, in a matter of hours.

What actually happened? No humans at the CDC stood up in front of a podium and announced the 73% number, or wrote a press release. It came from the CDC’s automated COVID data tracker website. But it’s also not a statement of hard data, it’s the output of an algorithm called the Nowcast. The Nowcast algorithm is based on the CDC’s variant proportions data. Every week a small percentage of US COVID-19 cases are subjected to genome sequencing, which identifies them by strain. Right now it’s about 3.6%, but it varies by state. The CDC collates this data to produce weekly reports on the prevalence of each variant in each of ten regions of the continental USA. However, the genomic data takes time to generate and process, then get deposited into genomics databanks, then get analyzed by the CDC, so the newest data is about two weeks old at each weekly refresh (today, sixteen days old; the week ending December 4).

To display an estimate of current prevalence, the CDC uses an algorithm it calls a “Nowcast,” to project forward from two weeks ago and give an estimate of current prevalence for different strains. The Nowcast algorithm has been remarkably accurate and useful in the past; I followed it with great interest as Alpha, Gamma, Delta, Mu, and other strains washed across the USA from early 2021 until Delta attained total dominance in the summer. It’s a significant achievement for the CDC, and I celebrate them for it. But something is on the fritz now. In this week’s update, which dropped Monday afternoon, the Nowcast algorithm is presenting results that don’t make sense.

“..the “Joe Biden” regime’s main chance for retaining any power is to keep the Covid panic going long enough to re-run the mail-in voting scams of 2020..”

• The Omicron Fake-out (Jim Kunstler)

Omicron supposedly started in South Africa some weeks ago and Covid deaths there are at an 18-month low. The existing “vaccines” appear to be completely ineffective against omicron, so how is more of that stuff going to help? And then why all the hysteria about vaxxing up the vaxx-resistant? Insofar as the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines present not insignificant risks of harmful-to-fatal side effects, plus being ineffective, what is the prudent bet there? Speaking of which, will the public even be able to discern whether the alleged winter death surge is a result of Covid or of adverse reactions to the vaxxes? My money would be on adverse vaxx events. Why is there absolutely no talk — except in the state of Florida, run by Governor Ron DeSantis — about comprehensive early treatment of Covid?

Why is the CDC not setting up early treatment centers around the USA, where people with symptoms can receive monoclonal antibody infusions and kits of well-known, cheap, safe and effective oral medicines that can be used easily at home to defeat the virus? (Those medicines have been surreptitiously outlawed by our own CDC, you know.) Is it outlandish to suppose that the official “Joe Biden” government objective is to allow as many people to die as possible in order to keep the public terrorized? Meanwhile, they’ve provoked the public to line up for Covid tests using a PCR system so discredited for Covid detection that months ago the CDC scheduled it to go offline on December 31st, (And, uh, why the long time-lag between the decision and the action? Answer: it allows the CDC to falsely jack up case numbers until the year’s bitter end.)

With the apparent defeat of the Build Back Better boondoggle, following a long list of other failures, the “Joe Biden” regime’s main chance for retaining any power is to keep the Covid panic going long enough to re-run the mail-in voting scams of 2020 in the 2022 congressional elections. It’s a weak play, though, since the opposition is fully onto it. And if the Democratic Party loses as many seats in Congress and the Senate as it deserves to lose, not a single piece of their toxic legislation will see daylight until the mastodons come home in the next ice age. Also consider that Democratic Party operatives by the limousine-load will be hauled in to testify before opposition-controlled committees and many of these will be subject to criminal referrals.

Sunetra Gupta (Oxford), Martin Kulldorff (Harvard), and Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford) are top scientists. Fauci labeled them “fringe epidemiologists”. That’s how much respect he has for science and scientists.

• Fauci’s War on Science: The Smoking Gun (Tucker)

Those weeks following the release of the Great Barrington Declaration did feel odd. On the good side, medical doctors, scientists, public health workers, and citizens all over the world were thrilled that three top scholars in fields of public health and epidemiology had spoken out against lockdowns and for a reasoned approach to Covid. They eagerly signed the document. Yes, there were some attempts to sabotage it too, with fake names and so on, which should have been a clue about what was coming. The fakes were deleted in days and new methods of confirming signatures were deployed. The document, on the one hand, said nothing controversial. The right way to deal with this pandemic, it said, was to focus on those who could face severe outcomes from disease – a very plain point and nothing new.

There was nothing to be gained by locking down the whole of society because of a pathogen with such a huge differential in its demographic impact. The virus would have to become endemic in any case (including the realization of “herd immunity,” which is not a “strategy” but a descriptive term widely accepted in epidemiology) and certainly would not be stopped by destroying peoples’ lives and liberties. The hope of the Declaration was simply that journalists would pay attention to a different point of view and a debate would begin on the unprecedented experiment in lockdowns. Perhaps science could prevail, even in this climate. On the bad side, and at the very same time, following the release, the attacks began pouring in, and they were brutal, structured to destroy.

The three main signers – Sunetra Gupta (Oxford), Martin Kulldorff (Harvard), and Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford) – made the statement as a matter of principle. It was also born of frustration with the prevailing narrative. Mostly this declaration was intended as an educational effort. But the authors were being called vicious names and treated like heretics that should be burned. There certainly was no civil debate; quite the contrary. It was all quite shocking given that the Declaration was a statement concerning what almost everyone in these professional circles believed earlier in the year. They were merely stating the consensus based on science and experience. Nothing more.

Even on March 2, 2020, 850 scientists signed a letter to the White House warning against lockdowns, closures, and travel restrictions. It was sponsored by Yale University. Today it reads nearly like a first draft of the Great Barrington Declaration. Indeed on that same day, Fauci wrote to a Washington Post reporter: “The epidemic will gradually decline and stop on its own without a vaccine.” But following the March 13-16, 2020 lockdowns, the orthodoxy had evidently changed. And suddenly. The signers of the GBD had declined to change with it. Thus did they endure astonishingly brutal smears. What felt odd at the time was the sheer intensity of the attacks, as well as their dogmatism and ferocity. These attacks also had a strong political flavor that had little regard for science.

” I’m calling for an immediate pause, a pause in the public program on Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson, until we can do a deep dive on the safety review.”

• 5 Essential Truths About COVID-19 (McCullough)

1) COVID-19 is ONLY spread when symptoms are present. “The virus cannot be spread unless someone has symptoms, unless someone’s sick,” McCullough said in an address on December 12. “They cannot spread COVID-19 They’re not contagious. That’s been shown now.” He elaborated: “It’s only symptoms that are related to the spread of illness and there is no asymptomatic spread. So, if there’s no asymptomatic spread, as long as nobody in this arena has symptoms, there will not be a single case that comes out of this auditorium. That is an important principle. Now, that means if you’re sick, if you’re sick, and you’re susceptible to COVID-19, please stay home. If your children are sick and they’re susceptible to COVID-19, that could be the case, stay home.”

2) Asymptomatic testing is not FDA cleared or supported by any regulatory bodies. “Because there’s no asymptomatic spread … we never needed to close down the schools,” McCullough continued. “That means we never needed to wear masks, right, because you can’t spread it asymptomatically. That means that there should be no asymptomatic testing.” McCullough observed the World Health Organization (WHO) has agreed with this assessment since the end of June. “Widespread screening of asymptomatic individuals is not a currently recommended strategy due to the significant costs associated with it and the lack of data on its operational effectiveness,” WHO stated.

3) Natural immunity is robust, complete, and durable–it’s “one and done.” “Once somebody is recovered from COVID-19 It’s one and done,” McCullough emphasized. “It’s one and done. You’re done.”New York Attorney Elizabeth Brehm asked the CDC for “documents reflecting any documented case of an individual who: (1) never received a COVID-19 vaccine; (2) was infected with COVID-19 once, recovered, and then later became infected again; and (3) transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to another person when reinfected.” The response from Roger Andoh at CDC was: “A search of our records failed to reveal any documents pertaining to your request. The CDC Emergency Operations Center (EOC) conveyed that this information is not collected.” “Now the CDC has got 41,000 cases, sadly, of full-blown vaccine failures that resulted in hospitalization and death,” McCullough went on, adding, “41,000 vaccine failures, they don’t have a single failure of natural immunity.”

4) COVID-19 is a treatable illness in high-risk patients with early sequenced multidrug therapy. “The illness is imminently treatable … we can treat COVID-19, and we can actually markedly influence the natural history of the disease by intercepting it early, and those innovations were discovered early in 2020,” McCullough noted. “Everybody should have a COVID-19 survival kit at home,” he stressed. “We should really take charge of this. This viral pandemic is a war. It’s a war and it’s up to us to step up and start to fight this thing.”

5) The genetic COVID-19 vaccines are not sufficiently safe or effective for the public. Vaccine mandates should be dropped, and the vaccine program should be paused for safety review. “I don’t think anybody had a problem with vaccines a year ago. But we now know as they’re broadly used in the general population, like many new products, it has not worked out and we have seen unacceptably high rates of death that occurs after vaccination. About 50% of the deaths that are recorded happen within 48 hours, 80% within a week. “In the U.S. CDC VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] we have 19,000 deaths, about half of those are domestic,” he observed, adding: “We have 31,000 now that are permanently disabled. That is unacceptable for a medicinal product in the United States.

And it’s unacceptable for our agencies not to review safety for us. And it’s unacceptable for our FDA or CDC or NIH and our White House Task Force. It’s unacceptable for them not to provide a safeguard for our citizens. “Moving forward, the vaccines are not enough to bring us out of the pandemic. I am going to close by calling for, at this point in time, a complete and total ban on any vaccine mandates. I’m calling for an immediate pause, a pause in the public program on Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson, until we can do a deep dive on the safety review.

A batch?!

• Pfizer Vaccines Withheld From Vietnamese Children After Deaths & AEs (TSN)

Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are approved for use on children by the Vietnamese government. Children are divided into three age groups for vaccination: 3-11, 12-15, and 16-17 years old. The Ministry of Health predicted that by the fourth quarter of 2021, 95% of the 8.1 million youngsters aged 12 to 17 would have had two COVID-19 vaccine doses. A girl in Hanoi’s Thuong Tin District died only one day after vaccination in November. The cause of death was Grade IV anaphylaxis, according to the Post-Vaccination Events Expert Panel. Anaphylaxis is a set of symptoms caused by an allergic reaction to a foreign substance. The most severe form of anaphylaxis is Grade IV, which includes respiratory and cardiac collapse. However, it was concluded the case had nothing to do with the quality of the vaccine or vaccination methods.

The Hanoi Department of Health consequently spoke with the Ministry of Health regarding two batches of Pfizer vaccines, no. 124001 and 123002, which had been used to vaccinate students. These two batches were initially printed with an expiry date of November 30, 2021, but had their expiry extended to February 28, 2022. After receiving feedback from parents, Hanoi stopped injecting the two vaccines and consulted the Ministry of Health, the other batches were injected normally,” said Director of the Hanoi Department of Health, Tran Thi Nhi Ha. The Hanoi Department of Health published a press release on December 1 verifying that the Covid-19 vaccine is still being administered to students in Hanoi. TrialSite reports that news media in North America and Europe kept far away from this story.

Mobile injection sites are set up at schools in Thanh Hoa, south of Hanoi in the far northern reaches of this Southeast Asian nation. They primarily provide the COVID-19 vaccination to children in high schools, as well as students in vocational and continuing education institutes. However, more than 120 youngsters were hospitalised in the province for post-injection treatment. The provincial health department has taken steps to prevent injection of the suspect batches of vaccines, according to the international version of the VN Express, a popular online news media owned by FPT Group, the largest information technology service company in Vietnam.

At least New Zealand reports it.

• 26-Year-Old’s Death From Myocarditis ‘Probably’ Caused by Pfizer Vaccine (CHD)

Pfizer’s COVID vaccine “probably” caused the death of a healthy 26-year-old man, New Zealand health authorities said Monday. The health officials attributed Rory James Nairn’s death, 12 days after his first COVID shot, to myocarditis. “With the current available information, the board has considered that the myocarditis was probably due to vaccination in this individual,” a COVID-19 Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board said in a statement. Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle that can lead to cardiac arrhythmia and death. It can also result from infections, but more commonly myocarditis is a result of the body’s immune reaction to initial heart damage. Nairn’s death is New Zealand’s second reported death linked to myocarditis.

Health authorities in August reported a woman died from heart inflammation likely due to the vaccine.The board said: “The circumstances of these cases do not impact or change the known information on myocarditis, and the benefits of vaccination with the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19 continue to greatly outweigh the risk of such rare side effects. “The Board has recommended actions to be taken by the COVID-19 Vaccine and Immunization Program to continue to highlight myocarditis as a very rare side effect of the Pfizer vaccine.” A Pfizer spokesperson said the company was aware of the reported death in New Zealand, and that it monitors all reports of possible adverse events and continues to believe the benefit-risk profile for its vaccine is positive.

Nairn’s fiancée, Ashleigh Wilson, is searching for answers after the “traumatic” ordeal. In a video interview with Chantelle Baker from B-2020, Wilson said her fiancé passed away from what paramedics believe was a heart attack. Wilson said Nairn began experiencing heart palpitations on Nov. 5, the same day he received his first shot but that didn’t recognize the severity of his symptoms. Wilson told the NZ Herald Nairn went into the bathroom as the two were preparing to leave for the hospital. That’s when she heard a thud. “He had fallen, his body was blocking the door, his full weight was against it and I couldn’t get it open,” Wilson said. “I could just see him through a crack in the door, I could see that he was gone.” “I watched him die and I could not get to him,” she said.

I don’t want to get into US party politics, but this is well written.

• How Biden Blew It (NR)

If he had wanted to, President Biden could have fulfilled the promises that he made during his campaign and set himself and his party up for a successful 2022. He could have ignored the hollow passions of Twitter and cable TV, lowered the temperatures that so mar our quotidian politics, and delivered the quiet, limited, competent leadership that he promised during his inconspicuous run for the office. Recognizing that his party enjoyed only the barest of congressional majorities, he could have scaled back his lofty ambitions and ensured that his own focus and the focus of the public at large were as tightly aligned as possible. He could have narrowed his initial COVID bill, eschewing the entreaties to go big and limiting the scope of its relief to the desperate alone.

He could have made the bipartisan infrastructure bill a centerpiece, rather than an afterthought, of his first year. He could have grasped that, because federal power is so limited, his role in fighting the pandemic would be exclusively oratorical. He could have understood that people care deeply about illegal immigration and gotten serious about limiting it, even as he struck a kinder tone. Having realized that inflation was clearly not set to be “transitory,” he could have directed the sum of his efforts toward alleviating it. And, while he was doing all that, he could have paid attention to the details that his job throws up in abundance — particularly in the foreign-policy realm — and thereby avoided the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan that drove a stake through his presidency within six months of his taking his oath.

A little more humility, a greater willingness to say “no,” and a more acute understanding of why he won in the first instance would all have gone a long way. Instead? Well, instead he did precisely none of that. Instead, he ignored all evidence to the contrary and concluded that he was a world-historical figure. Instead, he began talking about “transforming” the country. Instead, he proposed the largest spending program in modern American history. Instead, he sent a welcome message to would-be border-hoppers. Instead, he embraced every ridiculous neologism that progressives saw fit to throw at him: “Latinx,” “BIPOC,” “birthing person,” the lot.

No sooner had Biden won the election, NPR reports, than a bunch of irresponsible voices had begun “flattering him with comparisons to two legendary Democratic presidents of the 20th century — Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.” And Biden, fool that he is, believed them. In March, Axios confirmed to general derision that Biden was exhibiting a sincere “determination to be one of the most consequential presidents” in American history, and — euphemism alert! — to explore the “elasticity of presidential power.” The correct response to being told that he might be the next FDR would have been to laugh the speaker out of the Oval Office. Instead, flattered, Biden said, “Tell me more.”

Rats and ships?

• Two More House Democrats Not to Run for Reelection, Total Now 23 (CTH)

Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), the powerful chair of an Appropriations subcommittee overseeing immigration issues, becomes the 23rd House Democrat to announce she will not seek reelection in 2022. Roybal-Allard was first elected to the House in 1993 and was going to have a redistricting battle. Additionally: “Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), a leader of the moderate Blue Dog Democrats, announced earlier Monday that she was retiring in 2022 to spend more time with her young children.” Over the weekend, there were also reports Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.) plans to retire. The southern border is a mess, and border state Latino Democrats are switching to the Republican Party. Inflation is skyrocketing and will likely continue getting worse through 2022 due to fiscal and monetary policy.

Wage growth (3%) is nowhere near enough to keep up with food inflation (15%+). Making things worse, gas prices have doubled in most areas and will continue to increase into 2022 due to Biden energy policy. The Democrat regulatory environmental programs in coastal areas and ports are continuing to create massive supply chain issues. Home heating costs this winter will be 60 to 70 percent higher due to Biden energy policy. The Joe Biden vaccination mandate is creating a workforce crisis and escalating backlash created by toxic federal overreach. Several blue states (CA, NY, IL) are losing congressional seats due to population losses, while red states are gaining congressional districts due to population growth. Insane spending by Democrats continues without pause or consideration for the inflation they are creating.

The great ideological cleaving between Democrat communists and middle-class Americans continues. Polling indicates there is a major storm on the horizon for Democrats, as their ideological thirst for power is transparent and being rejected. Every single policy the Biden administration touches creates a crap storm of anxiety for the ‘Main Street’ American worker. The only group benefiting from JoeBama policies is the same group that funds them, Wall Street. Making matters worse, the political communists behind the policy execution are brazen in showcasing how the destruction of the American economy is their intent. Now the White House is promising “a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.” Not exactly an optimistic message.

Even the New York Times has gone from panic to ‘shock’: “The numbers are even worse for Democrats in the eight states expected to have the closest Senate elections, according to Langer — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Not only is Biden’s overall job approval rating in those states 33 percent, 10 points lower than it is in the rest of the country, but registered voters in those eight states say they are more likely to vote for Republican House candidates than for Democrats by 23 points (at 58 percent to 35 percent).”

“Jones claimed that the committee is violating his 1st Amendment rights as a journalist, his 4th Amendment right of privacy in his papers, and his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.”

• Alex Jones Sues Pelosi, US Capitol Riot Committee (RT)

Shock jock Alex Jones has sued US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the congressional committee that’s investigating last January’s US Capitol riot to block the panel from accessing his phone records and forcing him to testify. The lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in US District Court in Washington, alleges that Pelosi and the investigative committee that she appointed are trying to suspend constitutional liberties “in coercive secret proceedings specifically designed to satiate a political witch hunt.” The committee subpoenaed Jones in November, demanding documents related to his role in organizing an election-fraud protest that escalated into the Capitol riot, according to the lawsuit. The panel also ignored the radio host’s constitutional objections, insisting that he testify in Washington on January 10, and it sought to obtain his phone records through AT&T.

“The select committee’s members have made it abundantly clear that they are only interested in prosecuting political adversaries,” the lawsuit said, adding that Jones was put in the “unconscionable position” of facing imprisonment if he exercises his constitutional rights. Jones claimed that the committee is violating his 1st Amendment rights as a journalist, his 4th Amendment right of privacy in his papers, and his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. The lawsuit noted that committee chairman US Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) showed his disregard for those protections when he suggested in an MSNBC interview earlier this month that invoking the 5th Amendment may show that a witness is “part and parcel guilty to what occurred.”

“If the Clinton Campaign was being informed of the work by Fusion GPS, what of the likelihood that the Clinton Campaign was informing the work of Fusion GPS?”

• It’s Official: Durham Is Investigating The Clinton Campaign (Technofog)

Igor Danchenko, the primary subsource of Christopher Steele, was arrested on November 3, 2021 for giving multiple false statements to federal officials during his 2017 interviews with the FBI. These included lies about Danchenko’s sources, his travels to Russia, and his falsified contacts with Sergei Millian. We laid out Danchenko’s indictment here. Notably, Special Counsel John Durham alleges that one of Danchenko’s real “sources” was Charles Dolan, Jr. (perhaps first identified by Aaron Mate), who served in various leadership positions to elect Bill Clinton in the 1992 and 1996 campaigns and was an advisor to Hillary Clinton in her 2016 campaign for president. With Dolan’s involvement, the obvious question becomes whether he was the intermediary between the Clinton Campaign and Danchenko.

After all, we know that the Hillary Clinton Campaign paid for the Steele dossiers and the work by Fusion GPS. This was arranged through their attorneys (and the DNC attorneys) at Perkins Coie – notably Mark Elias and Michael Sussmann. Elias left the firm this summer. Sussmann was indicted in September 2021 by Special Counsel Durham for giving false statements relating to the Alfa Bank/Trump hoax. It is highly likely that the Clinton Campaign was receiving updates on the Fusion GPS/Christopher Steele work once they were hired by Perkins Coie in the spring of 2016. This is work the client – the Clinton Campaign – paid for. (The sharing of this info would be consistent with the Clinton Campaign – notably Jake Sullivan – receiving backchannel updates on the Alfa Bank hoax.)

If the Clinton Campaign was being informed of the work by Fusion GPS, what of the likelihood that the Clinton Campaign was informing the work of Fusion GPS? It was Clintons’ idea to link Trump and Russia in the first place. And associates of the Clinton Campaign (Sidney Blumenthal) were working to corroborate parts of the dossier. With that in mind, I leave you this bit of information provided by the New York Times in September (emphasis added) suggesting the complicity of the Clinton Campaign: “Some of the questions that Mr. Durham’s team has been asking in recent months — including of witnesses it subpoenaed before a grand jury, according to people familiar with some of the sessions — suggest he has been pursuing a theory that the Clinton campaign used Perkins Coie to submit dubious information to the F.B.I. about Russia and Mr. Trump in an effort to gin up investigative activity to hurt his 2016 campaign.”

Now let’s review what’s going on in Danchenko’s criminal case. He was originally represented by Chris Schafbuch and Mark Schamel. On December 6, 2021, Stuart Sears appeared on behalf of Danchenko. Schafbuch and Schamel dropped out of the case. According to Durham’s latest filing, Stuart Sears is a partner at the law firm Schertler Onorato Mead & Sears. Notably, the firm is currently representing the 2016 “Hillary for America” presidential campaign (the “Clinton Campaign”), as well as multiple former employees of that campaign, in matters before the Special Counsel.”

V for Vendetta virus

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