Dec 102022
 


Saul Leiter Harlem 1960

 

THE TWITTER FILES: The Removal Of Donald Trump, Part 1 (ZH)
Twitter Files Unveil More FBI Collusion (RT)
Twitter Files Highlight the Mechanics of Controlling Platform Information (CTH)
How “Trust” Executives Misled Congress and the Public (Turley)
The Tool of Tools (Kunstler)
Putin Doesn’t Bluff (Jim Rickards)
Putin: West is Using Ukrainians as ‘Cannon Fodder’ (Celente)
US To Unveil New Military Aid Package For Ukraine – Reuters (RT)
Western Europe Caught In A Strategic Trap, Unclear How It Can Escape (Lukyanov)
The New Russia and a Prophetic Ballad (Batiushka)
Oil Price Cap Will Backfire, Warns Putin (RT)
‘Minsk II Was Agreed On To Arm Ukraine’ – Did Merkel Really Say That? (MoA)
How Big Are the Fed’s Losses and Where Can We Go See Them? (WS)
Dutch Farmers Battle Technocratic Forces Driving Them Into Oblivion (GZ)

 

 

Scott Adams has a hard time updating his list of hoaxes; there are too many.

 

 

Dr. Michael Vlahos & Col. Douglas Macgregor: Is the war in Ukraine entering its decisive phase? Pt.1

 

 

Child exploitation

 

 

 

 

Bhattacharya
https://twitter.com/i/status/1601232328935686145

 

 

 

 

Third batch. Much more to follow. Hard to keep up.

THE TWITTER FILES: The Removal Of Donald Trump, Part 1

The third installment of Elon Musk’s release of internal Twitter communications has been released, once again via veteran journalist Matt Taibbi. In this episode, which is a 3-parter, we learn what happened behind the scenes which led to the banishment of former President Donald Trump from the platform. 2. The world knows much of the story of what happened between riots at the Capitol on January 6th, and the removal of President Donald Trump from Twitter on January 8th… 3. We’ll show you what hasn’t been revealed: the erosion of standards within the company in months before J6, decisions by high-ranking executives to violate their own policies, and more, against the backdrop of ongoing, documented interaction with federal agencies.

4. This first installment covers the period before the election through January 6th. Tomorrow, @ShellenbergerMD will detail the chaos inside Twitter on January 7th. On Sunday, @bariweiss will reveal the secret internal communications from the key date of January 8th. 5. Whatever your opinion on the decision to remove Trump that day, the internal communications at Twitter between January 6th-January 8th have clear historical import. Even Twitter’s employees understood in the moment it was a landmark moment in the annals of speech. 6. As soon as they finished banning Trump, Twitter execs started processing new power. They prepared to ban future presidents and White Houses – perhaps even Joe Biden. The “new administration,” says one exec, “will not be suspended by Twitter unless absolutely necessary.”

7. Twitter executives removed Trump in part over what one executive called the “context surrounding”: actions by Trump and supporters “over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years.” In the end, they looked at a broad picture. But that approach can cut both ways. 8. The bulk of the internal debate leading to Trump’s ban took place in those three January days. However, the intellectual framework was laid in the months preceding the Capitol riots. 9. Before J6, Twitter was a unique mix of automated, rules-based enforcement, and more subjective moderation by senior executives. As reported, the firm had a vast array of tools for manipulating visibility, most all of which were thrown at Trump (and others) pre-J6.

10. As the election approached, senior executives – perhaps under pressure from federal agencies, with whom they met more as time progressed – increasingly struggled with rules, and began to speak of “vios” as pretexts to do what they’d likely have done anyway. 11. After J6, internal Slacks show Twitter executives getting a kick out of intensified relationships with federal agencies. Here’s Trust and Safety head Yoel Roth, lamenting a lack of “generic enough” calendar descriptions to concealing his “very interesting” meeting partners.

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“This “smaller, more powerful cadre” of senior executives made decisions “on the fly, often in minutes and based on guesses, gut calls, even Google searches..”

Twitter Files Unveil More FBI Collusion (RT)

US federal agencies worked closely with Twitter moderators to clamp down on “disinformation” during the 2020 election, while executives went to great lengths to scrub certain content they deemed false and dangerous following increasingly frequent sit-downs with law enforcement and intelligence orgs, according to the third installment of the “Twitter Files.” Shared on Friday by journalist Matt Taibbi, the trove of files includes a set of messages from Twitter’s former head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth. The executive reveals he was running out of “generic” names on the company’s internal calendar to hide the increasingly regular meetings with federal officials ahead of the 2020 election. “DEFINITELY NOT meeting with the FBI I SWEAR,” he quipped in response to a colleague who suggested calling it a “Very Boring Business Meeting That Is Definitely Not About Trump.”

Another missive speaks of Roth’s “weekly sync” with officials from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), suggesting he consulted with three-letter agencies to discuss “election security.” The message also mentions a “monthly meeting” with the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), a unit created to “identify and counteract malign foreign influence operations targeting the United States” in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential win. The FBI even went as far as to flag individual tweets thought to be problematic, in one case urging Twitter to censor a former Republican official – apparently on the basis of a Politifact article alone. The DHS, ODNI and “some NGOs that aren’t academic” were also involved in the process.

A special channel was created on October 8, 2020 for senior executives like Roth, Trust and Policy chief Vijaya Gadde and top lawyer Jim Baker – who previously worked as general counsel for the FBI – to coordinate election-related decisions, given the name “us2020_xfn_enforcement.” This “smaller, more powerful cadre” of senior executives made decisions “on the fly, often in minutes and based on guesses, gut calls, even Google searches,” while also “clearly liaising with federal enforcement and intelligence agencies about moderation of election-related content,” Taibbi wrote, dubbing the group a “high-speed Supreme Court of moderation.” In yet another exchange involving Policy Director Nick Pickles, a staffer asked if the site’s marketing team could say that posts are reviewed in conjunction with “outside experts” in promotional material. However, Pickles raised doubts, saying “not sure we’d describe the FBI/DHS as experts,” instead suggesting the term “partnerships” alone.

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Lawyer sundance has long said he doesn’t trust DeSantis, who he sees as representing larger forces behind the curtain. Since Bari Weiss supports DeSantis’ campaign, while also publishing the Twitter Files with Matt Taibbi, for Elon Musk, he doesn’t trust any of them either.

Twitter Files Highlight the Mechanics of Controlling Platform Information (CTH)

The latest release of information behind the controversial “Twitter Files”, comes from Bari Weiss complete with the strategic promotion of a new website [The Free Press] launching via the booster provided by their access to the internal Twitter documents. Curiously intelligent people will note the Weiss website is structured to support the 2024 presidential bid of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is, not coincidentally, riding atop a multi-staged booster guided by Elon Musk and fueled by Wall Street billionaires. For the moment, just note and I digress – but please do not miss the connections. As noted by the former New York Times journalist, Ms. Weiss states, “the [website] authors have broad and expanding access to Twitter’s files. The only condition we agreed to was that the material would first be published on Twitter.” [..]

Overall, the story as released walks through the process that Twitter used to control users and as a consequence control the flow of information on the platform. Accounts were subject to restrictions, manipulations and other inorganic engagement controls depending on the ideology of the content being provided. [..] To put it in brutally honest terms, The United States Dept of Homeland Security is the operating system running in the background of Twitter. You can debate whether Elon Musk honestly didn’t know all this before purchasing Twitter from his good friend Jack Dorsey, and/or what the scenario of owner/operator motive actually is. Decide for yourself. For me, I feel confident that all of the conflicting and odd datapoints only reconcile in one direction. DHS, via CISA, controls Twitter.

Wittingly or unwittingly (you decide) Elon Musk is now the face of that govt controlled enterprise. If you concur with my researched assessment, then what you see being released by Elon Musk in the Twitter Files is actually a filtered outcome as a result of this new ownership dynamic. And with that intelligence framework solidly in mind, I warn readers not to take a position on the motive of the new ownership. Put simply, DHS stakeholders, to include the DOJ, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), are mitigating public exposure of their domestic surveillance activity by controlling and feeding selected information about their prior Twitter operations.

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“..Dorsey insisted that “we don’t have a censoring department.” Dorsey also expressly denied under oath that there was “shadow banning” based on political ideology.”

How “Trust” Executives Misled Congress and the Public (Turley)

Calling executives the “Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust” (Vijaya Gadde) and the “Global Head of Trust & Safety” (Yoel Roth) doesn’t alter their status as some of the greatest censors in history. Yet the license for this massive system clearly came from Twitter’s very top. Shadow banning and “visibility filtering” are consistent with the policies of ex-CEO Parag Agrawal, who pledged the company would “focus less on thinking about free speech” because “speech is easy on the Internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard.” So we now know that Twitter was not only banning dissenting voices on subjects ranging from COVID to climate change but was throttling or suppressing the traffic for disfavored writers.

Among those targeted was Stanford professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who wrote about how COVID lockdowns would harm children. He and others have been vindicated in flagging those worries, but Twitter secretly placed him on a “Trends Blacklist” to prevent his tweets from trending. It’s a telling list because it reflects an acknowledgment that such tweets would trend with users if the company didn’t suppress them. Some of us have been raising concerns over Twitter’s massive censorship system for years, including what I called the emergence of a “shadow state” where corporations carry out censorship the Constitution bars the government from doing. What’s striking is leading Democrats have been open about precisely this type of corporate manipulation of political speech on social media.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called upon these companies to use enlightened algorithms to protect users from their own bad reading choices. Even President Joe Biden called for such regulation of speech and discussions by wise editors. Without such censorship and manipulation, Biden asked, “How do people know the truth?” It is still early to determine possible legal implications of these files, but there are some areas likely to be of immediate concern for counsel. First, Elon Musk has suggested that some material may have been intentionally hidden or destroyed despite inquiries from Congress. Twitter was told to expect a congressional investigation into these areas. It’s not clear if this was material allegedly deleted as part of a regular process or a specific effort to destroy evidence of censorship or throttling.

Such obstruction cases, however, can be difficult to bring absent clear evidence. In 2005, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned accounting firm Arthur Andersen’s conviction for its destruction of documents under a standard record-management system. Second, destruction of documents could also prove relevant as part of an investigation into whether false statements were given under oath. Twitter executives denied such secret suppression efforts both in public and before Congress. Indeed, a recent federal filing revealed a 2021 email between Twitter executives and Carol Crawford, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s digital media chief. Crawford wanted to censor “unapproved opinions” on social media; Twitter replied that “with our CEO testifying before Congress this week [it] is tricky.”

At that hearing, social-media companies were asked about my prior testimony on private censorship in circumventing the First Amendment. In response, Dorsey insisted that “we don’t have a censoring department.” Dorsey also expressly denied under oath that there was “shadow banning” based on political ideology.

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“Is it a stretch to imagine Mr. Baker’s former employer, the FBI — which, let’s face it, operates as a sort of blood-brotherhood — purposely installed Mr. Baker in that sensitive job at Twitter..”

The Tool of Tools (Kunstler)

At what point in his arduous take-over of Twitter did Elon Musk realize that the package came with a joker in the deck: James A. Baker, formerly general counsel of the FBI? Did he wonder: what is this guy doing here? Were there any conversations between the two? Or did Mr. Musk just quietly observe his presence at a remove in nervous wonder, as one might, say, upon discovering a scorpion in the corner of his hotel room? Mr. Baker, you understand, was notoriously at the center of the FBI’s FISA court fuckery that got the ball rolling in the Crossfire Hurricane operation, Act One of RussiaGate, as well as the Alfa Bank caper concocted by Hillary Clinton (disclosed this year by special counsel John Durham), and probably every other sedition pie the FBI cooked in its oven in those years, considering Mr. Baker’s position as chief legal advisor to Director Chris Wray.

When the alt-news media caught onto Mr. Baker’s nefarious activities, he became inconvenient to the agency, was re-assigned to some nebulous task (polishing Mr. Wray’s cuff links?), and quit in May, 2018. He landed temporarily — or was he, rather, parked out-of-sight? — at the shadowy R Street Institute, an Intel Community cut-out, one of its countless PR channels in the DC Swamp. But then, mysteriously, Mr. Baker got hired by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in June of 2020 — the heat of a presidential election — to work under Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s general counsel (and chief of “legal, policy, and trust” [ha!]), where he remained until just the other day. Is it a stretch to imagine Mr. Baker’s former employer, the FBI — which, let’s face it, operates as a sort of blood-brotherhood — purposely installed Mr. Baker in that sensitive job at Twitter to help “moderate” the national conversation in the central forum that public debate had moved to in our time?

If so, he apparently did a crackerjack job, and just at the right time, too, after the FBI discovered, in emails they ripped off Rudolph Giuliani’s purloined cloud account, that Donald Trump’s attorney possessed of a copy of the laptop hard-drive of one Hunter Biden, son of presidential candidate Joe Biden — said computer (the FBI knew full-well by then) being stuffed not just with pornographic photos of crack orgies and other personal infelicities, but also a trove of emails and deal memos laying out a bribery and money-laundering scheme that the younger Biden was running all over Eurasia as a family business.

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“..the upcoming counteroffensive would give Russia control of the entire coast from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea..”

Putin Doesn’t Bluff (Jim Rickards)

Much has been made of Ukraine’s retaking of Kherson, but Russia regarded it as a city of little strategic value. Rather than waste resources fighting for it, they withdrew. The Russians also let the Ukrainians have the open land, which will later become a killing field for Russian artillery. That’s the reality you’re not being told. In the words of retired U.S. Army Col. Douglas Macgregor: “The Biden administration repeatedly commits the unpardonable sin in a democratic society of refusing to tell the American people the truth: Contrary to the Western media’s popular “Ukrainian victory” narrative, which blocks any information that contradicts it, Ukraine is not winning and will not win this war. Months of heavy Ukrainian casualties, resulting from an endless series of pointless attacks against Russian defenses in southern Ukraine, have dangerously weakened Ukrainian forces.”

In the meantime, Russia is preparing to launch a massive counteroffensive. It’s completed its 300,000-man mobilization, with over 180,000 of those troops now deployed behind Russian lines in combat formations. The remaining 120,000 troops will arrive soon. This brings total Russian strength up to about 30 divisions. Once again, Col. Macgregor: “The coming offensive phase of the conflict will provide a glimpse of the new Russian force that is emerging and its future capabilities…The numbers continue to grow, but the numbers already include 1,000 rocket artillery systems, thousands of tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, plus 5,000 armored fighting vehicles, including at least 1,500 tanks, hundreds of manned fixed-wing attack aircraft, helicopters and bombers. This new force has little in common with the Russian army that intervened nine months ago on Feb. 24, 2022.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian strength has been greatly diminished due to high casualty rates and being stretched thin. Then What? If successful, the upcoming counteroffensive would give Russia control of the entire coast from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea. It would also give Russia control of the Dnipro River, which separates the western part of Ukraine from the eastern part and connects Kyiv to the Black Sea. Ukraine would be left as a rump state between Kyiv and Lviv. Almost all the industrial, technological and natural resource capacity of former Ukraine would be under Russian control.

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“If we are talking about a disarming strike, perhaps we should think about using the approaches of our American partners.”

Putin: West is Using Ukrainians as ‘Cannon Fodder’ (Celente)

Russian President Vladimir Putin, once again, accused the West of using Ukrainian troops as cannon fodder as some of the war’s most intense fighting rages in Bakhmut, an eastern city in Donetsk. Putin said the West is fighting for global domination but acknowledged that Russia will have to make a deal vis-a-vis Ukraine at some point. He said he is concerned that countries like Germany and France, which would likely help broker any deals, may not be trust worthy. “The question of trust arises. And trust of course is almost at zero… But nevertheless, in the final analysis we have to come to agreements. I have already said many times that we are ready for these agreements,” Putin said in a video message, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, the fighting playing out in the city has been compared to how forces used to square off in WWI.

The Financial Times described one of the scenes:“Then came the Russian infantry, charging in a first world war-style attack across a no man’s land of shredded trees and artillery craters. The Ukrainians popped up and mowed down many of them with machine guns and grenade launchers. Moments later, the scenes were repeated — although this time the Russian fighters had to navigate their comrades’ bodies. Again many were cut down by Ukrainian bullets. “It’s like a conveyor belt,” Kostyantyn, an exhausted Ukrainian machine-gunner who described the scene to the Financial Times, said of the Russian tactics. “For what? A fucking metre of our land.” The city is considered to be located at a valuable location and has been fortified by Ukrainian troops.

Both Russia and Ukraine have been tight lipped about their casualties in the city, but The Wall Street Journal said hospitals have been inundated with Ukrainian casualties. Ukrainian troops and civilians have taken to social media to post images from the city that show gutted buildings and charred homes. Sky News noted that Bakhumt has been called a meat grinder because of the “huge and growing number of casualties.”Putin also said in the video that Russia may look into updating its nuclear policy and take a new look at the possibility of a preventive nuclear first strike to disarm an opponent to its military doctrine, Bloomberg reported. “We’re thinking about this,” he said. “If we are talking about a disarming strike, perhaps we should think about using the approaches of our American partners.”

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One after another. Never stop.

US To Unveil New Military Aid Package For Ukraine – Reuters (RT)

Washington is about to send another security assistance package to Kiev, which will include anti-drone and air defense systems, Reuters reported, citing sources. The $275 million measure is expected to be officially announced on Friday. According to officials and documents cited by the news agency, the security aid will also include rockets for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 155mm ammunition, Humvee vehicles, and generators. At the same time, there are no details on the air defense equipment, the report says. In addition to this, the contents and the size of the aid package may change before it is approved by US President Joe Biden.

The new measure is expected to be covered by the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows Washington to dispatch military equipment quickly and without congressional approval. Supporting Ukraine with air defense systems has become an “absolute priority” for Western countries since Russia began targeting the country’s energy infrastructure, according to the US Department of Defense. The recurring bombardments picked up steam after Moscow accused Kiev of conducting “terrorist attacks” on Russian structures, including the strategic Crimea Bridge. In early November, the Pentagon announced a $400 million security package for Ukraine, which included ammunition for the HAWK air defense system as well as four Avenger air defense systems and additional Stinger missiles.

The same month, Ukraine received two first National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), with Washington promising to send another six. Since the start of the conflict, the US has committed more than $19 billion in security assistance to Kiev. Moscow has repeatedly warned Western countries that providing heavy weapons to Ukraine risks both crossing Russia’s “red lines,” and could lead to their direct involvement in the conflict. Washington and its allies insist they are not a party to the hostilities, but continue sending arms shipments to Kiev. The Russian Defense Ministry said the strikes on Ukraine’s power infrastructure were intended to degrade Kiev’s ability to transport troops, and Western-supplied weapons and equipment to the battlefield by rail.

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“Beijing will be Washington’s strategic rival for decades to come. However, it’s not a threat to Western Europe, and it’s not a challenge. Indeed, cooperation with it is advantageous.”

Western Europe Caught In A Strategic Trap, Unclear How It Can Escape (Lukyanov)

[..] the Democratic administration’s rhetoric was reminiscent of the Clinton era, which was arguably the golden era of US-European symbiosis. Back then, Washington regarded the continent as an important priority and made considerable efforts to beautify it in a pan-Atlantic spirit, which was then in line with the overwhelming European sense of what was beautiful. The current US president, Joe Biden, is an old-school politician, from a time when Europe was the center of American interests. But the old school involves a sober analysis of costs and benefits. And the ability to optimize the former by maximizing the latter.

After the Second World War, and especially the Cold War, Western Europeans abandoned strategic thinking and instead followed policies which ensured a comfortable existence. The US, on the other hand, has retained the ability, if not to think, then, at least, to feel strategically. Hence an understanding (or rather an instinct) of the changing geopolitical realities. Of course, gut feelings don’t guarantee the correctness of policy, but they do imply an alignment with current needs and circumstances. Ironically, Western Europe, historically famed for its rationalism, is now much less correlated with the consequences of its actions.

Whether Washington had a cunning plan to shift the brunt of the confrontation with Russia onto its European allies, we may someday find out. However, the behavior of the United States can perhaps be explained not by scheming, but rather by clever opportunism. The fallout from the Ukrainian crisis is spreading all over the place, with the US making decisions to manage the consequences or even to exploit them for the future. This causes consternation amongst the Western Europeans: the Americans can do it, but they themselves can not. Thus, when the Biden administration passes the Inflation Reduction Act, putting American citizens in a much better position than Europeans, it is perfectly in the interests of the US. So?

Western Europe is caught in a trap and it’s unclear how it can escape. Absolute solidarity with the US on the Russian question implies subordination to a stronger partner. That said, the EU and UK are ready for this, but it means (for objective reasons): 1) that they must bear most of the costs, and 2) they should follow a common strategic position on the other issues of principle for their patron. And the main one here is China. Beijing will be Washington’s strategic rival for decades to come. However, it’s not a threat to Western Europe, and it’s not a challenge. Indeed, cooperation with it is advantageous. But why should the big brother allow his little sidekick to help someone who is at odds with him?

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“..Western companies made a killing inside Russia, tens of millions of people were robbed of their savings and pensions and millions died of poverty, despair, alcoholism and in nationalist wars in the Caucasus..”

The New Russia and a Prophetic Ballad (Batiushka)

Tragically, instead of keeping the best of the old USSR, full employment, housing for all, free education, free health care, free culture and support for the exploited Third World, once the nouveau-riche nomenklatura had taken long-coveted power, they simply put in place a poor-quality imitation of the corrupt West, keeping only all that was worst in the old USSR, alcoholism, abortion and divorce on demand, corruption etc. It was the worst of both worlds. National assets were stolen (‘privatised’) by what were politely called ‘oligarchs’, tens of millions of abandoned Russians found they had become disliked minorities in new countries, Western companies made a killing inside Russia, tens of millions of people were robbed of their savings and pensions and millions died of poverty, despair, alcoholism and in nationalist wars in the Caucasus, which were directly provoked and supported by the West. It was one of the greatest thefts of resources and identity in the history of the world.

It is only since 2000 that Russian patriots have been able to develop something better to put in place of these monstrosities and despite them. This has been a generational project and could not be rushed. Only thirty years later, in 2022, was the project ready. The New Russia, purged of the parasites and traitors, is needed, but there are still institutions, like the Church, where the corrupt and infiltrators are present and so compromise them. These traitors are just like the aristocrats, generals, politicians and professionals who coveted power in 1917 and so brought the system down. Just like today’s aristocrats/oligarchs and bourgeois elite of traitors, they implemented the Western-planned February 1917 palace revolt and, once they had caused chaos, civil war and destruction, they irresponsibly ran away to the West.

Having rejected the corrupt and failed post-Soviet Russia and the bankrupted Soviet Russia (1917-1991), the patriots who wanted to form the New Russia had two past models to consider: the brief Imperial Russia (1721-1917) and the long pre-Imperial Russia (988-1721), whose ideal was ‘Holy Rus’. Interestingly the last Tsar, Nicholas II, seeing the appalling decadence of the upper class in Saint Petersburg, had looked back with nostalgia precisely to that pre-Imperial Russia and especially to one of its last rulers, Tsar Alexis (1645-1676). He named his only son after him, reconciling those who used the Old Ritual with the Church, worked towards the restoration of the Patriarchate, building churches in the national style of the previous age and reforming church singing and iconography according to that age’s standards

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“..specific steps to retaliate against the measure will be outlined in the coming days through a presidential order..”

Oil Price Cap Will Backfire, Warns Putin (RT)

The price ceiling imposed by the West on Russian oil exports will impact the nations adopting the measure rather than Russia itself, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. He noted that the cap is equal to prices at which the country is currently selling its crude. “We won’t sustain losses under any circumstances,” Putin said during a press conference following a summit of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. The price limit on Russian seaborne oil, set at $60 per barrel, was introduced by the EU, the G7 countries and Australia on December 5. It bans Western companies from providing insurance and other services to shipments of Russian oil, unless the cargo is purchased at or below the indicated price.


Russia is not planning to sell oil to nations supporting the price cap, Putin said, adding that specific steps to retaliate against the measure will be outlined in the coming days through a presidential order. According to Putin, Russia will consider oil production cuts if necessary, although no decisions on the issue have been made so far. “We have an agreement with OPEC + on a known production target, we will think of something additional if necessary,” he said. According to the Russian leader, introducing a price ceiling will inevitably reduce investments into the oil sector, and send global crude prices skyrocketing.

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“It was a serious defeat for her but there was nothing she could do about it. She therefore now comes up, ex post, with a Chamberlain excuse…”

‘Minsk II Was Agreed On To Arm Ukraine’ – Did Merkel Really Say That? (MoA)

Helmholtz Smith, Andrew Korybko and Andrei Martyanov have some thoughts about a recent interview the former German chancellor Angela Merkel gave to the German weekly broadsheet Die Zeit. Smith says it shows that the ‘West’ is not trustworthy. Korybko thinks it the interview will prolong the conflict in Ukraine. Martyanov says that Merkel is stupid. She isn’t. In the interview Merkel seems to claim that the Minsk agreements between the Ukrainian government and the Donbas region, which she negotiated and co-signed as guarantor, was never meant to be fulfilled. It was only meant to give time to build up the Ukrainian military. I however think that such an interpretation is wrong. Merkel is under very harsh critique not only in the U.S. but also in her own conservative party.

She is now out to justify her previous decisions as well as the current bad outcome in Ukraine. My hunch is that she is making things up. Unfortunately she also creates serious damage. The relevant passage of the interview is longer than the one paragraph Helmholtz Smith and other cite. The context is important. Here is my translation of it: “ZEIT: Do you ask yourself if the years of relative calm were also years of omissions and if you were not only a crisis manager, but also partly the cause of crises? Merkel: I would not be a political person if I did not deal with that. […some stuff about climate action …] Let us look at my policy towards Russia and Ukraine. I come to the conclusion that I made the decisions I made back then in a way that I can understand today. It was an attempt to prevent just such a war. The fact that this was not successful does not mean that the attempts were wrong.”

I think the above is genuine. The Minsk agreements were a serious attempt to prevent war by reintegrating Donbas into a federalized Ukraine. However, the Ukrainian president Poroshenko did not have the will and the political backing to fulfill the agreement. There was no chance that, under him, a federalization law would pass the Ukrainian parliament. Moreover the U.S., the only party who could have really pressured him, told him not to follow up on the agreement. But then came Zelensky who was elected by a large majority on the promise to fulfill Minsk II. He even made attempts to do that. But he soon found out that his own life was in serious danger if he continued to try. There was also U.S. pressure as it did not want Minsk fulfilled.

Merkel however can not say that out loud. By late 2019 she must have recognized that Minsk II was blocked forever. It was a serious defeat for her but there was nothing she could do about it. She therefore now comes up, ex post, with a Chamberlain excuse. The 1938 Munich agreement Chamberlain signed prevented Germany from immediately going to war and gave the UK and others time to arm up. The Minsk agreement, Merkel claims now, bought time for Ukraine to get its military into better conditions.

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“This shift from “weekly change” to “cumulative balance” is kind of a funny way of doing something?”

How Big Are the Fed’s Losses and Where Can We Go See Them? (WS)

The chart tracks the line item, “Earnings remittances due to the U.S. Treasury,” on the Fed’s weekly balance sheet (second “Table 6,” Liabilities). This is normally a line that tracks the weekly increase in the amount that the Fed estimates it owes the US Treasury as the year goes on. “Normally” means in times when the Fed is making money. Each week adds up. For example, in 2021, all the 52 weekly amounts, each in the range between $500 million and $4 billion, added up to $106 billion that the Fed would owe the Treasury Department. Close enough for an estimate of the $107.4 billion in remittance for the year. But when the Fed started losing money on a weekly basis in September, the account did a switcheroo. Instead of showing the “weekly change” as during normal times, it shows the “cumulative loss since September 2022.”

In other words, when the Fed started losing money on a weekly basis in September 2022, the account shifted from showing a weekly change of a positive balance, to showing the total cumulative negative balance. It now no longer shows the weekly change but its total loss since September 2022. This shift from “weekly change” to “cumulative balance” is kind of a funny way of doing something? But it sort of makes sense, and here’s why: In theory, if the amount that the Fed owes the US Treasury is negative, it would mean that the US Treasury owes this amount to the Fed and would have to pay the Fed. But that’s not their deal. Their deal is that the remittance is a one-way channel, from the Fed to the Treasury.

And when it turns negative, the Fed will just sit on the negative balance that will grow over the years as long as the Fed is losing money. And when the Fed is making money again, the Fed will not remit its net income to the Treasury Department, but will apply it to this pile of accumulated losses until the pile is gone. When the pile is gone, the Fed starts remitting its profits to the Treasury again. [..] The Fed calls this growing pile of accumulated losses a “deferred asset.” Storing losses on the balance sheet as an asset, rather than showing the loss on the income statement right away, is an old corporate accounting trick, encouraged by GAAP, and includes such infamous accounts as “Goodwill” and “Intangible Assets.” The Fed is sort of just sticking to devious corporate accounting 101 here.

[..] The Fed, which creates & destroys money, cannot run out of money. I mean, we knew this all along. The Fed is not Enron, though the loss-accounting might look similar. The Fed creates its own money. And the Fed’s losses – no matter how large – will not cause the Fed to run out of money because it can always create more. So we can take that off our worry list. For the Fed, a loss is just an accounting entry, not an existential crisis. The Fed won’t print money to pay for its losses — it won’t need to. But it’ll use some of the money from the QT roll-offs that would have been destroyed and pay interest with it. And so that money for interest payments goes out the door, and the balance sheet will shrink on track with QT.

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“..global bodies like the World Bank’s “Climate Smart Agriculture” program, the UN’s “protected area initiatives,” the European Commission and armies of well-funded NGO’s are executing a wholly-comprehensive platform targeting Dutch farmers..”

Dutch Farmers Battle Technocratic Forces Driving Them Into Oblivion (GZ)

Holland exports the most food on earth, behind only America, on a landmass roughly the size of Indiana. Farmers the world over come to study Dutch techniques. The country embraces what’s known as the Mansholt theory—a philosophy of ensuring food security and self-sufficiency that emerged from the second world war as a response to Nazi-imposed famine. To stave-off a similar tragedy, Dutch agriculture embraces the Haber-Bosch process, a method of infusing fertilizer with nitrogen to increase yield efficiency. Invented in the early 1900s by a pair of Nobel Prize-winning chemists, Haber-Bosch is responsible for the existence of half the world’s population today (and is known in Malthusian circles as “the detonator of the population explosion”), thanks to its ability to grow more food on less land.

But now global bodies like the World Bank’s “Climate Smart Agriculture” program, the UN’s “protected area initiatives,” the European Commission and armies of well-funded NGO’s are executing a wholly-comprehensive platform targeting Dutch farmers — restricting both organic and artificial fertilizer use — while asserting “biodiversity protection” as the pretext for snatching land from the productive. Dutch farmers, in protest, have driven tractors to the Hague, tossed flaming trash onto the roads and sprayed manure across government buildings. It’s worth reemphasizing that the Dutch government is carrying out the same radical experiment conducted in Sri Lanka earlier this year — eliminating nitrogen-based fertilizer, the basis of modern survival. In the southeast Asian country, it led to a famine that toppled the government.

The Sri Lankan “disaster” fronted a simple premise: replace something with nothing. And to eliminate Russian gas from the geopolitical scene. The Colombo declaration, signed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 2019, celebrated the end of food security and sovereignty, offering in its place a model for import-dependency and agricultural destruction now being imposed on the Dutch. “They are sweeping the culture from the land,” says Sieta Van Keimpema, a sturdy 6-foot Dutchwoman in her 50s with short, wavy black hair. She is head of the European Milk Board, and leader of the Dutch farmers’ de-facto political arm, Farmer’s Defense Force (FDF). “Our government has made laws and laws that put us in a corner that you cannot come back from,” she says. “If people cannot put food on the table you get riots. You get an unstable society. I don’t see the benefits to this.”

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If Harry Potter had been written by Dostoevsky:

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 022022
 
 December 2, 2022  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  55 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Female bust 1943

 

All NATO Countries Agree On ‘Need’ For Ukraine Membership – Minister (RT)
US Poised To ‘Dramatically Expand’ Training Of Ukrainian Forces (ZH)
Zelensky Adviser: ‘13,000 Ukrainian Soldiers Killed’ (Telegraaf)
Eastern Ukraine Had Good Reason To Join Russia (Kovalik)
EU Has No Legal Way To Seize Russian Assets – EU Officials (RT)
Operation Gladio: NATO’s Secret War for International Fascism (Chung)
EU Respects China’s Sovereignty – European Council President (RT)
Macron Warns US Climate Plan May ‘Fragment The West’ (RT)
Dutch Farmers to Rutte: Go to Hell (Celente)
WH Press Secretary Called Out For Saying Biden Has Visited Border (JTN)
The European Union Moves Toward a Possible Ban of Twitter (Turley)
Elon Musk Declares ‘Cancel Culture Needs To Be Canceled’ (Fox)
Activists and Pundits Target Justice Barrett as “Religious Extremist” (Turley)
Three COVID-19 Questions Dr. Fauci Needs To Answer (Kory)

 

 

 

 

@jack
https://twitter.com/alx/status/1598329040393437185

 

 

 

 

Straight
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598235853603864576

 

 

 

 

Tucker Heavy D

 

 

Tucker Max Keiser
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598521626420707329

 

 

 

 

The need for WWIII.

All NATO Countries Agree On ‘Need’ For Ukraine Membership – Minister (RT)

There is a consensus within NATO that Ukraine needs to become a member of the bloc, Ukrainian Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishina claimed on Thursday. Budapest’s objections to Kiev’s participation – due to a dispute over ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine – will be overcome by “political instruments,” she added. “We have made progress on the question of getting closer to NATO,” Stefanishina said at a security forum in Kiev. “At the most recent ministerial summit in Bucharest, all 30 member states agreed on the need to offer Ukraine membership.” “NATO members confirmed that the alliance door is open to Ukraine,” Stefanishina continued, arguing that this was a “new powerful signal” that shows “no one fears pressure from Russia.”

Hungary continues to object to Ukraine’s participation in NATO’s official meetings, but this has “become a problem” for the bloc, the minister told her audience in Kiev. NATO is now using “all political instruments of pressure to convince Hungary to abandon the blockade,” the minister said. She did not elaborate on the form that such pressure might take. On Wednesday, the EU announced it would withhold billions in funding to Hungary until it complies with 27 “essential milestones” laid out by Brussels. The money includes pandemic relief and “cohesion” funds intended to level social inequalities in the bloc. Hungary certainly appeared skeptical towards Ukraine’s membership in NATO at the Bucharest summit, with Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto arguing that a country could only join the bloc if it “does not threaten but strengthens the security of existing members.”

Szijjarto has also reiterated that Budapest would “not agree to a formal meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission until the Hungarians of Transcarpathia have their rights restored.” “We cannot and do not want to retreat from this position,” he added, explaining that while Budapest has not raised the issue since the conflict in Ukraine escalated in February, it has not forgotten about it either.

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And the need for MORE WWIII.

US Poised To ‘Dramatically Expand’ Training Of Ukrainian Forces (ZH)

As if the Pentagon and US intelligence hadn’t already escalated its presence enough inside Ukraine, given there are already literally a small contingent of “boots on the ground” – as we detailed last month, CNN is now reporting that the Biden administration is considering “dramatically” increasing its training of Ukrainian forces. The proposal would involve US advisers training “much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics” at American installations in Germany, and perhaps other locations in Europe, according to the new report. CNN begins by reporting that “The Biden administration is considering a dramatic expansion in the training the US military provides to Ukrainian forces, including instructing as many as 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers a month at a US base in Germany, according to multiple US officials.”

“If adopted, the proposal would mark a significant increase not just in the number of Ukrainians the US trains but also in the type of training they receive,” the report continues, also noting that this far “only a few thousand” Ukrainian soldiers have been trained on specific US-provided weapons systems. According to further details in CNN: “Under the new program, the US would begin training much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics, including how to coordinate infantry maneuvers with artillery support – “much more intense and comprehensive” training than Ukraine has been receiving in Poland or the UK, according to one source briefed on the proposal.”

This is a significant statement given the ongoing British program at multiple UK bases is large in size. However what’s being mulled by the Pentagon would see some 15,000 Ukrainians trained by the United States every six months. Multiple US officials have meanwhile projected they expect the war could take years before there’s a final ceasefire and resolution. The UK’s own infantry training program for Ukraine forces has a stated goal of training at least 10,000 Ukrainian troops. The Kremlin for its part has warned repeatedly of such deepening Western involvement which clearly is now going far beyond just weapons shipments. Russia this week walked away from New START nuclear arms reduction treaty negotiations with the US while citing its growing involvement in backing Kiev as a major reason for halting resumption of talks.

Maersheimer The west is playing Russian roulette in Ukraine.

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Google translation. This is why Ursula had to be “corrected”. Zelensky will never admit 100,000 deaths.

So now we have Ursula at 100,000, Russia at 200,000+, and Zelensky at 10-13,000, with Ukraine also saying 100,000 Russia deaths. Take your pick.

Zelensky Adviser: ‘13,000 Ukrainian Soldiers Killed’ (Telegraaf)

In the war between Russia and Ukraine, 10,000 to 13,000 soldiers have died on the Ukrainian side, Mykhailo Podolyak reports in conversation with the Ukrainian TV channel Channel 24. Podolyak is an adviser to President Zelensky. His statements have not yet been officially confirmed from Kiev. Ukraine regularly provides figures on the number of Russian soldiers killed, but the figures on the number of casualties on the Ukrainian side have always been shrouded in fog. Earlier this week, Kiev reacted furiously to a statement by the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. She stated that 100,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed since the start of the war. After the criticism, she went back on her words by saying that she was talking about dead and injured. According to Podolyak, the number of civilian casualties is ‘considerable’. The BBC reported in June that the number of civilian casualties was around 3,600. That number is probably much higher now.

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“In present-day Ukraine, “there are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.”

Eastern Ukraine Had Good Reason To Join Russia (Kovalik)

Once a Pittsburgh sister city also known for its steel industry, Donetsk, and the greater Donbas region in which it is located, has been at war since 2014. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, 14,000 people died in this conflict, even before Russia began its military operations in February. I’ve just returned from there. Before Russia’s intervention, the conflict had been between the people of that region and the government in Kiev, after an unconstitutional coup took 2014. This coup, known as “Maidan,” was — as then US Ambassador to Ukraine Victoria Nuland explained in a recorded telephone conversation — managed by the United States. The coup brought to power a pro-Western, anti-Russian, government, which contained elements which were far-right and even Nazi.

The best known element, as the Nation Magazine reported in 2019, is the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has been part of Ukraine’s National Guard since 2014. Its commander Andriy Biletsky once wrote that Ukraine’s mission is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” As The Nation explained, the Azov Battalion is not merely Nazi in theory, but also in practice. In present-day Ukraine, “there are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.” The American press wrote about this sporadically before this year. Now the press does backflips to obscure and deny this reality.

However, the people of Donetsk, who have lived this reality now for almost nine years, are very clear that all of this is real. Indeed, I met people in Donetsk (some quite elderly) who volunteered back in 2014 to defend their land and their people from the Kiev government’s aggression. Much of the government views the predominantly ethnic Russian people of the Donbas as inferior beings whose language and culture, including the Russian Orthodox Church, should be eradicated. I actually traveled to Donestk in a vehicle laden with clothes destined for a Russian Orthodox monastery in Donetsk that is constantly being shelled by the Kiev government. These monks now live in underground rooms beneath the increasingly-destroyed monastery.

The people I met in Donetsk view their struggle as a fight against fascism. As one told me, there is a saying in Donetsk which goes, “First Stalingrad, now Stalino.” (Stalino was the former name of Donetsk.) Stalingrad, was where the Nazis were finally forced to retreat from Russia. The people of Donetsk are now dedicated to doing the same to the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. And yes, despite how inconvenient to Americans it may be to accept this, they see Russia as their ally in this struggle.

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“..in most member states seizing frozen assets is only legally possible when there is a criminal conviction..”

EU Has No Legal Way To Seize Russian Assets – EU Officials (RT)

EU officials have said they cannot legally confiscate Russian assets that have been frozen as part of Western sanctions, however, they hope to set up an international court to prosecute Russian officials for the military operation in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. According to European Commission officials, the international principle of state immunity doesn’t allow the executive body to appropriate the assets of the Russian Central Bank, but lawmakers have proposed that EU member states and their allies create a fund to manage the liquid assets and lay aside profits from those investments for the reconstruction of Ukraine. According to the commission, Brussels has no current figures on the amount of Russian Central Bank assets that bloc countries hold or what proportion is in liquid assets such as cash.


According to the Kremlin, around $300 billion in reserves held abroad have been frozen since March, along with billions more belonging to Russian businesses and individuals. The legality of using Russian state and private assets to fund Ukraine has been under discussion for several months, but the bloc’s desired mechanism is not easy to implement, as in most member states seizing frozen assets is only legally possible when there is a criminal conviction. Meanwhile, Washington is facing its own challenges when it comes to using of Russian funds. Treasury and Justice Department officials have reportedly asked lawmakers to develop new legislation to expand their powers, not just to freeze, but to seize the assets. US officials told the journal that the administration is constrained in what it can do until that new authority is introduced.

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Fascism was always the defense against communism. Pity there’s no more communism. What to do now?

Operation Gladio: NATO’s Secret War for International Fascism (Chung)

With the end of the Second World War, there appeared an almost instantaneous agreement among the Western European nations the need to defend their sovereignty against the rise of Soviet communism. Ironically the solution to this was the idea of a ‘New World Order’[1] for Europe. The Fifth Column was sold as a communist one, and thus the need to work with ‘former’ Nazis and fascists was justified to secure the European civilization from the threatened invasion by the ‘Asiatic hordes.’ Of course, the common people were not notified of this decision to reunite with the fascists; that not even before the end of the Second World War, there were discussions of aligning with the fascists to secure what was to be the ‘New World Order’.

To ensure that Europe would stand strong, it seemed only logical that it should form a European unity, able to collectively use their resources and military in a coordinated defense against this looming “Asian threat”. It would be interesting, that many nations who treated the army of Hitler with seeming indifference up to the very moment of invasion, would now trumpet loudly the need to prepare for war on all fronts (economically, culturally, politically, militarily including paramilitary) against the Eastern barbarians, and Mosley had positioned himself at the forefront of this clarion call.

In his The World Alternative (1936) Mosley wrote: “We must return to the fundamental concept of a European Nation which animated the war generation of 1918.” In reference to the openly pro-fascist former British Prime Minister Lloyd George’s (1916-1922) War Cabinet. When the Axis began losing crucial battles in 1943, this only intensified Europeanism as the new order’s last line of defense that would be entrusted to the younger generation. On November 14th, 1944 Mussolini proposed in the Verona programme “a European Community, with a federation of all nations and the development of Africa’s natural resources.”[2]

Stephen Dorril writes in his book Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British fascism:[3] “The Eastern Front was transformed into the ‘European Front’ as Europe’s defence became a supra-national moral obligation. The Waffen SS assumed the role of Europe’s army and its struggle to hold back the Bolsheviks from overrunning the West invoked an embryonic Europeanism, which became a central myth of post-war Fascism. Neo-Fascist thinker Maurice Bardeche wrote that ‘the Defense of the West has remained in the memory, and this is still the chief meaning of fascist ideas’.”

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Xi correctly views Michel as an absolute nobody.

EU Respects China’s Sovereignty – European Council President (RT)

European Council President Charles Michel on Thursday assured Chinese President Xi Jinping that the EU respects China’s sovereignty and will not interfere in its domestic affairs. Michel, who arrived in Beijing at the invitation of President Xi, discussed China-Europe ties and regional and global issues with the Chinese president during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday morning. “EU sticks to strategic autonomy, upholds one-China policy, respects China’s sovereignty and will not interfere in China’s domestic affairs,” state-run Global Times quoted Michel as telling Xi during the meeting.


“EU is willing to strengthen communication with China on better coping with the energy crisis and climate change,” he added. President Xi welcomed the visiting European Council president and said his visit reflects the EU’s goodwill to develop ties with China. Xi said that it is in the common interest of China, Europe, and the international community to keep China-Europe ties forward.

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Macron found out the plan too late.

Macron Warns US Climate Plan May ‘Fragment The West’ (RT)

A new US incentive scheme to subsidize local electric car makers risks driving a wedge between Western countries, French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Wednesday amid looming fears of a trade war between America and Europe. Speaking at the French embassy in Washington, Macron said the scheme would have a negative impact on Europe by making it less attractive for businesses to invest in the continent’s economy. The US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offers $391 million of incentives to promote clean energy, including support for electric vehicle manufacturers.“The choices of the past few months, in particular the IRA, are choices that will fragment the West,” he said, adding that the EU and the US need “to co-ordinate and re-synchronize our policy agendas.”

Macron described the economic plan as “super aggressive” towards European companies during a meeting with US lawmakers from both main parties, according to an unnamed Reuters source.“You will perhaps fix your issue, but you will increase my problem,” he added, as quoted by AFP, warning that the US incentive could “kill a lot of jobs.”Meanwhile, on Wednesday, when asked about European concerns about the act, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed it “presents significant opportunities for European firms as well as benefits to EU energy security,” adding that “this is not a zero-sum game” for the US, and Washington seeks a “constructive path of engagement” with the EU on the matter.

In recent months, the Inflation Reduction Act has been a particularly thorny subject in transatlantic relations, with various EU leaders arguing that it discriminates against Europeans as it could give American electric vehicle manufacturers an advantage over their EU counterparts in the lucrative US market. While the EU and US are attempting to resolve their differences, Bernd Lange, the chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, warned that when the scheme enters in force in several weeks, it will be too late for the parties to negotiate any changes to the legislation. He added that, should this happen, the EU would likely lodge a lawsuit against Washington with the World Trade Organization.

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Trying to find this in the Dutch press. Not much. Yesterday at some point they said the farmers had gone home. And in the southern province of Limburg 25 farmers were bought out for €47 million.

I’m still not sure at which point the nitrogen narrative became so fashionable. Other than the EU made it illegal. Or was that the WEF?

Dutch Farmers to Rutte: Go to Hell (Celente)

Dutch farmers are fighting for their lives, but don’t expect to see any mention about their struggle with government oppression in the Western media. Videos emerged on social media Thursday that showed Dutch farmers riding in tactors and clashing with police to rail against the country’s decision to make good on its threat to enforce the EU climate law that has sparked protests for months. These farmers say these demands will essentially eliminate any chance that they have of making a living. The Netherlands, a country of just about 17 million residents, is the world’s second-largest agricultural exporter after the U.S. At issue are the projected effects of climate legislation which by 2030 would force Dutch firms to cut national nitrogen emissions by 50 percent and up to 95 percent in certain areas. Cows and fertilizers have both been targeted as main sources of emissions being effectively outlawed.


Under the plan, the Dutch government said it would be willing to buy 3,000 of the farms that it considers to be “peak polluters,” The Guardian reported. The government said the hope is to reduce “ammonia and nitrogen oxide emissions that are illegal under EU law.” Christianne van der Wal, the country’s nitrogen minister, told the farmers, “There is no better offer coming.” She said compulsory purchases would be made with “pain in the heart”, if necessary, The Telegraph reported. Mark Rutte, the prime minister has said if there are not enough farmers who sell their businesses, then the government may have to force some of them out of business, Bloomberg reported. One Twitter user posted a video that claimed to show police using an excavator to forcefully remove a protesting tractor driver. “Dutch police attack farmers by trying to destroy their tractors…while those who stand in their way are beaten and arrested. Fighting the Great Reset was never going to be easy,” the post read.

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Blatant. Apparently they think they can get away with it.

WH Press Secretary Called Out For Saying Biden Has Visited Border (JTN)

Twitter users and elected officials called out White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for incorrectly saying President Joe Biden visiting the border. Fox News reporter Peter Doocy brought up the border Wednesday during a press briefing where he asked Jean-Pierre when the president would be visiting the southern border. “We know the president’s never been down to the border. The possible next speaker says that he wants [Biden] to go with him. So, is he going to?” Doocy asked. “He’s been there. He’s been to the border. And since he took office,” Jean-Pierre answered. Doocy asked a follow-up question about when specifically Biden visited the border, but the press secretary ignored his question and moved on, according to Fox News.


Many twitter users including Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw correct Jean-Pierre, noting that Biden has not visited the border at all during his time as president. “Narrator: President Biden has not been to the border,” Crenshaw tweeted. Former California Senate candidate James Bradley also called the press secretary out on this statement. “Karine Jean-Pierre FACT CHECK: Joe Biden has NOT been to the southern border HE OPENED since he has been president,” Bradley tweeted. According to Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy the only time Biden has conceivably “been to the border” was during a very brief 2008 drive-by when he landed at El Paso airport and rode in a motorcade to the suburb of Las Cruces, with the route hugging the U.S.-Mexico border for a few minutes.

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“Allow the public to see not just communications on censorship (including subjects beyond Hunter Biden) but how Twitter may have used verification, throttling, algorithms, or other methods to control speech.”

The European Union Moves Toward a Possible Ban of Twitter (Turley)

The anti-free speech movement in the United States has shifted to Europe to do what the government cannot do in this country: force the censorship of dissenting viewpoints. It is, therefore, little surprise that Nina Jankowicz, the short-lived “disinformation czar” at Biden’s Department of Homeland Security, has now registered as a foreign agent with a European group pushing censorship. The vehicle for this effort is also not surprising. For years, some of us have denounced the EU’s efforts to pass the Digital Services Act, a roadmap for state censorship on the Internet. It is the Western embrace of Chinese style speech controls on the Internet. The chief censor in the West has been Breton, who has shown open contempt for free speech values.

Breton has made no secret that he views free speech as a danger coming from the United States that needs to be walled off from the Internet. He previously declared that, with the DSA, the EU is now able to prevent the Internet from again becoming a place for largely unregulated free speech, which he referred to as the “Wild West” period of the Internet. It is a telling reference because the EU views free speech itself as an existential danger. They reject the notion of free speech as its own protection where good speech can overcome bad speech. That is viewed as the “Wild West.” Musk has indicated that he will try to comply with the EU demands but that “there is still huge work ahead.” I have previously suggested that, if Musk is forced to comply with EU censorship rules, he should post a warning to the citizens of these countries that they are being given state-controlled information under mandatory censorship laws.

However, in the United States, Musk should hold the line in his restoration of free speech and release the record on the company’s past censorship efforts. Musk has forced people to take side in this existential free speech fight. The public has responded by signing up in record numbers. It is time for the public to see the truth about the years of election manipulation and viewpoint discrimination. So, open the files. Allow the public to see not just communications on censorship (including subjects beyond Hunter Biden) but how Twitter may have used verification, throttling, algorithms, or other methods to control speech. The company does not have to release codes or potentially damaging information to reveal the back channel communications, deliberations, and targeting choices. By embracing total transparency, Musk can force the EU and other companies to face the ugly realities of censorship. Let them take ownership of censorship as the public demands both transparency and accountability.

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“..most Americans are not interested in the culture war and how it is a small percentage driving this friction.”

Elon Musk Declares ‘Cancel Culture Needs To Be Canceled’ (Fox)

Twitter users rejoiced on Wednesday when CEO Elon Musk declared that “cancel culture needs to be canceled.” Musk tweeted, “Cancel culture needs to be canceled!!” in response to a clip from CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” The CNBC host Joe Kernen spoke to AEI president emeritus Arthur Brooks about criticism Musk has faced since his acquisition of Twitter. Kernen observed how the country is being torn into two, and the two sides are moving “further apart.” “We are so far apart on how we view the world, Arthur. Is this Twitter’s fault in the first place?” he asked. Brooks responded that most Americans are not interested in the culture war and how it is a small percentage driving this friction.


“Three percent of your employees are activists instead of working, and they’re blowing up your Slack channel right now demanding that you get involved in a culture war and make political statements. Don’t do it!” Brooks warned viewers. “The rest of your employees are feeling bullied as well. Their co-workers are being bullied by these activists, it’s time for us to say ‘I will not be conscripted into America’s culture war!'” He continued, “We don’t hate each other in this country-I’ve got the data Joe. Ninety-three percent of Americans say they hate how divided we’ve become as a country, those other 7% that doesn’t hate it, those are the activists saying if you buy a Tesla it means that somehow you believe in hate speech, it’s completely absurd, and it’s total bullying.”

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598271337704759296

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They won’t leave it alone. And it’s not about her. It’s still about Trump.

Activists and Pundits Target Justice Barrett as “Religious Extremist” (Turley)

Justice Amy Coney Barrett is facing increasing calls to recuse herself from a major Supreme Court case due to her religion. These absurd demands say less about the ethics of Barrett than the bias of her critics, who have waged an unrelenting and vicious campaign against the jurist and her family. At issue is 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis’ Dec. 5 argument. Even before the court granted review, I noted it could be one of the most important free-speech cases in history. It involves a web designer who declines jobs for same-sex marriages over her religious beliefs. Liberal academics and pundits have decried Barrett’s participation in the case because she has been part of the Christian group People of Praise, which holds traditional views of marriage and homosexuality.


The media are quoting former members calling themselves “survivors” saying the group holds views that make it impossible for her to judge the case fairly. Impossible, that is, if Barrett is willing to discard every principle of legal and judicial integrity she has maintained her entire career. Justices routinely rule for individuals or groups that they find objectionable and even sinful. That is what jurists do when they take an oath requiring blind and equal justice. While some have called for all the conservative justices to recuse themselves, the focus has been on Barrett. A petition with thousands of signatures declares, “Barett’s [sic] extremist religious views should have disqualified her from serving on the Supreme Court at all; but when it comes to this case in particular, it is obvious that she is far too biased to issue an impartial ruling and must recuse herself.”

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I think I prefer having Fauci shut up. Other than in a court of law.

Three COVID-19 Questions Dr. Fauci Needs To Answer (Kory)

The incoming House Republican majority would be wise to shed light on Fauci’s efforts to undermine the practice of medicine during the pandemic. Here are three specific areas worthy of investigation. First, get to the bottom of the mask masquerade. During his final press conference, Fauci stressed the importance of facial accessories by cracking a joke about “looking terrific.” Early in the pandemic, he was singing a different tune, acknowledging in private emails, “the typical mask you buy at a drug store is not really effective at keeping out a virus.”


Less than a year later, Fauci was calling double masking “common sense.” Even last week while sitting for a deposition brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, Fauci implored a court reporter to don a mask after sneezing – despite not being able to name a single study supporting their use. This in November 2022, more than two months after President Joe Biden declared the pandemic “over.” Second, explore Fauci’s constant shifting of the goalposts with COVID-19 vaccines. Alongside Biden, Fauci has become the face of the vaccine push. In fact, his parting words were a final plea to “get your updated COVID-19 shot.” Never did he offer a shred of remorse for all his failed claims about the efficacy of the vaccines.

Malhotra

In December 2020, Fauci marveled at the purported 90% efficacy rate of the Pfizer vaccine, heralding the development as “just extraordinary.” As the pandemic wore on and “breakthrough cases” became the new norm, Fauci shifted to, “even if a vaccine fails to protect against infection, it often protects against serious disease.” In May 2021, he referred to vaccinated people as “dead end to the virus.” Today, as Fauci continues his push for more and more boosters unabated, even the New York Times is publishing stories carrying headlines such as, “Will Covid Boosters Prevent Another Wave? Scientists Aren’t So Sure.” Vaccinated Americans accounted for a majority of COVID-19 deaths for the first time in August. Making matters worse was Fauci’s relentless disinformation campaign against the use of safe, effective re-purposed generic drugs in favor of high-priced, patented pharmaceutical products.


Fauci dismissed critics as opponents of science, even at one point claiming to represent science itself. Yet when data have countered his preferred narrative, science has faced no greater foe than Dr. Anthony Fauci. For example, Fauci denigrated ivermectin, a readily available over the counter drug that has proven effective as a covid-19 treatment, despite his and the media’s constant citing of less than five of the 93 controlled trials in order to claim that ivermectin is ineffective. Ditto with Hydroxychloroquine, labeled as “dangerous” with “toxic” side effects, according to Fauci, who has provided no evidence to support his claims despite an even larger evidence base in support. Or fluvoxamine, another cost-effective generic drug that decreased COVID-19 hospitalizations and death in randomized-controlled trials published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Lancet.

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Lions reunite
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598063802637234176

 

 

 

 

Toy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598023185009893376

 

 


“These are baby stingrays. They look like aliens stuck in ravioli.”

 

 

Baby falcons

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 292022
 
 November 29, 2022  Posted by at 8:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  88 Responses »


Salvador Dali Cubist self portrait 1926

 

The US Is a Luciferian Project (Garlington)
About Saving Face: Some Advice to Volodymyr Zelensky (Batiushka)
Kiev Planning To ‘Retake’ Crimea In 2023 – The Economist (RT)
Beijing Protesters Spooked By Phone Calls From Police (AFP)
NYT: Lockdowns Are Draconian When China Does Them (Eugyp)
o US Diplomat Reveals Contents Of Spy Chief Talks (RT)
Boeing Offers To Make Bombs For Ukraine – Reuters (RT)
Putin Confession Suggests Ukraine Conflict Could Last For Years (Trenin)
Biden Admin Scrambles To Track $20B In Ukraine Aid As GOP Warn Of Audits (Fox)
EU Gets Tough on China as US Steals European Industry (Gallagher)
Netherlands To Forcefully Shut Down 3,000 Farms (CS)
New Twitter Sign Ups Hit All-Time Record Despite Cancel Campaign (Turley)
Twitter Owner Musk Signals New ‘War’ Against Apple (AFP)
UK Deployed 15 Staff On Secret Operation To Seize Julian Assange (Dec.uk)
Media Groups Urge US To Drop Julian Assange Charges (G.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

J6 FBI
https://twitter.com/i/status/1597293108857032704

 

 

 

 

It takes 15 SECONDS to understand the Ukrainian genocide

 

 

 

 

 

 

“People are not gods. They must not act like gods or assume godly authority. If they do, terrible retributions are in store.”

The US Is a Luciferian Project (Garlington)

All of this is the regression of human development, not its advancement. It is consonant with the spirit of Antichrist, as described in the Book of the Holy Prophet Daniel (7:23-25):‘”Thus he said: `As for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all the kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth, and trample it down, and break it to pieces. As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them; he shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings. He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand for a time, two times, and half a time.’

St. Jerome provides a commentary: ‘The Antichrist will wage war against the saints and will overcome them; and he shall exalt himself to such a height of arrogance as to attempt changing the very laws of God and the sacred rites as well. He will also lift himself up against all that is called God, subjecting all religion to his own authority.’ The modern American project of god-like, autonomous individuals is Promethean/Luciferian at its core, attempting to ‘change the times and the law’ given by the All-Holy Trinity in ever more disturbing ways – by pursuing genetically modified crops and animals; synthetic biology; transgenderism; transhumanism; etc. Is it any wonder that many tradition-respecting countries are becoming reluctant to ally with Washington City and its friends in the wider apostate West?

Within the US itself there is, nevertheless, resistance; there are dissenting voices and views. The people of New England and their descendants in Utah and in the cities along the Pacific Coast have always been at the forefront of pushing new, subversive ideologies – feminism, communism, polygamy/Mormonism, homosexual rights, man-boy love, polyamory. But outside of Yankeedom we meet with more reasonable, more traditional voices. The South, for instance, the South shorn of Yankee-imposed ideologies, that is true to her history and character and inherited customs – Southerners of this kind insist on the ‘given-ness’ of creation, on its immutability, that man must respect certain boundaries regarding it or risk experiencing great cataclysms and tragedies.

Wendell Berry, a typical Southern agrarian of this sort, writes in his essay ‘The Gift of Good Land,’ ‘It [the land}s a gift because the people who are to possess it did not create it. It is accompanied by careful warnings and demonstrations of the folly of saying that “My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17). Thus, deeply implicated in the very definition of this gift is a specific warning against hubris, which is the great ecological sin, just as it is the great sin of politics. People are not gods. They must not act like gods or assume godly authority. If they do, terrible retributions are in store. In this warning we have the root of the idea of propriety, of proper human purposes and ends. We must not use the world as though we created it ourselves.

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“As the US realises that the free nations of the world are turning against it, it will not hesitate to blame the Kiev regime. The US must save face. Kiev has been warned: it will have to start negotiating with Russia again.”

About Saving Face: Some Advice to Volodymyr Zelensky (Batiushka)

It is now dawning on the US elite that they totally underestimated Russia in all respects. For instance, on 25 March 2014 the arrogant Obama contemptuously called Russia ‘a regional power, threatening others out of weakness’ (sic!). (Clearly, he was talking about the USA). As a result, blinded by hubris, some in the US are now admitting that the Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe, is a dead duck, the game is simply no longer worth the candle. Apart from being a black hole for Western money and military equipment, the Ukraine is no longer the problem. It is a sideshow, a distraction, a mere symptom of something far more important. The real problem is what is now happening worldwide under Russian leadership – the ending of the unipolar world, of US global hegemony, camouflaged beneath the more innocent-sounding term ‘globalism’.

Following Russia’s decision and ability to stand up to the world’s bully, the whole Non-Western world is now also standing up to him. For example, at the recent G20 meeting in Indonesia, the debate was not about the Ukraine, but about whether or not to continue to accept American Fascist rule (‘the rules-based international order’). All the Latin American and African and four Asian countries said no, it’s finished, the world is now multipolar. Taiwan will inevitably be Chinese and soon – and wait till Chinese troops appear in Mesopotamia to take control of Iraqi oil and gas and rebuild that tragic country. Freedom beckons. Long-deluded Western elitists must be shocked: other ‘regional powers’ are now also standing up to the bully. Perhaps also out of weakness?

Zelensky must have suspected that his boss, until now the self-imagined master of the universe, is going to get rid of him. He is a loser and the Yanks cannot stand losers. As the US realises that the free nations of the world are turning against it, it will not hesitate to blame the Kiev regime. The US must save face. Kiev has been warned: it will have to start negotiating with Russia again. Zelensky had better plan his escape now, because Ukrainians will not forgive him for stringing them along with a pack of lies. Regardless of Zelensky’s delusional assertions that there will be no negotiations with Russia and that it will re-occupy Russian territories, including the Crimea, there are three reasons for him to throw in the towel now, before it all gets much, much worse.

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Not going to happen. Zelensky’s Waterloo.

Kiev Planning To ‘Retake’ Crimea In 2023 – The Economist (RT)

Ukraine’s armed forces are reportedly preparing for an assault on Crimea, to “retake” the peninsula which voted to reunite with Russia in 2014. A former Ukrainian commander told the Economist that the operation was being planned for 2023, but declined to give more details. Former air assault commander, Mikhail Zabrodsky told the outlet that if the army announced its intentions on social media or television, it would “never achieve anything.” He did admit, however, that an operation designed to retake the peninsula would not be a “senseless frontal assault” and would be done using a combination of land troops, sea landings, and air attacks, including the use of drones. “We will surprise people—and many times—again,” he said.

However, Zabrodsky, who claims to remain close to the military planning process in Kiev, stressed that there are still many battles to win before the army could consider a timeframe for such an attack. Military experts have warned that an effort to forcefully retake Crimea or the territories of the Donbass republics, which recently joined Russia after holding public referendums, could prove costly for Kiev and drive Moscow to escalate, perhaps even to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “There is a real prospect that things will end in a bloodbath. That is an operation Ukraine does not need,” retired navy captain Andrey Ryzhenko told the Economist. Top US General Mark Milley said earlier this month that the probability of a Ukrainian military victory which included taking Crimea was “not high” and not likely to be happening “anytime soon.”

Nevertheless, Kiev has insisted it is determined to seize the peninsula, with President Vladimir Zelensky saying he has no desire to seek a peaceful settlement to the ongoing conflict with Moscow without “de-occupying” the territory. Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Gavrilov also suggested earlier this month that Ukrainian forces could step into Crimea “by the end of December.” Crimea overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in 2014 following violent riots in Kiev that ousted democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich. This autumn, the two Donbass republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, also voted to become part of Russia in referendums not recognized by Kiev or its Western backers. In late September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow would defend its new territories “with full force and all the means at our disposal.”

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I can see how this would freak you out.

Beijing Protesters Spooked By Phone Calls From Police (AFP)

Beijing protesters have been interrogated by police via phone call after attending rare large-scale protests calling for an end to China’s harsh zero-Covid controls, one told AFP on Monday. Hundreds of mostly young people braved icy temperatures to gather near a riverbank in the capital Sunday evening, as a vigil for victims of a deadly apartment blaze in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region turned into calls to end zero-Covid. People have taken to the streets in major cities and gathered at university campuses across China in a wave of protests not seen since pro-democracy rallies in 1989 were crushed. A woman protester told AFP that by Monday evening she and five of her friends who attended the protest had received phone calls from Beijing police, demanding information about their movements.


In one case, a police officer visited her friend’s home after they refused to answer their phone. “He said my name and asked me whether I went to the Liangma river last night… he asked very specifically how many people were there, what time I went, how I heard about it,” she told AFP, asking to stay anonymous for safety reasons. “The police stressed that last night’s protest was an illegal assembly, and if we had demands then we could submit them through the regular channels. ”She said that the police officer was mostly “even-toned” during the brief call and urged her not to attend future events. “I had previously prepared for this, but of course I was still agitated,” she said, adding she would “try her best to continue” attending similar protests in the future, and “prepare better” next time. “I never thought that this kind of civil society activity could ever happen in China,” she said.

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“Western lockdowns were necessary to save lives. Chinese lockdowns are the repressive tactic of an undemocratic regime.”

NYT: Lockdowns Are Draconian When China Does Them (Eugyp)

Three years ago, Zero Covid was the aspiration of public health bureaucrats and politicians across the West. Charlatan techbros like Tomas Pueyo appeared on national television to demand nationwide house arrest; leaders like Angela Merkel surrounded themselves virus-eradicationist modellers and imposed unprecedented months-long closures upon their countries. When protests inevitably broke out, they were violently suppressed; the protesters were slandered as conspiracy theorists and fascists. The New York Times played a leading role in this long and excruciating charade. In April 2020, they reported that “an informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the [Trump] White House” was responsible for “quietly working to nurture protests and apply … pressure to overturn state and local orders intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus.”

In March 2021, they ran an obnoxious opinion piece about What Happened When Germany’s Far-Right Party Railed Against Lockdowns, which called the German protesters “an amorphous mix of conspiracy theorists, shady organizations and outraged citizens” and appeared to accuse the right-populist party Alternativ für Deutschland of opportunism for joining their ranks. What a difference a few years have made. China Protests Break Out as Covid Cases Surge and Lockdowns Persist is a lead headline in today’s New York Times: “Strict Covid restrictions are hurting the country’s economy and angering members of the public, who are taking to the streets,” we read in the article that follows. Western anti-lockdown protesters are fascists and conspiracy theorists; Chinese anti-lockdown protesters, on the other hand, are ordinary people protesting their oppression:

“Lift the lockdown,” the protesters screamed in a city in China’s far west. On the other side of the country, in Shanghai, demonstrators held up sheets of blank white paper, turning them into an implicit but powerful sign of defiance. One protester, who was later detained by the police, was carrying only flowers. Over the weekend, protests against China’s strict Covid restrictions ricocheted across the country in a rare case of nationwide civil unrest. There had been signs of dissent, but the new wave of anger may pose a bigger challenge for the government. Some demonstrators went so far as to call for the Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping, to step down. Many were fed up with Mr. Xi, who in October secured a precedent-defying third term as the party’s general secretary, and his “zero-Covid” policy, which continues to disrupt everyday life, hurt livelihoods and isolate the country.

Western lockdowns were necessary to save lives. Chinese lockdowns are the repressive tactic of an undemocratic regime.

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“The diplomat noted that the ongoing Ukraine conflict was not on the officials’ agenda.”

o US Diplomat Reveals Contents Of Spy Chief Talks (RT)

The heads of American and Russian intelligence agencies have discussed the risk of a potential nuclear confrontation between the two countries, Washington’s Charge d’Affaires in Moscow, Elizabeth Rood, has told RIA Novosti. The diplomat noted that the ongoing Ukraine conflict was not on the officials’ agenda. In an interview with the Russian media outlet published on Monday, Rood said: “The US and the Russian Federation have [communication] channels for risk management, especially in terms of nuclear risks, and precisely this issue was the goal of CIA Director [William] Burns’ meeting with his Russian counterpart.” She pointed out that the two spy chiefs had not, however, discussed the situation in Ukraine or ways to end hostilities there.

The American diplomat added that Washington and Moscow could hold consultations in a similar fashion down the road, if necessary. “For now, as far as I know, nothing is being planned,” Rood noted. The high-level meeting in Türkiye’s capital, Ankara, was first reported by Russia’s Kommersant newspaper in mid-November. It is believed to have been the first in-person contact between top US and Russian officials since Moscow launched its military campaign in Ukraine in late February. Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed that a high-level meeting had taken place in Ankara on November 14, stopping short, however, of revealing any details regarding the participants or the topics discussed there. “It was the American side’s initiative,” he explained.

Recent comments by Rood about Ukraine not being on the agenda of the meeting between Sergei Naryshkin, chief of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, and Burns echoed those made earlier by an unnamed White House official cited by Reuters. That source was also quoted as saying that the two spy chiefs had touched on the issue of American citizens in Russian custody and Russian nationals held in US prisons, and the possibility of a swap deal. Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden expressed hope that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, would be willing to discuss such an exchange, which would involve US basketball star Brittney Griner, who is serving nine years in a Russian prison for drug offenses. According to media reports, in exchange, the US could release Viktor Bout, a Russian national and alleged arms dealer, who is serving a 25-year jail term in America.

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When they make them they want them to be used.

Boeing Offers To Make Bombs For Ukraine – Reuters (RT)

The Pentagon is reportedly considering an offer from Boeing to mass-produce cheap precision bombs for Ukraine using existing US stores, as Washington and its allies struggle to keep up with Kiev’s military aid requirements. According to Reuters, Boeing has proposed supplying Ukraine’s forces with the so-called Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) system, which would pair the $40,000 GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the relatively abundant M26 rocket motor. The weapon has been in development since 2019. In a document seen by the outlet, the manufacturer claims the availability of the necessary components would enable it to produce the ordnance and start delivering it to Ukraine as early as spring 2023.

However, there are still logistical obstacles to overcome, as at least six suppliers would have to expedite shipment of parts in order to produce the weapons quickly. Boeing’s plan also asks for a price discovery waiver, which would exempt the contractor from an in-depth review to ensure the Pentagon is getting a fair deal. According to SAAB AB’s website, who manufactures the weapon together with Boeing, the GPS-guided GLSDB is capable of striking targets at a range of up to 150 kilometers, which would potentially allow Kiev to strike Russian forces far beyond the front line. While both the US military and Boeing have declined to comment on the report, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman told Reuters that Washington and its allies “identify and consider the most appropriate systems” that would help Kiev.

He refused to elaborate on providing any “specific capability” to Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly warned the US and its NATO allies against supplying weapons to Ukraine, arguing that it only serves to prolong the conflict and could eventually lead to a direct confrontation between Russia and the West. As countries like the US and UK have made more advanced weapon systems available to Kiev’s forces, capable of reaching deep behind the front lines, the Kremlin has described the ongoing conflict as nothing short of a proxy war against NATO. President Vladimir Putin has also stated Russia is fighting “the entire Western military machine.”

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“..he now regards the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 as a mistake..”

Because they stopped Russia’s advance in the Donbass. They were a trick.

Putin Confession Suggests Ukraine Conflict Could Last For Years (Trenin)

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented, during a meeting with soldiers’ mothers, that he now regards the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 as a mistake. This concession makes a powerful contribution to the possibilities of peace negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine. It is worth remembering that in 2014, Putin acted on a mandate from the Russian parliament to use military force “in Ukraine,” not just in Crimea. In fact, Moscow did save the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk from being overrun by Kiev’s army, and defeated Ukraine’s forces, but rather than clearing the whole region of Donbass, Russia stopped, and agreed to a cease-fire brokered in Minsk by Germany and France.

Putin explained to the mothers that at the time, Moscow did not know for sure the sentiments of the Donbass population affected by the conflict, and hoped that Donetsk and Lugansk could somehow be reunited with Ukraine on the conditions laid down in Minsk. Putin might have added – and his own actions, as well as conversations with then-Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, confirm it – that he was prepared to give the new Kiev authorities a chance to settle the issue and rebuild a relationship with Moscow. Until rather late in the game, Putin also hoped that he could still work things out with the Germans and the French, and the US leadership. Admissions of mistakes are rare among incumbent leaders, but they are important as indicators of lessons they have learned.

This experience has apparently made Putin decide not that the decision to launch the special military operation last February was wrong, but that eight years before, Moscow should not have put any faith in Kiev, Berlin, and Paris, and instead should have relied on its own military might to liberate the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine. In other words, agreeing to a Minsk-style ceasefire now would be another mistake which would allow Kiev and its backers to better prepare to resume fighting at the time of their choosing. The Russian leader realizes, of course, that many nations in the non-West, those who refused to join the anti-Russian sanctions coalition and profess neutrality on Ukraine, have called for an end to hostilities. From China and India to Indonesia and Mexico, these countries, while generally friendly toward Russia, see their economic prospects being impaired by a conflict that pits Russia against the united West.

The Western media also promote the message that global energy and food security is suffering because of Moscow’s actions. Russia’s arguments and protestations to the contrary have only limited impact, since Russian voices are rarely heard on Middle Eastern, Asian, African, or Latin American airwaves. Be that as it may, Moscow cannot ignore the sentiments of the larger part of humanity, which is now increasingly referred to in Russian expert circles as the Global Majority. Hence, official Russian statements that Moscow is open for dialogue without preconditions. However, any Russian delegation to talks would have to take into account the recent amendments to the country’s Constitution, which name the four former Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as part of the Russian Federation. As Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has put it, Russia will only negotiate on the basis of existing geopolitical realities. It should be noted that the Kremlin has not retracted the objectives of the military operation, which include the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, which means ridding the state and society of ultra-nationalist, anti-Russian elements.

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“If America pulls back, Putin could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.”

Biden Admin Scrambles To Track $20B In Ukraine Aid As GOP Warn Of Audits (Fox)

President Biden’s administration is scrambling to track the nearly $20 billion in military aid it has sent to Ukraine as Republicans warn of impending audits when they take control of the House in January. Likely future House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said his party will not be giving Ukraine a “blank check” to fend off Russia’s invasion. A potential audit would determine how much, if any, of the U.S. aid is ending up in the wrong hands. The Biden administration’s previous tracking efforts have inspected only a fraction of the aid provided to the country. The Republican push to ramp up oversight enjoys some bipartisan support in Congress. Some staunch Ukraine allies fear the party will cut off aid to the country entirely, however.

Firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has vowed to “hold our government accountable” for Ukraine spending, and some of her colleagues across the aisle are echoing the message. “The taxpayers deserve to know that investment is going where it’s intended to go,” Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., told the Washington Post. “In any war, there can be missteps and misallocation of supplies.” The lawmakers agree that current monitoring efforts appear woefully inadequate, with the Biden administration inspecting just 10% of the 22,000 weapons the U.S. has provided to Ukraine between February and November 1, according to the Post. U.S. allies in Europe have expressed hope that Republican skepticism of Ukraine aid will not lead to a widespread cutting of funding, however.

“You’d be playing into Putin’s hands,” U.K. Parliament member Tobias Ellwood said in October. “If America pulls back, Putin could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.” McCarthy has based his criticism of the aid packages on America’s economic situation as the economy threatens to fall into a recession. “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” McCarthy said last month. “They just won’t do it. … It’s not a free blank check.”

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The entire continent is made up of sock puppets.

EU Gets Tough on China as US Steals European Industry (Gallagher)

European leaders have finally woken up to the fact that Washington is benefitting at their expense with the US/NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Despite their economies being harmed by Washington, the EU continues to take a much tougher stance against Beijing. NATO leaders are set to meet Nov. 29-30 in Bucharest and will discuss ways to “reduce dependency” on China. At the same time, EU leaders are debating how to deal with their US “ally” coaxing European industry to American shores. Ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Washington, Paris is signaling that Europe would be more willing to go along with a more hardline China stance if the US backs down on efforts to poach European industry with its subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Yet, there are reasons to believe that’s a dead end, and some Europeans are already waving the white flag. While the EU is suddenly in emergency mode over its industry being wiped out by American rivals – something that’s been obvious to many for months – its focus all year has been on Moscow and Beijing. Here’s a brief roundup of the China focus: The bloc is busy hammering out an Anti-Coercion Instrument, which aims to take countermeasures against outside countries that attempt to pressure bloc states using the member states’ economic dependencies. China, which implemented a de facto trade embargo against Lithuania after it allowed Taiwan to open a liaison office in Vilnius, is widely seen as the primary target of the rule.

European lawmakers are also finalizing new rules to curb acquisitions or bids for public contracts by subsidized foreign companies. Again it is widely believed the rules are aimed primarily at China. It came on the heels of the uproar over Chinese efforts to obtain a controlling stake in a Hamburg port terminal. In the end, Berlin approved a sale of 24.9% of the terminal to Cosco. American companies could also face scrutiny from the new legislation due to the Inflation Reduction Act, which has subsidies for US-based manufacturers of electric cars, batteries and renewable energy products and consumers who buy such American-made products. But it would only apply to American companies if they try to buy EU companies or in public procurement bids and not in the case of EU companies relocating production or building of future factories.

China’s Global Times argues that Europe should blame the US for its decline in competitiveness but doesn’t believe that will be the case: Europe has a kind of concern or fear about the rise of China, which is also consistent with the strategy of containing China pursued by the US, Zhao Junjie, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of European Studies. [..] He added that this decision by the EU is very unwise, especially when European economic prospects are unclear, as the implementation of trade protectionism and blocking of normal market business behavior will ultimately damage European companies.

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Pre-Covid this was seen as following the science. But now things are different. Now it’s just WEF. And people won’t follow that.

Netherlands To Forcefully Shut Down 3,000 Farms (CS)

To comply with the European Union’s radical climate laws, the Dutch government of World Economic Forum acolyte Mark Rutte will force up to 3,000 farms to shut down for good. Farmers will be made an offer on their farms, which the government claims is “well over” market value. According to nitrogen minister Christianne van der Wal, the government purchase will be compulsory. “There is no better offer coming,” claimed van der Wal. Recent EU nature preservation rules require member states to reduce emissions across sectors of the economy. As one of Europe’s most prominent farming nations, half of the Netherlands’ emissions come from agricultural activity. Rutte has warned that those who refuse to comply could face government force.


When the Dutch government announced a nitrogen fertilizer reduction mandate, the country saw nationwide protests from farmers. Former agricultural minister resigned from his position as a result of the movement. The Dutch farmer protests received international attention, with protests popping up in Canada in support of the uprising. Rutte’s government policies have many observers concerned about the direction he is taking the country. Earlier this month, the country’s finance minister Sigrid Kaag proposed a law to allow banks to spy on transactions of citizens which totaled more than €100. Privacy watchdog Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens called the bill an unprecedented “surveillance of the Dutch” people.

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“Biden is accusing Twitter of “spewing lies all across the world” by seeking to reduce one of the largest censorship systems in history.”

New Twitter Sign Ups Hit All-Time Record Despite Cancel Campaign (Turley)

Since Elon Musk bought Twitter with a pledge to restore free speech protections, the media and political establishment have maintained an unrelenting campaign to use pressure from corporations and foreign governments to force him to restore censorship policies. Reporters have covered seemingly every celebrity declaring that they are leaving the site or even selling their Teslas in protest. As companies joined the boycott, commentators gleefully announced the “death,” “collapse,” and “demise” of the social media company with some mocking Musk’s endangerment of billions for free speech. New figures, however, appear to show that the public is solidly with Musk on the free speech issue. New signups at Twitter are at an all-time high with two million new signups per day.

As these companies and activists demand censorship, customers are signing up in mass to embrace the greater diversity of viewpoints and expression at the company. While companies are yielding to demands from the left that they cut off ad revenue until Musk restores censorship, users are flocking to the site. The over two million new sign-ups per day represent a 66% increase over the same time frame last year, according to figures released by Musk. Of course, it has long been known that the public wants more, not less, free speech. It is the political establishment that is struggling to retain control over speech on social media at any cost. Facebook even tried a massive commercial campaign to convince the public to embrace censorship.

President Joe Biden has led calls for censorship on social media, which have been largely heeded by companies like Facebook and Twitter. Biden is accusing Twitter of “spewing lies all across the world” by seeking to reduce one of the largest censorship systems in history. President Biden has previously accused social media companies of “killing people” by refusing to impose robust censorship over a wide range of subjects. Many of those banned or censored were doctors with opposing views on the data and the science related to the pandemic. Some of those doctors were the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for a more focused Covid response that targeted the most vulnerable population rather than widespread lockdowns and mandates.

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“It’s not even that they worry about the content. Twitter is a tainted brand, a brand non grata companies don’t want to be associated with..”

Twitter Owner Musk Signals New ‘War’ Against Apple (AFP)

Twitter owner Elon Musk on Monday opened fire against Apple over its tight control of what is allowed on the App Store, saying the iPhone maker has threatened to oust his recently acquired social media platform. Musk also joined the chorus crying foul over a 30 percent fee Apple collects on transactions via its App Store – the sole gateway for applications to get onto its billion plus mobile devices. A series of tweets fired off by Musk included a meme of a car with his first name on it veering onto a highway off-ramp labeled “Go to War,” instead of continuing onwards towards “Pay 30%.” The billionaire CEO also tweeted that Apple has “threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.” Both Apple and Google require social networking services on their app stores to have effective systems for moderating harmful or abusive content.

But since taking over Twitter last month, Musk has cut around half of Twitter’s workforce, including many employees tasked with fighting disinformation, while an unknown number of others have voluntarily quit. He has also reinstated previously banned accounts, including that of former president Donald Trump. Yoel Roth, the former head of trust and safety at Twitter who left after Musk took over, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that “failure to adhere to Apple’s and Google’s guidelines would be catastrophic,” and risk “expulsion from their app stores.” Describing himself as a “free speech absolutist,” Musk believes that all content permitted by law should be allowed on Twitter, and on Monday described his actions as a “revolution against online censorship in America.”

He also tweeted that he planned to publish “Twitter Files on free speech suppression,” but without clarifying what data he had in mind to share with the public. Though Musk says Twitter is seeing record high engagement with him at the helm, his approach has startled the company’s major moneymaker — advertisers. In recent weeks, half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have announced they are suspending or have otherwise “seemingly stopped advertising on Twitter,” an analysis conducted by nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters found. Musk on Monday accused Apple of also having “mostly stopped advertising on Twitter.” “Do they hate free speech in America?” he asked, before replying with a tweet tagging Apple CEO Tim Cook.

In the first three months of 2022, Apple was the top advertiser on Twitter, spending some $48 million on ads which accounted for more than 4 percent of the social media platform’s revenue, according to a Washington Post report citing an internal Twitter document. Sarah Roberts, an information studies expert at University of California, Los Angeles, told AFP that “Musk didn’t understand that Twitter itself was a brand, had cachet.” “Now companies don’t even want to be associated with it. It’s not even that they worry about the content. Twitter is a tainted brand, a brand non grata companies don’t want to be associated with,” she added.

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The swamp is putrid.

“..he watched a live-feed of Assange’s arrest from the Operations Room at the top of the Foreign Office alongside Pelican personnel. After Assange had been imprisoned in Belmarsh, Duncan had a drinks party at his office for the Pelican team.”

UK Deployed 15 Staff On Secret Operation To Seize Julian Assange (Dec.uk)

The British government assigned at least 15 people to the secret operation to seize Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, new information shows. The WikiLeaks founder was given political asylum by Ecuador in 2012, but was never allowed safe passage out of Britain to avoid persecution by the US government. The Australian journalist has been in Belmarsh maximum security prison for the past three and a half years and faces a potential 175-year sentence after the UK High Court greenlighted his extradition to the US in December 2021. ‘Pelican’ was the secret Metropolitan Police operation to seize Assange from his asylum, which eventually occurred in April 2019. Asylum is a right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The operation’s existence was only revealed in the memoirs of former foreign minister Sir Alan Duncan which were published last year.

The UK government routinely blocks, or obfuscates its answers to, information requests about the Assange case. But the Cabinet Office recently told parliament it had seven officials working on Operation Pelican. The department’s role is to “support the Prime Minister and ensure the effective running of government”, but it also has national security and intelligence functions. [..] Other government ministries refused to say if they had staff working on Pelican, including the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). The MoJ is in charge of courts in England and Wales, where Assange’s extradition case is currently deciding whether to hear an appeal. It is also in control of its prisons, including Belmarsh maximum security jail where Assange is incarcerated. When asked if any of its staff were assigned to Pelican, the MoJ claimed: “The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.”

Sir Alan Duncan, foreign minister for the Americas from 2016-19, was the key UK official in the diplomatic negotiations between the UK and Ecuador to get Assange out of the embassy. In his memoirs he wrote that he watched a live-feed of Assange’s arrest from the Operations Room at the top of the Foreign Office alongside Pelican personnel. After Assange had been imprisoned in Belmarsh, Duncan had a drinks party at his office for the Pelican team. “I gave them each a signed photo which we took in the Ops Room on the day, with a caption saying ‘Julian Assange’s Special Brexit Team 11th April 2019’”, he wrote. Ecuador’s president from 2007-17, Rafael Correa, recently told Declassified he granted Assange asylum because the Australian journalist “didn’t have any possibility of a fair legal process in the United States.”

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Given all of the Guardian’s efforts to paint Assange as a traitor, writing such letters takes gall.

Media Groups Urge US To Drop Julian Assange Charges (G.)

Twelve years ago, on November 28th 2010, our five international media outlets – the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El País and Der Spiegel – published a series of revelations in cooperation with WikiLeaks that made the headlines around the globe. “Cablegate”, a set of 251,000 confidential cables from the US state department, disclosed corruption, diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale. In the words of the New York Times, the documents told “the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money”. Even now in 2022, journalists and historians continue to publish new revelations, using the unique trove of documents.

For Julian Assange, publisher of WikLeaks, the publication of “Cablegate” and several other related leaks had the most severe consequences. On April 12th 2019, Assange was arrested in London on a US arrest warrant, and has now been held for three and a half years in a high-security British prison usually used for terrorists and members of organised crime groups. He faces extradition to the US and a sentence of up to 175 years in an American maximum-security prison. This group of editors and publishers, all of whom had worked with Assange, felt the need to publicly criticise his conduct in 2011 when unredacted copies of the cables were released, and some of us are concerned about the allegations in the indictment that he attempted to aid in computer intrusion of a classified database.

But we come together now to express our grave concerns about the continued prosecution of Julian Assange for obtaining and publishing classified materials. The Obama-Biden administration, in office during the WikiLeaks publication in 2010, refrained from indicting Assange, explaining that they would have had to indict journalists from major news outlets too. Their position placed a premium on press freedom, despite its uncomfortable consequences. Under Donald Trump however, the position changed. The DoJ relied on an old law, the Espionage Act of 1917 (designed to prosecute potential spies during world war one), which has never been used to prosecute a publisher or broadcaster. This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s first amendment and the freedom of the press.

Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists. If that work is criminalised, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker. Twelve years after the publication of “Cablegate”, it is time for the US government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets. Publishing is not a crime.

The editors and publishers of:
The New York Times
The Guardian
Le Monde
Der Spiegel
El País

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You have 2 cows
https://twitter.com/i/status/1597106643329687552

 

 

 

 

Kitty tail
https://twitter.com/i/status/1597423159367847936

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 122022
 


Edward Hopper The Lee Shore 1941

 

FBI Looking For Classified Nuclear Secrets During Mar-a-Lago Raid: Leak (ZH)
Trump ‘Shattering’ All Fundraising Records After FBI Mar-a-Lago Raid (ET)
World On The Brink Of Nuclear Catastrophe – Moscow (RT)
Europeans Must Be Willing To ‘Pay’ To Support Ukraine – Top EU Diplomat (RT)
China Calls US ‘Main Instigator’ Of Ukraine Crisis (R.)
Russian Oil Output Could Plunge – IEA (RT)
The Decline of the US Empire: Lessons from the Roman Republic (AT)
Democracy in America (Moglia)
UK Faces Steepest Real Wages Drop In A Century (RT)
No Hard Actions Yet By Dutch ‘Farmers Defense Force’ (AD)
Green Elitism Behind Farmer Crackdowns (Shellenberger)
Samarkand At The Crossroads (Escobar)
Twitter Rolls Out Plans ‘To Protect’ US Midterm Elections (PM)
Hunter Biden Laptop Repairman Says FBI Agent Threatened Him To Hush Up (NYP)
Legal Options Running Out For WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange (DW)

 

 

 

 

Trump declassification
https://twitter.com/i/status/1557399211775336457

 

 

 

 

Trump raid judge
https://twitter.com/i/status/1557182294057705475

 

 

 

 

Fitton

 

 

Kash Patel

 

 

 

 

This sounds like total baloney.

• Nuclear codes change when a new president is chosen.
• A president can’t legally declassify ‘nuclear material’.
• They waited 18 months with this raid?!
• Some even say he would sell the info to Putin. Russiagate lives!

FBI Looking For Classified Nuclear Secrets During Mar-a-Lago Raid: Leak (ZH)

The FBI was looking for ‘classified documents relating to nuclear weapons,’ among other things, during its Monday raid at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, WaPo reports, citing ‘people familiar with the investigation.’ So – we’re to believe that the FBI took several boxes from Trump in June, told him to put a bigger lock, and then two months later realized ‘oh — he might have nuclear secrets’ – justifying the raid. The leakers did not offer additional details. “Material about nuclear weapons is especially sensitive and usually restricted to a small number of government officials, experts said. Publicizing details about U.S. weapons could provide an intelligence road map to adversaries seeking to build ways of countering those systems. And other countries might view exposing their nuclear secrets as a threat, experts said.


One former Justice Department official, who in the past oversaw investigations of leaks of classified information, said the type of top-secret information described by the people familiar with the probe would probably cause authorities to try to move as quickly as possible to recover sensitive documents that could cause grave harm to U.S. security.” -Washington Post… “If the FBI and the Department of Justice believed there were top secret materials still at Mar-a-Lago, that would lend itself to greater ‘hair-on-fire’ motivation to recover that material as quickly as possible,” said David Laufman, the former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section. So we assume the narrative will now be that Trump leaked, or could have leaked, nuclear secrets to Putin – which justified “authorities to try to move as quickly as possible to recover sensitive documents” in the name of national security. Right…

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“The Biden administration is only adding rocket fuel to Trump’s campaign prospects and energizing his supporters who want him to run again..”

Trump ‘Shattering’ All Fundraising Records After FBI Mar-a-Lago Raid (ET)

Former President Donald Trump shattered fundraising efforts following the FBI Mar-a-Lago raid, according to his son Eric. “Breaking: DonaldJTrump.com is shattering all fundraising records and I’m told has raised more money in the past 24 hours than ever before in recent history! The American people are [angry]!” Eric Trump wrote on Truth Social. The former president’s second-oldest son did not say how much was raised in the past two days. After Trump confirmed the raid occurred at his Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, he has sent out numerous emails and text messages that include links to donate. Trump and other top Republicans say the FBI and Department of Justice are acting in a blatantly political manner, with members of Congress promising investigations.

Further, they’ve accused the Biden administration of weaponizing federal law enforcement to harm Trump’s and Republicans’ chances during the midterm elections, which are only about 90 days away. “They are trying to stop the Republican Party and me once more,” Trump said in a fundraising email Tuesday, which was seen by The Epoch Times. “The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt, must be exposed and stopped.” Trump on Tuesday also released a political ad describing the United States as a “nation in decline” and makes reference to what is described as numerous failures on behalf of the Biden administration including the fall of Afghanistan, inflation, high energy prices, and more. “We are a nation that allowed Russia to devastate a country, Ukraine, killing hundreds of thousands of people, and it will only get worse,” Trump says in the clip.

“We are a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement against the opposing political party like never before.” Stark images of FBI agents holding rifles during the Mar-a-Lago raid have since been uploaded online as Trump spokeswoman Christina Bobb confirmed about two dozen agents descended on the property Monday. She told news outlets that Trump’s team members were denied the ability to watch the agents, who took boxes of documents.[..]Some analysts say the FBI’s actions could boost his standing even more. “The Biden administration is only adding rocket fuel to Trump’s campaign prospects and energizing his supporters who want him to run again,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist in Washington, told the Reuters news agency. “There should be more transparency around the decision to have this FBI raid because it looks overly political and allows Trump to say he’s being unfairly attacked.”

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“Kiev’s criminal attacks on the nuclear infrastructure facilities are pushing the world to the brink of a nuclear disaster that would rival a Chernobyl one.”

World On The Brink Of Nuclear Catastrophe – Moscow (RT)

Kiev’s “reckless” actions are pushing the world ever closer to a major nuclear disaster, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told the UN Security Council at a meeting focused on the Zaporozhye power plant in southern Ukraine. The plant has been under the control of Russian forces since the start of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev and has since been shelled by Ukrainian troops on several occasions. “We have repeatedly warned our Western colleagues that, should they fail to talk sense into the Kiev regime, it would take the most heinous and reckless steps, which would have consequences far beyond Ukraine,” Nebenzia told the Security Council on Thursday. “That is exactly what is happening,” he said, adding that the Western “sponsors” of Kiev would have to bear the responsibility for a potential nuclear catastrophe.

“Kiev’s criminal attacks on the nuclear infrastructure facilities are pushing the world to the brink of a nuclear disaster that would rival a Chernobyl one. “If the Ukrainian forces continue their attacks on the power plant, a disaster can happen “at any moment,” Nebenzia warned. According to the Russian envoy to the UN, a catastrophe at the Zaporozhye power plant – the biggest one in Europe – could lead to radioactive pollution of vast swathes of territory, affecting at least eight Ukrainian regions, including its capital, Kiev, major cities like Kharkov or Odessa, and some territories of Russia and Belarus bordering Ukraine. The Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, as well as Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria are likely to suffer as well, he warned. “And these are the most optimistic expert forecasts,” Nebenzia said, adding that the potential scale of a nuclear disaster of such magnitude was “difficult to imagine.”

The Zaporozhye plant, which is located in the Russia-controlled Ukrainian city of Energodar, has been subjected to a series of attacks over the past few weeks. Moscow has accused Kiev of launching artillery and drone strikes on the facility, branding these moves as “nuclear terrorism.” Kiev has claimed that Russia was the one targeting the plant in an alleged plot to discredit Ukraine while stationing its troops at the facility. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, told the Security Council that the situation at the plant was under control and that there was “no immediate danger” to its safety as of yet. At the same time, he called reports his agency received from Russia and Ukraine “contradictory” and urged both sides to provide the IAEA access to the facility “as soon as possible.”

“I ask that both sides cooperate … and allow for a mission of the IAEA to proceed,” he said. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for any military activities around the plant to be stopped as the Security Council was holding its meeting.

Read more …

Let’s ask them, shall we? Borrell is a typical EU piece of shit.

Europeans Must Be Willing To ‘Pay’ To Support Ukraine – Top EU Diplomat (RT)

Helping Ukraine in its fight against Russia comes at a price for Europe, which citizens should be willing to pay, the EU’s foreign policy chief has said. A Russian victory would be Europe’s loss, Josep Borrell believes. “We must explain to our citizens that this is not someone else’s war,” the diplomat said in an interview published by newspaper El Pais on Thursday. “The public must be willing to pay the price of supporting Ukraine and for preserving the unity of the EU. “We are at war. These things are not free,” he added, acknowledging that the cost should be distributed “equitably.” Borrell was referring to surging inflation and potential power shortages faced by European nations after deciding to punish Russia for attacking Ukraine by refusing to buy its energy.

Brussels wants member states to cut consumption to be better prepared for peak demand this winter, but some countries have resisted the proposal. Spain, Borrell’s home country, was among the dissenting voices. Energy Minister Teresa Ribera said last month that “imposing unfair sacrifices”was not the best way to deal with the crisis. She argued that, unlike people in some other nations, “Spaniards have not lived beyond our means from an energy point of view.” Europeans “cannot show a lack of solidarity”with such squabbles, Borrell said in the interview. He admonished Madrid for not appreciating “what this war represents to countries closest to it,” like Poland. Spain may benefit from the EU’s decoupling from Russia in the long run by becoming a major hub for supply of liquified natural gas to Europe, he added.

Borrell warned that Europe should be prepared for the conflict in Ukraine to continue for a long time. Commenting on European goals in the conflict, he said that “if Russia wins this war and occupies part of the Ukrainian territory, then we Europeans will have lost and will face a much greater threat.” The Ukrainian government says it will only talk to Russia after pushing its military to where it was before 2014, which would include capturing Crimea. Borrell said Western nations have a “moral imperative” to back Kiev. He said the US and the EU have been in “absolute cooperation” on the issue, and suggested that this would not have been the case if the conflict started with Donald Trump in power in Washington.

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“..Sino-Russian relations had entered “the best period in history, characterised by the highest level of mutual trust, the highest degree of interaction, and the greatest strategic importance”.

China Calls US ‘Main Instigator’ Of Ukraine Crisis (R.)

China, which Russia has sought as an ally since being cold-shouldered by the West over its invasion of Ukraine, has called the United States the “main instigator” of the crisis. In an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS published on Wednesday, China’s ambassador to Moscow, Zhang Hanhui, accused Washington of backing Russia into a corner with repeated expansions of the NATO defence alliance and support for forces seeking to align Ukraine with the European Union rather than Moscow. “As the initiator and main instigator of the Ukrainian crisis, Washington, while imposing unprecedented comprehensive sanctions on Russia, continues to supply arms and military equipment to Ukraine,” Zhang was quoted as saying. “Their ultimate goal is to exhaust and crush Russia with a protracted war and the cudgel of sanctions.”

The ambassador’s reasoning closely followed one of Russia’s own justifications of its invasion of Ukraine, which has resulted in thousands of deaths and the devastation of entire cities, as well as driving more than a quarter of the population to flee their homes. Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled to Beijing in February to meet President Xi Jinping as Russian tanks were massing on the Ukrainian border, agreeing what both states hailed as a “no limits” partnership superior to any Cold War alliance. In the interview, Zhang said Sino-Russian relations had entered “the best period in history, characterised by the highest level of mutual trust, the highest degree of interaction, and the greatest strategic importance”.

He railed against U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit last week to self-governing Taiwan, which China claims as its own, and said the United States was trying to apply the same tactics in Ukraine and Taiwan to “revive a Cold War mentality, contain China and Russia, and provoke major power rivalry and confrontation”. “Non-intervention in internal affairs is the most fundamental principle of maintaining peace and stability in our world,” Zhang said, applying the principle to criticise Washington’s Taiwan policy but not Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Or not. IEA=useless.

Russian Oil Output Could Plunge – IEA (RT)

Production of crude in Russia may fall by roughly 20% by the beginning of the next year as the ban on imports of the country’s oil imposed by the EU comes into effect, according to the International Energy Agency. EU member states are set to stop purchasing crude from Russia starting December 5, while the bloc’s ban on Russian oil-product shipments takes effect from February 5. The agency projects gradual monthly declines to begin this month as Russia cuts back refining, while the embargo will quicken the process. According to IEA estimates, nearly one million barrels per day of Russian oil products and some 1.3 million barrels per day of crude oil will have to be redirected to the other markets due to the planned EU embargo.


So far, Russia managed to successfully redirect its crude flows to Asia away from the EU, historically its biggest energy customer, with oil output steadily rising over the past several months and reaching nearly 10.8 million barrels a day in July. The data compiled by the agency shows that in June China imported 2.1 million barrels of Russian oil per day, having overtaken the EU as the top market for Russia’s seaborne crude. Meanwhile, EU countries purchased some 1.8 million barrels per day. “July numbers for now are identical for the two regions, but China-bound volumes are likely to gain more as the “unknown” destination voyages are completed,” the IEA said.

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“..while the US had spent three trillion on needless wars in three decades, China had spent zero and that’s why it was racing ahead.”

The Decline of the US Empire: Lessons from the Roman Republic (AT)

Less than three centuries after its founding, the Wild West returns to American streets (and on other streets in the world), in which killing each other now resembles a national pastime, tent cities become the norm and health for tens of millions is a crowd funded commodity, in a country that has only been at peace for two decades since its founding. In a country that once sent man to the moon, Antifa ‘Red Guards’ and the cultural Marxist BLM patrol the cities as dissent becomes censored and half naked men walk the streets waving pink flags. Indeed, the recent events as the mob attacks Capitol Hill is more of an obituary than an event in a country in which Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian have more followers on twitter than the total votes cast in the 2016 elections!

Eisenhower in his farewell speech in 1961 warned America about the threat of its “military-industrial complex.” Whilst Carter, in reference to China in 2019, told President Trump that the US is “the most warlike nation in the history of the world …” In effect he was saying that while the US had spent three trillion on needless wars in three decades, China had spent zero and that’s why it was racing ahead. Can the ramparts of the Homeland Defense Act keep the barbarian hordes at bay and can the demagogues behind “change you can believe in” or “MAGA” save the empire? The transition from a US Republic to a Roman Empire contains the same updated tribute transfers of wealth from nations in the form of the modern petrodollar and internally, the same political corruption and mob anarchy on its streets.

The ancient gladiator games now involve arming weaker nations, referred to by President Trump as “Sh**hole countries”, as modern day plebs weaned on government provided bread and reality TV show circuses cheer on the blood sports from the comfort of their armchairs. In today’s Roman arena Iraq fought NATO and the US military assisted the Saudi’s bomb Yemen into pieces as the mob roared HOO-RAR. The president gave a thumbs down and American corporations led by Wall Street moved in to deliver the coup de grâce. The modern day act of slavery is still alive and kicking as the Empire’s elite fill their industrial complexes with a slave army of defeated countries low wage foreign workers and their own incarcerated millions.

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“..the equality-above-freedom political structure..”

Democracy in America (Moglia)

There can be political systems that do not allow specific freedoms and yet where citizens can feel free. And the reverse is also true – there are systems apparently quite free, where the individual feels that he is not. Furthermore, the liberty of a citizen in one nation is not the same liberty of a citizen of another nation. And the liberty in one historical time is not the same liberty as perceived 20 or 30 years later. Tocqueville reached the following conclusion. In future there may be republics, monarchies and other mixed forms of government. But in essence only three political systems can exist. One where liberty is the most important feature, irrespective of its consequences. But if this were so, eventually there would be no political form, no state or even politics – for complete freedom is anarchy, which is the antithesis of a political structure.


The second possibility is a system where equality and liberty coexist, with a tendency for equality to be perceived as more important than liberty. But this, says Tocqueville, after anarchy would be also the worst possible political system – from which an exit to freedom would be most difficult. Of this we have recent massive historic evidence in Europe during the XXth century. The third possibility is a system where the political status-quo is daily brought into question and citizens are continuously involved. Regrettably, both in the 19th century (as Tocqueville remarked), but also in our own times it is the equality-above-freedom political structure that the world at large seems to be directed towards. Most people like and want this system because it seems most attractive on the surface – consequently it will be implemented. We could add that the Western-Zionist slogan of the New World Order admirably embodies the concept, “You will own nothing and you will be happy.”

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“..and you will be happy..”

UK Faces Steepest Real Wages Drop In A Century (RT)

Pay rises in Britain could fall behind inflation by almost 8% later this year, which will be the biggest fall in real wages for 100 years, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) said in a reportpublished on Thursday. According to the report, living standards in the country are expected to fall by an unprecedented 7.75%, given the central bank’s prediction that inflation would jump to 13% in the fourth quarter of 2022 while wages were to increase by just 5.25%. The TUC pointed out that workers had not suffered such a severe and prolonged decline in wages relative to inflation since the 1920s. “This isn’t a wage-price spiral, it’s a real pay disaster,”the union congress warned.Pay increases are expected to account for only 20% of inflation after remaining subdued through the autumn and winter at around 5.25%.

The combination of pay raises about one percentage point above the pre-Covid pandemic level of 4% and double-digit inflation amounted to “the largest decline for exactly a century,” the research showed. “Real pay has fallen by more on only one occasion, a decline of 13.3% in the fourth quarter of 1922 – as the post first world war pay and price inflation went sharply into reverse. The only other comparable figure was 7.2% in the first quarter of 1940,” the TUC said. Official figures showed that average total pay growth has fallen for the last two months to 6.2%. The government must get the economy “back in balance again,” according to the TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady. “Too much goes into profits and to those who are already wealthy, and too little goes into wages and to working families,” she stressed.

 

 

Hunger stones
https://twitter.com/Citizen09372364/status/1557665431888056320

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Google translate,

“..It contains a plan to reduce the amount of nitrogen, without the livestock having to shrink.”

But that won’t do; they want the land.

No Hard Actions Yet By Dutch ‘Farmers Defense Force’ (AD)

Farmers Defense Force suspends hard actions for the time being ‘out of goodwill’ to the cabinet. Foreman Mark van den Oever says the group is doing this as a first step in the hope that the government will opt for other plans to reduce nitrogen emissions. The immediate reason is a report by Professor Han Lindeboom of the Nitrogen Focus Group that was presented on Texel yesterday. It contains a plan to reduce the amount of nitrogen, without the livestock having to shrink. According to Lindeboom, the solution lies in, among other things, using different feed, different grass and limiting the use of fertilizer. Lindeboom is an emeritus professor of marine ecology who lives on Texel. He studied the nitrogen problem intensively and argues that the problems are a lot smaller than RIVM and the cabinet would have you believe.


Lindeboom’s views are mainly heard in the farmer’s corner. Other scientists doubt his ideas. At the beginning of July, farmers and fishermen on Texel proclaimed independence: the Free Republic of Tessel. Han Lindeboom was proclaimed Prime Minister on that occasion. Farmers Defense Force sees merit in Lindeboom’s story, and would like the cabinet to take a serious look at it. “I therefore call on Mark Rutte: repent and get to work with this report,” says Van den Oever in a video to members. “As a sign of goodwill, the FDF will take the first step and we will suspend all hard actions until further notice.” The group continues to hang inverted flags on its own farms. According to Van den Oever, public-friendly actions will also continue, such as the announced protests at the Vuelta a España cycling race, which starts next week in the Netherlands.

Read more …

“Farmers in the Netherlands reduced nitrogen pollution by nearly 70%. But the government says that is not enough..”

Green Elitism Behind Farmer Crackdowns (Shellenberger)

Farmers in the Netherlands reduced nitrogen pollution by nearly 70%. But the government says that is not enough and is demanding that they cut pollution by another 50% by 2030. By the Dutch government’s own estimates, 11,200 farms out of the roughly 35,000 dedicated to dairy and livestock would have to close under its policies; 17,600 farmers would have to reduce livestock; and total livestock would need to be reduced by one-half to one-third. The Dutch government has demanded that animal farming stop entirely in many places. Of the over $25.7 billion the government has set aside to reduce pollution, just $1 billion is for technological innovation, with most of the rest for buying out farmers. This effort has sparked a fierce backlash among Dutch farmers, who argue that the government seems more interested in reducing animal agriculture than in finding solutions that protect the food supply and their livelihoods.

“Why would you buy out farmers or reduce livestock when you have the possibility to invest in innovation?” asked Caroline van der Plas, the founder and sole Member of Parliament for the Farmer-Citizen Movement party, or BBB in Dutch. “The car industry innovated for the past 40 years. There aren’t fewer cars and the cars we have are cleaner. We even have electrical cars. That’s what I think is so crazy. Why don’t we treat the farmers just like the car industry? Give them time to develop solutions or innovate? We can produce food in a much more efficient and cleaner way if we do that. And it’s much cheaper also then by buying out farmers.” Farmer protests in the Netherlands come at a time of heightened global food insecurity created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a major wheat exporter.

The Netherlands is the largest exporter of meat in Europe and the second largest exporter of agricultural products overall by economic value in the world, after the United States, a remarkable feat for a nation half the size of Indiana. Farm exports generate nearly $100 billion a year in revenue. Experts attribute the nation’s success to its farmers’ embrace of technological innovation. The Netherlands is just one of the countries where governments are pushing for sharp limits on farming. Canada, for example, is seeking a 30% reduction in nitrogen pollution by 2030. While the Canadian government says it is not mandating fertilizer use reductions, only pollution reductions, experts agree that such a radical pollution decline in such a short period will only be possible through reducing fertilizer use, and thus food production. The cost to farmers would be between $10 billion and $48 billion. “If you push farmers against the wall with no wiggle room, I don’t know where this will end up,” said Gunter Jochum, president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association. “Just look at what’s happening in Europe, in the Netherlands. They’ve had enough of it.”

Read more …

Where the world is getting stronger.

Samarkand At The Crossroads (Escobar)

The SCO shows how China’s approach to Central Asia is defined by two central vectors: security and the development of Xinjiang. Stronger regional states such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan deal with Beijing, as with Moscow, via their carefully calibrated multi-vector foreign policy. Beijing’s merit has been to expertly position itself as a provider of public goods, with the SCO functioning as a top lab in terms of multilateral cooperation. This will be bolstered even more at the Samarkand summit next month. The destiny of what is in effect Inner Eurasia – the heartland of the Heartland – is inescapable from a subtle, very complex, multilevel competition between Russia and China.

It’s crucial to remember that in his landmark 2013 speech in Nur-Sultan, then Astana, when the New Silk Roads were formally launched, Xi Jinping stressed that China stands “ready to enhance communication and coordination with Russia and all Central Asian countries to strive to build a region of harmony.” These were not idle words. The process involves a conjunction of BRI and the SCO – which has progressively evolved into a mechanism of economic cooperation as much as security. In the 2012 SCO summit, then Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Cheng Gouping had already been adamant: China would absolutely not allow the unrest that happened in West Asia and North Africa to happen in Central Asia.

Moscow could have said the exact same thing. The recent (failed) coup in Kazakhstan was swiftly dealt with by the six-member, Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). China is increasingly invested in using the SCO to turbo-charge a geoeconomic overdrive – even as some of its proposals, such as establishing a free trade zone and a joint SCO fund and development bank still have not materialized. That may eventually happen, as in the wake of western Russophobic sanctions hysteria the SCO – and BRI – progressively converge with the EAEU. At every SCO summit, Beijing’s loans are gleefully accepted by Central Asian actors. Samarkand next month may herald a qualitative convergence leap: Russia and China even more involved in bringing back Inner Asia to the geoeconomic limelight.

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Elon better hurry.

Twitter Rolls Out Plans ‘To Protect’ US Midterm Elections (PM)

Twitter has rolled out some new terms and policies ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, during which the Republican Party is expected to overtake the Democrats to earn a majority in the US House. The election is seen as a barometer of how the Biden administration and their leadership has performed since taking office, and so far, the pressure is definitely on. These changes are in addition to those made in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, in which Twitter’s suppression and censorship of information played a key role in misinforming the public. Twitter is stepping up to bolster their terms and prevent “misinformation,” that catch-all concept for anything that goes against the Democrat-driven narrative.

As such, they’ve announced “steps we’re taking ahead of the US midterms to protect civic conversation on Twitter.” As they’ve done in international elections, Twitter is now “activating enforcement” of their “Civic Integrity Policy for the 2022 US midterms.” Twitter states that their Civic Integrity Policy “covers the most common types of harmful misleading information about elections and civic events,” which include: false claims about how and where to vote, voter intimidation, and “misleading claims intended to undermine public confidence in an election,” which includes “false information about the outcome of the election.” When Twitter mods encounter information they believe comes under the “harmful misleading information” category, they will “not recommend or amplify this content,” and will provide a “prompt prior to liking or sharing labeled tweets, and in cases where there is potential for harm associated with the false or misleading claim, the Tweet may not be liked or shared to precent the spread of the misleading information.”

In the lead up to the presidential election in 2020, Twitter suppressed and censored reporting by the New York Post that tied then candidate Joe Biden to his son Hunter’s overseas business dealings, with insinuations and allegations of influence peddling. Twitter believed reports coming out of the Biden campaign, and other sources, that claimed the information had been obtained through hacking, a disallowable practice, or was “Russian disinformation.” This suppression had an impact on the US presidential election, potentially skewing results in Biden’s favor, as polls later indicated.

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“He filed a multimillion-dollar defamation suit in May against Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and a string of media outlets, including CNN, the Daily Beast and Politico..”

Hunter Biden Laptop Repairman Says FBI Agent Threatened Him To Hush Up (NYP)

The computer repair shop owner who blew the whistle on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop claims in a new book that an FBI agent threatened him to stay silent. John Paul Mac Isaac said two federal agents came to his Mac Shop in Wilmington, Del. in December 2019 to recoup the laptop following a subpoena, he details in his new book “American Injustice: My Battle to Expose the Truth.” The repairman, who had volunteered to hand the laptop over to the feds two months earlier, said the alleged threat came after he made a joke, telling them: “Hey, lads, I’ll remember to change your names when I write the book.” “Agent Wilson kept walking but Agent DeMeo paused and turned to face me,” Paul Mac writes of the encounter.

Isaac said the agent then told him: “It is our experience that nothing ever happens to people that don’t talk about these things.” The owner said he locked the door after the agents walked out, leaving him to “digest the encounter.” “Was I being paranoid, or had what the agent just told me been a direct threat, or at best a thinly veiled one?” he writes. Issac was left with the “laptop from hell” after President Biden’s son abandoned it at his shop in April 2019. Reportedly, the investigation has reached a “critical stage.” Eight months after giving the laptop’s hard drive to the FBI, the shop owner alerted then-President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani who, in turn, provided a copy to The Post.

The Post’s reporting on the trove of emails discovered on the device has raised serious questions about what President Biden knew of his son’s overseas business deals. Issac said he was eventually forced to shut down his business after being harassed when his private information was leaked. He filed a multimillion-dollar defamation suit in May against Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and a string of media outlets, including CNN, the Daily Beast and Politico, saying they falsely accused him of peddling Russian disinformation.

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“If he is extradited, and placed in the type of isolation that the US government says it reserves the right to place him in, then he will commit suicide.”

Legal Options Running Out For WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange (DW)

Julian Assange has been detained at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison, one of the UK’s toughest detention centers, since 2019. The WikiLeaks founder has long since completed his original 50-week sentence for skipping bail in 2012. But he has remained in custody ever since, in extremely harsh conditions, in what is essentially detention pending deportation. British Home Secretary Priti Patel signed the judicial extradition order in June. Assange has one last chance to be allowed to appeal the judicial order, to the High Court in London. A ruling is expected next month. If his request is rejected Assange will be extradited to the United States within four weeks. If the judges deny her husband the chance to launch another round of appeals, Assange’s wife and lawyer, Stella, fears the worst.

“Julian’s life depends on him winning this,” she said, in an interview with DW. “Julian is clinically depressed. If he is extradited, and placed in the type of isolation that the US government says it reserves the right to place him in, then he will commit suicide.” Assange’s Australian family are also very worried. Speaking to Sky Australia last week, his father, John Shipton, described Assange’s health as “very worrying and becoming dire now.” “His health is in decline,” Assange’s brother Gabriel confirmed in the same interview. “He’s in a very, very precarious situation… It really is heartbreaking to see Julian, this gentle genius, in a maximum-security prison alongside the most violent criminals in the United Kingdom.”

The family has appealed to the new Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, asking him to intercede on behalf of his compatriot. During his election campaign, Albanese had declared, “Enough is enough,” indicating that the persecution of the WikiLeaks founder must come to an end. However, Assange’s father and brother have said no progress has been made since the new prime minister took office, and that so far they have been unable to make an appointment with the prime minister to discuss the issue. In a recent public statement, Albanese pointed out that negotiations like these must be conducted quietly and diplomatically, behind the scenes. For example: the question of whether Assange’s right to freedom of expression and the protection of journalistic work ought not, in fact, to prevent extradition.

Or whether the US made the request for political reasons. “Ultimately, once the domestic remedies have been exhausted, he can then appeal to the European Court of Human Rights,” said Stella Assange. However, it remains unclear whether the British judges would be prepared to wait for an ECHR ruling. That’s because the British government is set on a collision course with the European Convention on Human Rights. A draft bill submitted to the British Parliament at the end of June proposes to reduce protection for refugees. Instead of going through the asylum process in Britain, migrants would be sent to Rwanda to apply for asylum there. If the Tory hard-liner Liz Truss moves into Downing Street in September, Assange has little hope of a successful political intervention.

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WEF vs Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1557553142899908608

 

 


Abandoned restaurant in Victorville, California

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Jul 282022
 


Pablo Picasso Houses 1937

 

Kiev Threatens To Attack Russian Territory (RT)
Former Russian President Presents Future Map Of Ukraine (RT)
Flaws in EU Gas Rationing Plan Revealed (RT)
German Mayors Want Nord Stream 2 Opened (RT)
The National Tragedy of Hunter Biden’s Laptop (Lee Smith)
New Dutch Minister No Longer Rules Out Compulsory Buy-out Of Farmers (AD)
A Recession by Any Other Name (Magness)
No, The Economy Will NOT Be OK (Denninger)
The Small Print That Destroyed America (Tucker)
Inventing Diagnoses to Cover Up Vaccine Injury (CHD)
How the CDC Coordinated With Big Tech To Censor Americans (WFB)

 

 

 

 

Stephen F. Cohen and John Mearsheimer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1552256839043219459

 

 

 

 

Neom is being built in Saudi Arabia.

 

 

 

 

“..Moscow might respond with a “massive strike” targeting the Ukrainian leadership if that happened..”

Kiev Threatens To Attack Russian Territory (RT)

Kiev will not hesitate to strike Russian territories if it deems it necessary, Aleksey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said during a live broadcast on Wednesday. The security council closely follows all the missile and air strikes Russia launches against Ukraine, Danilov said, adding that Ukrainian authorities are well aware of all the locations in Russia from which the attacks have been carried out. Kiev possesses “enough political will” to order a strike against these targets if such a need arises, he added. “If needed … anyone [in the government] will act without hesitation and sign anything that needs to be signed to destroy these objects,”Danilov said.

The security council head also stated that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s words about Ukraine retaliating against the locations from which the strikes are launched serves as “proof” of Kiev’s determination. Earlier, some Ukrainian officials said that Kiev forces may hit targets on the Crimean Peninsula or the Crimean Bridge, which they consider to be a key supply route for Russian forces. Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesman, Vadim Skibitskiy, claimed that Crimea could be targeted by US-supplied M142 HIMARS and M270 MLRS multiple launch rocket systems. Moscow responded by saying that Ukraine would pay a heavy price if it decided to strike Crimea. Russia’s former president, Dmitry Medvedev, said in mid-July that Moscow might respond with a “massive strike” targeting the Ukrainian leadership if that happened.

The US and its allies previously appeared to be reluctant to supply Ukraine with longer-range weapons capable of striking targets deep inside Russia as they were concerned about a potential escalation of the conflict. Washington has not yet agreed to send tactical ballistic missiles with a distance of up to 300 kilometers to Ukraine. Such missiles can be used by the US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launchers the US handed over to Kiev. However, according to the spokesman for the army of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Eduard Basurin, Ukrainian forces may have already received 300km-range HIMARS missiles. DPR troops have found pieces of munitions with a range of 110 kilometers to 120 kilometers, which meant that Kiev could have the 300km-missiles as well, Basurin told the Russian media last week.

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“Seven regions in the West have been annexed by Poland, and three in the southwest by Hungary and Romania, respectively. Everything else is marked “Russia.”

Former Russian President Presents Future Map Of Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine is more likely to be reduced to Kiev and its surroundings than to ever encompass Crimea and the Donbass republics, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday on his Telegram channel. The one-time president and long-time prime minister who now heads the national security council also posted two maps helpfully illustrating his argument. The first map showed Ukraine in borders prior to the US-backed coup in 2014, including Crimea and the two eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk. A month after the militants backed by Washington seized power in Kiev, Crimea voted to rejoin Russia, while the two Donbass regions declared independence. “In the mind of the president of Ukraine, damaged by psychotropic substances, this is what the map of his country’s bright future will look like,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram.

“Western analysts believe it will look like this, actually,” he said, posting a second map. On it, “Ukraine” is reduced to Kiev and its surroundings. Seven regions in the West have been annexed by Poland, and three in the southwest by Hungary and Romania, respectively. Everything else is marked “Russia.” He did not specify which Western experts may have envisioned such a partition.

The Ukrainian government has repeatedly rejected any possibility of territorial concessions, insisting that Kiev’s objectives were a “capitulation” of Russia and “reintegration” of Donbass and Crimea. Medvedev served as president of Russia between 2008 and 2012, and then as prime minister until 2020, when he was put in charge of the national security council. Over the course of the conflict in Ukraine, he has made a name for himself with colorful Telegram posts. Just this month, he warned Kiev of “Judgment Day”if they attacked Crimea and offered a list of “Russian sins,” followed up by those of the West.

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Lip service solidarity.

Flaws in EU Gas Rationing Plan Revealed (RT)

The EU’s gas rationing plan approved on Tuesday may not stand the test of a cold winter, The Economist wrote on Wednesday. A “meagre” cut to gas consumption will not solve the continent’s problems, the publication wrote, referring to the plan that will see most EU nations voluntarily reduce their use of natural gas by 15% between August 1 and March 31 next year. The deal was struck as fears grow over a possible halt of Russian gas supplies. At the moment the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, a key artery that carries natural gas from Russia to Germany, is operating at 20% capacity. Russian energy giant Gazprom cites technical issues with turbines as the reason for the reduced flow. However, the EU believes that Moscow is using gas to exert political pressure on the bloc. An alternative route via Ukraine has been restricted by Kiev.

The main reason for the rationing is to “ensure that a shortfall of Russian gas does not leave homes unheated or factories shuttered”, The Economist writes, but according to the publication, its success largely depends on the weather. “If the coming winter is mild, the EU may scrape by. But if it is cold the bloc will have to prove that it can hold together when times are hard. Germany in particular will need to show solidarity with other member countries. It sits at the center of Europe’s network of gas pipelines. Will it, for instance, allow gas to flow to the Czech Republic to keep people from freezing there if that means its factories have to go on furlough?” the publication writes, adding that at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 some European countries, including Germany, imposed bans on exports of protective gear to avoid shortages at home.

The plan has several other weaknesses, The Economist notes, such as different levels of exposure to Russian gas among the nations. Before its approval, a number of countries including Italy, Hungary, Poland, Portugal and Spain voiced their concerns, saying that they had already cut consumption, citing a lack of connection to Europe’s gas pipeline network and the fact that decisions on energy are usually a national issue, Bloomberg wrote earlier. The approved plan came with some exemptions, with Spain and Portugal reportedly allowed to use just 7% less gas. Other concessions were made too but proved not enough to get the plan unanimous approval, with Hungary voting against it.

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“NS2 does not use Siemens turbines, and can be maintained regardless of the sanctions.”

German Mayors Want Nord Stream 2 Opened (RT)

Berlin’s policy of trying to give up imports of Russian natural gas is likely to create hardship and spark unrest, seven mayors from the German island of Ruegen wrote in a letter sent to the regional and federal governments on Wednesday. They also urged the federal government to allow gas imports via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, given the current technical difficulties with Nord Stream 1 – something Berlin has steadfastly rejected. In the letter addressed to federal economy minister Robert Habeck and Manuela Schwesig, prime minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the mayors “strongly condemn” the current conflict in Ukraine but urge the government to consider the damage its policy could do to the German population and the economy, according to the news agency DPA.

“We are of the opinion that the path taken by the federal government to disconnect from Russian energy sources is not the right one,” the seven mayors wrote. Initially drafted by the leaders of Bergen, Binz and Sassnitz, the letter was later signed by four more jurisdictions on Ruegen, Germany’s largest island and a popular tourist destination. Giving up gas imports from Russia would mean an explosion in the cost of living, which would lead to social instability and unrest that could get out of control, the mayors wrote, according to German media. Calls from the federal government to save energy – such as showering less and foregoing hot water – “defy understanding,” they added.

“As the mayors of this island, we don’t want to have to accept any further restrictions,” Sassnitz city manager Frank Kracht told the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern affiliate of the TV station NDR. Rejecting the proposals to expand the number of wind turbines near residential areas, calling them a health hazard, the mayors advocated “a general rethinking of the solution to the current problems in relations with Russia.” Among their suggestions was to get additional natural gas via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Finished in late 2021, the pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea was just waiting for the operating permit from Berlin – which was suspended indefinitely on February 22, two days before Russia sent troops into Ukraine.

NS2 was supposed to double the volume of Russian gas exports, but was delayed by US sanctions seeking to protect Ukraine’s gas transit earnings. Nord Stream 1, which continues to supply Germany with gas, is currently operating at only 20% capacity, due to maintenance requirements. Its operator, Gazprom, says several turbines at the Portovaya compressor station need servicing to maintain certification. The first one was held up by Canada, citing anti-Russian sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, until Berlin intervened seeking an exemption. NS2 does not use Siemens turbines, and can be maintained regardless of the sanctions.

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Deep dive.

The National Tragedy of Hunter Biden’s Laptop (Lee Smith)

In September 2020, the repairman gave a copy of the hard drive to Rudolph Giuliani’s lawyer. The former New York City mayor had been investigating the Bidens’ work in Ukraine for nearly two years at that point after receiving a tip from a former federal prosecutor. Giuliani helped disseminate copies of the hard drive, one of which Maxey took to The Washington Post. Nine months after Maxey sat with Post reporters to explain the contents of the hard drive, the paper reported its own independent authentication of 22,000 emails in March of 2022. These included communications regarding a deal with a Chinese energy company that earned Hunter $5 million, and his work with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm that paid him $83,333 per month to sit on its board.

His father later boasted in public that he’d threatened to withhold a $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine unless the central government in Kyiv fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma. At roughly the same time The Washington Post authenticated these emails, The New York Times also verified communications found on Hunter Biden’s computer. So, have America’s two most prestigious newsprint organizations at last acknowledged that they were wrong to believe former intelligence officials who claimed the New York Post’s October 2020 reporting on the Biden laptop was Russian disinformation? Of course not. They were and remain proud of their role in helping push Trump out of Washington. According to one survey, one out of six Biden voters said that had they known about Hunter’s laptop in time, they wouldn’t have voted for his father.

What concerned the prestige press wasn’t that they’d missed a big story—or that they’d participated in a campaign run by U.S. intelligence services to prevent American voters from learning about the extent of the Bidens’ political and moral corruption. Rather, they were worried that an even bigger story about the Bidens might be coming down the road. Maxey says he called the Post in March to say he was taking the hard drive to Switzerland to meet with a cyber expert named Vincent Kaufmann who told him he thought he could retrieve material deleted from the laptop. The Times published its story two days after Maxey landed in Zurich, and the Post published its own “investigation” two weeks later, pronouncing some of the emails genuine while claiming it was hard to tell with others. As a longtime platform for U.S. intelligence operations—and owned by the same man, Jeff Bezos, who owns the cloud computing technology that Amazon Web Services uses to store the CIA’s information—the Post wanted to help the White House get ahead of potential problems.

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Google translate. Rutte is blowing up his own country.

New Dutch Minister No Longer Rules Out Compulsory Buy-out Of Farmers (AD)

Where the cabinet previously spoke of ‘starting a conversation on the farm about new possibilities’, there is now a completely different tone. The new minister Christianne van der Wal no longer excludes compulsory buy-out of farmers. It still sounded friendly in the coalition agreement. “We will start a conversation on the farm to look for the possibilities together,” the cabinet said in a sweet note in mid-December. When Van der Wal is asked in a debate with the House of Representatives on Thursday what she actually means by that sentence, she says that it will certainly be difficult for farmers who run a business from generation to generation, who just want to continue with their business. . But she also emphasizes: ,,I want to tell the honest story. And that is that this is not feasible in every area.”

The government wants to encourage as many farmers as possible to participate voluntarily in reducing nitrogen emissions. But meanwhile, heavier terms are also sounding, such as ‘expropriation’ and ‘not escaping’ from forced sale. The new VVD minister takes a harder tone. The Minister for Nature and Nitrogen expects that compulsory buy-out of farmers cannot be avoided in several cases. “It’s a last resort, but at the same time it’s a realism that we can’t always avoid it. I really can’t rule it out,” she admits. The liberal politician wants to work with a reward system in 2022 and 2023. The sooner you decide to stop, the higher the compensation. After that period it becomes less friendly. “The honest story is that you cannot escape expropriation, if the voluntariness is not there.”

Within a few weeks she will send a plan to the House, stating how she wants to tackle the nitrogen problem. Maybe she will peek at the neighbors for that. Two weeks ago, the Flemish government declared that the most polluting livestock farms must close by 2025. That is about sixty companies. More than a hundred other livestock farms have to significantly reduce their nitrogen emissions. Nitrogen is a major problem in both the Netherlands and Flanders, following a court ruling. Only in the Netherlands this is a multiple of the number of farmers in Flanders.

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All they have is wordgames. AKA You’re on your own.

A Recession by Any Other Name (Magness)

The Biden administration appears to be preparing for a recession—or rather, for news of one. Rather than tackling the underlying economic problems, the White House is playing word games. Economists have long defined a recession as “a period in which real GDP declines for at least two consecutive quarters,” to quote the popular economics textbook by Nobel laureates Paul Samuelson and William Nordhaus. This definition isn’t perfect, but it describes almost every downturn since World War II. With expectations of low or even negative growth for the first two quarters of 2022, President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers has been trying to blunt the news by disavowing this textbook definition. It is “neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle,” reads a post on the White House website.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen endorsed the claim on NBC over the weekend. In place of the standard economic definition of a recession, administration officials point to the business-cycle dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research as the “official recession scorekeeper.” It’s a highly convenient move for them. While the nonpartisan NBER employs a robust set of indicators to pinpoint recessions, it does so retrospectively. The great recession of 2007-09, for example, had already been under way for a year before the NBER released its determination. Sometimes recessions end by the time NBER classifies them, and this built-in delay limits the utility of NBER scorekeeping for real-time policy decisions.

The White House’s attempt to wordsmith its way around a recession shows the dangers of politicizing economic terms. Mr. Biden’s economic advisers are trying to buy time by exploiting NBER’s otherwise defensible methodology. They hope doing so will insulate the administration from the electoral backlash in the event of a downturn. There is no federal statute that appoints the NBER as the official arbiter of recessions. Quite the contrary, the federal government has historically followed the conventional textbook definition. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985, which attempted to rein in the deficit by triggering mandatory sequestrations in federal agencies, introduced a recessionary escape clause for tough economic times. If the Congressional Budget Office projected a recession, Congress could fast-track a vote to suspend the sequestrations. The law defined a recession as a period when “real economic growth is projected or estimated to be less than zero with respect to each of any two consecutive quarters.”

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“Since nobody can ever consume more than 100% of anything this means that all such attempts, unless abandoned and reversed lead to economic disaster.”

No, The Economy Will NOT Be OK (Denninger)

No, this is not transitory. And since we’re headed for political season let me remind you of the sordid tale that led us here. We elected Donald Trump as President. Donald Trump deliberately, from his first day, pushed “easy money” policies that were in fact how he levered his real estate empire to “success.” Easy money policies are a scam, but a very easy to run scam that appears to be “great” for a while. The reason is simple. Take a “model economy” with, for example, GDP of $100,000. Presume 10% of the GDP is out in debt ($10,000) and further presume that the rate of interest, on average, is 2%. At the same time presume the nominal (that is, “in dollars”) growth rate of GDP is 3%. This looks “safe”, right? Well, it is if the amount of debt remains the same.

But it won’t because the rate of interest is less than the growth rate, that is, you’re paying people to borrow into existence credit that has nothing behind it “on the come” that the economy will expand, and they will do exactly that. sIf the amount of debt expands at 4% while the economy expands at 3% no matter the rate of interest above zero interest expense will eventually consume all economic output. Since nobody can ever consume more than 100% of anything this means that all such attempts, unless abandoned and reversed lead to economic disaster. This is not a matter of policy or debate it is mathematical fact and cannot be changed any more than 2 + 2 can made equal to anything other than 4. Now there is an argument for this sort of policy during recessions; in fact this was Keynes’ argument for attempting to level economic conditions: You spend in excess (that is, in deficit) during recessions, and you tax in excess during good times. This retards the economy during good times and boosts it during bad.

The problem: During good times nobody will do the necessary thing to balance the system; Keynes was a fool in that he believed in that which was impossible, which is to expect politicians to voluntarily screw themselves out of a job. Trump knew all of this and that borrowing at below the rate of economic expansion, whatever it is, screws someone. He knew it because he nearly blew his nascent empire up early in his career getting levered up into the maw of a recession, which came within an inch of destroying him economically. He was bailed out, which informed his future actions decades later when he had the power to bail himself and his political friends out as President. It is a fact that Trump ran record deficits during an economic expansion and he did it on purpose with the full consent and in fact authorship of Congress. That’s because under our Constitution Congress must do that in that all spending bills must originate in the US House.

That is, it’s not Bidenflation to start — it was Trumpflation. Biden and the Democrats, emboldened with what Trump got away with and the public clamor for more, piled it on even deeper once he got into office. But this time, as with all other times, it takes time for that to filter through to prices. Nixon created the conditions under which Ford and then Carter (and all of us) suffered; it was Nixon’s wage and price controls, along with his (according to historians) literal assault on Burns, the chair of The Fed at the time, that led to ruinous stagflation under Ford and Carter’s Presidency.

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” It’s not entirely clear, to me in any case, that Trump knew what was happening even then. He had a sense that he was doing something to stop the spread but he didn’t know entirely what.”

The Small Print That Destroyed America (Tucker)

In a maddening interview yesterday, Anthony Fauci performed his usual song and dance when faced with even the most mild questioning. He stonewalled in his trademarked way. He spoke in long, drawn-out sentences, emphasizing the word consonants, punctuated by pauses and silences that convey the sense of precision without the reality. He strung together terms that seem vaguely scientific which intimidated his interviewers into an overly cautious pose. “Oh wow, I’m interviewing a very powerful person,” the interviewer thinks, “so I had better not say anything wrong!” He’s been pulling this trick for 40 years. He is very good at it.

In this interview, several messages stands out: 1) in retrospect, we should have locked down even more, 2) he never pushed lockdowns; he was only passing on CDC guidance, and 3) he is utterly and completely blameless for all things, particularly in funding gain-of-function research which, in any case, is not responsible for the creation of the virus in Wuhan. The first part is startling because many of us have had the sense that lockdowns are in disrepute. Far from it: Fauci’s message is that next time, the lockdowns will be harder and longer. And there certainly will be more. The third part I feel sure will be revealed in time. The fear that the virus escaped from the lab is likely what drove the lockdowns agenda. What intrigues me the most is the second part, the claim that he never ordered lockdowns. This was the CDC and he only served as messenger. Everyone else is to blame for anything that went wrong.

In a second interview the same day, Fauci says this explicitly: “All I have ever done, if you go back and look at everything I’ve ever done, was to recommend common-sense, good CDC-recommended public health policies that have saved millions of lives. If you want to investigate me for that, go ahead.” I’m going back to the March 16, 2020, press conference at which Fauci, Deborah Birx, and Donald Trump are announcing a fundamental change of life in the United States, one that would disregard all normal rights and liberties. It’s not entirely clear, to me in any case, that Trump knew what was happening even then. He had a sense that he was doing something to stop the spread but he didn’t know entirely what.

This has always puzzled me. It’s one thing for him to be hornswoggled into greenlighting the destruction of the economy that was booming and roaring under his administration. That’s bad enough. But to be confused even about the details of what he was ordering that day is next-level stuff. The following exchange occurred that day. Trump is asked whether restaurants and other venues should close. Trump responds: “Right now we don’t have an order one way or the other. We don’t have an order, but I think it’s probably better that you don’t [go to restaurants].” From that, I gather that Trump believed that he was not forcing anything on anyone. A reporter asks for a clarification: “Telling people to avoid restaurants and bars is a different thing than saying that bars and restaurants should shut down over the next 15 days.

So why was it seen as being imprudent or not necessarily to take that additional step offered at additional guidance?” At this point, Trump demurs and turns over the microphone to Deborah Birx, who must not have been paying attention and says something vague about the virus living on hard surfaces. At this point, Fauci interrupts and says: “I just want, there’s an answer to this.” Fauci says the following: “The small print here. It’s really small print. ‘In states with evidence of community transmission, bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate should be closed.’”

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1899-2022.

Inventing Diagnoses to Cover Up Vaccine Injury (CHD)

So-called “fact-checkers” are having to work double-time to come up with ways to deny the undeniable fact that COVID-19 vaccines are causing injuries and deaths on a massive scale. The shot pushers and their media enablers have taken cover-up tactics to absurd new heights by, for example, chalking up the rash of fatal heart attacks and overnight deaths in athletes and young adults to a fluky condition referred to variously as “sudden adult death syndrome” or “sudden arrhythmic death syndrome” (SADS). What the COVID-19 vaccine-injured do not necessarily recognize, however, is the pretense that post-vaccination injuries and deaths are just “sad coincidences” — far from being unique to the pandemic jabs — is a trick as old as vaccination itself.

Facilitated by well-honed semantic and statistical flimflam, public health officials’ core strategy for perpetuating their fiction is to profess innocence — making unabashedly unsubstantiated pronouncements about vaccine safety, on the one hand, while on the other hand, declaring themselves “baffled” by ailments that emerge in the aftermath of a given vaccine’s rollout. In an astonishingly frank and prescient book, “The Fallacy of Vaccination,” published in 1899, Dr. Alexander Wilder called attention to the “growing conviction” among “profounder thinkers and observers” that vaccination was not only “utterly useless as a preventive” but “actually the means of disseminating disease afresh where it is performed.” Wilder noted, “whenever a vaccinator or corps of vaccinators set out upon a vaccinating crusade, there follows very generally a number of deaths from … maladies which have been induced by the operation. …”

Wilder also blew the whistle on the suppression and concealment of vaccine adverse events and deaths, describing a fellow physician’s urging of his “professional brethren to be slow to publish fatal cases of smallpox after vaccination” and outlining other shenanigans that sound all too familiar today: “Occasionally … a death by vaccination is published, and immediately the effort is put forth assiduously to make it to be believed that it was from some other cause. The statistics of smallpox, purporting to distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated persons, are too often not quite trustworthy. Many persons who have been vaccinated are falsely reported as unvaccinated. “Even when death occurs as the result of vaccination, the truth is concealed and the case represented as scarlet fever, measles, erysipelas [bacterial skin infection], or some ‘masked’ disease, in order to prevent too close questioning.”

Read more …

It’s all for your own good.

How the CDC Coordinated With Big Tech To Censor Americans (WFB)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention coordinated with social media companies and Google to censor users who expressed skepticism or criticism of COVID-19 vaccines, according to a trove of internal communications obtained by America First Legal and shared exclusively with the Washington Free Beacon. Over the course of at least six months, starting in December 2020, CDC officials regularly communicated with personnel at Twitter, Facebook, and Google over “vaccine misinformation.” At various times, CDC officials would flag specific posts by users on social media platforms such as Twitter as “example posts.” In one email to a CDC staffer, a Twitter employee said he is “looking forward to setting up regular chats” with the agency.

Other emails show the scheduling of meetings with the CDC over how to best police alleged misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. Although many of the posts flagged by the CDC contained false information about the COVID-19 vaccines, the efforts to police misinformation also resulted in mistaken acts of censorship. An April 2021 email from a CDC staffer to Facebook states that the “algorithms that Facebook and other social media networks are apparently using to screen out posting by sources of vaccine misinformation are also apparently screening out valid public health messaging, including [Wyoming] Health communications.” The communications reveal a high level of coordination between the government and tech industry during the pandemic and raise questions about the extent to which other private companies are working with the federal government to censor the public.

The Biden administration has faced criticism for engaging in what some have called “Orwellian” practices, such as the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security Disinformation Governance Board. The Free Beacon reported that the now-shuttered disinformation board arranged a meeting with a Twitter executive who blocked users from sharing stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop. The CDC’s effort to police alleged disinformation expanded to other federal agencies as well. An internal March 2021 email from a senior CDC staffer states “we are working on [sic] project with Census to leverage their infrastructure to identify and monitor social media for vaccine misinformation.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Gonzalo : The Persecution of Alina Lipp and Graham Phillips

 

 

 

 

Wonderful dog life
https://twitter.com/i/status/1552051138530349062

 

 

Old dogs

 

 

Sculpt
https://twitter.com/i/status/1552260484681928704

 

 

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

 

 

 

Jul 222022
 


Pablo Picasso Dora Maar with green nails 1936

 

EU To Face ‘Infinitely’ Higher Energy Prices Because Of Sanctions – Banker (RT)
EU Proposes Voluntary Goal For Countries To Cut Gas Use By 15% (R.)
Sinking Germany (D’Eramo)
Why Nord Stream II Must Be Opened Immediately (MoA)
Russia Will Expand Goals in Ukraine Over Weapon Transfers: Lavrov (Celente)
Corruption Concerns Involving Ukraine Revived As War With Russia Drags On (AP)
Ukraine Uses Russian Invasion to Wreck Workers’ Rights (CN)
Ukrainian Official Continues Offending Germans After Losing His Post In Berlin (RT)
Ukraine War Must End To Prevent Nuclear ‘Abyss’ – Lukashenko (AFP)
South American Trade Bloc Snubs Zelensky (RT)
The Brutal Reality Of The US-UK ‘Special Relationship’ (Chomsky)
‘Emotion And Pain’ As Dutch Farmers Fight Against Huge Cuts To Livestock (G.)
The Media Starts the Spin on Possible Hunter Biden Charges (Turley)
Fauci, Biden Officials Subpoenaed Over Collusion To Suppress Free Speech (JTN)
1 in 5,000 COVID Shots Caused ‘Serious Side Effects’ (CHD)

 

 

 

 

Joe Trumpo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1550144764523077633

 

 

 

 

Weather channel classic
https://twitter.com/i/status/1549922559658848258

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The IMF warned on Tuesday that Germany, the EU’s chief economic powerhouse, risks losing almost 5% of its GDP if Russia completely shuts off its gas supply.”

EU To Face ‘Infinitely’ Higher Energy Prices Because Of Sanctions – Banker (RT)

The EU rushed to back Ukraine without asking its businesses or citizens for permission and now the European economy is suffering the most from the anti-Russia sanctions, French investment banker Philippe Villin has said. European politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels threw their support behind Ukraine “without a democratic debate,” Villin wrote in an op-ed published by Le Figaro on Monday. “What is worse, they did not even consider it useful to consult with us about the military escalation, or the terrible consequences of the sanctions for our economies,” he said. Villin stressed that the world economy had already been crippled by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as tension between China and Taiwan, who are both vital to the global supply chain. The current crisis also spurred inflation, including energy price hikes and the risk of shortages.

“And the worst thing is that Europe is suffering from the increase of the prices of energy and raw materials far more than the United States or China,” Villin wrote. The fact is that, as a consequence of the sanctions, energy prices will be infinitely higher in Europe than anywhere else. The banker added that businesses would “lose huge shares of the market” and be forced to cut jobs if the crisis escalated. “I hope that, before our people eventually revolt, a quick electric shock will open up a political debate, in which we, citizens and business leaders, could challenge our blind politicians and Eurocrats, who are leading us to ruin by lying to us.” Many countries, including EU members, imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia after Moscow launched a military campaign against Ukraine in late February.

On Thursday, Russian gas giant Gazprom resumed the flow of gas to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline following a 10-day shutdown for maintenance. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had previously urged EU nations to cut the use of gas by 15% between August and June in case Moscow decided to end deliveries. The IMF warned on Tuesday that Germany, the EU’s chief economic powerhouse, risks losing almost 5% of its GDP if Russia completely shuts off its gas supply.

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Greece, Spain and Portugal immediately said no. Others will follow. I’m starting to wonder if the EU will make it to Christmas.

EU Proposes Voluntary Goal For Countries To Cut Gas Use By 15% (R.)

The European Union set out emergency plans on Wednesday for countries to cut their gas use by 15% until March, warning them that without deep cuts now they could struggle for fuel during winter if Russia cuts off supply. Europe is racing to fill its gas storage ahead of winter and build a buffer in case Moscow further restricts supplies in retaliation for European support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion. A dozen EU countries are already facing reduced Russian deliveries. EU officials say a full Russian gas halt is likely. read more The European Commission on Wednesday proposed a voluntary target for all EU countries to cut gas use by 15% from August to March, compared with their average consumption in the same period during 2016-2021.

The proposal would enable Brussels to make the target mandatory in a supply emergency, if the EU declares a substantial risk of severe gas shortages. The regulation needs approval from a reinforced majority of EU countries. Country diplomats are set to discuss it on Friday, with the aim of approving it at an emergency meeting of their energy ministers on July 26. “Russia is blackmailing us. Russia is using energy as a weapon. And therefore, in any event, whether it’s a partial, major cut-off of Russian gas or a total cut-off of Russian gas, Europe needs to be ready,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. The plan has faced resistance from some countries, which feel their contingency plans do not need reinforcement from the EU.

Countries would be required to update their emergency gas plans by end-September to show how they will meet the EU target.Among those opposed is Poland, which has filled its gas storage to 98% of capacity after Russia cut its supply in April. Others have less stored, such as Hungary, which is at 47% full.But EU energy policy chief Kadri Simson said countries have reduced their combined gas demand by just 5% despite months of dwindling supplies from Russia and soaring prices, with deeper cuts urgently needed. A 15% cut would save about 45 billion cubic metres of gas from August-March. Russia supplied 40% of the EU’s gas before its invasion of Ukraine, or around 155 bcm per year, but flows have since plummeted.

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“The new Iron Curtain has been raised, and won’t be crossed for years to come.”

Sinking Germany (D’Eramo)

Each day, then, we discover new difficulties in decoupling Russia from the global economy. This is partly because sanctions have proven less effective than predicted, despite the tenacious efforts of the US and Europe. To date, there have been at least six sets of successive sanctions, each more drastic than the last: the removal of Russia from the international financial system operated by SWIFT; the freezing of the Russian Central Bank’s foreign reserves, which amounted to around $630 billion; the freezing of $600 million deposited by Russia in American banks, and the refusal to accept these funds as payment for Russia’s foreign debt; the exclusion of Russia’s most important banks from the City of London; and the restriction of Russian deposits in British banks.

Western airports (and airspace) are now closed to Russian planes, and the Russian merchant navy is forbidden from docking in Western ports (Japan and Australia included). Technological exports to Russia are banned, as are many imports. The European Union has sanctions in place against 98 entities and 1,158 individuals, including President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov; oligarchs with ties to the Kremlin like Roman Abramovich; 351 representatives to the Duma; members of Russia’s National Security Council; high-ranking officers of the armed forces; entrepreneurs and financiers; propagandists and actors. All Western banks and a majority of Western companies have closed shop in Russia and sold their branches. Russia has responded by banning the export of more than 200 products, demanding ruble payments for oil and gas exports, and blocking provisions to Poland, Bulgaria and Finland when they refused to accept this stipulation.

Paradoxically, though, certain sanctions have played into Moscow’s hands. The embargo on oil and gas has increased Russian revenues due to the price rises it has caused, while foreign observers note that Russian supermarket shelves still seem to be well-stocked. In the first four months of the year, Russia’s balance of trade ran its highest surplus since 1994, at $96 billion. Yet, after its initial collapse during the first days of the war, the ruble gradually recovered, such that it is now worth more than it was last year. In 2021, 70 rubles were needed to buy a dollar. On 7 March – its worst day – that figure had nearly doubled; but as of 18 July it dropped back down to 57.

The relative inefficacy of sanctions was predictable. If decades of economic warfare had proved incapable of bringing down effectively defenceless regimes such as Castro’s Cuba (by now targeted for over 70 years), Bolivarian Venezuela (30 years) or Khomeinist Iran (42 years of American sanctions, plus around ten years of international measures), it’s difficult to imagine them triggering regime change in a country like Russia, which has been preparing for this eventuality by revamping its industrial capacities. Yet the more ineffective the sanctions the more the war drags on, lurching from one escalation to the next, and deepening divisions that seem ever more irremediable. By now we can assume that relations with Russia will be interrupted for at least some decades (a regrettable situation for any Westerner who hasn’t had the good fortune to visit Moscow and St Petersburg). The new Iron Curtain has been raised, and won’t be crossed for years to come.

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“..when the public has no gas to even take a shower or cannot buy oil and flour at the supermarket, what is the meaning of the “security” the European politicians tout?”

Why Nord Stream II Must Be Opened Immediately (MoA)

The German and other European governments have pledged to suicide the German economy and the wealth of their citizens solely out of spite over the Russian government’s action in the Ukraine. They deny that it is THEIR action that is causing the crisis. [..] They, and their media, ignore that Russia has had, and has, sound reasons to defend the Donbas republics. They do not tell you that the Ukraine, in late February, had planned and was ready to attack the citizens of Donetzk and Luhansk with overwhelming force. Here is additional evidence for that: “OSCE Reports Reveal Ukraine Started Shelling The Donbas Nine Days Before Russia’s ‘Special Military Operation'”

They deny that Ukraine is controlled by extreme right wing elements. They deny that there are full fledged Nazis formations in control of Ukraine even as their own media have for years warned of those. They are lying to you. All German natural gas storage sites can be filled to the brim via Nord Stream II if the Germany government would allow for it. It does not do so. That is the reason why you in Europe will to have pay much more for heating and electricity in the months and years to come. Russia will win the war. It is only a question of time. Meanwhile the sanctions will impoverish Europe:

“[C]an the European public wait? Before the sanctions have a “desired effect,” it is the ordinary people that will suffer. Russia’s economy is still standing, but the crisis has cast a long shadow over European economies. Leaders of EU countries face low growth and record inflation. The euro is at parity with the dollar. According to a Bloomberg report, the European Commission is set to warn that a halt of Russian gas supplies to the EU could potentially reduce its GDP by as much as 1.5 percent. The EU is well in a position to find out that it is not that Russia cannot live without Europe, but Europe cannot live without Russia. EU’s sanctions against Russia serve as a boomerang. After all, it is the European public that is paying the price for the decision of policymakers. European politicians talk in high spirits about what kinds of sanctions would hurt Russia most and that aligning with the US makes them more secure. But when the public has no gas to even take a shower or cannot buy oil and flour at the supermarket, what is the meaning of the “security” the European politicians tout?”

It is on you to expose the politicians behind these sanctions and to force them to change course. Your well being depends on that.

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There is talk of Ukrainian counteroffensives in Kherson and Crimea. Bad idea.

Russia Will Expand Goals in Ukraine Over Weapon Transfers: Lavrov (Celente)

Russia’s top diplomat signaled Wednesday that Moscow will expand its goals in Ukraine due to Kyiv’s increased weapon capacity due to Western intervention. Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, said in an interview with state media that Russia’s military is no longer “only” focused on the eastern part of Ukraine. He implied that Moscow’s strategy has changed after Western intervention with longer-range weapons, the BBC reported. He told Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT, that Moscow cannot allow the remaining region of Ukraine controlled by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces to “possess weapons that would pose a direct threat to our territory.” “The geography is different now,” he said. He now named Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as new objectives, the report said.


Kherson is considered valuable real estate and is a shipbuilding center. The New York Times reported that the area has been a Russian staging ground in recent weeks. There are reports that Ukraine could be staging a counteroffensive there. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said the window of opportunity for Ukraine could be closing before the Kremlin annexes that territory. Natalia Humeniuk, the spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern forces, told the paper that Ukraine’s single goal is to reclaim all its territory. Lavrov took particular issue with the U.S.’s decision to provide Ukraine with HIMARS. He called out the “impotent anger” and a “desire to make things worse.”

French howitzers
https://twitter.com/i/status/1550047368782876672

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AP tries to connect the corruption to Russia. They should look at Zelensky and Kolomoisky.

Corruption Concerns Involving Ukraine Revived As War With Russia Drags On (AP)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dismissal of senior officials is casting an inconvenient light on an issue that the Biden administration has largely ignored since the outbreak of war with Russia: Ukraine’s history of rampant corruption and shaky governance. As it presses ahead with providing tens of billions of dollars in military, economic and direct financial support aid to Ukraine and encourages its allies to do the same, the Biden administration is now once again grappling with longstanding worries about Ukraine’s suitability as a recipient of massive infusions of American aid. Those issues, which date back decades and were not an insignificant part of former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, had been largely pushed to the back burner in the immediate run-up to Russia’s invasion and during the first months of the conflict as the U.S. and its partners rallied to Ukraine’s defense.

But Zelenskyy’s weekend firings of his top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials have resurfaced those concerns and may have inadvertently given fresh attention to allegations of high-level corruption in Kyiv made by one outspoken U.S. lawmaker. It’s a delicate issue for the Biden administration. With billions in aid flowing to Ukraine, the White House continues to make the case for supporting Zelenskyy’s government to an American public increasingly focused on domestic issues like high gas prices and inflation. High-profile supporters of Ukraine in both parties also want to avoid a backlash that could make it more difficult to pass future aid packages. U.S. officials are quick to say that Zelenskyy is well within his right to appoint whomever he wants to senior positions, including the prosecutor general, and remove anyone who he sees as collaborating with Russia.

Yet even as Russian troops were massing near the Ukrainian border last fall, the Biden administration was pushing Zelenskyy to do more to act on corruption — a perennial U.S. demand going back to Ukraine’s early days of independence. “In all of our relationships, and including in this relationship, we invest not in personalities; we invest in institutions, and, of course, President Zelenskyy has spoken to his rationale for making these personnel shifts,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Monday. Price declined to comment further on Zelenskyy’s reasoning for the dismissals or address the specifics but said there was no question that Russia has been trying to interfere in Ukraine. “Moscow has long sought to subvert, to destabilize the Ukrainian government,” Price said. “Ever since Ukraine chose the path of democracy and a Western orientation this has been something that Moscow has sought to subvert.”

George Webb Kolomoisky

Read more …

Nice country.

Ukraine Uses Russian Invasion to Wreck Workers’ Rights (CN)

The Ukrainian parliament has passed two new radical measures on labour liberalisation, prompting fears of Ukrainians losing workplace rights permanently as Russia’s war puts huge pressure on the country’s economy. In two laws passed on Monday and Tuesday, MPs voted to legalise “zero-hours contracts” and made moves towards removing up to 70 percent of the country’s workforce from protections guaranteed by national labour law. The latter measure means the national labour code no longer applies to employees of small- and medium-sized enterprises; instead, it is proposed that each worker strikes an individual labour agreement with their employer. It also removes the legal authority of trade unions to veto workplace dismissals.

Draft law 5371 had previously been criticised by the International Labor Organization, as well as Ukrainian and European trade unions, on the basis that it could “infringe international labour standards.” Ukraine’s ruling Servant of the People party argued that the “extreme over-regulation of employment contradicts the principles of market self-regulation [and] modern personnel management.” Red tape in Ukraine’s HR laws, it suggested, “creates bureaucratic barriers both for the self-realisation of employees and for raising the competitiveness of employers.” The Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine will now ask President Volodymyr Zelensky to veto draft law 5371 when it goes to him for signature — but will not make the same request over the proposed law on zero-hours contracts, Ukrainian MP Vadym Ivchenko told openDemocracy.

Nataliia Lomonosova, an analyst at Ukrainian think tank Cedos, warned that the two laws could further deteriorate an already difficult socio-economic situation for Ukrainians suffering from Russia’s military campaign. According to the U.N.’s latest numbers, Russia’s invasion has led to at least 7 million people becoming displaced inside Ukraine itself, which has been compounded by a severe economic crisis hitting families and individuals hard. At the same time, the World Bank has predicted that Ukraine’s economy will contract by 45 percent this year.

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“Melnik blasted Kretschmer, accusing him of “constant pandering” to Putin and calling his approach “disgusting.”

Don’t even mention peace!

Ukrainian Official Continues Offending Germans After Losing His Post In Berlin (RT)

The former Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin, Andrey Melnik, slammed the minister president of the eastern German state of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, after he said Europe should mediate a ceasefire between Kiev and Moscow instead of adding more fuel to the fire in the ongoing conflict. “Ukrainians are in favor of you sticking your head in a freezer to freeze your hot Russia fantasies,” the outspoken Ukrainian diplomat wrote in a Twitter post addressed to Kretschmer on Tuesday. The former ambassador’s rant was sparked by the prime minister of Saxony’s call for Europe and Germany to help ‘freeze’ the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev and not to abandon Russian energy imports.

The conflict is throwing Europe and the entire world into chaos, Kretschmer told journalists on Tuesday. He warned that Europe risks losing the economic strength needed to maintain security and remain competitive on the world stage, adding: “We have to work to ensure that this war is frozen.” He also characterized Europe’s position on the conflict as “very one-sided” – helping Ukraine win and completely abandoning Russian energy – which he said is a mistake. “I firmly believe that we need these supplies of raw materials,” Kretschmer said, adding that European leaders “must together try to … influence Russian President [Vladimir Putin] and convince Ukraine that we all have to freeze this conflict together.”

Melnik blasted Kretschmer, accusing him of “constant pandering” to Putin and calling his approach “disgusting.” The minister president of Saxony faced a barrage of criticism from fellow politicians at home as well. The general secretary of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), Bijan Djir-Sarai, accused him of failing to understand the threat Russia supposedly poses. “Thank God this man is not responsible for our foreign policy,” he said. Green politician Jamila Schaefer told German tabloid Bild that Kretschmer’s suggestion “damages the reputation of the Federal Republic of Germany,”accusing him of “dangerous ignorance.” Kretschmer’s fellow Christian Democrats were just as critical. MP Matthias Hauer tweeted that his position does not reflect that of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

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I said: Don’t mention peace!

Ukraine War Must End To Prevent Nuclear ‘Abyss’ – Lukashenko (AFP)

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko Thursday said Russia, Ukraine and the West must agree to halt the Ukraine conflict to avoid the “abyss of nuclear war” and insisted Kyiv should accept Moscow’s demands. “We must stop, reach an agreement, end this mess, operation and war in Ukraine,” Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top ally, told AFP in an exclusive interview in Minsk. “Let’s stop and then we will figure out how to go on living,” he said during the one-hour interview at the Palace of Independence. “There’s no need to go further. Further lies the abyss of nuclear war. There’s no need to go there,” he said, speaking on the 148th day of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine.

Lukashenko accused the West of seeking a conflict with Russia and of provoking the Ukraine war. “You have fomented the war and are continuing it,” he said. “We have seen the reasons for this war,” he added. “If Russia had not got ahead of you, members of NATO, you would have organised and struck a blow against it,” he said, echoing Putin. Belarus has served as a staging ground for Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, but Lukashenko has so far avoided becoming a party to the conflict. Analysts say that he is keenly aware of the fact that most Belarusians do not support sending troops into Ukraine. The 67-year-old leader, who has ruled Belarus for nearly three decades, insisted that Kyiv authorities can end the war if they re-start talks with Moscow and accept its demands.

“Everything depends on Ukraine,” he said. “Right now, the peculiarity of the moment is that this war can be ended on more acceptable terms for Ukraine.” He urged Kyiv authorities to “sit down at the negotiating table and agree that they will never threaten Russia”. Talks between Russia and Ukraine largely ground to a halt in mid-April. Lukashenko said that Ukraine must accept the loss of territory occupied by Russia in eastern and southern Ukraine. “This is no longer being discussed,” he said. “One could have discussed this in February or March.”

Lukashenko

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First Africa, now South America. They prefer BRICS.

South American Trade Bloc Snubs Zelensky (RT)

South America’s Mercosur trade bloc has declined a request by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to speak at its summit, host nation Paraguay said on Wednesday, according to the AFP news agency. Mercosur members Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay failed to reach an agreement on whether to invite the Ukrainian leader, Deputy Foreign Minister, Raul Cano said, albeit refusing to name the countries that opposed the move. “There was no consensus on such communication, that’s why the Ukrainian counterpart has already been informed that under current circumstances there are no conditions allowing to speak with the president of Ukraine in the Mercosur format,” the minister explained.


Earlier this month, Julio Cesar Arriola, Paraguay’s Foreign Minister, said that Zelensky had talked with Mario Abdo Benitez, the nation’s president, on the phone and asked for the opportunity to address the upcoming Mercosur summit. According to Arriola, Benitez promised to discuss the matter with his colleagues in the bloc. Mercosur is an economic and political organization that was established in 1991 to create a common market and incentivize development in South America. After Russia attacked Ukraine in late February, Zelensky has addressed a slew of national parliaments and major international forums, including NATO, the G7 and the UN in an effort to rally countries to Kiev’s cause and help it fight off Moscow’s offensive. However, in late June, when the Ukrainian president took part in a virtual meeting with the African Union, only a handful of leaders reportedly tuned in to listen to his speech. Following the conference call, the President of Senegal and African Union Chairperson, Macky Sall, indicated that Africa’s position of neutrality over the conflict in Ukraine remained unchanged.

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“..that the United States stands for something in the world – something of which the world has need, something which the world is going to like, something, in the final analysis, which the world is going to take, whether it likes it or not.”

The Brutal Reality Of The US-UK ‘Special Relationship’ (Chomsky)

The abject submission of British authorities to the Master in Washington in the case of journalist Julian Assange is painful to observe but – unfortunately – not difficult to understand. The roots go back to the Second World War, when Britain handed the mantle of world domination over to its former colony. The US had long surpassed the UK as an economic power and had displaced it from “our little region over here,” as Secretary of War Henry Stimson described the Western hemisphere. But it had not yet become a truly global power. At the time, British officials were well aware that the UK was becoming a “junior partner” to the US, now subject to its will, which was often exercised crudely.

Given their own ample experience with imperial arrogance, brutality and hypocrisy, British diplomats could easily read between the lines when their American counterparts protested that US global domination is “part of our obligation to the security of the world…what was good for us was good for the world”, as Abe Fortas, a leading figure in the New Deal administrations, put it. The British Foreign Office, parsing this apparent altruistic concern, concluded that Washington was, in fact, guided by “the economic imperialism of American business interests” and was “attempting to elbow us out…under the cloak of a benevolent and avuncular internationalism”.

UK officials continued that their American counterparts believe “that the United States stands for something in the world – something of which the world has need, something which the world is going to like, something, in the final analysis, which the world is going to take, whether it likes it or not.” What true believers in the historical profession call “Wilsonian idealism”. From then, Britain takes it, whether it likes it or not. Things could have gone a different way at various points in modern history, recently if Jeremy Corbyn hadn’t been destroyed by a vicious media campaign. But today’s British authorities just take the orders and Julian Assange is one of the victims.

Read more …

10,000 Dutch farmers risk losing their farms altogether. This will not be accepted.

‘Emotion And Pain’ As Dutch Farmers Fight Against Huge Cuts To Livestock (G.)

Along roads and bridges in the Netherlands, people are hanging the Dutch flag upside down. It is a sign of solidarity with the Dutch farming sector, which will also be upturned by a radical 30% reduction in livestock numbers, a move being made to meet environmental targets. In recent weeks, farmers have blocked off food distribution centres with hundreds of tractors, blockaded major roads and turned up outside regional assemblies and ministers’ homes to protest. One late-night protest ended with a police officer accused of firing a gun at a 16-year-old farmer’s son. It comes as authorities in the Netherlands have released details of the cuts in ammonia, nitrogen oxides and nitrous oxide needed to protect more than 150 nature reserves in the country. And it is the farming sector that is going to bear the brunt of emissions cuts.

“This is not a democracy any more: it’s a dictatorship,” says Jeroen van Maanen, a farmer with 130 cows in Zeewolde, central Netherlands, who has joined the protests. Manure, when mixed with urine, releases ammonia, a nitrogen compound. If it enters lakes and streams via farm runoff, excessive nitrogen can damage sensitive natural habitats. The country has the seventh biggest livestock population in the EU but is comparatively small in size. This gives it Europe’s highest livestock density, with insufficient land to make good use of the waste from more than 100 million cattle, chickens and pigs. Van Maanen says farmers are being unfairly targeted: “If you come for us and our families, you come at a farmer’s soul,” he says. “We’ve proposed all kinds of solutions but we are ignored.

“And finally, they come up with a plan for a reduction in livestock. No other sector has reduced nitrogen in the last 30 years [as much as] we have. This is why there’s a lot of emotion and pain.” The latest government coalition has not, so far, been dissuaded by the protests from its drive to tackle the country’s environmental problems. After a landmark court ruling in 2019, it needs to reduce nitrogen emissions in order to allow building projects to go-ahead in the country. There is no choice, says Rudi Buis, spokesperson for the agriculture ministry. “Even if you stop with the policy tomorrow, the problem doesn’t go away. If you want to build a house or a road, a lawyer will say: first reduce nitrogen and then you get a licence. We have to do something. It’s not a luxury. It has to happen.” [..] “We know exactly what allowance each farmer has and what they produce, while a lot of industrial companies don’t need permission – but they emit nitrogen.”

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“..,the position of Attorney General Garland has gone from dubious to ridiculous..”

The Media Starts the Spin on Possible Hunter Biden Charges (Turley)

The media is reporting that the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden is at a “critical stage” with the grand jury considering an array of charges including various tax violations and possible foreign lobbying violations. I previously testified in Congress on possible criminal exposure for Hunter under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). There seems ample evidence for such charges but there remain some glaring questions in how the Biden Administration has handled the investigation of the Biden family. What is also striking is the initial response of pundits on cable channels like MSNBC that has long ignored or downplayed the allegations. The most glaring question raised by the report is, again, the refusal of Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a Special Counsel despite overwhelming justification for such an appointment.

For over a year, I have been writing on the obvious need for a special counsel in an investigation that not only is embarrassing for the Biden family but implicates not just Hunter but his uncle and his father. Given this mounting evidence, the position of Attorney General Garland has gone from dubious to ridiculous in evading the issue of a special counsel appointment. He continues to refuse to acknowledge these conflicts with the President. Federal regulations allow the appointment of a special counsel when it is in the public interest and an “investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney’s Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances.”

It is hard to imagine a stronger case for the appointment of a special counsel. Attorney General Garland has failed in his duty to protect the Justice Department from such conflicts or the appearance of such conflicts. There will be lingering questions over the independence of the investigation. For example, if you are investigating lobbying violations tied to Hunter’s open influence peddling, why would you not ask to question the man referred to as the “big guy” who was purportedly cut in for a ten percent share of one of the most dubious deals? He is also the same man who reportedly received money from shared accounts and was referenced by Hunter to foreign clients as part of the inducement for giving him money. He is the object of the influence peddling. He is also now the President of the United States.

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“..information was requested in identifying all communications with any social media platform relating to content modulation and/or misinformation.”

Fauci, Biden Officials Subpoenaed Over Collusion To Suppress Free Speech (JTN)

Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, other Biden administration officials and five social media companies have 30 days to respond to subpoenas in a lawsuit alleging collusion to suppress freedom of speech. Missouri Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry were granted permission to proceed with the discovery phase of the trial last week in a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty. In addition to Fauci, who announced earlier this week he would retire in 2025, and Jean-Pierre, discovery requests were served to ask for information and documents from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Jen Easterly and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and Nina Jankowicz, who led the DHS Disinformation Governance Board until it was disbanded.

Third-party subpoenas were served to Twitter, YouTube, Meta, Instagram and LinkedIn. A media release from Schmitt, a candidate for the Republican Party’s nomination for the seat of retiring U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, said information was requested in identifying all communications with any social media platform relating to content modulation and/or misinformation. The suit requests all communications with Mark Zuckerberg from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present. Also requested were any communications to any social media platform relating to the “Great Barrington Declaration,” a letter published in October 2020 in response to COVID-19 policies that recommended “focused protection” — an approach to reaching herd immunity by allowing those at minimal risk of death to live normal lives by building up immunity through natural infection while protecting those at highest risk.

“In May, Missouri and Louisiana filed a landmark lawsuit against top-ranking Biden Administration officials for allegedly colluding with social media giants to suppress free speech on topics like COVID-19 and election security,” Schmitt said in a statement. “Earlier this month, a federal court granted our motion for expedited discovery, allowing us to collect important documents from Biden Administration officials. Yesterday, we served discovery requests and today served third-party subpoenas to do exactly that. We will fight to get to the bottom of this alleged collusion and expose the suppression of freedom of speech by social-media giants at the behest of top-ranking government officials.”

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at least 38,000 severe cases

1 in 5,000 COVID Shots Caused ‘Serious Side Effects’ (CHD)

The German Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) on Wednesday posted a “stunning tweet” admitting 1 of every 5,000 COVID-19 vaccinations cause “serious side effects.”Although likely an “underestimation” due to voluntary reporting, according to Alex Berenson, the admission implies almost 300,000 Americans and Europeans have experienced a severe adverse event after receiving a Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine. Translated, the tweet says, “One in 5000 people is affected by a serious side effect after a COVID19 vaccination. If you suspect an adverse reaction, get medical attention and report your symptoms to @PEI_Germany.” The Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), which uses the handle “@PEI-Germany” is Germany’s federal institute for vaccines and biomedical drugs.

The figure came from a PEI safety report summarizing suspected cases of side effects and vaccination complications that were reported to PEI between Dec. 27, 2020, when Germany launched its vaccination campaign, and March 31, 2022. During that time, 172,062,925 vaccinations were administered in Germany — of those, 17.1% were Spikevax, 7.4% were AstraZeneca, 2.1% were Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) and 0.1% were Novavax. During the same time period, PEI received 296,233 reports of suspected side effects. The reporting rate was 1.7 per 1,000 vaccine doses for all vaccines combined and 0.2 serious reaction reports per 1,000 doses. So, the 1 in 5,000 people experiencing a serious reaction is actually 1 in 5,000 doses.

PEI on Thursday corrected its tweet to reflect accurate numbers. According to @PEI_Germany, “the reporting rate for serious reactions is 0.2 reports per 1,000 vaccine doses,” the Tweet read. “The German admission today marks at least a small — and long overdue — step toward honesty from public health authorities on the COVID jabs,” said Berenson, a New York Times bestselling author who writes regularly on Substack. Reacting to the updated tweet from Germany’s Health Ministry, one person said, “It’s even worse, it’s 1 DOSE, not one in 5,000 people …”

Wolensky

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Vandana Shiva: “THIS Is Bill Gates’s Farming Agenda”

 

 


The Oriental dwarf kingfisher averages 13 cm (5.1 in) in length

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Jul 152022
 


Pablo Picasso Guernica [Study] III 1937

 

Old Way, New Way (Dmitry Orlov)
Russia Continues To Earn More By Exporting Less Oil (ZH)
Germany To Halt Russian Coal Imports Next Month (ZH)
Lithuania To Allow Rail Transit Of Russian Goods To Kaliningrad (ZH)
Three More Countries Set To Join BRICS (RT)
Two More Gone (CTH)
Macron’s Minority Government Defeated on Vaccine Passports (SN)
Don Lemon: Republicans Must Be Treated As Danger To Society By Media (Fox)
Donald Trump on 2024: ‘I’ve Already Made That Decision’ (NYMag)
“Disgruntled” Chinese Homebuyers Refuse To Pay Their Mortgages (ZH)
High Inflation Figure Masks Even Higher Cost Hikes Of Necessities (ET)
Long Lines Are Back At US Food Banks (AP)
Dutch State Broadcasters Attack Coverage Of The Dutch Uprising (TCS)
It’s About Globalism, Stupid (Maajid Nawaz)
US Public Health Agencies Aren’t ‘Following the Science,’ Officials Say (CS)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health care

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Syria, which refused to get the message too, asked the Russians for help. The Russians helped Syria, and now nobody is afraid of the US any more. Meanwhile, the US became spoiled by all this free money, grew fat, lazy, degenerate and weak and amassed the hugest pile of “debt”…”

Old Way, New Way (Dmitry Orlov)

The hardest part of living through a time of wrenching change is that nobody particularly bothers to inform you that the times have changed and that nothing will be the same again. Certainly not the talking heads on TV, who are often the last to know. You have to figure it out for yourself if you can. But I am here to help. It all has to do with energy. Not with technology—that’s incidental; not with military superiority—that’s fleeting and largely imaginary; certainly not with any sort of political or cultural self-righteousness—that’s delusional. There is no substitute for energy. If you run low, you can’t switch to running your industrial economy on fiddlesticks. It just shuts down. What’s worse, energy sources are not even particularly substitutable for each other. If you run low on gas, you can’t just switch to coal or to dried dung, even if you are up to your neck in it.

Modern industry runs on oil, natural gas, and coal, in that order, and they can be substituted for each other in very limited ways. Furthermore, energy has to be very cheap. Oil has to be about the cheapest liquid you can buy—cheaper than milk; cheaper even than bottled water. If energy isn’t cheap enough, then all the energy-hungry industry that runs on it becomes unprofitable and shuts down. That’s the stage at which we are now in much of the world. So, what happened? Once upon a time the US produced most of the oil in the world. But then the prolific wells in West Texas ran out and Saudi Arabia took over as the biggest oil producer. But the US wasn’t about to take that sitting down and hatched an ingenuous plan: Saudi Arabia will sell its oil for printed US dollars, then take most of those dollars and give them back to the US by “investing” it in US “debt”.

Everybody else who needed oil had to figure out a way to earn US dollars to buy it, and any US dollars they had left over after buying oil also had to be used to buy up US debt just because: “Nice economy you have there! Now we wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to it, would we?” Indeed, a few people didn’t get the message (Saddam of Iraq, Qaddafi of Libya) and got their countries bombed. And a whole lot of other defenseless countries got bombed just to keep the others scared. But then Syria, which refused to get the message too, asked the Russians for help. The Russians helped Syria, and now nobody is afraid of the US any more. Meanwhile, the US became spoiled by all this free money, grew fat, lazy, degenerate and weak and amassed the hugest pile of “debt” (in quotes because there is no question of ever repaying it) in all of human history.

In the meantime Russia, being the largest energy-producing country in the world, decided that it has had enough. Under the old scheme, Russia exported its resources cheaply, spend 1/3 of the revenue on imports and allowed 2/3 to leak out of the country, quite a lot of it also used to buy US “debt”. It couldn’t do anything about this right away, and so it spent the last decade developing its military to a point where now the US/NATO are afraid to go near it and its economy to a point where it doesn’t need much of the imports, at least not for a few years. And then a silly thing happened: the US confiscated Russia’s holdings of US “debt,” making everyone in the world take notice and start dumping it—even the Japanese!—sending the entire financial scheme into a tailspin.

Meanwhile, Russia has started to switch from selling its energy exports for dollars and euros, which then leave the country, where they can be confiscated, to selling them for rubles, which stay inside the country. Do you want to buy some Russian energy? Well, figure out how to earn some rubles! And if your own anti-Russian sanctions prevent you from doing so—well, la-di-da, whose fault is that? Also, given that there is now a worldwide energy shortage, the Russians asked themselves: Why sell lots of oil and gas for a little money when you can sell less of them for more money?

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As Dmitry writes: “Do you want to buy some Russian energy? Well, figure out how to earn some rubles!”

Russia Continues To Earn More By Exporting Less Oil (ZH)

Russian export revenues in June rose by $700m to the $20 billion mark, despite that oil exports fell by 250k b/d m/m to 7.4m b/d, the lowest since August 2021, Bloomberg’s Sherry Su reports citing the IEA’s latest Oil Market Report. Compared to a post-war peak level in April, total Russian oil exports in June were down 530k b/d, Or 7%, but export revenues were up by $2.3 billion, or 13%. Crude oil exports were down by 250k b/d in June to just above 5m b/d, still slightly higher than the pre-war average level according to Su. Shipments to the EU fell below 3m b/d for the first time since November 2020, bringing the EU share of Russian oil exports to 40%, compared to 49% in January-February.


Crude oil loadings to EU destinations fell 190k b/d m/m to 1.8m b/d, partly because of lower offtake on the Druzhba pipeline due to maintenance at a Hungarian refinery in June. Meanwhile, product loadings to the European Union fell by 135k b/d to 1.13m b/d, the IEA said. The fall in crude oil volumes came mostly from lower loadings on the Black Sea, as Rosneft’s 240k b/d Tuapse refinery reportedly came back online in June after a three-month shutdown. Total product exports out of Russia were relatively unchanged in June. Diesel exports increased slightly m/m to 825k b/d, 300k b/d lower than the pre-war average. Diesel Loadings to EU countries ticked up to 650 kb/d, returning to January-February average levels.

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Assisted suicide.

Germany To Halt Russian Coal Imports Next Month (ZH)

Germany will stop importing Russian coal from August 1 and crude oil from December 31, the country’s deputy finance minister, Joerg Kukies said today, as quoted by Reuters. “We will be off Russian coal in a few weeks,” Kukies said at the Sydney Energy Forum, which is taking place this week. “Anyone who knows the history of the Druzhba pipeline, which was already a tool of the Soviet empire over eastern Europe, ridding yourself of that dependence is not a trivial matter, but it is one that we will achieve in a few months,” he added. Kukies admitted, however, that replacing Russian hydrocarbons, not only in Germany, will be no easy task, citing the fact that together, the United States and Qatar could only supply some 30 billion cu m of natural gas equivalent to Europe, which imports more than 150 billion cu m of Russian gas annually.

Despite the challenge, Germany is in a rush to build LNG import terminals so it can replace at least part of Russian gas imports with liquefied gas from abroad. The problem here is, however, tightening supplies, with Freeport LNG in the U.S. offline until at least September, and Shell’s Prelude in Australia shut down amid industrial action. Demand for gas in Germany and Europe as a whole remains strong as governments seek to fill up their gas storage caverns ahead of the next heating season. Germany, specifically, is also on edge after Gazprom stopped the flow of gas via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline this week for regularly scheduled maintenance. Fears are that it will not turn the taps back on once the maintenance is done.


The suspension of coal and oil purchases from Russia is a result of sanctions the EU placed on Moscow earlier this year, providing buyers of the commodities with a temporal cushion of six months for each, so they could stock up on coal and oil before the respective embargos kicked in.

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The European Commission has a tail between its legs.

Lithuania To Allow Rail Transit Of Russian Goods To Kaliningrad (ZH)

It seems that saner minds are prevailing after ratcheting rhetoric coming from Moscow threateningly elevated Lithuania’s effective blockade of all overland trade and goods to an ‘act of war’ by the West… as the European Union is now refusing to back the full extent of Lithuania’s sanctions enforcement measures. The European Commission issued its legal guidance on the standoff Wednesday, which had over the past month resulted in some one million Russian citizens in the exclave remaining cut off from products brought by rail and road. “The transit of sanctioned goods by road with Russian operators is not allowed under the EU measures. No such similar prohibition exists for rail transport,” the European Union executive said, specifying that Russian goods should continue to be allowed by train.

“The Commission underlines the importance of monitoring the two-way trade flows between Russia and Kaliningrad … to ensure that sanctioned goods cannot enter the EU customs territory,” it added, emphasizing further that the rail exception doesn’t apply to weapons or munitions. The ban on transit still exits for freight brought by road, however. The EU said further this should be done through “targeted, proportionate and effective controls and other appropriate measures.” There was the additional caveat to the ruling that EU trade sanctions would not apply as long as Russia’s transport volumes do not exceed averages of the last three years, according to the “the real demand for essential goods at the destination.” It remains that food and humanitarian goods were reportedly never subject to the sanctions, nor was travel of citizens back-and-forth.


Lithuania’s government soon after the EU legal advice was issued said that it would adhere to it, albeit perhaps grudgingly: “Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday the previous trade rules, which blocked many sanctioned cargos from transport between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad, were “more acceptable”. “Kaliningrad transit rules may create an unjustified impression that the transatlantic community is softening its position and sanctions policy towards Russia”, the statement said. On Monday Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko during a phone call agreed to a “possible joint response” to the blockade of transit to Kaliningrad by Lithuania. Without elaborating on details, but sounding ominous given threat of near future action, a Kremlin statement said of the call, “Emphasis was placed on the situation relating to the illegal restrictions imposed by Lithuania on the transit of goods to the Kaliningrad Region. In this context, some possible joint steps were discussed.”

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As western governments fail and fall, “the other side” unites.

Iran, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt add another 350 million people to the 3.2 billion already in BRICS.

Three More Countries Set To Join BRICS (RT)

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt plan to join BRICS, and their potential membership bids could be discussed and answered at next year’s summit in South Africa, Purnima Anand, the president of the organization, told Russian media on Thursday. “All these countries have shown their interest in joining [BRICS] and are preparing to apply for membership. I believe this is a good step, because expansion is always looked upon favorably; it will definitely bolster BRICS’ global influence,” she told Russian newspaper Izvestia. The BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) account for over 40% of the global population and nearly a quarter of the world’s GDP. The bloc’s stated purposes include promoting peace, security, development, and cooperation globally, and contributing to the development of humanity.


Anand said the issue of expansion was raised during this year’s BRICS summit, which took place in late June in Beijing. The BRICS Forum president said she hopes the accession of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt will not take much time, given that they “are already engaged in the process,” though doubts that all three will join the alliance at the same time. “I hope that these countries will join the BRICS quite shortly, as all the representatives of core members are interested in expansion. So it will come very soon,” Anand added. The news of the three nations’ plans to join BRICS comes after Iran and Argentina officially applied for membership in late June, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh touting the bloc as a “very creative mechanism with broad aspects.”

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Italian president has refused Draghi’s resignation. Here’s why:

“President Sergio Mattarella cannot accept the prime minister’s resignation without himself departing. Mattarella only agreed to remain so long as the Draghi coalition would stand….”

Two More Gone (CTH)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned. Days later, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated. A few days passed and both the President and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, resigned and fled the country. Today, with their ruling governments in a state of turmoil, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi have both tendered their resignations. The collapse of each of these national leaders is not necessarily connected; however, the global political system is reverberating with tremors directly connected to the post-pandemic economic turmoil. It would be naïve not to see these governing issues as consequences. The legitimacy of the governing class is slipping; perhaps it would be fair to say, some have ‘lost’ their legitimacy altogether.

Estonia is part of the EU and a member of NATO. Italy is a member of the G7, a part of the EU and a member of NATO. The parliamentary coalitions are fracturing. New alliances are being formed. One recent example that stunned everyone in the EU was the far-right and far-left in the French parliament joining forces to defeat the coalition government of Emmanuel Macron as he tried, and failed, to extend emergency COVID rules. The COVID rules in France are set to expire on July 31st. The first parliamentary goal for President Macron was to extend the COVID emergency and keep his powers. However, the legislative effort was rejected by 219 votes to 195, destroying the goals of Macron. Both populist groups joined forces to defeat the Macron coalition.


Yes, amid all of the economic damage created by western leaders and their Build Back Better efforts, the geopolitical world is having spasms as the rulers are being rejected by the ruled. In the parliamentary systems, the voices of the angry people are rising up. Those shouts are entering the halls of government through the direct representatives closest to the people. The ruling coalitions are no longer able to hold together as the people demand change. That is the connective tissue behind these resignations and departures. Western government leaders like Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, Boris Johnson and Jacinda Ardern have the audacity to stand atop a two-year mountain of unilateral fiats, rules, regulations and mandates and then decry “autocracy” and threats to the “global order.” All of them have destroyed their own legitimacy by pretending to represent western democracy while carrying out two years of totalitarian power.

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Little man just got a little littler..

Macron’s Minority Government Defeated on Vaccine Passports (SN)

French President Emmanuel Macron suffered a humiliating setback in parliament after his vaccine passport scheme was defeated. Macron’s minority government wanted to extend the policy whereby anyone entering France has to show proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test. However, the right-wing populist National Rally (RN), the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI) and the right-wing Republicains (LR) all united to vote against the policy. Macron’s government lost the vote by a margin of 219 votes to 195. “The bill’s defeat was met with wild cheering and a standing ovation from opposition lawmakers, in footage that was widely circulated on social media,” reports the Telegraph. The bill was one of the first put to parliament by the new minority government, highlighting how Macron will find it incredibly difficult to get new laws passed in the country.


Elisabeth Borne, the French Prime Minister, condemned the vote. “The situation is serious. By joining together to vote against the measures to protect the French against Covid, LFI, LR and RN prevent any border control against the virus. After the disbelief on this vote, I will fight so that the spirit of responsibility wins in the Senate,” she tweeted. As we previously highlighted, the French Minister of Health admitted that vaccine passports are a “disguised” form of mandatory vaccines, despite President Macron claiming vaccine mandates “will not be compulsory.” On the first day the new program was in place, police in Paris were visibly patrolling bars and cafes demanding customers show proof they’ve had the jab. It later emerged that many businesses were refusing to enforce the scheme.

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He’s calling it out over himself.

Don Lemon: Republicans Must Be Treated As Danger To Society By Media (Fox)

Appearing on CNN’s New Day Thursday morning, Don Lemon once again urged the media to hold Republicans to a different standard than Democrats in their media coverage. The primetime host tied the GOP to the threat of “growing extremism” on the right. He warned journalists to not give a “false equivalence” to both sides, and instead acknowledge Republicans were endangering America. “We sit around and we talk about these things and we want to give this false equivalence to Democrats and Republicans. That is not where we are right now. Republicans are doing something that is very dangerous to our society and we have to acknowledge that. We have to acknowledge that as Americans, we must acknowledge that as journalists because if we don’t, we are not doing our jobs,” Lemon declared.

A Pew survey of nearly 12,000 journalists found that a majority of journalists, 55%, reject the idea that both sides “always deserve equal coverage.” Lemon was referring to Republicans who continue to support former President Trump after the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol, as well as the recent Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade. “They have to answer for those questions if they come here on CNN, they must answer for that. If they go on MSNBC, they must answer for that. If they go on ABC, they must answer for that. And they cannot expect to be coddled when they go on to a news organization or if they step in front of a crowd of supporters or voters or Americans.” He made a similar plea in June, saying, “we cannot pretend as journalists” that both sides are “equal.”


Lemon referred to an interview he did with a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers saying Republicans had become associated with “extremists.” He rejected any Republican opposition to that belief. “You have the inmates running the asylum basically. You have the extremists because I know there are Republicans sitting out there going, ‘Don Lemon that’s not what we are.’ Maybe it’s not what you are but it’s what party has become and what you have allowed to happen,” he lectured.

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Excuse me?! “..the House Select Committee on January 6 (whose hearings are the runaway TV-ratings hit of the summer)..”

The runaway TV-ratings hit that nobody watches…

Donald Trump on 2024: ‘I’ve Already Made That Decision’ (NYMag)

Donald Trump was impeached twice, lost the 2020 election by 7,052,770 votes, is entangled in investigations by federal prosecutors (over the Capitol insurrection and over the mishandling of classified White House documents and over election interference) and the District of Columbia attorney general (over financial fraud at the Presidential Inaugural Committee) and the Manhattan district attorney (over financial fraud at the Trump Organization) and the New York State attorney general (over financial fraud at the Trump Organization) and the Westchester County district attorney (over financial fraud at the Trump Organization) and the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney (over criminal election interference in Georgia) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (over rules violations in plans to take his social-media company public through a SPAC) and the House Select Committee on January 6 (whose hearings are the runaway TV-ratings hit of the summer), yet on Monday, July 11, he was in a fantastic mood.

It was a beautiful day in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president maintains a golf club and private estate to which he decamps when the Palm Beach humidity and the habits of snowbirds shut down Mar-a-Lago for the Mother’s Day–to–Labor Day summer season, and it had been a beautiful weekend, too, one he said affirmed the choice he had made about his own future, the future of the Republican Party, and — whether he wins this time or if he loses as sorely as before — the future of the American experiment. At a rally in Alaska on Saturday, he told me by phone, his fans were adoring. “More love,” in his words, “than I’ve ever had before.” His voice was humming with excitement. He was still in awe.

After all of this time, after so many rallies, so many crowds, so many winding speeches and chants of “Lock her up” and “USA” and “Build the wall” and the familiar sounds of “Tiny Dancer” and “Memory” (from Cats) and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “YMCA” and that goofy little dance and the delusion and the fervor so great that it built up to an attack on the Capitol and the democratic process at the center of the Republic itself, the novelty of this had not faded. As a technical matter, the Anchorage event was on behalf of Sarah Palin and Kelly Tshibaka, Trump-endorsed candidates for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, respectively, but like all such endeavors, it was for its star a means of discerning through a vibe check what traditional polls could not so reliably or completely tell him.

And what it told him this time, he said, is that his voters — a portion of the electorate that he insists amounts to a majority of the country, though it does not — want to, and will, bring him back to power. “Look,” Trump said, “I feel very confident that, if I decide to run, I’ll win.”

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The Chinese didn’t buy real estate as an investment, but as an insurance. Xi must beware.

“Disgruntled” Chinese Homebuyers Refuse To Pay Their Mortgages (ZH)

While US snowflakes are all too happy to talk the talk (which remains free, even despite Biden’s hyperinflation), Chinese residents are increasingly walking the walk. First, it was the violent outcry against mandatory covid vaccines that put an end to Beijing’s desire to forcibly innoculate all Beijing residents in just 48 hours – a feat not all of America’s armed militias have been able to achieve, and now it’s a grassroots push for what appears to be a debt jubillee as millions of homeowners suddenly stop paying their mortgages, a shocking move that has sent shockwaves across China’s capital markets and has sparked panic within China’s political leadership circles.

As Bloomberg reports overnight, a rapidly increasing number of “disgruntled Chinese homebuyers” are refusing to pay mortgages for unfinished construction projects, exacerbating the country’s real estate woes and stoking fears that the crisis will spread to the wider financial system as countless mortgages default. According to researcher China Real Estate Information, homebuyers have stopped mortgage payments on at least 100 projects in more than 50 cities as of Wednesday, up from 58 projects on Tuesday and only 28 on Monday, according to Jefferies Financial Group Inc. analysts including Shujin Chen. “The names on the list doubled every day in the past three days,” Chen wrote in a note published Thursday.


“The incident would dampen buyer sentiment, especially for presold products offered by private developers given the higher risk on delivery, and weigh on the gradual sales recovery.” What’s behind this grassroot movement to halt mortgage payments altogether? Negative equity: “Analysts believe that a drop in home values may be another driver for the refusal to meet mortgage payments. “Investors are concerned about the spread of mortgage payment snubs to buyers, simply due to lower property prices, and the impact on property sales,” Chen wrote. According to Citi analysts, average selling prices of properties in nearby projects in 2022 were on average 15% lower than purchase costs in the past three years. Meanwhile, it’s only getting worse as China’s home prices fell for a ninth month in May, with June figures set for release Friday.

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Here comes Sri Lanka.

High Inflation Figure Masks Even Higher Cost Hikes Of Necessities (ET)

The June inflation figure of 9.1 percent, up half a percentage point from May and the highest since 1981, doesn’t tell half the story of how expensive life has become for Americans. The overall figure hides the fact that not all prices have risen uniformly and that products that have become especially expensive also happen to be the ones people usually can’t do without, such as food, fuel, and energy, according to Consumer Price Index data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Among foodstuffs, margarine and egg prices hiked the most over the 12 months ending in June, up more than 34 and 33 percent, respectively. Trailing behind were butter (up more than 21 percent), flour (up more than 19 percent), and chicken (up more than 18 percent). Milk and coffee were up about 16 percent.

Regular gasoline hiked more than 60 percent, diesel about 76 percent, and fuel oil, which many Americans use to heat their homes, nearly doubled in price. Natural gas went up more than 38 percent and electricity nearly 14 percent. The White House, through President Joe Biden’s Twitter account, on July 13 called the inflation figures “not acceptable” but “outdated,” noting that the average gasoline price had declined about 40 cents per gallon (about 8 percent) over the past 30 days. The products with the most prominent price hikes tend to also suffer supply issues. Gasoline production is constrained by the policies of the Biden administration and the financial elites more generally as part of their efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Egg production has been constrained by the avian flu outbreak that cut the number of laying hens by about 8 percent in recent months. Grain production has been hit with sky-high fertilizer prices and herbicide shortages. Higher grain prices, in turn, show up not only in bakery goods and flour, but also in the cost of animal feed, which then hits meat and milk prices, too. Normally, consumers respond to higher prices by tightening their belts—consuming less—which in turn leads prices down. But because of the lavish federal spending packages during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer demand has been artificially boosted. Prices will have to go up relatively steeply for another year or two before the productivity of the economy catches up with all the newly printed money, some economists have predicted.

Some prices, it appears, have already peaked. Beef steaks, for instance, hiked by more than 30 percent between October 2019 and October 2021 but are down about 5 percent since then. Similarly, car and truck rental prices went up more than 70 percent from July 2020 to July 2021 but have since dropped by about 11 percent.

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Those lines will get much longer.

Long Lines Are Back At US Food Banks (AP)

Long lines are back at food banks around the U.S. as working Americans overwhelmed by inflation turn to handouts to help feed their families. With gas prices soaring along with grocery costs, many people are seeking charitable food for the first time, and more are arriving on foot. Inflation in the U.S. is at a 40-year high and gas prices have been surging since April 2020, with the average cost nationwide briefly hitting $5 a gallon in June. Rapidly rising rents and an end to federal COVID-19 relief have also taken a financial toll. The food banks, which had started to see some relief as people returned to work after pandemic shutdowns, are struggling to meet the latest need even as federal programs provide less food to distribute, grocery store donations wane and cash gifts don’t go nearly as far.

[..] The Phoenix food bank’s main distribution center doled out food packages to 4,271 families during the third week in June, a 78% increase over the 2,396 families served during the same week last year, said St. Mary’s spokesman Jerry Brown. More than 900 families line up at the distribution center every weekday for an emergency government food box stuffed with goods such as canned beans, peanut butter and rice, said Brown. St. Mary’s adds products purchased with cash donations, as well as food provided by local supermarkets like bread, carrots and pork chops for a combined package worth about $75.

Distribution by the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Northern California has ticked up since hitting a pandemic low at the beginning of this year, increasing from 890 households served on the third Friday in January to 1,410 households on the third Friday in June, said marketing director Michael Altfest. At the Houston Food Bank, the largest food bank in the U.S. where food distribution levels earlier in the pandemic briefly peaked at a staggering 1 million pounds a day, an average of 610,000 pounds is now being given out daily. That’s up from about 500,000 pounds a day before the pandemic, said spokeswoman Paula Murphy said.

Murphy said cash donations have not eased, but inflation ensures they don’t go as far. Food bank executives said the sudden surge in demand caught them off guard. “Last year, we had expected a decrease in demand for 2022 because the economy had been doing so well,” said Michael Flood, CEO for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. “This issue with inflation came on pretty suddenly.” “A lot of these are people who are working and did OK during the pandemic and maybe even saw their wages go up,” said Flood. “But they have also seen food prices go up beyond their budgets.”

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Well, Rutte says in the Davos video at the bottom that he wants to buy the press.. Sorry the other video is mostly in Dutch.

Dutch State Broadcasters Attack Coverage Of The Dutch Uprising (TCS)

In a video entitled “The Great Reset: the recurring fabrications,” Nieuwsuur, a program produced by government broadcasters, claims that Bexte travelled to the Netherlands to perpetuate supposed conspiracy theories, saying that the WEF has “absolutely nothing” to do with the “nitrogen crisis” — by which they mean the nitrogen policy to cut emissions by 50% and destroy farmers’ livelihoods. “These bloggers from far-right websites have travelled to the Netherlands especially to see that image confirmed,” the host says before playing a clip of Bexte talking about the WEF’s support for the career-destroying nitrogen policy being protested. “But the WEF has absolutely nothing to do with the nitrogen crisis,” he continues. “It was the highest judge who ordered the Netherlands to comply with the nitrogen standards of the European Union.”


Yes, but where did the “nitrogen standards” of the European Union come from? The nitrogen policy that was introduced is just one of many policies being brought forth by the EU to better align with the UN’s radical Sustainable Development Goals to cut all emissions, which is itself part of the UN’s Agenda 2030. According to the European Commission’s website, “Sustainable development is a core principle of the Treaty on European Union and a priority objective for the Union’s internal and external policies. The United Nations 2030 Agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) intended to apply universally to all countries.” Moreover, in an EU briefing entitled “European policies on climate and energy towards 2020, 2030 and 2050,” the European Parliament states the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will impact European policy, specifically regarding climate policy:

“Within the framework of the commitments laid down in the Paris Agreement, in November 2018, the European Commission published a new long-term strategy which confirms Europe’s commitment to lead on global climate action and to achieving net-zero GHG emissions by 2050, through a socially fair transition in a cost-efficient manner… The strategy does not intend to launch new policies, nor does the European Commission intend to revise the 2030 targets. It is rather meant to set the direction of transition of EU climate and energy policy, and to frame what the EU considers as its long-term contribution to achieving the Paris Agreement temperature objectives, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which will further affect a wider set of EU policies.”

Now, who has been a core contributor in shaping the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals? Why, the World Economic Forum, of course. In 2019, the WEF and UN signed a strategic partnership “to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” “The new Strategic Partnership Framework between the United Nations and the World Economic Forum has great potential to advance our efforts on key global challenges and opportunities, from climate change, health and education to gender equality, digital cooperation and financing for sustainable development,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the time.


So, yes. If the Netherlands is abiding by the EU’s climate policies, and the EU’s climate policies are based on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and the WEF signed a partnership with the UN to control what these goals are, I think it’s safe to say that the WEF absolutely has something to do with the nitrogen policy being protested right now.

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People observe and interpret. Be careful with that.

It’s About Globalism, Stupid (Maajid Nawaz)

1) Framing is Everything – i) It is No Longer About Brexit – Contrary to what you will read, the UK leadership race is no longer about Brexit. Brexit is done. It will not be undone. Even Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has told his party that Brexit will not be reversed. This is not to say that Brexit is no longer relevant. It is relevant. It is to say instead that Brexit is not the main impetus for the domestic palace coup that has just unfolded against outgoing PM Boris Johnson.

ii) It is No Longer About Covid – This leadership challenge is also no longer about Covid. The Covid control mechanisms of emergency legislation, supply-chain disruption and the weaponisation of Big Pharma have already served their purpose. As with Brexit, the UK is unlikely to go backwards on Covid policy. Any intervention now from the authorities about Covid will again only serve to keep opponents stuck fighting our last battle, just as the state launches its next psychological war against its own population. This is not to say that Covid policy is no longer relevant. It is relevant. Rather, it is to say again that Covid is not the main impetus for the domestic palace coup that has just unfolded against outgoing PM Boris Johnson.

iii) It is No Longer About War in Ukraine – The UK leadership contest is also not about the war in Ukraine. A keen observer will already notice corporatist media spin turning against deeper involvement, as well as the establishment-liberal US outlets turning sour on Biden. The Ukraine war has served its purpose. Billions have been laundered. Global food and gas shortages have been precipitated. This is not to say that Russia and Ukraine are no longer relevant. They are relevant. This is to say instead that war in Ukraine is not the main impetus for the domestic palace coup that has just unfolded against outgoing PM Boris Johnson. And so what exactly is going on in Britain? Arriving at an answer is only possible if the globalist playbook is understood first.

2) The Global Uprising: Centralisation vs Decentralisation: – Division has been sown after Brexit. Civil norms has been crushed after Covid. The ‘means of production’ have been disrupted after war in Ukraine. What comes next is the purpose they all served: the Great Reset. Combined, these cumulative crises of monumental fiscal suicide, unprecedented supply chain disruption and food and energy shortages are in danger of causing the collapse of the global financial system, sparking truly unprecedented global uprisings. In fact, we are already witnessing this.

[..] The collapse of the global financial system now appears inevitable. It actually collapsed in 2008. What has proceeded since then is merely the execution of a carefully planned, if not vicious, controlled demolition. The demolition is orchestrated by WEF establishment globalists so that their own controlled opposition may steer this global reset towards further centralised tyranny, as opposed to allowing it to enable decentralised democracy. Popular resistance will now be used as a pretext to clamp down and suspend liberty by rolling out militarised forces to subjugate the very conveniently rebelling citizens. [..] This is how the global financial establishment seeks to ride the current global revolution in order to retain their power. We are at the end of a natural generational cycle: a historic turning. We are witnessing the ‘reset’ part of Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset. They have told us what they plan to do. After the reset they will seek to ‘Build Back Better’ in order to create their New World Order.

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Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H. and Tracy Beth Høeg M.D., Ph.D.

“I can’t tell you how many people at the FDA have told me, ‘I don’t like any of this, but I just need to make it to my retirement.’”

US Public Health Agencies Aren’t ‘Following the Science,’ Officials Say (CS)

The calls and text messages are relentless. On the other end are doctors and scientists at the top levels of the NIH, FDA and CDC. They are variously frustrated, exasperated and alarmed about the direction of the agencies to which they have devoted their careers. “It’s like a horror movie I’m being forced to watch and I can’t close my eyes,” one senior FDA official lamented. “People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.” That particular FDA doctor was referring to two recent developments inside the agency. First, how, with no solid clinical data, the agency authorized Covid vaccines for infants and toddlers, including those who already had Covid. And second, the fact that just months before, the FDA bypassed their external experts to authorize booster shots for young children.

That doctor is hardly alone. At the NIH, doctors and scientists complain to us about low morale and lower staffing: The NIH’s Vaccine Research Center has had many of its senior scientists leave over the last year, including the director, deputy director and chief medical officer. “They have no leadership right now. Suddenly there’s an enormous number of jobs opening up at the highest level positions,” one NIH scientist told us. (The people who spoke to us would only agree to be quoted anonymously, citing fear of professional repercussions.) The CDC has experienced a similar exodus. “There’s been a large amount of turnover. Morale is low,” one high level official at the CDC told us. “Things have become so political, so what are we there for?” Another CDC scientist told us: “I used to be proud to tell people I work at the CDC. Now I’m embarrassed.”

Why are they embarrassed? In short, bad science. The longer answer: that the heads of their agencies are using weak or flawed data to make critically important public health decisions. That such decisions are being driven by what’s politically palatable to people in Washington or to the Biden administration. And that they have a myopic focus on one virus instead of overall health. Nowhere has this problem been clearer—or the stakes higher—than on official public health policy regarding children and Covid. First, they demanded that young children be masked in schools. On this score, the agencies were wrong. Compelling studies later found schools that masked children had no different rates of transmission. And for social and linguistic development, children need to see the faces of others.

Next came school closures. The agencies were wrong—and catastrophically so. Poor and minority children suffered learning loss with an 11-point drop in math scores alone and a 20% drop in math pass rates. There are dozens of statistics of this kind. Then they ignored natural immunity. Wrong again. The vast majority of children have already had Covid, but this has made no difference in the blanket mandates for childhood vaccines. And now, by mandating vaccines and boosters for young healthy people, with no strong supporting data, these agencies are only further eroding public trust. One CDC scientist told us about her shame and frustration about what happened to American children during the pandemic: “CDC failed to balance the risks of Covid with other risks that come from closing schools,” she said. “Learning loss, mental health exacerbations were obvious early on and those worsened as the guidance insisted on keeping schools virtual. CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children.” An official at the FDA put it this way: “I can’t tell you how many people at the FDA have told me, ‘I don’t like any of this, but I just need to make it to my retirement.’”

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Morales
https://twitter.com/i/status/1547604089705353218

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Jul 142022
 


Pablo Picasso Guernica [Study] II 1937

 

Russia And China Haven’t Even Started To Ratchet Up The Pain Dial (Escobar)
Russia State TV: War Will Expand To Poland If US Continues To Arm Ukraine (NYP)
NATO and EU Sound Alarm Over Risk Of Ukraine Weapons Smuggling (FT)
The International Political Debacle: The Unipolar System Is Crumbling (Wilbert)
The Fed’s Financial Nuke Will Obliterate The Global Economy (McDonald)
Letter To My Friends From America (Faina Savenkova)
Climate Mandates Imposed on Dutch Farmers Will Ruin Their Livelihoods (ET)
German Firm Calls For Energy Price Cap To Avoid Social Unrest (R.)
#VaccineInjured Trends on Twitter After British Report (Celente)
UK Excess Deaths Not From Covid Approach 9,000 in Last 10 Weeks (DS)
Doctors Push Hard for Child Vaccination Despite Their Own Research (BI)
Federal Judge Orders Biden Admin to Cooperate in Social Media Collusion Lawsuit (ET)
Court Rejects Bayer’s Latest Attempt to Duck Liability in Roundup Case (CHD)
Jury Convicts CIA Programmer Of Leaking To WikiLeaks (Dissenter)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Ray Epps
https://twitter.com/i/status/1547385947817484290

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything plays into Putin’s hands.

Russia And China Haven’t Even Started To Ratchet Up The Pain Dial (Escobar)

A case can be made that Putin and Russia’s Security Council are implementing a tactical trifecta that has reduced the collective West to an amorphous bunch of bio headless chickens. The trifecta mixes the promise of negotiations – but only when considering Russia’s steady advances on the ground in Novorossiya; the fact that Russia’s global “isolation” has been proved in practice to be nonsense; and tweaking the most visible pain dial of them all: Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. The main reason for the graphic, thundering failure of the G20 Foreign Ministers summit in Bali is that the G7 – or NATOstan plus American colony Japan – could not force the BRICS plus major Global South players to isolate, sanction and/or demonize Russia.

On the contrary: multiple interpolations outside of the G20 spell out even more Eurasia-wide integration. Here are a few examples. The first transit of Russian products to India via the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) is now in effect, crisscrossing Eurasia from Mumbai to the Baltic via Iranian ports (Chabahar or Bandar Abbas), the Caspian Sea, and Southern and Central Russia. Crucially, the route is shorter and cheaper than going through the Suez Canal. In parallel, the head of the Iranian Central Bank, Ali Salehabadi, confirmed that a memorandum of interbank cooperation was signed between Tehran and Moscow. That means a viable alternative to SWIFT, and a direct consequence of Iran’s application to become a full BRICS member, announced at the recent summit in Beijing.

The BRICS, since 2014, when the New Development Bank (NDB) was founded, have been busy building their own financial infrastructure, including the near future creation of a single reserve currency. As part of the process, the harmonization of Russian and Iranian banking systems is inevitable. Iran is also about to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at the upcoming summit in Samarkand in September. In parallel, Russia and Kazakhstan are solidifying their strategic partnership: Kazakhstan is a key member of BRI, EAEU and SCO. India gets even closer to Russia across the whole spectrum of trade – including energy. And next Tuesday, Tehran will be the stage for a crucial face-to-face meeting between Putin and Erdogan. Isolation? Really?

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Russia state TV is kind of wild, and not the Kremlin.

Russia State TV: War Will Expand To Poland If US Continues To Arm Ukraine (NYP)

A Russian state TV host warned Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine could expand to Poland if the US continued to arm Kyiv’s forces. On a broadcast of Russia Channel 1’s “60 minutes,” TV host Olga Skabeyeva made the veiled warning saying that if the West continued to send aid to Ukraine the conflict could intensify, Newsweek reported. “If God forbid, Americans deliver missiles that can travel 186 miles. Then we simply can’t stop,” the TV host said. “We’ll go all the way to Warsaw.” Skabeyeva referenced the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), which the US started sending to embattled Ukraine last week. Russia’s latest warning comes after the US pledged several more units to Ukraine. The Polish foreign ministry has yet to make any comment on the threat.

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This is Poland:

“All these weapons land in southern Poland” “..we have no idea where they go, where they are used or even if they stay in the country.”

NATO and EU Sound Alarm Over Risk Of Ukraine Weapons Smuggling (FT)

Nato and EU states are pushing for better tracking of weapons supplied to Ukraine in response to fears that criminal groups are smuggling them out of the country and on to Europe’s black market. Since Russia launched its war against Ukraine, western states have pledged more than $10bn in military support, from portable rocket launchers and armoured vehicles to rifles and vast amounts of ammunition. A number of Nato member states are discussing with Kyiv some form of tracking system or detailed inventory lists for weapons supplied to Ukraine, two western officials briefed on the talks told the Financial Times. Ukraine’s government is setting up a more extensive weapons monitoring and tracing system with the help of western countries, a third person familiar with the situation said.


“All these weapons land in southern Poland, get shipped to the border and then are just divided up into vehicles to cross: trucks, vans, sometimes private cars,” said one of the western officials. “And from that moment we go blank on their location and we have no idea where they go, where they are used or even if they stay in the country.” The potential for US weapons sent to Ukraine to fall into the wrong hands is “among a host of considerations” given the “challenging situation” on the ground in the country, said Bonnie Denise Jenkins, US under secretary for arms control and international security, on Tuesday. s“The US very seriously takes our responsibility to protect American origin defence technologies and prevent their diversion or illicit proliferation,” Jenkins told reporters in Brussels, adding that the US was in “continued contact” with Kyiv on the issue.

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The west accelerates its own demise.

The International Political Debacle: The Unipolar System Is Crumbling (Wilbert)

The multipolar world was going to emerge one way or another, but the mistakes of the Western leaders accelerated a process that would still take some years, and it can’t cope since it governs for less than 1 billion people (G7 population). And Operation Z in Ukraine was the trigger for a lack of diplomatic tact and will to war that even caused Ukraine’s allied leaders to fall, such as Boris Johnson. The bankruptcy of Europe was also imminent, since the various economic dependencies, including on Russian gas, prove that the continent, despite being so-called First World, was unable to generate an economy based on a real production of resources. And all attempts to escape from this dependency would lead to at least 10 years of pipeline works and economic agreements-treaties between other countries and them.

So it’s not like it was easy either to have prevented what was predestined to happen, but it could have been delayed if there was the right diplomacy, since the war was avoidable. But how? Simple. I’ll explain. What was Putin’s key argument? “Ukraine cannot join NATO!” And what could the West have done? Generated a document in multilateral coordination with the appropriate entities recognizing that the security of Russia, a member of the UN Security Council, was an important issue and Ukraine would not join the Atlanticist military alliance. Or: they could put 50,000 or 100,000 troops inside Kiev to stand up to the Russians since Biden shortly before the Special Military Operation began, acknowledged that Putin would “invade Ukraine,” so they knew the risks. But they did neither.

They wanted this war but it is not going as planned because the political debacle is happening, with the leaders who support the Atlanticist platforms falling away little by little, leaving the enthusiasts of the multipolar world standing like Putin and Xi Jinping in their proper nuclear strongholds. Moreover, it is interesting to note how parts of the Global South opposed the various diplomatic and economic sanctions on Russia, showing that they were unwilling to continue functioning as American semi-colonies in diplomatic and other matters.

It was inevitable that a totally new world would emerge out of the totally destroyed old world, because that is the natural way of what comes after destruction: reconstruction or new construction. And that is what is happening to the world at present, in that we see prominent leaders being murdered in the open or resignations due to inability of governance, clear signs of destruction. And after the destruction will come the construction, of which we don’t know what it will look like yet, but the first bricks have already been laid.

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“Volcker was jacking rates into a planet with about $200T LESS debt.”

The Fed’s Financial Nuke Will Obliterate The Global Economy (McDonald)

We are living in a period of mass “Jonestown” economic delusion. Just twenty months ago – central bankers were offering to buy nearly every junk bond known to mankind, dramatically distorting the “true cost of capital.” All the way from crypto to emerging markets – it was a moral hazard overdose. Everyone on earth was borrowing money at fantasy-land bond yields. Now, the Fed is promising endless rate hikes and $1T of balance sheet reduction onto a planet with emerging market and Euro-zone credit markets in flames. Listen, all I have is an economics degree from the University of Massachusetts, but after having spent the last 20 years trading bonds professionally and embarking on a 20k feet deep autopsy on the largest bank failure of all time – from my seat the current Fed agenda is sheer madness and will be outed very soon.

The true cost of capital was distorted for so long, we now have hundreds of academics– clueless to the underlying serpent inside global markets. When the 6 foot seven, Paul Volcker walked the halls of the Marriner S. Eccles Building of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, our planet embraced about $200T LESS debt than we are staring down the barrel at today. Please call out the risk management imbeciles that make any reference of “Powell to Volcker.” In 2021, global debt reached a record $303T, according to the Institute of International Finance, a global financial industry association. This is a FURTHER jump from record global debt in 2019 of $226T, as reported by the IMF in its Global Debt Database. Volcker was jacking rates into a planet with about $200T LESS debt. Please call out the risk management imbeciles that make any reference of Powell to Volcker.

Many economists in 2022 are highly delusional – a very dangerous group indeed. When you hike rates aggressively with a strong dollar you multiply interest rate risk, which was already off the charts coming from such a low 2020 base in terms of yield – it’s a convexity nightmare. Interest rate hikes today – hand in hand with a strong U.S. Dollar – carry 100x the destructive power than the Carter – Reagan era. At the same time, you add lighter fluid on to the credit risk fire in emerging markets with a raging greenback. Global banks have to mark to market most of these assets. If global rates reset higher and stay at elevated levels, the sovereign debt pile is in gave danger. The response to Lehman and Covid crisis squared (see above) has left a mathematically unsustainable bill for follow on generations.

The Fed CANNOT hike rates aggressively into this mess without blowing up the global economy. We are talking about mass – Jonestown delusion on roids. Then Covid-19 placed a colossal leverage cocktail on top. Emerging and frontier market countries currently owe the IMF over $100B. U.S. central banking policy + a strong USD is vaporizing this capital as we speak. A dollar screaming higher with agricultural commodities – priced globally in dollars – is a colossal tax on emerging market countries – clueless academics at the Fed are exporting inflation into countries that can least afford it.

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The 13-year-old girl from Lugansk.

Letter To My Friends From America (Faina Savenkova)

Two events have recently occurred in the world. In America – in the suburbs of Chicago – people died during the celebration of Independence Day. And during these three days, 5 children died from artillery shelling of Ukraine in the Donbass – in Donetsk and Makeyevka. A 10-year-old girl was torn apart by an incoming Ukrainian shell. According to the data and evidence collected by the Russian Foundation for Combating Repression, the Ukrainian military was given direct orders to use weapons to kill against civilians of Donbass. Here are the proofs of that https://fondfbr.ru/en/articles/sergey-yudayev-en/

But did American journalists notice this? No. I can understand why America mourns the dead on Independence Day. But at the same time, she stubbornly does not want to see what Ukraine is doing. I live in Donbass, and after the murder of children with weapons supplied by you and Europe, probably, should hate you and rejoice that the Lord punishes those because of whom our children die. But I am Russian and I have been living in the war for eight years now. I understand what death is, so I don’t feel anger and hatred. And I grieve with you for the dead. Human life is priceless, and murder is always terrible, because it is impossible to bring back those who have been lost, it is impossible to drown out this pain. Just as it is impossible to isolate yourself from the war, because the war, in which your government is no less to blame than the rest, will surely return to you.

I am very sorry that many in America do not know that it all started 8 years ago. And Ukraine is killing civilians, destroying our cities, killing children. But it is unlikely that your politicians pay attention to this. They are ready to fight to the last Ukrainian and, apparently, believe that they will defeat Russia in a nuclear war. It won’t be like that. I would like you to understand that war is bad, as well as the killing of innocent people. I hope that all this will end soon, and humanity will once again understand the value of life and a peaceful future, and Russia and America will be friends.

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The quiet last few days will make Rutte think he’s winning. But the farmers will be back; they know it’s now or never.

The farmers are simply the easiest target. If nitrogen is the problem, force people to fly and drive 30% less. Much more effective. But that costs votes.

Climate Mandates Imposed on Dutch Farmers Will Ruin Their Livelihoods (ET)

The livelihoods of Dutch farmers are under attack due to the Dutch government’s proposed nitrogen policy, which could necessitate the mass slaughter of livestock and potentially shut down almost a third of the country’s farms. If this policy is implemented, it will have “major security consequences, not just for the Netherlands, but for all of Europe and the world,” said Michael Yon, a war correspondent who has recently arrived in the Netherlands to report on the ground from the Dutch farmers’ protests. The Netherlands is a small country in Europe with a population of 17 million people, but it is the second-largest food exporter in the world, Yon said in a recent interview for EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program. “They have the most efficient farmers in the world.”

In 2021, the Netherlands’s coalition government proposed slashing livestock numbers in the country by 30 percent to meet nitrogen greenhouse gas emission targets. The country has already implemented stringent restrictions on new construction, intending to curb nitrogen emissions. Dutch bank Rabobank has argued that those new hurdles have slowed home building in the Netherlands, intensifying a housing shortage in the densely populated coastal nation. On June 10, Christianne van der Wal, the Dutch Minister for Nitrogen and Nature Policy, unveiled a plan to reduce nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands, according to a statement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “The Dutch Provinces are responsible for developing corresponding measures to reach the nitrogen emission reductions between 12 and 70 percent, depending on the area,” the statement said.

“Farmers in some provinces will be particularly hard hit … and the Dutch government acknowledged ‘there is not a future for all {Dutch} farmers within [this] approach.’” The Netherlands Chamber of Commerce says that nitrogen environmental pollution comes from burning fossil fuels but also from manure produced by livestock and fertilizers used in farming. It is estimated that to implement the proposed plan, farmers would need to reduce their cattle herds by 30 percent, according to Barron’s. But Yon said Dutch farmers are not polluting the environment and that they’ve been farming the land for thousands of years. Nitrogen is being labeled as a pollutant and used as a decoy by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to put the farmers out of business and control the food supply, Yon said.

[..] Dutch farmers and truckers realize that their government is following the recommendations of the WEF, which has been trying to take their land and control their food supply, Yon said. “If you control the food supply, you control that population completely,” he said. Dutch farmers are very educated, and they are both businesspeople and farmers, Yon said. They know that if they lose, they will lose their livelihood, and the consequences of their loss will be felt for many generations, he said. “The farmers are rising up. They know they’re going to be put out of business … which would put all of Europe on its knees, foodwise,” Yon said.

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“..twice as much now, and three times at the end of the summer.”

German Firm Calls For Energy Price Cap To Avoid Social Unrest (R.)

Household energy costs could triple in Germany as Russian gas supplies dwindle, officials in the sector said, and one company representative raised the possibility of social unrest unless there was a cap on prices. In an interview with the RND newspaper group published on Thursday, Klaus Mueller, head of the Federal Network Agency regulator urged consumers to reduce consumption and set aside money. And in an interview with Reuters, the head of the municipal works of Chemnitz, one of the 900 city-owned public companies that are a major part of Germany’s energy landscape, went further. “We must help average households and set an upper limit for energy costs,” Roland Warner said, warning that annual bills of 1,500 euros could rise to 4,700 euros in October. “If we get social unrest the state won’t be able to cope.”

Energy minister Robert Habeck has in the past rejected calls for state price caps, saying the state cannot fully offset increased prices and that attempting to do so would send the wrong signal about the need to conserve energy. After prospering from cheap Russian gas for decades, Europe’s largest economy is facing a crunch as Russia dials back supplies. Western governments say Moscow is retaliating against sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine, but Moscow blames technical problems. Some analysts warn that public backing for a tough line against Moscow could weaken further if living standards decline.

A Forsa poll published on Wednesday found that support for a boycott of Russian gas – a major source of finance for what Moscow calls its “special operation” in Ukraine – had fallen from 44% of respondents six weeks ago to just 32% now. With spot prices soaring, Mueller warned that end-consumers rolling over their fixed-term contracts now would find themselves paying twice as much now, and three times at the end of the summer. “Some prices on exchanges are up sevenfold,” said Mueller. “It’s not all going to come through immediately, and won’t be fully passed on, but it’s going to have to be paid eventually,” he said.

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Good on GB News.

#VaccineInjured Trends on Twitter After British Report (Celente)

The hashtag #vaccineinjured trended on Twitter late Wednesday after GBN, a British news channel, aired a special on those who said their lives were upended after taking the COVID-19 vaccine. Some of these individuals held up photos of loved ones they said died after taking the vaccine, or said they suffered from an adverse reaction. The show was intended to shed light on these cases and criticized social media platforms for silencing them.

The COVID-19 vaccine’s effectiveness could drop to about 20 percent a few months after the booster shot is administered, according to an Italian review of COVID studies. “Booster doses were found to restore the VE [vaccine effectiveness] to levels comparable to those acquired soon after administration of the second dose; however, a fast decline of booster VE against Omicron was observed, with less than 20% VE against infection and less than 25% VE against symptomatic disease at 9 months from the booster administration,” the authors wrote in the paper. The study found that two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were less than 5 percent effective at preventing a symptomatic infection with the Omicron variant, which is famous for evading the immune defense system. Three doses were up to about 22 percent effective at preventing symptomatic infection.

A recent Pew Research poll found a dramatic shift in the trust Americans have in health officials after more than two years of dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. The survey found that President Joe Biden has lost public support in his handling of the outbreak. The survey pointed out that about 65 percent of Americans said they were confident in his ability to deal with the virus at the beginning of his presidency. The survey now says 56 percent of Americans believe he is doing a “fair or poor job” in handling the outbreak. Just 43 percent polled said he is doing an excellent job.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1547300429754761216

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900 a week in the UK alone.

UK Excess Deaths Not From Covid Approach 9,000 in Last 10 Weeks (DS)

There have been over 8,750 more deaths than usual from causes other than COVID-19 in England and Wales in the past 10 weeks, the latest data from the Office for National Statistics show. In the week ending July 1st, the most recent week for which figures are available, there were 10,357 deaths registered, which is 1,128 or 12.2% above the five-year average. Of these, 332 were registered with Covid as a contributory cause and 212 were registered as due to Covid as underlying cause. This leaves 916 excess deaths from an underlying cause other than COVID-19, bringing the total non-Covid excess deaths in the 10 weeks since the recent spike began in late April to 8,756 deaths.

Experts have called for an urgent investigation of this alarming trend, though the Government has yet to signal it intends to do this or to offer any explanation of the high rate of deaths. Looking at deaths by date of occurrence, if we compare them to the rollout of vaccine doses in the spring booster campaign among over-75s in England we can see what appears to be a correlation, meaning a possible connection should be investigated. The sharp drop in the most recent week may be an indication that the wave is easing, though with the crisis in ambulance services and hospital capacity ongoing that remains to be seen.

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Iceland.

Doctors Push Hard for Child Vaccination Despite Their Own Research (BI)

According to a study recently published in the Paediatric Infectious Disease Journal, the risk of COVID-19 to children is truly minuscule. The study tracks the outcomes for Icelandic children with a positive COVID-19 test, covering all the children who tested positive during the study period. It concludes that out of the 1,749 children tracked, none had severe symptoms and no child needed hospitalisation. A fifth of the children showed no symptoms. It is curious, then, that when Icelandic health authorities decided to offer COVID-19 vaccination to 5-11 year-old children earlier this year, two of the four study authors were among the most vocal advocates of the policy.

At the time, the health risks related to COVID-19 vaccines were becoming increasingly clear, with the rate of reported serious adverse effects in Iceland 75-fold the rate for flu vaccines in 2019. The French Medical Academy had recommended against vaccinating healthy young children, Swedish authorities had decided not to offer them vaccination and the JCVI had recommended against it. But Icelandic authorities decided to go ahead with an organised campaign. Earlier, the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Valtyr Thors, a prominent paediatrician, had said vaccination was not needed for young children, but in January 2022 he suddenly reversed his opinion and strongly recommended vaccination to “protect children against infection and serious illness”. At that time, the Omicron variant had already taken over in Iceland, and numbers showed vaccine protection against infection to be zero or negative.

Late December 2021, another author, paediatrician Dr. Asgeir Haraldsson, Professor of Medicine at the University of Iceland, said five to 10 out of every thousand healthy children would need hospitalisation after COVID-19 infection and strongly recommended vaccination, claiming both Delta and Omicron variants posed a considerably higher threat to children than previous variants. The study shows only 12% of infections among children occured in school. However, in late 2021 the importance of keeping schools open was repeatedly mentioned as an additional justification for the vaccination of children. In December 2021, Dr. Thors claimed infections in schools were a major problem and Chief Epidemiologist Dr. Thorolfur Gudnason suggested lifting quarantine requirements for vaccinated children under 16, while keeping them in place for the unvaccinated.

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“‘Government can’t outsource its censorship to Big Tech,’ Missouri attorney general says..”

Federal Judge Orders Biden Admin to Cooperate in Social Media Collusion Lawsuit (ET)

A federal judge ordered the Biden administration on July 12 to comply with information requests in a lawsuit brought by Missouri and Louisiana officials about alleged federal government collusion with social media companies to suppress important news stories in the name of fighting so-called misinformation. The lawsuit could help bring to light the Biden administration’s behind-the-scenes efforts to discourage the dissemination of information related to the advent of the virus that causes the disease COVID-19 and the ongoing Hunter Biden laptop scandal, according to Eric Schmitt, Missouri’s Republican attorney general.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump claim that if the story about the laptop belonging to the president’s troubled son hadn’t been suppressed, President Joe Biden would have lost the 2020 presidential election. Republicans say the laptop provides evidence of the son’s misbehavior and of the Biden family’s corruption. Facebook and Twitter infamously restricted the distribution of information related to the computer’s contents. Biden supporters claimed the story was manufactured by the Russian government as disinformation. Social media also suppressed numerous stories related to the origins of COVID-19, possible medical treatments to prevent, treat, or cure the disease, and discussions about government and corporate policies implemented to deal with the virus, many of which curbed personal freedoms.

Many government and corporate employees have been fired in the pandemic era for refusing to take government-approved vaccines, which they say have limited effectiveness and potentially severe side effects. The lawsuit could also provide fodder for Republicans who promise multiple investigations into government wrongdoing should they retake Congress in the November elections. Among the defendants are President Joe Biden, his former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, former Disinformation Governance Board executive director Nina Jankowicz, and Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

According to court documents, the states allege that the administration “colluded with and/or coerced social media companies to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social media platforms by labeling the content ‘disinformation,’ ‘misinformation,’ and ‘malinformation.’” The states “allege the suppression of disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and contents constitutes government action and therefore violates Plaintiff States’ freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

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“..a cancer warning would deviate from Roundup’s EPA-approved labeling..”

Court Rejects Bayer’s Latest Attempt to Duck Liability in Roundup Case (CHD)

A federal appeals court has rejected a bid by Monsanto owner Bayer AG to head off claims brought by cancer victims alleging that Monsanto failed to warn them of the risks of Roundup. In a decision handed down Tuesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a “failure to warn claim” brought against Monsanto in Georgia by Roundup user John Carson is not preempted by requirements under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) as lawyers for Monsanto, and its owner Bayer, have argued. Bayer has sought — and now failed — in multiple courts to find backing for its argument that it should be protected from allegations that Monsanto failed to warn users of a cancer risk associated with its products. (Bayer bought Monsanto in 2018.)

The company asserts that if it had placed cancer risk warnings on product labels it would have conflicted with provisions of FIFRA that give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversight of labeling language. The EPA has said in its assessment, that the herbicides are “not likely” to be carcinogenic. “It’s another resounding rejection of Monsanto’s preemption defense,” said attorney Brent Wisner, who served as co-counsel for the first trial to take place in the nationwide Roundup litigation, which resulted in a unanimous jury decision finding Monsanto had hidden the cancer risks of its weed killers. “It is safe to say that their argument is dead. Every court to consider this issue has sided with plaintiffs,” Wisner said.

Bayer said in a statement that it believes the federal appeals court erred in its ruling. “We respectfully disagree with the Eleventh Circuit’s decision, as a cancer warning would deviate from Roundup’s EPA-approved labeling, render the product misbranded, and require the company to make a label change that would be contrary to the consistent conclusions of EPA’s scientific assessments for more than four decades. “The court’s determination that the FIFRA’s statutory registration process is not sufficiently formal to trigger preemption is inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent, and the company will review its legal options regarding further proceedings.”

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Not what the Espionage Act was meant for, even back in 1917.

Jury Convicts CIA Programmer Of Leaking To WikiLeaks (Dissenter)

A federal jury in New York convicted former CIA employee Joshua Schulte of violating the Espionage Act when he allegedly released materials on the CIA’s hacking capabilities to WikiLeaks. This was the second trial against Schulte. In March 2020, his first trial ended in a mistrial on several Espionage Act charges, but he was found guilty of contempt of court and lying to the FBI. Unlike the first trial, Schulte represented himself and argued his case. He again maintained he was not the source of the leaks published by WikiLeaks. A jury deliberated for nearly three days before announcing a verdict. Judge Jesse M. Furman in the Southern District of New York did not schedule a sentencing date because there are other charges pending against Schulte.

Known as the “Vault 7” materials, WikiLeaks began releasing documents on March 7, 2017. They came from what WikiLeaks described as an “isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence.” Documents revealed how the CIA could target iPhones, Androids, and Samsung TVs and convert the devices’ microphones into bugs used to spy on targeted persons. Malware was also developed to infect Microsoft Windows users, and the CIA was “hoarding” security vulnerabilities in software and hardware that they could use for their covert operations instead of notifying companies that users were at risk of being hacked.

It was one of the largest leaks of information in the history of CIA and a huge embarrassment for then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who responded by labeling WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence agency” and developing “secret war plans” against the media organization that included kidnapping or even killing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The US government has charged Assange with violating the Espionage Act, and the UK government authorized his extradition in June. Assistant US Attorney Michael D. Lockard asserted that on April 20, 2016, Schulte “stole the entirety of the CIA’s highly sensitive cyber intelligence capabilities.” This occurred just days after the CIA “locked the defendant out of the secure restricted vault-like location on the network.”

“Shortly after stealing this extraordinarily sensitive intelligence information, the defendant transmitted those backups to WikiLeaks, knowing full well that WikiLeaks would put it up on the internet,” Lockard argued. “In the weeks following this break-in, the defendant took every step he would need to take in order to transmit those files to WikiLeaks. He downloaded a program that WikiLeaks itself recommends to leakers to use to send stolen data.” [..] US prosecutors never presented any forensic evidence to specifically tie Schulte to the publication of the CIA hacking materials on WikiLeaks. Schulte acted very confident during his closing argument. He insisted that Lockard was “worried about the lack of evidence” because he had told the jury the “lack of evidence is not evidence of innocence.”

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Oborne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Jul 062022
 


Salvador Dali Paranoiac Woman-Horse (Invisible Sleeping Woman, Lion, Horse) 1930

 

The New Worldview Of Russia’s Elite (ZBB)
Saudis Unwilling To Upset Putin As Biden Begs For More Crude (OP)
Putin Says “No Problem” If Finland, Sweden Join NATO (ZH)
Black Sea Grain Deal Is Close, Says Erdogan (Pol.eu)
Rethinking the Global Order (Turki Bin Faisal Al-saud)
The Unravelling of the UK and the Western World (Batiushka)
The Dutch Farmers’ Protest and the War on Food (OffG)
The Woke Inquisitors Have Come for the Freethinking Heretics (Shurk)
100 Sikh Security Guards Fired For Not Adhering To Toronto’s Mask Mandate (TNC)
The Media Used Russiagate Conspiracy Theories to Create a News Cartel (GI)
If Central Banks Do Not Tackle Inflation, Crisis Will Bring Deflation (Lacalle)
Mexico President To Raise Assange Case In July Meeting With Biden (Dissenter)

 

 

 

 

ABC

 

 

From Elon Musk

 

 

 

 

“..capitulating to the West is no option for Russia, at this point. Things have gone too far.”

The New Worldview Of Russia’s Elite (ZBB)

Dmitry Trenin is one of Russia’s key policy influencers as proven by his position on the prestigious Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, which contributes to formulating his country’s approach towards those two interconnected issues. Despite being considered a Western-friendly liberal for most of his career, this member of the elite decisively shifted his worldview in response to Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine that was commenced in order to defend the integrity of its national security red lines from US-led NATO’s latent threats. His transformation from a foreign policy liberal to a conservative isn’t an outlier but increasingly representative of the rest of his country’s elite as well. He shared some crucial insight into his country’s grand strategy in May in remarks during his Council’s 30th Assembly that were republished by RT at the time…

Russia’s flagship international media outlet once again published his latest thoughts last weekend in a piece titled “Dmitri Trenin: Russia has made a decisive break with the West and is ready to help shape a new world order”. Just like his prior one for that platform, this one also deserves to be analyzed in detail since it confirms the new worldview of the Russian elite that’s responsible for formulating its foreign and defense policies just like he partially is. According to Trenin, this decisive break with the West is both necessary and difficult for three reasons. First, past inertia serves as a major obstacle, though the current conditions of the Collective West united against Russia make this a necessity. Second, Russia’s economic relations have historically been tied with those same Western countries that are now united against it despite having previously fed this Great Power’s growth over the past three decades, which is all the more reason to urgently pioneer viable replacements as soon as possible.

And lastly, the Russian elite culturally regard themselves as part of Western Civilization, yet the latter’s latest “woke” trend is contrary to traditional Russian culture. The respected Russian expert then shared some frank commentary on the matter. In his words, “With the West shunning Russia, trying to isolate and sometimes ‘cancel’ it, Moscow has no choice but to kick its old habits and reach out to the wider world beyond Western Europe and North America. In fact, this is something that successive Russian leaders vowed to do repeatedly, even when relations with the West were much less adversarial, but the Europe-oriented mindset, the apparent ease of trading resources for Western goods and technologies, and the ambition to be accepted into Western elite circles prevented that intention from turning into reality.”

Trenin added, however, “that people start doing the right thing only when there are no other options. And certainly, capitulating to the West is no option for Russia, at this point. Things have gone too far.” From there, he shared some facts that imbue the reader with a sense of cautious optimism that not only will things change for the better, but that they’re already well on their way there. The Global South has “risen spectacularly” since the end of the Old Cold War, with China conducting more trade with Russia than Germany did even prior to the US-led West’s sanctions against it and countries like India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkiye, and Iran emerging as independently minded close partners too.

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OPEC+ is stronger than OPEC.

Saudis Unwilling To Upset Putin As Biden Begs For More Crude (OP)

The world’s largest crude oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, continues to keep close ties with Russia while the top oil consumer, the United States, pleads with major producers—including the Kingdom—to boost supply to the market and help ease consumers’ pain at the pump. While the U.S. and its Western allies are sanctioning Moscow and banning oil imports from Russia, U.S. President Joe Biden is also turning to Saudi Arabia to ask it to pump more oil as Americans pay on average $5 a gallon for gasoline. The Saudis prefer to keep close ties with Russia in oil policy as the OPEC+ pact and the control over a large portion of global oil supply has benefited both OPEC+ leaders—the Kingdom and Russia—over the past half a decade.

Saudi Arabia, however, could use a little thaw in Saudi-U.S. relations under President Biden, who is no longer talking about the world’s top crude exporter as a “pariah” state. The Saudis are carefully maneuvering to keep Russia as an ally in the OPEC+ group and possibly improve relations with the United States. President Biden—desperate to see relief for American drivers ahead of the midterm elections—has made a U-turn on Saudi Arabia and is expected this month to visit the Kingdom, which he said on the campaign trail would be treated as a “pariah” state during his presidency. But U.S. gasoline prices at $5 a gallon and the loss of part of the Russian supply have made President Biden reconsider and meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Saudi Arabia has publicly reiterated its “warm” ties with Russia on several occasions since Putin invaded Ukraine, and considers keeping Russia in the OPEC+ alliance an important part of its oil policy. With Russia leading a dozen non-OPEC producers in the pact, Saudi Arabia has more sway over global oil markets with the larger OPEC+ group than with OPEC alone.

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But the length of the NATO-Russia border has doubled.

Putin Says “No Problem” If Finland, Sweden Join NATO (ZH)

Now with the 30 member nations having signed the NATO accession protocols for Sweden and Finland on Tuesday, which brings them a huge step closer to entering the alliance, Russian President Vladimir Putin has reacted by downplaying it: “Russia has “no problem” if Finland and Sweden join NATO, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. “We don’t have problems with Sweden and Finland like we do with Ukraine,” Putin told a news conference in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat. Finland and Sweden will be formally invited to join the alliance after Turkey dropped its opposition on Tuesday.”

However, he was also quoted as saying he couldn’t rule out that new tensions would emerge in Russian relations with Helsinki and Stockholm now that they’ve abandoned their historic neutrality regarding the Western military alliance. Additionally he suggested a further militarization along the 830-mile Russian-Finnish border, in line with prior comments from top Kremlin officials: “President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would respond in kind if NATO set up infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after they join the US-led military alliance,” according to AFP, though without explaining further. The thrust of his comments appeared to focus on the question of Ukraine joining and Sweden-Finland being “two different things”.

Putin explained in the televised remarks, “They began turning Ukraine into an anti-Russia bridgehead for trying to destabilize Russia itself. They began fighting Russian culture and language. They began to persecute individuals who regarded themselves as part of the Russian world,” in reference to the Ukrainian government post-2014, following the forced ouster of Russian-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych. Two months ago as it emerged that Finland would seriously pursue joining NATO, there were fears this could spark a Russia-NATO war, but now these and other comments of Putin on the question strongly suggest Moscow is willing to de-escalate on the question.

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“..the plan was “very encouraging” as it did not require demining of the ports, potential routes had already been identified..”

Black Sea Grain Deal Is Close, Says Erdogan (Pol.eu)

Moscow and Kyiv may be just days from finalizing an agreement to allow millions of tons of Ukrainian grain to pass through the Black Sea, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In peacetime, Ukraine was a vast contributor to global food supplies, but a blockade of its Black Sea ports since the invasion by Russia has prevented the shipping of crops leaving for Egypt, Yemen and other countries in desperate need. Russia has also attacked Ukrainian grain silos and is alleged to have seized stocks. Turkey is attempting to broker a deal between Russia and Ukraine. The government in Kyiv wants Turkey to provide security guarantees to ships carrying the grain through the Black Sea.

“Negotiations are going ahead so that this grain, and sunflower oil, everything can reach the world,” Erdogan told a press conference in Ankara. “In a week or 10 days we will intensify the talks and try to arrive at a result.” The Turkish leader said safe passage for commercial shipping was very important because, while his own country was not yet suffering grain shortages, Africa was already facing “a huge problem.” He was speaking at a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, after talks between the two governments. Draghi said that Turkey had “a central role” in the plan, which he said had been outlined at the G7 meeting of leading economies by U.N. Secretary General António Guterres. “That role is to guarantee the security of ships, and ensure that the ships don’t carry arms” Draghi said.

Draghi said the plan was “very encouraging” as it did not require demining of the ports, potential routes had already been identified, and the working group had been established. The missing element was “the final agreement of the Kremlin,” he said. The deal also has “a very high strategic value” as it could pave the way for a negotiated peace, Draghi added. “In the context of efforts to reach peace, this is a first step to agreement, for an objective that must involve of all of us because it affects the lives of millions of people in the poorest countries,” he said.

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His Royal Highness Turki bin Faisal al-Saud, Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, was the Director General of Al Mukhabarat Al A’amah, Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency from 1977 to 2001, and has served as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and the United States.

Rethinking the Global Order (Turki Bin Faisal Al-saud)

The Ukraine crisis itself is a symptom of deeper structural problems in the international order. That order, led by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), has failed to live up to the principles of good governance enshrined in the UN Charter. New global orders tend to emerge from major wars. In the case of WWII, the victors created structures designed to preserve international peace and security. But while our increasingly integrated world has changed dramatically since the UN’s founding, our organizing principles still reflect the mentality of the post-war and Cold War era. Within the current framework, a failure to respond to global challenges is a failure of the entire international community.

Can the system be reformed? Calls since the early 1990s to restructure the UN system – the avatar for the broader international order – have consistently fallen on deaf ears. Worse, Russia and China are now using their seats at the helm of the international order to push for a more multipolar system. Rather than working to reform the current framework, they are challenging its validity. Humanity’s collective achievements over the past seven decades are a testament to why we must work together to make the UN system more fair, inclusive, and attentive to people’s needs and aspirations. Indeed, that was the mission of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change in 2003.

Consisting of 16 eminent figures from different parts of the world, and chaired by former Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, the panel analyzed contemporary threats to international peace and security; evaluated how well existing policies and institutions had done in addressing those threats; and offered recommendations aimed at strengthening the UN and enabling it to provide collective security for the twenty-first century. The panel’s final report made clear that all of the UN’s principal organs needed reform, including the Security Council, which the panel argued should be expanded. Unfortunately, the Security Council’s veto-wielding permanent members simply ignored the panel’s recommendations, setting the stage for today’s paralysis and dysfunction.

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All of the west is under -its own- threat.

The Unravelling of the UK and the Western World (Batiushka)

Ever since the collapse of the overseas British Empire, which included most of overseas Ireland, the unity of the UK has been under threat. This is because UK unity was the first step towards the construction of the British Empire, just as the construction of the American Empire began with its internal territorial conquests in North America, from the Native Americans, France, Spain/Mexico and of course from the Civil War. Only then did it look to imperial conquests overseas. Thus the loss of the overseas empire is inevitably leading to the end of the empire in the Isles. What was constructed in the past is now being deconstructed, in reverse order. Ireland (1801) has gone first and will be followed by Scotland (1707) and then Wales (1283) and in turn England (1066) will be regionalised.

As regards this deconstruction, the partial Irish independence of a century ago will undoubtedly turn into full independence and a united Ireland. Then will come the internal disintegration of the island of Great Britain itself. Each of the three countries and races on the island of Great Britain has its own identity. Scotland will not remain in the artificial Union of three centuries ago, though its separation could take several more years yet. The disintegration of the Union between Wales and England will probably take longer and be dependent on international pressures.

International pressures, such as those incurred by the present disastrously backfiring anti-Russian Western sanctions, could precisely be the ones that will lead to the internal collapse of the English/Welsh Union and then to the regionalisation of England. Here we are talking about the unwinding of the millennial Norman history of the island of Britain and a return to national roots, in other words, a radical return, for all. The collapse of the political parties in England and Wales (they have already collapsed in Scotland and they never existed in Ireland) will accompany this collapse.

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The gov’t finds the farmers are way too popular. So now they create “shooting incidents”.

Aviation produces a lot of nitrogen too. Holland foud a neat trick: only count the nitrogen produced at ground level, take-off and landing. Voila: 70% of nitrogen gone!

The Dutch Farmers’ Protest and the War on Food (OffG)

This week, tens of thousands of farmers have gathered from all across the Netherlands to protest government policies which will reduce the number of livestock in the country by up to a third. In a typical example of media weasel-wording, the press reports on this all headline something like “Dutch farmers protest emissions targets”, but this is a massive lie by omission. The government policy being protested is a 25 BILLION Euro investment in “reducing levels of nitrogen pollution” true, but it plans to achieve this by (among other things) “paying some Dutch livestock farmers to relocate or exit the industry”. In real terms, this ultimately means reducing the number of pigs, chickens and cows by about thirty per cent.

That’s what is being protested here – a deliberately shrinking of the farming sector, impacting the livelihood of thousands of farmers, and the food supply of literally hundreds of millions of people. While the scheme is allegedly about limiting nitrogen and ammonia emissions from urine and manure it’s hard not to see this in the broader context of the ongoing created food crisis. The Netherlands produces a massive food surplus and is one of the largest exporters of meat in the world and THE largest in Europe. Reducing its output by a third could have huge implications for the global food supply, especially in Western Europe. Perhaps more troubling is how this could act as a precedent. This isn’t the first “pay farmers not to farm” scheme launched in the last year – both the UK and US have put such schemes in place – but a government paying to reduce it’s own meat production? That is a first.

That it is (allegedly) being done to “protect the environment” makes it a big warning sign for the future. Denmark, Belgium and Germany are already considering similar policies. The Western world seems to be enthusiastically embracing quasi-suicidal policies. I mean, paying farmers to reduce the amount of food they produce…while (notionally) threatened with war…in the midst of a recession…facing record inflation as the cost of living spirals. Does that really make any sense? That’s almost as crazy as refusing new oil and gas leases while the cost of petrol is going up. Indeed, in a world beset by a shortage of fertiliser due to sanctions against Russia and Belarus, it would seem almost mad to complain about a manure surplus, let alone try to reduce it. We’re well past the point where any of this could be considered accidental, aren’t we?

Dutch supermarkets

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“..the steady encroachment on free speech has been sold as a “virtue” that all good people should applaud..”

The Woke Inquisitors Have Come for the Freethinking Heretics (Shurk)

Whenever censorship slithers back into polite society, it is always draped in the mantle of “good intentions.” Fifteenth-century Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola’s “bonfire of the vanities” destroyed anything that could be seen to invite or reflect sin. The notorious 1933 Nazi book burning at the Bebelplatz in Berlin torched some 20,000 books deemed subversive or “un-German”. During Communist China’s decade-long Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and ’70s, the vast majority of China’s traditional scrolls, literature and religious antiquities went up in smoke.

All three atrocities were celebrated as achievements for the “greater good” of society, and people inebriated with “good intentions” set their cultural achievements aflame with fervor and triumph. Much like today’s new censors who claim to “fight hate” because “that’s not who we are,” the arsonists of the past saw themselves as moral paragons, too. They purged anything “obscene” or “traditional” or “old,” so that theocracy, Nazism, or communism could take root and grow. And if Western institutions today are purging ideas once again, then it is past time for people to start asking just what those institutions plan to harvest next. We in the West are running — not walking — toward another “bonfire of the vanities” in which normal people, egged on by their leaders, will eagerly destroy their own culture while claiming to save it.

This time around the “vanities” will be condemned for their racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-science or climate-denying ways, but when they are thrown into the fire, it is dissent and free expression that will burn. There will one day be much disagreement as to how the same Western Civilization that produced the Enlightenment and its hallowed regard for free expression could once again surrender itself to the petty tyranny of censorship. Many will wonder how the West’s much-vaunted “liberal” traditions could meekly fold to the specter of state-controlled speech. The answer is that the West has fallen into the same trap that always catches unsuspecting citizens by surprise: the steady encroachment on free speech has been sold as a “virtue” that all good people should applaud.

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Sicks don’t shave. And there are many in Canada. Never had problems. Blackface Trudy does shave.

100 Sikh Security Guards Fired For Not Adhering To Toronto’s Mask Mandate (TNC)

Roughly 100 Sikh security guards were let go due to the City of Toronto’s mask mandate, which requires them to be clean-shaven. The World Sikh Organization (WSO) is now demanding the city change what it calls a “discriminatory” rule. According to CBC News, the city has been mandating that security guards wear N95 masks while on the job at settings such as homeless shelters since January. The city confirmed that employees working within the Shelter, Support, and Housing Administration (SSHA) department must wear N95 masks at all times and be clean-shaven so that the masks provide effective protection against Covid-19. For devout Sikhs, leaving their hair uncut is an important part of their faith. In a practice called Kesh, Sikhs allow one’s hair to grow out naturally out of respect for the perfection of God’s creation.

The WSO wants to see the city compensate and rehire the Sikh guards. “I feel very humiliated,” said Birkawal Singh Anand, who works for ASP Security. “If you ask me to clean shave my beard, it’s like peeling off my skin.” When notified of the requirement last month, Anand said that he applied for a religious exemption but was told that would mean he would be demoted to a lower position with lower pay. Many of the guards, who are working towards permanent residency, have had to choose between new jobs that didn’t offer permanent residency, finding a different job, getting laid off or shaving their beards. When CBC News reached out for comment from GardaWorld, a security contractor, they said all employees who are unable to meet the health and safety requirement set out by the city were offered “other and equivalent opportunities within the organization” until the restriction is lifted.

Balpreet Singh, a lawyer with the WSO, said Toronto’s rule feels particularly discriminatory because the policy has remained while nearly all other pandemic restrictions in Ontario have dropped. “These security guards served at the height of the pandemic without these rules, when things were at their worst,” Singh said. “But now when, you know, vaccines are very common and things are opening up, they’re being told: ‘No, you can’t serve here because you’ve got a beard.’”

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“The two interlocking cartels, Big Tech and the media, became politically and then economically interdependent in a way that was both illegal and deeply dangerous to a free society.”

The Media Used Russiagate Conspiracy Theories to Create a News Cartel (GI)

The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook paid over $20 million to the New York Times and $15 million to the Washington Post in annual fees. Even more valuable than the big checks was Facebook’s ability to push media content to its users. Last year, sources at several publishers were crediting Facebook News with massive traffic surges, but not everyone was equal. “Many other U.S. news publishers are getting payments from Facebook to have their content featured in its news tab, but they only get a fraction of the sums paid to the Washington Post, the New York Times,” the Wall Street Journal noted. Facebook and the media had created a cartel in which media sites created paywalls to raise the value of their content and gain better deals with the social media monopoly.

Zuckerberg’s company offered its biggest media critics big checks in exchange for exclusive deals. Both sides claimed that they were “fighting misinformation” with what was really a shakedown and a cartel. When the media accused Facebook of spreading conservative misinformation, the only defense was providing special privileges for the media. Despite the fundamental illegality of such cartels, Democrat politicians and the media openly pressured Facebook to promote “responsible” journalism, by which they meant their own political content, at the expense of “misinformation”. By then the entire debate about misinformation had boiled down to creating a two-tiered content system across Big Tech that would fund and push media content while suppressing rival material.

This urgent need for a news cartel was described as the best way to meet the “threat to democracy” posed by the “wild west” of the internet. This cynical rhetoric carefully avoided any discussion about the benefits that would flow to the media from this arrangement. Recent entries from the Washington Post, which was being paid $15 million, include, “Facebook Gives Gun Sellers 10 Strikes Before Ban” and “Facebook Fails Again to Detect Hate Speech in Ads”: both of which went viral. The former taps into the new mania over gun control to manufacture yet another crisis involving Facebook. And crises reward the media cartel. The two interlocking cartels, Big Tech and the media, became politically and then economically interdependent in a way that was both illegal and deeply dangerous to a free society.

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“Central banks have gone from “whatever it takes” to “no matter what”..

If Central Banks Do Not Tackle Inflation, Crisis Will Bring Deflation (Lacalle)

Most market participants have been surprised by the last six months. The total return of the US Treasury Index was the worst since 1788 according to Deutsche Bank. Stocks closed June with one of the largest corrections since 2008. Bonds and equities are falling in unison, driven by rate hikes and normalization of monetary policy. However, there is no such real normalization. The balance sheet of the main central banks has barely moved and remains at all-time highs according to Bloomberg. The ECB continues to ignore the highest inflation rate in the eurozone since the early 90s by keeping negative rates. The Federal Reserve rate hikes have been more aggressive, but it is still injecting billions of dollars in the reverse repo market and monetary aggregates remain excessive.


In the United States, money supply growth (M2) is still much higher than in the quantitative easing years. M2 money supply has risen to 21.8 trillion dollars and yearly change shows a rise of 1.3 trillion dollars, which is more than double the annual figure of the expansion phase of 2008-2011. Money supply (M2) annual growth in the United States was 6.5% in May, 6.6% in the eurozone. Global monetary growth in May was 9.9%, all figures according to Yardeni Research. In the eurozone money supply growth is higher than in the middle of the so-called “Draghi bazooka”, the famous “whatever it takes”. Central banks have gone from “whatever it takes” to “no matter what”. We already explained in a previous article that commodities do not cause inflation, money printing does, and the monetary aspect of inflation is not being addressed properly.

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“If they take him to the United States and he is sentenced to the maximum penalty and to die in prison, we must start a campaign to tear down the Statue of Liberty..”

Mexico President To Raise Assange Case In July Meeting With Biden (Dissenter)

When Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador meets with United States President Joe Biden on July 12, he plans to once again urge the US government to drop the charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Obrador is one of the few presidents in the world, who has expressed genuine support for Assange and even offered to engage in talks about asylum in Mexico. “If they take him to the United States and he is sentenced to the maximum penalty and to die in prison, we must start a campaign to tear down the Statue of Liberty,” Obrador said, as he referred to Assange during a press conference on July 4. According to El País, Obrador insisted that the Statue of Liberty would “no longer be a symbol of freedom” if Assange was extradited. He maintained there could be “no silence” on the matter.

The UK government authorized Assange’s extradition on June 17. Assange’s legal team appealed the decision. While it is a welcome development that an ally and neighboring country is challenging the US to uphold press freedom, the remarks from Obrador apparently came while deflecting criticism of Mexico from Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Mexico is one of the more dangerous countries in Latin America for journalists. RSF, which also supports Assange, condemned Mexico after “Yesenia Mollinedo, the founder and editor of the Facebook news outlet El Veraz, and Sheila Johana García, a video reporter for El Veraz,” were “gunned down in broad daylight in Cosoleacaque, in the eastern state of Veracruz.”

“[RSF] is appalled by the murders of three more reporters in less than a week in Mexico, which—subject to confirmation by RSF’s investigations—will bring the total number of Mexican journalists killed in connection with their work since the start of the year to 11,” the press freedom organization declared. With no evidence, Obrador suggested RSF’s statement was part of a “smear campaign against the government of Mexico.” But Obrador is not alone when it comes to invoking the Assange case to deflect responsibility. Several leaders throughout the world, including in China, Russia, and Azerbaijan, have responded to Western criticism of how their governments treat journalists by asking how the US and United Kingdom can claim to support press freedom when Assange is in jail.

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George Webb – Klaus Schwab

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jul 052022
 


Pablo Picasso Sleeper with shutters 1936

 

A Great Endeavor (Jim Kunstler)
This Implosion Will Be Fast – Hold Onto Your Seats (von Greyerz)
Gas Shortage Emergency Would Push Hamburg To Ration Hot Water – Senator (EN)
Top German Trade Union Head Warns Entire Industries May Collapse (ZH)
‘We Were All Wrong’: How Germany Got Hooked On Russian Energy (G.)
Iran Slashes Cost of Its Oil to Compete With Russia in China (BBG)
Dutch Farmers Intensify Protests (CTH)
Death On The Senate Steps (George Webb)
Human Rights: the United States and Western Style (Tajik)
Supreme Court Targets the Real Enemy (Tucker)
Biden Job Approval Hits New Low (SN)

 

 

 

 

Geert: Don’t vaccinate your children with covid-vaccines! Ever!

 

 

 

 

Some eagles have too much time
https://twitter.com/i/status/1543921427606212608

 

 

 

 

“In that America, a man could easily support a family, we never gave a thought to our oil supply, and the doctor would see you now.”

A Great Endeavor (Jim Kunstler)

I wish I had a time machine. I would teleport a small delegation of Ben Franklin, Tom Jefferson, and Button Gwinnett from their sweltering labors at Independence Hall — then known as the Pennsylvania state house — to a Drag Queen Story Hour hosted by Lil Miss Hot Mess (“The People’s Drag Queen”) reading from her best-selling book, The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish, to a roomful of six-year-old offspring birthed by America’s current Progressive ruling elite. Here, I would explain, is what it has come to. Have today’s elites in our country, marinated in social justice and frantically signaling their goodness-and-virtue, gone perhaps a tad too far in their quest to liberate the populace from boundaries previously established for human behavior?

It’s one thing, you know, to throw off the onerous yoke of a British King and his agents, with their vexing taxes, despotic harassments, abuses and usurpations. It’s perhaps another thing “empowering” children to bethink themselves monomaniacs of sexual confusion, years before they’re mentally equipped to devine the conundrums of sex. What, after all, is a “hot mess?” Well, Google’s top search answer, from the Oxford Languages website, defines “hot mess” thusly: a person or thing that is spectacularly unsuccessful or disordered, especially one that is a source of peculiar fascination. Okay, I see: this metaphor signifies what the ruling elites would like our nation to become! And, more generally, western civ — that agglomeration of fusty creeds, shopworn traditions, oppressive laws, dubious virtues, and racist arts. Mission accomplished, then!

On July 4, 2022, America is a hot mess, but exactly! Are we not now spectacularly unsuccessful and disordered — in body, mind, polity, culture, mores, convictions, and aspirations? What is functioning in America these days? Absolutely nuthin’, ugh, say it again, to quote a song lyric of my bygone youth, when our project in Vietnam had gone off the rails. Of course, that was then and this is now. Back then, say 1970, we were the exuberant avatar of Modernity and the rest of the world was still a little groggy from World War Two. In that America, a man could easily support a family, we never gave a thought to our oil supply, and the doctor would see you now.

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“..since Russia is such a major commodity country that can continue to trade with major nations, they will over time suffer less than the sanctioning countries.”

This Implosion Will Be Fast – Hold Onto Your Seats (von Greyerz)

Russia is the second biggest gold producer in the world after China. Just like with oil, gas and many other commodities, the effect will be higher gold prices over time. The gold trade is international and the major buyers of gold are China and India. So Russia can continue to sell gold to the Far East, the middle East and South America. Also, when the EU sanctions started, the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) decided not to accept gold that had been refined in Russia. So the effect of the G7 ban will be minimal since gold deliveries from Russian refiners to the bullion banks already stopped in early March. Biden also signed an executive order on 15 March this year, prohibiting US persons to be involved with gold trading with Russian parties.

Still, more sanctions by the US and Europe will over time create shortages in gold just as it has in other commodities. So Russia will be able to sell its commodities including gold to other markets at higher prices. But since Russia by far has the greatest commodity reserves in the world at $75 trillion, the value of these reserves are going to appreciate for years as we are now at the beginning of a major bull market in commodities. The US and EU sanctions of Russia affect around 15% of the world population so there are still plenty of markets where Russia can trade. The Roman Empire controlled parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The Empire prospered primarily due to free trade within the whole area with no sanctions. Sanctions hurt all parties involved. And since Russia is such a major commodity country that can continue to trade with major nations, they will over time suffer less than the sanctioning countries.

The consequences of these sanctions especially for Europe where many countries are dependent on Russian oil and gas will be totally devastating. So the US and Europe have really shot themselves in the foot. Coming back to gold, the US and G7 move is more likely to have a beneficial effect on gold over time with demand increasing and supply being restricted. Gold started an uptrend in year 2001 that lasted for 10 years to 2011 when gold reached $1,920. After a major correction for 3 years until 2016, to $1,060, gold has resumed its exponential uptrend. Although gold has not yet made sustained new highs in dollars, we have seen much higher highs in gold against most currencies. The temporarily strong dollar is making gold look weak measured in the US currency but that is unlikely to last for long.

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Incoming!

Gas Shortage Emergency Would Push Hamburg To Ration Hot Water – Senator (EN)

The north German city of Hamburg will ration hot water and limit heating temperatures in the event of a gas emergency, its environment senator has said. The major port, home to nearly two million people, will ration hot water in homes and limit maximum heating temperatures if there are gas shortages, announced Hamburg Senator for the Environment Jens Kerstan. “In an acute gas shortage, warm water could only be made available at certain times of the day in an emergency,” Kersten told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, adding that the city was considering a general reduction of maximum room temperatures. Germany’s government is asking citizens and companies to cut back on energy use and help them fill up gas storage facilities before winter, over concerns surrounding Russian gas imports.


In June, Germany moved to stage two of its three-tier emergency gas plan after Russia reduced deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Stage two, called the Alarm Phase, is where there is a “significant deterioration” of gas supplies in Germany. According to Hamburg’s federal emergency plan, homes and critical institutions, such as hospitals, will be prioritised over industry in the third, emergency stage, which is where the government steps in to ration fuel. Yet, this might not be possible in Hamburg as “technical reasons” make it difficult to distinguish between commercial and private customers, according to Kerstan. He added that a possible temporary liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the port of Hamburg could not be operational until next May at the earliest. “In the course of July we will know whether and at which location a temporary LNG terminal in Hamburg is feasible,” said Kerstan.

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Sounds like you should negotiate for peace.

Top German Trade Union Head Warns Entire Industries May Collapse (ZH)

Last month, Russia reduced Nordstream natural gas flows by 60% because of an alleged disruption. German industries, heavily reliant on cheap Russian NatGas, face skyrocketing energy costs that have put many in danger of collapse. “Because of the NatGas bottlenecks, entire industries are in danger of permanently collapsing: aluminum, glass, the chemical industry,” Yasmin Fahimi, the head of the German Federation of Trade Unions, told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag. Fahimi warned: “Such a collapse would have massive consequences for the entire economy and jobs in Germany.” Economics Minister Robert Habeck was quoted by Bloomberg on Saturday saying the government is working to address surging energy costs for utilities and power costs for businesses and households. He warned weeks ago Germany should prepare for further cuts NatGas.

Germany recently triggered the “alarm stage” of its NatGas-emergency plan to address shortages as the energy crisis in Europe’s largest economy is far from over. Habeck had also likened the squeeze on Russian NatGas supplies and its damaging effects on industries to a catalyst that could spark a Lehman Brothers-like crisis. Deutsche Bank’s chief FX strategist George Saravelos told clients days ago he was becoming increasingly concerned about the unfolding energy crisis in Germany. Saravelos pointed out that dwindling NatGas supplies to Germany and the resulting surge in electricity prices have created massive problems for industries and utilities.

The biggest blowup last week was German gas and power utility Uniper. Shares in the company crashed because it only received 40% of NatGas from Russia, and the rest had to be purchased in the open market (outside of long-term contracts), where prices have soared. This has created an immense strain on the utility, losing upwards of $30 million per day, or if annualized, could be an $11 billion loss. Risks are mounting of a full NatGas disruption: “Europe should be ready in case Russian gas is completely cut off,” IEA head Fatih Birol recently told FT.

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“.. in 2020, Russia would supply more than half of Germany’s natural gas and about a third of all the oil that Germans burned to heat homes, power factories and fuel vehicles. Roughly half of Germany’s coal imports, which are essential to its steel manufacturing, came from Russia.”

‘We Were All Wrong’: How Germany Got Hooked On Russian Energy (G.)

On Sunday 1 February 1970, senior politicians and gas executives from Germany and the Soviet Union gathered at the upmarket Hotel Kaiserhof in Essen. They were there to celebrate the signing of a contract for the first major Russia-Germany gas pipeline, which was to run from Siberia to the West German border at Marktredwitz in Bavaria. The contract was the result of nine months of intense bargaining over the price of the gas, the cost of 1.2m tonnes of German pipes to be sold to Russia, and the credit terms offered to Moscow by a consortium of 17 German banks. Aware of the risk of Russia defaulting, the German banks’ chief financial negotiator, Friedrich Wilhelm Christians, took the precaution of asking for a loan from the federal government, explaining: “I don’t do any somersaults without a net, especially not on a trapeze.”

The relationship would benefit both sides: Germany would supply the machines and high-quality industrial goods; Russia would provide the raw material to fuel German industry. High-pressure pipelines and their supporting infrastructure hold the potential to bind countries together, since they require trust, cooperation and mutual dependence. But this was not just a commercial deal, as the presence at the hotel of the German economic minister Karl Schiller showed. For the advocates of Ostpolitik – the new “eastern policy” of rapprochement towards the Soviet Union and its allies including East Germany, launched the previous year under chancellor Willy Brandt – this was a moment of supreme political consequence. Schiller, an economist by training, was to describe it as part of an effort at “political and human normalisation with our Eastern neighbours”.

The sentiment was laudable, but for some observers it was a potentially dangerous move. Before the signing, Nato had discreetly written to the German economics ministry to inquire about the security implications. Norbert Plesser, head of the gas department at the ministry, had assured Nato that there was no cause for alarm: Germany would never rely on Russia for even 10% of its gas supplies. Half a century later, in 2020, Russia would supply more than half of Germany’s natural gas and about a third of all the oil that Germans burned to heat homes, power factories and fuel vehicles. Roughly half of Germany’s coal imports, which are essential to its steel manufacturing, came from Russia.

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The era of cheap oil…

Iran Slashes Cost of Its Oil to Compete With Russia in China (BBG)

Iran is being forced to discount its already cheap crude even more as a top ally gains a bigger foothold in the key Chinese market. China has become an important destination for Russian oil as Moscow seeks to maintain flows following the fallout from its invasion of Ukraine. That’s led to increased competition with Iran in one of the few remaining markets for its crude shipments, which have been significantly curtailed by US sanctions. Russian exports to China surged to a record in May, with the OPEC+ producer overtaking its cartel ally Saudi Arabia as the top supplier to the world’s biggest importer. While Iran has cut its oil prices to remain competitive in the Chinese market, it’s still maintaining robust flows, likely in part due to rising demand as China eases strict virus restrictions that had crushed consumption.

“The only competition between Iranian and Russian barrels may end up being in China, which would work entirely to Beijing’s advantage,” said Vandana Hari, founder of Vanda Insights in Singapore. “This is also likely to make the Gulf producers uneasy, seeing their prized markets taken over by heavily discounted crude.” China’s official data only lists three months of imports from Iran since the end of 2020, including in January and May this year, but third-party figures indicate a steady flow of crude. After a slight decline in April, imports have been over 700,000 barrels a day in May and June, according to Kpler. Industry consultant FGE says Russian Urals have displaced some Iranian barrels, however.

Iranian oil has been priced at nearly $10 a barrel below Brent futures to put it on par with Urals cargoes that are scheduled to arrive in China during August, according to traders. That compares with a discount of about $4 to $5 prior to the invasion. Iran’s Light and Heavy grades are most comparable to Urals. China’s independent refiners are major buyers of Russian and Iranian crudes, and cheap supplies are important because they’re constrained by rules around exporting fuels, unlike state-run processors. Known as teapots, they are not given quotas to ship fuels to overseas markets, where prices have surged on a supply crunch. Instead, they supply the domestic market and have incurred losses on refining in recent months as virus lockdowns sapped demand.

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“..a social and economic war between the farmers and Build Back Better government ideology chasing climate change goals.”

Dutch Farmers Intensify Protests (CTH)

The politicians in Dutch government recently passed sweeping new climate regulations that will result in more than a third of farmers losing their business. The government announced a €25 billion plan to radically reduce the number of livestock in the country in order to curtail emissions. As the Guardian reports, “A deal to buy out farmers to try to reduce levels of nitrogen pollution in the country had been mooted for some time,and was finally confirmed after the agreement of a new coalition government in the Netherlands earlier this week.” The plan is to reduce farming in the Netherlands, by a “one-third reduction in the numbers of pigs, cows and chickens in the country.” However, the farmers are fighting back.


The unorganized grass-roots groups have been randomly blocking roads and transportation hubs for the past three days. They have also been dropping truckloads of manure at the entrances of government businesses. In a show of solidarity, the fishing industry is now blocking ports. Additionally, the farmers are starting to block the distribution centers of supermarkets and key roads forming a cauldron where transit is at a standstill. As grocery store shelves go empty, the government is now asking the military to intervene and stop the farmer blockades. However, the Dutch people overwhelmingly support the farmers. Things have evolved into a social and economic war between the farmers and Build Back Better government ideology chasing climate change goals.

(Reuters) – “Dutch farmers angered by government plans that may require them to use less fertilizer and reduce livestock began a day of protests in the Netherlands on Monday by blocking supermarket distribution hubs in several cities. Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and KLM, the Dutch arm of Air France, have advised travellers to use public transport, rather than cars, to reach the airport, as farmers’ activist groups said on social media they planned to use tractors to block roads. Several traffic jams were reported on highways in the east of the country and on ferry routes in the north, but none near Schiphol during the morning commute. Dutch and European courts have ordered the Dutch government to address the problem. Farmers say they have been unfairly singled out and have criticised the government’s approach. Monday’s protest is widely supported by farmers’ groups but not centrally organised.”

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Laptops and Blackberries.

Death On The Senate Steps (George Webb)

I wrote about six Senate laptops stolen from the US Senate Sergeant of Arms office after the events I witnessed on January 6th. Now a key witness to the fact, Michael Stegner, the Senate Sergeant of Arms, appears to have been murdered on his way to January 6th testimony. I had the good fortune of having a long-time Biden adviser drop one of the US State Department Blackberrys configured for the US Senate in my lap in May of 2017. In a potential scheme to implicate the Bidens only in dark weapons dealing in Ukraine, the actual perpetrators may have given away key incriminating evidence about themselves. These Blackberrys connected to the Senate Sergeant of Arms laptops I was told. Kickbacks for energy deals in Ukraine seemed to be the motivation for the US Senators like Joe Biden.

One thing is for sure – the “specially configured” US State Department Blackberrys keep leading us to a Ukrainian Billionaire named Igor Kolomoisky. We seemed to be finding one Kolomoisky skeleton in the closet after another looking at the US Senate Ukraine energy deals These “special” US State Department Blackberrys traced all the way back to Beau Biden in Kosovo and Serbian NATO conflicts, and I just made a trek through all these countries tracing the Blackberrys’ early history with the Bidens. Now I had hard evidence these encrypted Blackberrys connected to the US Congress deciding on covert action in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine through an encrypted Blackberry network.

From the very beginning in September 2016, I was on a hunt for US State Department Blackberrys used by Hillary Clinton and her executives John Podesta and Huma Abedin at the Clinton Foundation for Libya topple gains being used to fund Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential Campaign. All suspicions on the very start, beginning with the seemingly fraudulent DNC ‘hack”, focused on one Dmitri Alperovich. I knew Dmitri as the CEO of a hacking team we bought at Network Associates in 2000 to write viruses and port the PGP encryption software to various platforms. From the outset, I knew proving the case against the Clinton Foundation for money laundering would require finding the US State Department Blackberrys that Dmitri configured. I wrote a book later about my chase to find the Dmitri Alperovich US State Department Blackberry trove called “Blackberries Matter” which again was an Amazon bestseller and then also quickly banned.

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“We saw [the US] American human rights right here in the corners of prison cells and in torture chambers..”

Human Rights: the United States and Western Style (Tajik)

The United States of America and its European posse regularly make allegations of human rights abuses against any nation that opposes their policies in the world, resists their aggressive rules, and creates obstacles to their hegemony. In atrocities committed against humans and their rights in real and tangible ways, however, said horde is not only an avant-garde of convoluted methods but also a seasoned practitioner of their own crafts. A real challenge for the US/West, nevertheless, arises when there is indisputable evidence of a clear disconnect between beautiful speeches they deliver on the subject of human rights and atrocious deeds they exact upon humans and their rights anywhere on the planet where they are allowed to do so.

With every use, this tool gets dull rendering it ineffective though. The jig was up for a lot of people decades ago. As Ayatullah Khamenei, the Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolution reminds us time and again, these shameful entities are nothing but savages and vicious wolves dressed like gentlemen with iron fists wrapped in velvet gloves. As part of an address to a group of Revolutionary Guard Commanders a while back, he described how human rights, as defined and implemented by the US and the West, had touched the lives of so many in the world, including himself and many other Iranians. He said,

“The attractive world the Westerners illustrate – in which human rights and freedom of choice exist – we have experienced that in our own lives during Pahlavi period. We understood the meaning of democracy and human rights in those days. [The US] Americans themselves collaborated with Pahlavi Regime in establishing horrific torture chambers that used torture devices and methods to capture our young people and crush our nation! This is that liberal democracy they are promising the world and their radios advertise to the people of the Third World inviting them to rush to it! They say these things to us, too. We have experimented and experienced this in our own lives. It is not something unfamiliar to us! We have personally touched the dark dictatorial rule of Pahlavi from whose claws blood dripped, from whose entire fabric corruption oozed; all these under the protective umbrella of [the US of] America, with the help of [the US of] America, with reliance on [the US of] America, it repeated these crimes and we literally touched them! These sorts of events are not unfamiliar to us. We saw [the US] American human rights right here in the corners of prison cells and in torture chambers and we felt them with our own meat and skin. Would our people forget these things?!”

Ayatullah Khamenei experienced, firsthand and for years, the torture chambers of then SAVAK (the information and security apparatus of Shah), the entity that had been established by the CIA. SAVAK enjoyed immensely the patronage of the US/West in all its torture endeavors. These first-hand experiences occurred decades before Abu Ghraib photos were released. At that time, the true nature of the US/West’s illiberal inhumanity had not been yet transparently exposed to many in the world.

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Deep state.

Supreme Court Targets the Real Enemy (Tucker)

The flurry of rulings from the Supreme Court has everyone’s head spinning. The most significant among them, even if it doesn’t capture all the headlines, is West Virginia v. EPA. The majority opinion is impressive, but the part I found truly wonderful is the concurring opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch. This is where we see things headed, toward a major and much-welcome curbing of the power of the administrative state. Just to review what this thing is, it’s an unelected bureaucracy that rules the country without oversight from voters or legislatures. For well over 100 years, most courts have given it a pass, just assuming that the “experts” in the bureaucracies are handling things just fine, faithfully interpreting legislation, and merely creating rules for easy compliance.

Generations have gone by as this fourth branch of government has grown in size, scope, and strength. For the most part, its baneful impositions have been felt by one business or one industry at a time. You have heard the stories. The car dealer complains about how the Department of Labor is making him crazy. The machine-parts manufacturer is going bonkers about letters from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The energy company can never satisfy the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They are stories and we find them unfortunate, but we’ve generally avoided thinking of these as systematic, all-pervasive, and truly dangerous to the idea of freedom itself. However, there are some 432 of these agencies.

The authors of the Declaration of Independence noted their existence back in the day when they accused the English king of having “erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.” They fought a revolution to end the tyranny but now we have a home-grown form, starting in 1883 with the Pendleton Act and continuing throughout the 20th century as each new administration creates its own bureaucracy. The thing has taken on a power of its own. Strangely, the topic hardly comes up at all during elections, and that’s for a reason. Politicians running for office like to advertise their power to make change. They might even believe it. In reality, though, elected officials have very little influence over the conduct of public life relative to the administrative state. As Trump found, not even the president is a match for the deep state.

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negative 27 per cent.

Biden Job Approval Hits New Low (SN)

As Americans celebrate July the 4th, a new poll shows that President Biden’s job approval has sunk to its lowest level ever.A CIVIQS rolling job-approval average shows that 18 months into his term, Biden’s job approval stands at just 30 per cent, while 57 per cent disapprove of the job he is doing. With 12 per cent of participants refusing to be drawn on whether they approve or disapprove of Biden, his overall net job approval now stands at negative 27 per cent. The figure marks Biden’s worst job approval since becoming president, and he is now underwater in 48 states, with only voters in Hawaii and Vermont showing more approval than disapproval. Having stood at 34 per cent in May, Biden’s job approval has sunk by a further four percentage points, with only 19 per cent of Independents approving of him, and 67 per cent showing disapproval.

Biden’s popularity hasn’t been helped by his endless verbal slip-ups, which have left many Americans concerned about his mental faculties. However, the most damaging aspect of his presidency has undoubtedly been his failure to deal with a cost of living crisis which has seen inflation soar and gas prices hit new records.Biden loyalists have become increasingly absurd in trying to explain away gas price hikes and inflation, with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers blaming people who downplay what happened on January 6.“The banana Republicans who are saying that what happened on January 6th was nothing or OK are undermining the basic credibility of our country’s institutions and that in turn feeds through, uh, for inflation,” said Summers.

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“I can’t imagine what will happen when babies start dying. It’s going to be horrendous.” -Ed Dowd

 

 

 

 

Scott Ritter: ‘Two-Front War: Biden’s Mouth is Writing Checks the US Military Can’t Cash’

 

 

 

 

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