Aug 222023
 
 August 22, 2023  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  44 Responses »


Titian Venus of Urbino 1534

 

Col. Macgregor Tells Tucker Why The Ukraine War Must End Now (ZH)
F-16 Transfers to Ukraine Will Take Years to Produce Results (Sp.)
Democrats Aren’t Laughing About The Hunter Biden Debacle Anymore (Turley)
The Disqualification of Donald Trump and Other Legal Urban Legends (Turley)
We Won’t Be Fooled Again (Jim Kunstler)
‘BRICS Is Now The Hottest Club In The World’ – Senior Diplomat (RT)
BRICS 2023: Who are Participants & Guests of the Summit? (Sp.)
BRICS Plus-SCO Super Bloc vs. US Empire (Pepe Escobar)
The Founder Members Of BRICS Face A Historic Decision (RT)
China Wants BRICS to Rival G7 – FT (RT)
‘Fallen Angels From Hell’ – Scholz On Critics Of His Ukraine Policies (RT)
Nuclear Fusion Still Long Way From Becoming Viable Energy Source (Sp.)
The Crucifixion of Julian Assange (Chris Hedges)

 

 

 

 

RFK Dore

 

 

Trump BRICS

 

 

Mask
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691137859485573120

 

 

 

 

Worth every minute of your time.

”President Biden has enabled ‘combat pay’ which implies there are American forces on the ground in Ukraine.”

Col. Macgregor Tells Tucker Why The Ukraine War Must End Now (ZH)

Tucker Carlson on Monday published an interview with former Trump administration official Col. Douglas Macgregor (Ret.), who explained why the war in Ukraine has put the United States on the brink of a ‘catastrophic war that could easily destroy us.’ Carlson begins with a bold statement: “pretty much everything that NBC and The NYTimes have told you about the war in Ukraine is a lie.” “‘The Russian army is incompetent’ – they claim. ‘Ukraine is a Democracy!’ ‘Vladimir Putin is Hitler and he’s trying to take over the world!’ ‘Thankfully, the Ukrainians are winning.’ “Every claim is false, the last one especially,” said Carlson, adding “the Ukrainian army is not winning – in fact, it’s losing badly. Ukraine is being destroyed. Its population is being slaughtered.”

“Most American know nothing about Ukraine,” Macgregor continued, adding that “if they knew anything about the history of Eastern Europe, they would all say ‘get out!’… because the wars and the blood and the hatred that’s been fought over for centuries is something we can’t sort out.” Macgregor’s comments grow more ominous in their tone as the discussion continues. He notes that President Biden has enabled ‘combat pay’ which implies there are American forces on the ground in Ukraine. “It would be a mistake to think that the Russian forces do not know where they are,” the retired colonel explains, pointing out that the Russians are sending a message with recent precision missile strikes near the borders of Poland and Moldova: “if you think you can hide from us, if you come in here, if you cross these borders, we will annihilate you.”

We need to come to terms with these realities because we can’t defeat it,” he remarked reflecting on the fact that people have called him ‘unpatriotic’ for his comments. He summed the situation in Ukraine up rather succinctly: “if we press this war with Russia in Central East Europe, it will reach us here in the United States.” According to Macgregor, “The smartest thing we can do is end this war now,” adding “The Russians will never tolerate NATO forces on Ukrainian soil.” “Ukrainian forces are in piecemeal fashion, surrendering to the Russians, not because they don’t want to fight; it’s because they can’t fight anymore, they have so many wounded they can’t evacuate them … we’re going to see this army that we have spent so heavily on, melt away.”

When it comes to the equipment being used to fight, MacGregor said that “a lot of the equipment we sent over there is quite frankly, obsolete… its very old, it’s not new.” “Integrated air defenses will knock virtually everything that flies out of the sky,” he said, adding “We will then fall back on a nuclear deterrent – a tactical nuclear weapon that says ‘if you keep advancing, we’ll have to use a nuclear weapon.’ We don’t want to go there, because the notion that there are so-called tactical nukes ‘oh, it’s just a little nuke, so that won’t precipitate a nuclear war’ – the use of any nuclear weapon is going to precipitate an escalation very rapidly,” he said.

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Medvedev on Telegram: “This is a good day for Ukraine, and consequently, a good day for Europe,” said the foreign minister with an incomplete secondary education, Annalena Berbock, regarding the decision to supply F-16 aircraft to the Bandera brothers of German Nazis. Oh, don’t play with toy planes in your sandbox, kids. Let’s hope one of these future ‘good days’ for Europe doesn’t turn out to be its last day…”

“Since Russian intelligence has certain capabilities to track such cargoes, it is possible to detect their location and eliminate them even before the start of their operation..”

F-16 Transfers to Ukraine Will Take Years to Produce Results (Sp.)

While Ukraine is now set to receive F-16 Falcon fighter jets from NATO, they won’t be on the battlefield for at least six months, and they stand little chance of being effective for at least two years, meaning the program won’t affect the course of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine for a while, experts told Sputnik. According to the latest deal hammered out between the NATO powers and Ukraine, the Netherlands and Denmark will together supply Kiev with 61 F-16 Falcon fighter jets of the older A/B variants – with updated equipment – in exchange for being permitted to buy newer versions of the jet from the United States. Kiev has long sought Falcons, which were introduced as an interceptor in the 1970s to counter Soviet fighters and bombers, as a year and a half of combat has severely attrited its air forces.

While Western powers that are former Soviet allies have until this point supplied Ukraine with Soviet-made aircraft from their own inventories, shipping Western-made fighters presents a new challenge since both Ukrainian pilots and Ukrainian technology will have to be adapted to use them. Boris Rozhin, a military expert with the Center for Military-Political Journalism, an independent Russian military affairs think tank, said that the transfer of fighters would likely be slow and it would present few problems for Russian forces.“It was promised that Denmark and Holland should receive 61 F-16 fighters according to their plans within three years. That is, some quantity will be delivered possibly before the end of the year, some parts will arrive in 2024-25 and even possibly in 2026.

This is a rather lengthy process, at each stage of which geopolitical and technical problems may arise. Maybe the conflict will come to naught by then. Various things can happen. But there is no particular doubt that these aircraft will be provided in principle, the process is underway, approved by the United States,” he told Sputnik. “It has already passed into the stage of practical implementation, so the planes will take part in the fighting. It depends on the quantity of the first delivery. In addition, how many aircraft will be delivered as part of the first batch is also unclear, as is the final number of aircraft that will be provided to Ukrainian troops,” Rozhin said. “If the planes are nevertheless handed over, the pilots have time to master these machines and learn how to handle them correctly and efficiently, then they will be used to launch missiles.

That is, they will also seek to carry out missile strikes against our facilities, because they fly at low altitudes,” Rozhin said. “In response, we can attack the airfields where they are based and warehouses with missiles that are transmitted from the West. Since Russian intelligence has certain capabilities to track such cargoes, it is possible to detect their location and eliminate them even before the start of their operation,” Rozhin continued. “We will probably also see strikes on military targets, personnel accommodation facilities and guarding the parking lot or repairing such vehicles. They will need to hide them well to avoid such blows.”

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“..those two mocked whistleblowers prompted the Justice Department to prosecute..”

Democrats Aren’t Laughing About The Hunter Biden Debacle Anymore (Turley)

“There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh, and this is not one of them.” Those words from Inspector Jacques Clouseau may have to be emblazoned across the hearing room of the House Oversight Committee. It was a month ago that House Democratic members mocked the testimony of two whistleblowers who testified about the rigged investigation to protect Hunter Biden, the son of President Biden. Now it appears that the controversial “sweetheart deal” was not the first choice of US Attorney David Weiss. He actually was planning to let Hunter walk without even a misdemeanor charge despite massive unpaid taxes, gun violations, and work as an unregistered foreign agent, among other alleged crimes. The reason for his change at Justice, according to the New York Times? Those pesky whistleblowers.

One of the most insulting moments for the respected IRS agents came from ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who mocked the allegations as part of “this Inspector Clouseau-style quest for something that doesn’t exist [that] has turned our committee into a theater of the absurd, an exercise in futility and embarrassment.” Raskin assured the public that these “disagreements” are “routine” matters in investigations (a position echoed by his junior colleague, Rep. Dan Goldman of New York). The IRS agents tried to object that they had never seen anything like what happened in this case. Then the case became anything but a laughing matter for Democrats. The plea agreement with Hunter Biden collapsed within minutes of a federal judge asking a few basic questions.

When District Judge Maryellen Noreika balked at sweeping language on immunity, she asked the prosecutor if he had ever seen any agreement like this one. He answered “no” and the deal quickly fell apart, with Hunter Biden’s lawyer finally saying exasperatedly, “Just rip it up.” The language was anything but routine. Then an FBI agent spoke to Congress and confirmed testimony of the IRS agents, including that Hunter Biden was tipped off on an attempt to interview him. The agent said they were forced to sit a block away and told not to approach the house. The interview was then cut off. He described being “upset” and how this was not routine. The New York Times, which has spent years downplaying the Hunter Biden scandal, has published an internal account of the investigation. The Times reported that US Attorney David Weiss was actually preparing to let Hunter walk “without requiring a guilty plea on any charges.”

However, that “changed in the spring, around the time a pair of IRS officials on the case accused the Justice Department of hamstringing the investigation. Mr. Weiss suddenly demanded that Mr. Biden plead guilty to committing tax offenses.” In other words, according to the Times, those two mocked whistleblowers prompted the Justice Department to prosecute. Why would that be? Attorney General Merrick Garland insisted that no political pressure or political considerations would affect the investigation. Yet it appears that the Biden team did raise the potential embarrassment for the president and the Justice Department if Hunter faced serious charges. New emails reveal that Hunter Biden’s lawyers told the prosecutors that, if there were serious charges, it would be President Biden in the spotlight.

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Gavin Newsom is trying to get him off the ballot in California..

The Disqualification of Donald Trump and Other Legal Urban Legends (Turley)

The popularity of urban legends is a testament to the will to believe. The desire of people to keep Elvis alive or prove that a Sasquatch could exist furtively in our backyards shows the resilience of fables. Constitutional urban legends often have an even more immediate appeal and tend to arise out of the desperation of divided times. One of the most popular today is that former President Donald Trump can be barred from office, even if he is not convicted in any of the four indictments he faces, under a long-dormant clause of the 14th Amendment. This 14th Amendment theory is something that good liberals will read to their children at night. It goes something like this: Donald Trump can never be president again, because the 14th Amendment bars those who previously took federal oaths from assuming office if they engaged in insurrection or rebellion.

With that, and a kiss on the forehead, a progressive’s child can sleep peacefully through the night. But don’t look under the bed. For as scary as it might sound to some, Trump can indeed take office if he is elected…even if he is convicted. Indeed, he can serve as president even in the unlikely scenario that he is sentenced to jail. Democrats have long pushed this theory about the 14th Amendment as a way of disqualifying not only Trump but also dozens of Republican members of Congress. For some, it is the ultimate Hail Mary pass if four indictments, roughly 100 criminal charges and more than a dozen opposing candidates fail to get the job done. I have strongly rejected this interpretation for years, so it is too late to pretend that I view this as a plausible argument.

However, some serious and smart people take an equally strong position in support of the theory. Indeed, conservative scholars William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen have argued for the interpretation and insist in a recent law review article that “the case is not even close. All who are committed to the Constitution should take note and say so.” But some of us like to believe that we are committed to the Constitution and, for that same reason, we say no. While I have great respect for these academics, I simply fail to see how the text, history or purpose of the 14th Amendment even remotely favors this view. Despite the extensive research of Baude and Paulsen, their analysis ends where it began: Was January 6 an insurrection or rebellion? I have previously addressed the constitutional basis for this claim. It is, in my view, wildly out of sync with the purpose of the amendment, which followed an actual rebellion, the Civil War.

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“..yet a new, fresh Covid-19 scare for the fall, in order to reenforce the special mail-in voting scheme that’s working so nicely (for them)..”

We Won’t Be Fooled Again (Jim Kunstler)

If you are among that segment of the population that has not lost its mind, you might realize that the public health authorities have no authority. They lied outrageously about everything connected with Covid-19. And when they were caught lying, they just lied some more in the vain attempt to cover up their previous lies. And so, it would be foolish to regard anything they say from now on — without a complete house-cleaning of agency personnel, plus some earnest prosecutions — as worth listening to and following. Authority, you see, is granted only to those who are trustworthy. Yes, it’s really that simple. If an authority lies about everything, and is caught doing it, then it is rendered invalid.

Now, it happens that the US public health agencies, huge and costly as they are, make up only one part of the even larger and costlier US government, which has been busy surrendering the authority of all its other parts for years now, to the point that the whole enterprise is untrustworthy and in need of a severe housecleaning. Traditionally, elections are the mechanism for cleaning that house, but our elections have lost their authority, too? Really? How so? Because the untrustworthy officials in charge of them employ dubious systems for gathering the vote: mail-in balloting that invites fraud and hackable vote-counting machines that are connected to the Internet. The defects of these things are so obvious they can hardly be ignored. And the remedy is obvious and simple, too: paper ballots hand-counted in small precincts of manageable size, all done on one day, which we call Election Day (and which should be a national holiday, so more working people can get to the polls).

Somehow, though, we are unable to avail that remedy, probably because the untrustworthy people in charge would lose their jobs and the power they enjoy in a truly fair election. So, they conclude, let’s not have that. It’s even looking like the untrustworthy public health authorities are ramping up yet a new, fresh Covid-19 scare for the fall, in order to reenforce the special mail-in voting scheme that’s working so nicely (for them), and to disorder the minds of the public so they’ll be too frightened to notice that all the other parts of the government are failing in virtually all their duties to the people of this land. Bring on some new Covid variants and the lovely new booster vax that’ll work so well (not). Go ahead, we should say, I dare you. We won’t be fooled again.

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BRICS Summit in Johannesburg from August 22 to 24.

‘BRICS Is Now The Hottest Club In The World’ – Senior Diplomat (RT)

African nations can establish new trade alliances by working with the BRICS group of emerging economies, Tanzania’s high commissioner to South Africa told RT in an exclusive interview on Sunday. Maj Gen Gaudence Salim Milanzi said BRICS is “the hottest club in the world” and although Tanzania has not yet applied for membership, it sees opportunities in working with the bloc. A Tanzanian delegation will be attending the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg from August 22 to 24. Milanzi explained that “BRICS offers an alternative to many other systems which we have now.” African nations have traditionally traded with Western countries, but “we always look for other trading partners,” and that is what BRICS can offer as well “as a huge economic bloc.”


According to the high commissioner, the economic objectives of BRICS – currently comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are “aligned to what Tanzania aspires to” and “there is common ground.” Milanzi noted “a welcome change” in recent years in how Western and Eastern countries have turned their focus to Africa and poured investment into the continent. “Many countries are realizing the potential of Africa as an economic partner,” he added. Gaudence Salim Milanzi also pointed to the long-running exploitation of Africa, saying that with its vast resources the continent “should not be poor as it is now” and that it needs “the development to be actually in Africa itself.”

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“..Over 40 countries have expressed their desire to join BRICS, with 23 of them doing so officially..”

BRICS 2023: Who are Participants & Guests of the Summit? (Sp.)

The heads of state or heads of government of the five member states – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – will be attending the BRICS 2023 Summit this year. Accordingly, on the list are President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, which took up the rotating chairship of the group in January, China’s President Xi Jinping, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be attending the gathering in person, but is expected to participate in the summit via video link. The online speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the BRICS summit in South Africa is expected to take place on August 23, according to Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s BRICS envoy. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be heading the country’s delegation at the BRICS 2023 Summit.

The South African president has “invited (with consensus support from his fellow BRICS Leaders) sixty-seven (67) Leaders from Africa and the global South to attend the BRICS-Africa Outreach and BRICS Plus Dialogues. The Leaders cover all the continents and regions of the global South,” South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said earlier in August. Another 20 representatives of international organizations have also been invited, the minister said. “The President has also invited twenty (20) dignitaries that include the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, the President of the New Development Bank, the Chairs and Executive Heads of African Regional Economic Communities, African financial institutions, and the Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat and CEO of the African Union Development Agency,” the statement said.

Currently, 41 countries have confirmed their participation, with more expected, according to Anil Sooklal. Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergey Aleinik will participate in the BRICS Summit, Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaz told Sputnik. “On the instructions of the head of state, our delegation [to BRICS] will be headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Aleinik,” Glaz said. He added that the country will participate in the BRICS-AFRICA Outreach and BRICS+ dialogues. This will be the first time Belarus takes part in BRICS Summit events, Glaz noted. No Western leaders have been invited.

[..] Over 40 countries have expressed their desire to join BRICS, with 23 of them doing so officially, according to South African top diplomat Naledi Pandor. “We have had formal expressions of interest from the Leaders of 23 countries in joining BRICS, and many more informal approaches about the possibilities of BRICS membership,” Pandor said. Among those who have officially applied are Argentina, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Senegal, Algeria, Ethiopia, Iran, and Indonesia. “The list of countries is large,” Anil Sooklal said..

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“In terms of a game-changing geopolitical moment, this is it..”

BRICS Plus-SCO Super Bloc vs. US Empire (Pepe Escobar)

Johannesburg is gearing up for the 15th BRICS Summit, which will kick off on Tuesday and run through Thursday, with this year’s theme entitled “|BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism.” “Multilateralism” is perhaps the most significant word to describe the gathering nations’ intentions, with the BRICS’ combined economic might already outweighing that of the G7, and, when accounting for the human, geographic, economic and resource potential of countries that have expressed interest in joining, pose a serious challenge to the US-led international order. “The great potential for creating a fair and democratic architecture of international relations lies in structures like BRICS,” Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said last week on the eve of the summit.

Pointing to the bloc name’s similarity to the English word “bricks”, Naryshkin indicated that BRICS is a subtle nod to the US and its allies that the so-called “rules based international order” is on its way out. “These are indeed the building blocks in the foundation of a truly free and equal world. In the near future, new bricks or poles will be added. The structure of multipolarity will continue to grow and strengthen, protecting the rights of nations to sovereignty and identity will promoting real economic development. No beast on Earth will succeed in dismantling this structure.” “In terms of a game-changing geopolitical moment, this is it,” Pepe Escobar told Sputnik, when asked about the special significance of this year’s BRICS summit.

“Much more than previous summits, much more than the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, much more than all previous BRICS summits. And the fact that it takes place in Africa, which, as we all know now, is at the center of everything once again, especially because of, let’s put it concisely, the ‘African revolt against French neocolonialism,'” only adds to the gathering’s significance, Escobar said. There’s also “the fact that the organizing committee invited 67 heads of state of powerful representatives from all over Africa and many other places in the Global South to be part of discussions involving the collaboration between BRICS and Africa and also ‘BRICS+,” Escobar added, referring to the exciting prospect of new members joining the bloc for the first time since South Africa itself did so in 2010.

“One thing we already know for sure coming from [leaders’ representatives] is that they already decided on a mechanism for the absorption of new members. Of course, this is a very complex endeavor because it involves, at the last count, over 30 nations, 23 that that have already expressed their formal desire to be part of BRICS+,” the observer noted. “Of course, these are baby steps, Escobar clarified. “We should not expect BRICS in two days in South Africa [to turn] the ‘rules-based international order’ upside down. No, this is going to be a gradual, slow moving, very challenging process. But what’s happening in South Africa and immediately after South Africa is, let’s say, a sort of Rosetta Stone for what’s going to happen ahead.”

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Iran, Indonesia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia. Who else in round 1?

The Founder Members Of BRICS Face A Historic Decision (RT)

About 20 countries are reportedly seeking admission to the five-member organization and the list of countries that will be represented at the meeting in South Africa is three times as long. This is a sign of the times and points to two things: the yearning of many non-Western nations to become more consequential to how the world is run, and the growing pushback against self-serving Western dominance in global politics, economics, finance, and the media. This does not mean, however, that BRICS (an acronym made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will have an easy run in reshaping the world order. Ahead of the Johannesburg summit, two issues emerged as the main challenges to the group’s further evolution.

One is expanding membership. A number of countries from all over the globe have lined up at BRICS’ door, ready to walk in. These include Algeria, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belarus, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Going for a big-bang enlargement would be a loud statement, to the effect that an alternative to the US-led system of alliances and partnerships is being built. However, the question is would such an expansion make a much more diversified BRICS immediately stronger or not?

[..] Within BRICS itself, views on enlargement differ. Yet, there is a model that can prove useful. Another non-Western group, with some of the same participant states, did manage the enlargement issue without diluting effectiveness. This was the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which started with Russia, China, and three Central Asian states. Over time, the SCO has found a formula for categories of participating countries and criteria-cum-processes for admitting new full members. The organization was able to extend its full membership to India and Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Iran, with a number of others in line for admission. If the SCO approach is adopted by BRICS, this could be a solution.

The other challenge for the bloc is coming up with new financial instruments to reduce the non-Western economies’ dependence on the dollar. Washington’s weaponization of its currency in its Hybrid War against Russia and its concurrent manipulation of trade and technology against China have made the issue urgent. Western restrictions have hampered the activities of the BRICS’ New Development Bank. Calls have been made for the group to create a common currency, to break the dollar’s monopoly in world finance. Yet, it is self-evident that creating a reserve currency for five very different economies, of which China accounts for two-thirds of the combined nominal GDP of the group, will run up against the jealously guarded principle of national sovereignty. The original goal of achieving financial independence will not be met.

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“What we do seek is to advance the agenda of the Global South and to build a more inclusive, representative, just, fair global architecture..”

China Wants BRICS to Rival G7 – FT (RT)

China plans to push for BRICS to become a full-fledged rival of the G7 during the bloc’s upcoming summit in South Africa, officials told the Financial Times. The Chinese government has “clashed” with India over the prospect of expanding the bloc in the run-up to the event, which is scheduled to take place in Johannesburg between August 22 and 24, the British paper reported on Sunday. According to FT’s sources, there’s no agreement between Beijing and New Delhi on whether BRICS, which currently comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, should be a non-aligned economic club or a political force that openly challenges the West. South African officials told the paper that 23 countries had expressed interest in joining BRICS and some of these could receive invitations to join in Johannesburg.

The report singled out Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia as the favorites to become the first new members of the bloc since the inclusion of South Africa in 2010. “If we expand BRICS to account for a similar portion of world GDP as the G7, then our collective voice in the world will grow stronger,” an unnamed Chinese official told the FT. Earlier this month, New Delhi dismissed media reports that it opposed the expansion of the bloc, with Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi describing them as “baseless speculation.” “As mandated by the leaders last year, BRICS members are internally discussing the guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures for the BRICS expansion process on the basis of full consultation and consensus,” Bagchi pointed out.

A senior Brazilian diplomat told the FT that the country supported the expansion of BRICS, but noted that “it’s important that criteria are defined for the entrance of these new members.” Last week, South Africa’s ambassador to BRICS, Anil Sooklal, dismissed claims that the bloc is “anti-West” and looking to compete with the G7. “What we do seek is to advance the agenda of the Global South and to build a more inclusive, representative, just, fair global architecture,” he explained. In early August, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said Russia believes that “in one form or another, the expansion of BRICS will contribute to the further development and strengthening of this organization.” He noted that “the format and size” of this expansion would be discussed by BRICS leaders during the summit in Johannesburg, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin will participate via video link.

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2/3 of people want him gone. That can’t of course be his fault…

‘Fallen Angels From Hell’ – Scholz On Critics Of His Ukraine Policies (RT)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz received a frosty welcome during a campaign speech in Munich’s iconic Marienplatz square on Friday evening. Critics of the country’s military aid to Ukraine booed the official, who then questioned the true intentions of his detractors and accused them of playing right into Russia’s hands. Scholz was confronted by a crowd that was calling the chancellor a “warmonger,” “loser,” and “liar,” among other things. The chancellor parried, insisting that the “right-wing populists” stand for a “gloomy future.” Scholz went on to argue that those demanding an end to German weapon deliveries to Ukraine were not peace doves, but rather “fallen angels, that come from hell, because at the end of the day they make the case for a warmonger,” – an apparent reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The official went on to defend his decision to provide Kiev with weapons to fend off “imperialist aggression,” assuring the public that such steps were taken only after careful consideration. Similar scenes occurred during events attended by Scholz in Frankfurt and Neuruppin last week, with critics also taking aim at his climate policies. Meanwhile, the results of a new opinion poll released by Bild on Saturday indicated that some 64% of respondents would want to see the incumbent “traffic light” coalition government made up of Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Free Democrats, and the Greens replaced. Only 22% are content with the way the country is being governed at present, the media outlet revealed, with 70% of the Germans polled dissatisfied with Scholz personally.

Back in June, Scholz was booed at a ‘European Festival’ in the town of Falkensee, organized by his own SPD party.As captured by a Ruptly video agency cameramen, some of the attendees denounced the chancellor as a “people’s traitor” and a “warmonger,” while calling for “peace without weapons.” According to Bild, some of those people were members of right-wing groups and were sporting pro-Russia symbols.Scholz’s government has consistently supported Ukraine since the start of its conflict with Russia last February, with the chancellor predicting that Berlin would have to provide weapons to Kiev for years to come.

However, in addition to those opposing such deliveries, the official has also caught flak from top Ukrainian officials and some politicians at home for his apparent hesitancy when it has come to certain types of hardware, such as Leopard tanks.Speaking at another event on Friday, the official insisted that all efforts to shore up Ukraine were being undertaken only after careful consideration and in close coordination with allies to minimize the risk of the conflict merging into a “war between Russia and NATO.”

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Is limitless energy a good idea for mankind? Look at what we did with our newfound energy the past 200 years…

Nuclear Fusion Still Long Way From Becoming Viable Energy Source (Sp.)

Earlier in August, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California said it had repeated its controlled nuclear fusion reaction experiment, achieving higher energy yield than during the laboratory’s original feat last December. Back then, the US scientists became the first to conduct a controlled fusion experiment that produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it. Such developments have excited proponents of fusion who hope to one day produce nearly limitless, carbon-free energy and displace fossil fuels as well as other traditional energy sources. However, this remains an elusive goal at the moment since fusion happens at inordinately high temperatures and pressures that are extremely hard to control.

“In the recent experiment, the fusion energy is very small. It can heat roughly a cup of water. To produce a power plant (i.e. to produce hundreds of megawatts of power per hour) one would need to have many fusion explosions per second. Now, one has no idea how to produce laser pulses at the required rate. My conclusion is that one would need at least 30 years of research to approach the necessary performance and it is not clear at all if it is possible,” Jean Barrette, professor emeritus with McGill University’s Department of Physics, said. When asked which of the main approaches to controlled-fusion energy — inertial confinement or magnetic confinement — is more viable from a technical and economic standpoint, the expert replied that there was no way to determine this as both methods have a long way to go before reaching a final positive result.

The magnetic confinement approach is embodied in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, which has been in development since the late 1980s, with actual construction launched in 2010. Nevertheless, while ITER is closer to being a working power plant, it is still unclear whether the project will be economically viable, Barrette said. At the same time, the inertial confinement model used by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is “further away but may be progressing faster at least for a while,” the expert added. “Note [that] today one only talks about the Livermore Inertial Confinement Result and ITER as the only two options. This is not quite the total picture,” Barrette said, citing reports about other approaches, some of which are quite old.

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“Tyrannies, from Biblical times to the present, invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials, to mask their criminality. ”

The Crucifixion of Julian Assange (Chris Hedges)

Bearing the cross, living in truth, is not about the pursuit of happiness. It does not embrace the illusion of inevitable human progress. It is not about achieving wealth, celebrity or power. It entails sacrifice. It is about our neighbor. The organs of state security monitor and harass you. They amass huge files on your activities. They disrupt your life. They throw you in prison, even when, like Julian, you did not commit a crime. It is not a new story. Nor is our indifference to evil; palpable evil we can see in front of us, new. In the reading from the Hebrew Bible we hear the story of the prophet Jeremiah. He, like Julian, exposed the corruption and lust for war by the powerful. He warned of the catastrophe that inevitably comes when the covenant with God is broken.

He condemned idolatry, the corruption of kings, priests and false prophets. Jeremiah was arrested, beaten and put in stocks. He was forbidden from preaching. An attempt was made on his life. After Egypt was conquered by Babylon, and Judea began to prepare for war, Jeremiah delivered an oracle warning the king to maintain peace. King Zedekiah ignored him. Babylon besieged Jerusalem. Jeremiah was arrested and imprisoned. He was freed by the Babylonians after Jerusalem’s conquest, but was exiled to Egypt, where, according to the Biblical tradition, he was stoned to death. Jeremiah, like Julian, understood that a society that prohibits the capacity to speak in truth extinguishes the capacity to live in justice.

Yes, all of us who know and admire Julian decry his prolonged suffering and the suffering of his family. Yes, we demand that the many wrongs and injustices that have been visited upon him end. Yes, we honor him for his courage and his integrity. But the battle for Julian’s liberty has always been much more than the persecution of a publisher. It is the most important battle for press freedom, and truth, of our era. And if we lose this battle, it will be devastating, not only for Julian and his family, but for us. Tyrannies, from Biblical times to the present, invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials, to mask their criminality.

Those, such as Julian, who expose that criminality to the public are dangerous, for without the pretext of legitimacy the tyranny loses credibility and has nothing left in its arsenal but fear, coercion and violence. The long campaign against Julian and WikiLeaks is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of “inverted totalitarianism,” a form of totalitarianism that maintains the fictions of the old capitalist democracy, including its institutions, iconography, patriotic symbols and rhetoric, but internally has surrendered total control to the dictates of global corporations.

I was in the London courtroom during Julian’s extradition hearing overseen by Judge Vanessa Baraitser, an updated version of the Queen of Hearts in “Alice in Wonderland”, demanding the sentence before pronouncing the verdict. It was a judicial farce. There was no legal basis to hold Julian in prison. There was no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the U.S. Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Julian in the embassy through the Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Julian and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the hearing. Julian is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Nils Melzer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, has testified, continue the degrading abuse and torture it hopes will lead to his psychological, if not physical disintegration.

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This deceiving grid tricks you into thinking there’s a curved line somewhere, but you can’t find it. The purposefully placed gray lines will induce your peripheral vision to interpolate curved lines [image by Lesha Porche. Explanation: https://buff.ly/3b79VC8]

 

 

 

 

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Jul 132023
 
 July 13, 2023  Posted by at 8:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  53 Responses »


John Atkinson Grimshaw A moonlit lane 1874

 

Ukraine To Pay High Price For Security Guarantees From G7 – Zakharova (TASS)
Moscow Reacts To NATO Summit (RT)
NATO Summit Exposes Fractures in Alliance Over Support for Ukraine (Sp.)
The US May Never Allow Ukraine To Join NATO (Bordachev)
NATO Spent Years Preparing For Proxy War With Russia in Ukraine (Sp.)
Peace Is Always Priority For Russia Over Combat – Lavrov (TASS)
Stoltenberg: Sending Advanced Weapons, Munitions To Kiev Priority For NATO (TASS)
NATO Offers Up Slim Pickings For Kiev At Vilnius Summit – Hungarian FM (TASS)
‘We’re not Amazon’ – UK Responds To Ukraine’s Weapons Requests (RT)
NATO Leaders Tell Zelensky ‘Cool It’ In Rare Dressing Down At Summit
Poland Wants Ukraine To Admit Guilt For Nazi-linked WWII Massacre (RT)
Elon Musk Sets Up New AI Company (RT)
Greek Coastguard ‘Pressured’ Migrant Boat Survivors (BBC)
Julian Assange, Who ‘Aims To Change The World’, Awarded Konrad Wolf Prize (AR)

 

 

 

 

Wray
https://twitter.com/i/status/1679234587459825664

 

 

DOJ

 

 

 

 

Roseanne

 

 

RFK Saddam

 

 

One of these things…

 

 

 

 

“The price is not a secret: a Ukraine cleared of Ukrainians by Western weapons but with enough population left to serve NATO troops.”

Ukraine To Pay High Price For Security Guarantees From G7 – Zakharova (TASS)

The price of security guarantees from the Group of Seven (G7) is a Ukraine cleared of Ukrainians by Western weapons, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday. Earlier, Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov expressed concern over the G7’s security guarantees, saying that “Kiev will not believe in them until it finds out what their price is.” “The price is not a secret: a Ukraine cleared of Ukrainians by Western weapons but with enough population left to serve NATO troops. There is no need to deport anyone to Western Europe any more because people have moved there themselves,” the diplomat wrote on Telegram.

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“NATO’s achievements are well known: the growing instability, destruction of countries, rampant terrorism, war crimes that are committed with impunity, the blood of civilians, including children, and the endless flow of refugees..”

Moscow Reacts To NATO Summit (RT)

The North Atlantic alliance intends to use Ukraine as a proxy for endless war while expanding into the Arctic and Asia in pursuit of neocolonial objectives, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, after a NATO meeting wrapped up in neighboring Lithuania. “The ‘collective West’ led by the US is not willing to accept the formation of a multipolar world and intends to defend its hegemony by all available means, including military ones,” the ministry said in a statement. What the West calls the “rules-based order” is nothing but a “license they granted themselves to violate international law,” and has nothing to do with the UN, which NATO frequently invokes, according to Moscow.

“NATO’s achievements are well known: the growing instability, destruction of countries, rampant terrorism, war crimes that are committed with impunity, the blood of civilians, including children, and the endless flow of refugees,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. The bloc is now determined to “NATO-ize” Ukraine, treating the country as an expendable resource in a hybrid war against Russia, supplying Kiev with long-range weapons in order to prolong the conflict for as long as possible, the ministry added. Meanwhile, the US military-industrial complex is “happily rubbing its hands” at the prospect of selling its European allies replacements for weapons destroyed in Ukraine, at exorbitant prices. The ministry stated that the Western alliance was working to “ensnare” Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Moldova, as well as looking to turn the Arctic into “a zone of confrontation,” and to expand beyond the North Atlantic to the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia-Pacific, in pursuit of a “global NATO.”

“Washington and its allies are trying to impose their own rules and drain resources along their to proven neocolonial patterns,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. The ministry said Russia will respond to threats “in a timely and appropriate manner, using all means and methods at our disposal,” the statement concluded. The Russian government sent a comprehensive security proposal to the US and NATO in December 2021, asking the bloc to withdraw its troops from Eastern Europe and guarantee Ukraine’s neutrality. Both Washington and NATO rejected Moscow’s request in January 2022. Russia views the bloc’s eastward expansion as a threat and has cited its ties with Kiev as one of the root causes of the armed conflict with Ukraine.

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“..I think there’s seven principles that they have to meet, and Ukraine maybe meets two of them..”

“..unless they break every rule and principle they have, Ukraine does not meet the requirements for NATO..”

“He was saying in effect that the Ukrainians have failed in their counter-offensive and consequently Western military and financial aid to them will be winding down..”

NATO Summit Exposes Fractures in Alliance Over Support for Ukraine (Sp.)

Amid the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Group of Seven (G7) nations issued a statement pledging long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, including ensuring it has an advanced military and stable economy, and supporting reforms that would help Kiev to join Western blocs such as the European Union or NATO. The G7 statement came after NATO doubled down on refusing Ukraine’s admission while it remains locked in a military conflict with Russia, and back-and-forth criticisms between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO members. Gilbert Doctorow, an international relations and Russian affairs analyst, told Sputnik it was “irrelevant” which international institution the West chooses to provide Ukraine with security guarantees.

“The only force that can provide meaningful security guarantees is the United States, and the US will not give Ukraine such guarantees because Congress will not give its consent,” he said. “Period.” “The NATO summit has been a disaster for Zelensky,” Doctorow said. “He failed on the battlefield, losing 26,000 soldiers and officers in the past month of his counter-offensive as well as losing most of the tanks, personnel carriers and other advanced equipment which NATO countries had supplied in the preceding weeks. The decision by the USA to quietly pull the plug on the Ukrainians is only natural and certainly not ‘absurd.’ The game is up.” Doctorow noted that UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace criticized Kiev at the NATO summit, saying Zelensky’s government should be more grateful for the aid it’s received, observing that over the last year, the Ukrainians have simply pivoted from pushing for one type of weapon until they receive it, then immediately pressing for another.

“I told them that last year, when I drove 11 hours to be given a list, that I’m not like Amazon,” Wallace said. Doctorow said Wallace’s remarks “should not be taken too seriously.” “He was saying in effect that the Ukrainians have failed in their counter-offensive and consequently Western military and financial aid to them will be winding down,” the analyst noted. Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and international consultant, told Sputnik, “I personally don’t think they’ll ever be part of NATO – they are intended to be a battering ram and a mechanism to meet and confront Russia.” “No matter what was said back in 2008 and more recently, unless they break every rule and principle they have, Ukraine does not meet the requirements for NATO. I don’t know if they ever will,” he said.

“If you look at it, I think there’s seven principles that they have to meet, and Ukraine maybe meets two of them. The rest definitely not – nothing as far as democracy goes, as far as corruption goes, as far as a stable government, sound government practices and stuff it does not meet in that area at all.” “Also, they’re not even self-sufficient now. If it wasn’t for the funding coming from the West, the whole economy and the government would completely collapse. So they don’t want to put up notices. There’s no discussion on the action plan, no timeline provided whatsoever. It’s just a continual carrot to keep Ukraine [fighting] basically to the last Ukrainian. So it could drag this conflict on as long as possible. That’s their intention. It always was, it was the intent to weaken Russia – although that’s not going too well. But they have no reverse gear. They seem to want to double down no matter what.

[..] “A lot of soul searching is going on [in NATO] in the background. I don’t think you’re going to get a NATO majority – definitely Hungary wouldn’t support it, I think a lot of other countries would not as well, and it’d just be catastrophic to Europe if they got fully involved in [Ukraine] because NATO will not win. They would have to escalate to nuclear [war], and then nobody wins. But from a conventional perspective, Russia will win any type of confrontation with it. Even if the US got involved, I think Russia would win, at least if you look at the logistical perspective and the planning, the methodical nature, the percentage of artillery firing, the technology of the weapons systems, and the terrain that’s being fought [on]. Russia’s got escalatory dominance in this nature, not just over Ukraine, but over NATO in general. Bad mistake to push for Ukraine’s entry into NATO and to provoke Russia. It was a very, very bad mistake on the West’s behalf.”

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It won’t exist long enough.

The US May Never Allow Ukraine To Join NATO (Bordachev)

The Ukrainian crisis marks the first time in history that the United States has exposed itself to serious risks in defining the limits of its military presence in Europe. Any genuine move by Washington to invite Kiev into NATO would imply a willingness to enter into a direct military confrontation with Russia. A less risky option, many believe, would be to promise the Vladimir Zelensky regime some special bilateral guarantees. The NATO military bloc was created on the basis of the real division of Europe into zones of influence between the US and the USSR after the Second World War. As a result of the greatest armed confrontation in the history of mankind, the bulk of European states lost forever the ability to determine fundamental issues of their national policy.

These included, first and foremost, defense and the ability to form alliances with other countries. Europe was divided between the real winners of the conflict – Moscow and Washington. Only Austria, Ireland, Sweden, Finland and a small part of Switzerland were outside their zone of dominance. Both of the great powers had an informal right to determine the internal order of the territories under its control. This was because the countries concerned had lost their sovereignty as such. Even France, which continued to demonstrate freethinking for several decades, had no doubt on whose side it would fight in the event of a new global conflict. NATO was created in 1949 to formally deprive American allies of the ability to make their own foreign policy decisions and military doctrines. In this respect, the alliance was no different from the Warsaw Pact that had emerged in the USSR’s sphere of influence.

The relationship between the United States and other NATO countries has never been an alliance in the traditional sense. In the last century, classic alliances ceased to exist altogether – the gap in military capabilities between the nuclear superpowers and every other country in the world became too great. A military alliance between relative equals is possible, as it was until the middle of the last century, but nuclear weapons have made this impossible. The former sovereign states of Europe became a territorial base from which the great powers could negotiate in peace and act in war. The creation of NATO and the subsequent accession of countries such as Greece, Turkey, Spain and West Germany to the alliance was a formalization of the boundaries of US dominance that the USSR had already agreed to in bilateral relations.

After the Soviet collapse, extending American rule to Moscow’s former allies in Eastern Europe and even the Baltic republics was also not a policy that posed serious risks for Washington. Incidentally, this is why NATO has an informal rule of not admitting countries with unresolved territorial disputes with third states – the US has never been willing to occupy land whose ownership is disputed. NATO’s post-Cold War expansion was based on deception, with the US promising Moscow that it would not expand NATO to Russia’s borders. But, initially, Russia did not have the physical strength to resist. This meant that the US could occupy “unclaimed” states without the threat of immediate military conflict. The US approach to NATO remained true to the philosophy of the 1945 victors: there are no sovereign states, only controlled territories.

Once the decision was taken in Washington, it was only a matter of strategy to ensure that local governments made the “right” decisions. This was all the more so as the accession of new countries to NATO in the 1990s and 2000s was ‘packaged’ with the enlargement of the European Union. This gave local elites every reason to aspire to join the bloc, from which they expected tangible material benefits. For some – the Baltic states and Poland – membership in the club also provided the possibility of solving internal problems through an aggressive anti-Russian policy by fostering fear of the big neighbor to the east. In the Baltic states, the status of an American outpost was also used by elites to combat any local opposition from radical nationalists. For the countries that joined the bloc, NATO became a guarantee of internal stability. Since the most important decisions for them were taken outside their national political systems, there was no reason for internal competition and no danger of serious destabilization.

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Orwell’s never far away: “..and included it in the Partnership for Peace program in 1994..”

NATO Spent Years Preparing For Proxy War With Russia in Ukraine (Sp.)

The US neocons and their likeminded NATO allies have long been apparently seeking to knock Russia out of the political arena before trying to crack down on China in a bid to preserve the US dominance, retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski believes. “I think that the US officials and advisors (along with those in NATO) believe that they must be able to exploit Russian resources prior to any direct confrontation with China,” Kwiatkowski, who is also a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik. “The neoconservative ideology that over half of Congress embraces, and that the US defense and security complex embraces, envisions and demands a unipolar globe, with the US and its debt-funded governmental system, at the top. For them, this is an existential issue, albeit most Americans don’t see it that way.” It seems that Ukraine appeared a convenient candidate for the role of a “hammer” against Russia.

Ukraine has been a leading recipient of Western military supplies since the early 1990s when the country gained independence, with the US spearheading the initiative. In the first ten years after independence, Ukraine received almost $2.6 billion in assistance from the US. Until 2014, Ukraine had been receiving an estimated $105 million per annum, including foreign military financing. NATO’s North Atlantic Cooperation Council embraced Ukraine as a “partner country” in 1991 and included it in the Partnership for Peace program in 1994. Washington’s NATO ally, the UK, played an important role in the effort, holding joint military exercises with the Ukrainians, as well as providing training and funding to the nation’s armed forces. Thus, the first joint Ukrainian-British military exercises “Cossack steppe” were held in the second half of the 1990s as part of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program.

The NATO-Ukraine Commission was established in 1997 with the aim of developing the relationship between the nation and the bloc and directing cooperative activities. As per UK government documents, the Ministry of Defense spent approximately £3.9 million supporting Ukraine through the Defense Assistance Fund and the Conflict Pool between 2009 and 2014. Many of the activities funded through these mechanisms supported “command, control and communications capabilities (C3).” In particular, the UK held joint exercises with the Ukrainian military, provided military education to the nation’s specialists, and “contributions to NATO coordinated activities.” Both UK civilian and military personnel had been deployed to Ukraine during that period of time while Ukrainian personnel were sent to the UK.

Following the illegitimate coup d’etat in Kiev in February 2014, the West stepped up military assistance to the new Ukrainian authorities. Between 2014 and 2021, the United States provided over $2.5 billion in military assistance to Ukraine, which included the provision of trainers, selected weaponry systems (such as counter-mortar radars), and Javelin anti-tank missiles. The boost in military assistance was justified by NATO member states by the alleged “Russian invasion” in Donbass. However, it is well documented that Donbass declared independence in response to the illegitimate coup d’etat in Kiev fomented with the assistance of nationalist and neo-Nazi paramilitary groups and subsequent Russophobic policies of the new government. The Donbass breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk Republics started largely forming militias after the interim Kiev government kicked off what it called “anti-terrorist” operations (ATO) against the region.

“Kiev had been on the offensive with the Donbass with Western support, for a number of years, even before 2014, and this is well documented,” explained Kwiatkowski. “Other Eastern and Southern European countries had been ‘encouraged’ by Western powers, as we saw with Yugoslavia, to break up into smaller national and ethno-cultural countries, and the peaceful divide between the Czech Republic and Slovakia was also allowed and supported. This is primarily because the newly smaller countries added potential members to NATO and the EU – all controlled and controllable by the US-EU elites.”

NATO

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Two articles about priorities. They differ.

Peace Is Always Priority For Russia Over Combat – Lavrov (TASS)

Peace has always been a priority for Russia over combat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Lenta.ru online daily commenting on peace initiatives regarding Ukraine. Asked whether ceasefire peaceful initiatives proposed by China, Indonesia, Vatican and Africa were premature Lavrov replied in the negative. “I would like to express my gratitude to our partners for their efforts to search for ways to settle the Ukrainian crisis peacefully,” he said. “We do not find their initiatives premature: for the Russian side, peace always has priority over combat.”


“So, let me remind you that we already participated in a negotiation process with Kiev, in the spring of 2022, and came close to a positive outcome,” he continued. “However, all efforts were undermined by the Anglo-Saxons, whose plans clearly did not include the cessation of hostilities. They have remained obsessed with the manic idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia,” Lavrov added.

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“..the most urgent, the most important task is a continued flow of military support..”

Stoltenberg: Sending Advanced Weapons, Munitions To Kiev Priority For NATO (TASS)

NATO believes its priority is to supply Kiev with advanced weapons systems and a huge amount of ammunition and spare parts for them, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday. “I think we realized many months ago that this is a war of attrition, meaning a battle of logistics. It’s important that we deliver different advanced weapons systems, but as important as delivering new systems is that we are able to maintain and sustain all the systems that are already there. An enormous amount of ammunition, spare parts maintenance and repair capacity,” he said at a news conference following a NATO summit.


Stoltenberg also said Ukraine’s future position at the negotiating table will hinge on the outcome of its counteroffensive. “I think it’s wrong to speculate exactly how this will be done in the future after the war ends. The most important thing now is to ensure that the war ends in a just and lasting way. That’s the reason why the most urgent, the most important task is a continued flow of military support,” he said. The NATO official earlier said the bloc had decided to spare Ukraine the requirement of executing a Membership Action Plan and pledged to invite the country to the alliance when all the conditions were met.

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“Only the Ukraine-NATO commission has been upgraded to the council level,” the top Hungarian diplomat pointed out, adding that in the current situation, “this was the only right decision.”

NATO Offers Up Slim Pickings For Kiev At Vilnius Summit – Hungarian FM (TASS)

Vilnius summit has produced only modest, small-bore results for Ukraine, with Kiev failing to obtain any timetable for accession to the bloc, while getting formal interaction upgraded to the council level as a consolation prize, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said. “The big question before the NATO summit was what Ukraine would obtain. Compared to the [pre-summit] expectations, held mostly by the Ukrainians themselves, the actual practical results were exceedingly modest,” Szijjarto, who is attending the summit together with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said in an interview with Hungary’s M1 TV channel. He noted that Ukraine received neither an invitation nor a timetable for joining the alliance.

“Only the Ukraine-NATO commission has been upgraded to the council level,” the top Hungarian diplomat pointed out, adding that in the current situation, “this was the only right decision.” “It is quite clear that a country in a state of a war cannot be accepted into NATO because, according to the alliance’s own rules, this would entail the bloc as a whole being dragged into this war. So, I think that, right now, NATO made a responsible decision while managing to avoid an escalation in military action,” he explained. Szijjarto noted that Ukraine will now start drafting what is known as the annual national program for interacting with NATO, which should reflect reforms of both a military and political nature.

“NATO is not only a defensive alliance but also a values-based community. Thus, for example, Ukraine should take on the obligation to respect and protect the rights of minorities,” he said, emphasizing that Hungary will be paying special attention to this issue given Budapest’s concern over the treatment of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine. According to him, a decision on Ukraine’s compliance with the bloc’s membership criteria will be made later, taking into account the country’s actual performance. Earlier, Budapest had repeatedly stated that it would not support Ukraine’s aspiration to join NATO and the EU until the Ukrainian leadership stopped infringing on the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region.

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Piss off your biggest supporter…

‘We’re not Amazon’ – UK Responds To Ukraine’s Weapons Requests (RT)

Ukraine should adopt a less demanding tone when speaking to nations that are arming it to fight against Russia, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has suggested. “We are not Amazon,”he said. The remarks, which were quoted by the British media, were made during an event on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Lithuania on Wednesday. Wallace, who is normally a vocal supporter of Kiev, said it would help Ukraine’s cause if they displayed some gratitude. “Sometimes you are asking countries to give up their own stocks,” Wallace said. “Sometimes you have to persuade lawmakers on [Capitol] Hill in America. You have to persuade doubting politicians in other countries that it is worth it.” The British official said he heard complaints from US counterparts that Ukraine was treating their nation like an Amazon store, even as it provides billions of dollars worth of military assistance.

Wallace confirmed that this was “true,” and said he had been personally subjected to this kind of treatment by Ukrainian officials. He recalled driving for 11 hours to meet with a delegation last June only “to be given a list” of requests. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made a similar public remark in Lithuania, asserting that “the American people do deserve a degree of gratitude from the US government for their willingness to step up [and aid Ukraine] and from the rest of the world as well.” Ukrainian officials, including President Vladimir Zelensky, have been critical of the US and its allies for not providing enough support or for providing it too slowly. The Ukrainian leader cited the supposedly unhurried pace of weapons deliveries as a key reason for underwhelming results from Kiev’s counteroffensive last month.

One of the latest outbursts from Zelensky came during the current summit, as NATO leaders declined to provide a roadmap for Ukraine’s accession to the US-led military bloc and said the country would still have to meet some conditions to qualify. He called the position “unprecedented and absurd.” The US delegation in Vilnius was reportedly infuriated by the verbal attack. The Americans perceived it as an attempt by Zelenksy to pressure the alliance into reconsidering its decision, according to media reports. It’s not the first time that Western irritation with Kiev’s communication style has been reported. Last June, US President Joe Biden reportedly told Zelensky to show “a little more gratitude”after snapping during a phone call.

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“..While it’s not quite yet a full on ‘hero to zero’ story… things are certainly sliding in that direction..”

NATO Leaders Tell Zelensky ‘Cool It’ In Rare Dressing Down At Summit

Bloomberg is just out with a devastating behind-the-scenes account of a hot-headed Zelensky at the NATO summit in Vilnius, and the growing Western backlash in the face of his obvious frustration and what’s being seen as ingratitude for the steady flow of billions of dollars in arms to Kiev. Apparently even the mainstream media agrees with our own assessment of the Ukrainian leader having thrown a “tantrum” as he complained about the “weak” and “absurd” NATO stance on Ukraine’s membership. The blistering tweet he issued in English while en route to Lithuania exposed cracks in the alliance, as Bloomberg highlights in the opening of its very revealing Wednesday piece:


Volodymyr Zelenskiy was running hot ahead of his sit-down with NATO leaders on Tuesday evening. The Ukrainian president had been angered earlier in the day by what he said was an “absurd” reluctance to give his country a clear timeline on membership. That outburst in turn riled the partners who have funneled billions of dollars of weaponry and aid into Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion — the US had been given no warning before Zelenskiy unleashed his attack on social media.

All day Wednesday, the above (very real) photo of an isolated and defeated-looking Zelensky standing amid NATO heads of state (with backs turned) circulated widely on social media. And things were even more tense behind the scenes, as Bloomberg writes: “Over dinner in Vilnius, with US President Joe Biden back at his hotel, the other leaders delivered a clear message to Zelenskiy, according to one person who was present. You have to cool down and look at the full package, Zelenskiy was told.” While it’s not quite yet a full on ‘hero to zero’ story… things are certainly sliding in that direction, given it’s unprecedented that the Ukrainian president who previously enjoyed rockstar status in Western capitals since the start of the invasion could be told to basically ‘cool it’!.

Bloomberg continues in reference to Zelensky: “He had, after all, been given a renewed commitment to eventual membership and new security guarantees from the Group of Seven nations. By the next day, the message appeared to be sinking in.” The publication was privy to some key Western leaders’ exact words, presenting the rare dressing down as follows: “Whether we like it or not, people want to see gratitude,” UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told reporters the following morning. “You’re persuading countries to give up their stock” of weapons and ammunition, he added.

This account of the behind-the-scenes wrangling is based on interviews with more than a dozen diplomats and officials involved in the summit who asked not to be named discussing private conversations. NATO leaders were trying to thread a needle on Ukraine’s membership bid when they arrived in Vilnius: They were seeking language that looked like progress and that Ukraine could sell as progress but fundamentally didn’t leave them any closer to getting dragged into a war with nuclear-armed Russia.

Ultimately the hawks (mainly among the Baltic and Eastern Europe states) have lost at Vilnius. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has admitted “There was a lack of political will.” Thus it appears that Zelensky’s angry, desperate tweet lashing out at Western partners was a last ditch effort at shaming NATO into conceding to its demands of being immediately fast-tracked to membership. Bloomberg reveals further, that “Crucially, it was the US and Germany that insisted on dialing back the commitment to Ukraine joining the alliance. Earlier drafts of the communique offered a clearer pathway to Ukraine eventually joining, but Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz were wary of going too far.”

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“In the attacks by OUN and UPA units, supported by part of the local Ukrainian community, over 100,000 Poles were murdered..”

Poland Wants Ukraine To Admit Guilt For Nazi-linked WWII Massacre (RT)

Accountability for the mass killings of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists during World War II is essential for reconciliation between the two nations, a resolution passed by the lower house of parliament in Warsaw has said. The document was adopted by lawmakers in the Sejm on Tuesday, as Poland commemorated the victims of wartime atrocities in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia 80 years ago. Members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the militant wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), were the main perpetrators of the crimes, which Poland considers an act of genocide.

“In the attacks by OUN and UPA units, supported by part of the local Ukrainian community, over 100,000 Poles were murdered, often in a very brutal way,” the Polish MPs said. “Several hundred thousand people fled… fearing the same fate.” The OUN allied with Nazi German invaders in the hope of creating a Ukrainian nation state, and slaughtered groups that they deemed to be obstructing their cause. Their victims also included Jews, Czechs and Russians, along with ethnic Ukrainians who opposed the purges, the Polish resolution noted. The ethnic cleansing campaign was accompanied by the destruction of property, including items of cultural and religious significance.

“Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation, which was built over years by representatives of both nations, must also include recognition of guilt and commemoration of the victims,” the lawmakers stressed. Many Polish officials have said they expected Kiev to make gestures of accountability during the 80th anniversary of the tragedy. The Ukrainian government considers the UPA and its leaders to be national heroes, as they were fighting for Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky joined his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda last week for a joint commemoration in Western Ukraine, but did not offer a formal apology. Kiev’s ambassador to Warsaw, Vasily Zvarych, previously advised Poland against attempts to “pressure” his nation into taking “unacceptable” steps regarding their shared past.

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“..to understand the true nature of the universe.”

Elon Musk Sets Up New AI Company (RT)

The owner of Twitter and the founder of Tesla and SpaceX said on Wednesday that he has set up an artificial intelligence venture, xAI, which aims to figure out the world itself. “Announcing formation of xAI to understand reality,” Musk tweeted, with a link to the company’s freshly created profile on his social network. xAI is technically a separate company from Musk’s X Corp, but will work closely with his other enterprises “to make progress towards our mission,” according to the company website, which defines that mission as “to understand the true nature of the universe.” The people involved with xAI have previously worked at OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Tesla, as well as the University of Toronto in Canada, and say they have contributed to “some of the most widely used methods” in the field of artificial intelligence, as well as breakthroughs such as the GPT chatbot.

Tesla’s shares rose 1.5% following the xAI announcement. According to public records, xAI was incorporated in March in the US state of Nevada. Musk is listed as the sole director. More details will be made available in a Twitter Spaces chat scheduled for Friday, the company promised. There has been speculation ever since about Musk’s intention to establish an AI enterprise. According to a disclosure from Business Insider, Musk acquired a substantial number of graphic processing units (GPUs) to fuel an upcoming generative AI offering. The Financial Times has also mentioned Musk’s aspirations to establish an AI company in direct competition with OpenAI, which has the support of Microsoft. It has been reported that Musk approached investors of SpaceX and Tesla to secure funding for the venture.

Two weeks after incorporating xAI, Musk signed an open letter with more than 1,000 researchers and tech executives, warning that AI could pose “profound risks to society and humanity.” The letter called for a six-month global pause on AI development in order to “give society a chance to adapt” to the rapidly-advancing technology. Musk has also spoken out on the potential for “civilizational destruction” posed by AI, pointing to the race between products such as ChatGPT and Bard. While Musk helped to found ChatGPT’s maker OpenAI in 2015, he left its board of directors by 2018 and has since criticized the company as a “closed source maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft.” One of the people Musk has brought on board xAI as a senior adviser is Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center for AI Safety, a nonprofit that seeks to reduce the risks posed by the technology.

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The story gets uglier.

Greek Coastguard ‘Pressured’ Migrant Boat Survivors (BBC)

New evidence found by BBC News casts further doubt on the Greek coastguard’s version of events surrounding last month’s deadly migrant boat sinking, in which up to 600 people died. Two survivors have described how the coastguard pressed them to identify nine Egyptians on board as traffickers. A new video of the overcrowded boat foundering at sea also challenges the Greek coastguard’s account. It was taken when the boat was said to be on a “steady course”. BBC Verify has confirmed the footage was filmed when the coastguard claimed the boat was not in need of rescue. We have also confirmed that the larger vessel in the background is the oil tanker Faithful Warrior, which had been asked to give supplies to the migrant boat.

The official Greek coastguard account had already been challenged in a BBC Verify report – but now we have seen court documents which show serious discrepancies between survivors’ witness statements taken by the coastguards, and the in-person evidence later presented to a judge. A translator has also come forward with his account of a people-smuggling investigation last year, after a another group of migrants were rescued by the coastguard. He describes how witnesses from that incident were intimidated by the coastguard. The legal case collapsed before it could reach trial. The revelations raise fresh questions about how the Greek authorities handle such disasters. Both the Greek coastguard and Greek government did not comment and declined our requests for interview. Soon after the 14 June sinking, nine Egyptian men were detained and charged with manslaughter and people-smuggling.

But two survivors of the disaster say migrants were silenced and intimidated by Greek authorities, after suggesting the coastguards may have been to blame for the tragedy. For the past month, allegations have been made that the coastguard used a rope to tow the fishing vessel, causing it to sink. The two survivors we spoke to in Athens – who we are calling Ahmad and Musaab to protect their identities – say that is what happened. “They attached a rope from the left. Everyone moved to the right side of our boat to balance it,” says Musaab. “The Greek vessel moved off quickly causing our boat to flip. They kept dragging it for quite a distance.” The men described how they spent two hours in the water before being picked up by the coastguard.

When I ask how they knew it was that amount of time, Musaab says his watch was still working so he could tell. Once on land, in Kalamata, they claim the coastguard told survivors to “shut up” when they started to talk about how the Greek authorities had caused the disaster. “When people replied by saying the Greek coastguard was the cause, the official in charge of the questioning asked the interpreter to tell the interviewee to stop talking,” says Ahmad. Ahmad says those rescued were told to be grateful they hadn’t died. He says there were shouts of: “You have survived death! Stop talking about the incident! Don’t ask more questions about it!”

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“His work embodies journalistic awareness-building at its best, and aims to change the world by democratic means – something that is direly needed.’”

Julian Assange, Who ‘Aims To Change The World’, Awarded Konrad Wolf Prize (AR)

The Akademie der Künste in Berlin has said it will award its annual Konrad Wolf Prize to Julian Assange. Though the Australian activist and founder of WikiLeaks is unlilkely to be able to attend the October ceremony as he is currently held at Belmarsh top security prison in London. Since 2019 he has been fighting attempts to extradite him to the US, where he is charged with the hacking – abetting former army private and whistleblower Chelsea Manning – of one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of America.

The jury said: ‘Julian Assange’s work and positions have focused our attention on illegal state actions, injustices, murders and war crimes – things that were meant to remain concealed and obscured from the public view, from the citizens – from us. Assange’s work has resulted in the disclosure of financial flows, hidden accounts and official e-mail correspondence, has uncovered images of murdered unarmed civilians and journalists in Iraq by members of the U.S. Army, disclosed arbitrary killings of civilians in Afghanistan and secret service projects aimed at the manipulation of public opinion, has brought to light the humiliation and torture in photos taken by laughing perpetrators at Abu Ghraib Prison and exposed the inhumane conditions of the still operational detention centre at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, which reminded us of what waterboarding means.

The list goes on. Julian Assange’s Wikileaks publicizes information about this – our – reality, so that we as citizens can recognize this reality and take action. ‘We open governments’ so that we know. It is a democratic act. Assange is a worthy laureate, who with his Wikileaks project has exposed government activity, wartime lies, war crimes and cover-ups. His work embodies journalistic awareness-building at its best, and aims to change the world by democratic means – something that is direly needed.’

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Birth rates
https://twitter.com/i/status/1678873566861828097

 

 

 

 

Kamala
https://twitter.com/i/status/1678711066560282625

 

 

Hypno chicken

 

 

Otter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1678789677438980097

 

 

SNL

 

 

 

 

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May 272023
 


Vincent van Gogh Pollard Willows and Setting Sun 1888

 

Air Defender 23: The Largest Exercise Since The Foundation Of NATO (Helmer)
G7 Members Want The Rest Of The World To Join Their Crusade (Lukyanov)
Lavrov Hails China’s “Balanced Position”, Ukraine Asked To Cede Territory (ZH)
NATO’s ‘Grave Mistake’ Led To Ukraine Conflict – Kissinger (RT)
Russia Protests To US Embassy Over Sullivan’s Crimea Statements (RT)
US Incites European Yes-Men To Poke Russia – Lavrov (TASS)
The EU Has No Leadership, Only NGOs And Think Tanks – Hungarian Minister (RMX)
Anti-China Bloc Tests AI-Powered Drone Swarms (RT)
Trial By Ordeal (Kunstler)
The Green Fraud (Jim Rickards)
IRS Whistleblower Defies the Biden Administration and the Media (Turley)
The DeSantis -Or GOP Generally- Political Question (Denninger)
US Debt A Pyramid Scheme – Russia’s Top MP (RT)
Inside Joe Biden’s Struggles To Create A ‘New Economic World Order’ (Pol.)

 

 

 

 

RFK jr
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662051461352632324

 

 

Kory
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662102658415575041

 

 

 

 

Steal election

 

 

 

 

“There is a grave risk that in three weeks’ time US and NATO forces will attempt direct combat against Russia..”

Air Defender 23: The Largest Exercise Since The Foundation Of NATO (Helmer)

There is a grave risk that in three weeks’ time US and NATO forces will attempt direct combat against Russia. The operational plan is to strike from Romanian airspace in the south and the Baltic states in the north, in camouflage of the NATO exercise called “Air Defender 23”, and under cover of US F-16 fighter aircraft purportedly operated by Ukrainian pilots but fuelled, directed, and guarded by more than two hundred US and NATO aircraft, including the most advanced US air war fighter, the F-35. “This [is] the largest deployment exercise since the foundation of NATO”, according to the cover story published by NATO headquarters. “ Commanded at US bases in Germany, ostensibly led by German officers, a Bundeswehr “fact sheet” claims “100 [US] Air National Guard aircraft from 35 different states will make the leap across the Atlantic to participate in Air Defender 2023.

In addition to the world’s most modern jets, the F35, more than 20 different types of aircraft and Airmen from 24 nations will practice air warfare operations together over Germany, but also over eastern Europe on the NATO border. Among them Eurofighter, F18, F16, A10, [Saab] Gripen jets.” Including the Ukrainian regime in Kiev as one of “our partners in East and South-Eastern Europe”, the German military announcement says “we want to promote collective defense of common values (freedom, democracy, prosperity) – attack on one NATO nation is an attack on responsiveness of airpower – Allied air forces are first responders.” Camouflaging US direction of the combined NATO attack operations from the Ramstein base in Germany, headquarters of the allied air command in Europe, are two parallel operations.

“Two NATO exercises, RAMSTEIN DUST for NATOs Deployable Air Command and Control capability, the DARS, and RAMSTEIN GUARD for Electronic Warfare are linked into our exercise.” In design since the start of the Russian Special Military Operation in February 2022, this plan of US and NATO air operations against Russia follows the defeat of the Ukrainian ground forces at Artemovsk (Bakhmut) and the strategic defeat of the US Patriot missile system at Kiev by the Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile on May 16. The use of NATO exercises to conceal active attacks on Russian targets was first demonstrated last September when the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up following the BALTOPS naval exercise. More recently, on May 13 a US-directed ambush of Russian aircraft was rehearsed when an Su-34 fighter-bomber, an SU-35 air-defence escort, and two Mi8 helicopters were hit simultaneously and downed in Russian airspace, over Bryansk region.

[..] The post-operational Russian intelligence reports of May 18 and May 20 indicate “a multifunctional radar station, as well as five launchers of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system manufactured by the United States were hit and completely destroyed.” In the days following, Russian military operations have intensified long-range missile attacks targeting anti-aircraft defence complexes, rail marshalling yards, fuel and ammunition stocks, equipment parks, and reserve assembly areas in the west of the Ukraine, including Khmelnitsky, Rivne, Zhitomir, and Lvov. The scope of targeting goes beyond the Electric War of previous months, a NATO forces veteran comments. “It’s now a full-on campaign. Now that the US/NATO air defence has proven to be useless against Russian strike capabilities, I expect them to take to the sky. It’s all they have left.”

The source agrees with retired US military experts in the alternative media who do not believe that supplying old F-16 aircraft to Kiev adds significant air defence or air attack capability against Russia. The F-16s for the Ukraine are a deception, camouflage for a much deeper NATO attack plan, the source warns. “How about the F-16s being cover for US F-22s or other US aircraft in Romanian or Polish airspace, firing stand- off weapons?”

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The G7 has rapidly become an irrelevant anachronism.

G7 Members Want The Rest Of The World To Join Their Crusade (Lukyanov)

One is reminded of American journalist Thomas Friedman’s international bestseller of the late nineties, ‘The World is Flat’. At the time, he was referring to the coming together of everything and everyone in the context of globalization. But nowadays the metaphor needs altering. Today, the message should be somehow simpler and even flatter, because otherwise there is no way for people to grasp the frightening multidimensionality that abounds. Such an approach is characteristic of contemporary international relations, and from there it spills over into the domestic politics of every country. That said, within states themselves everything is more closely understood, so real world factors are still important. On a global scale, however, the situation is more ambiguous.

The recent G7 summit in Hiroshima was a powerful illustration of the efforts being made to fix, if not cement, this very two-dimensional scheme at the global level. This is perhaps the first time that Russia and China have been given essentially equal status – as adversaries and major threats to the world that the US-led bloc represents. The organizers were very serious about widening their circle of sympathizers – with many of the major states of the non-Western world receiving invitations: India, Brazil, Vietnam and Indonesia. Joining them were the heads of major international organizations. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was the main guest, and this was noteworthy. His country’s issue is becoming, as the saying goes, a ‘rallying point’ for a community that considers itself to be ‘on the right side of history.’

Indeed, here is a curious detail: The Japanese press wrote that, after the summit, their Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was considering calling early elections because the success of the event, especially the arrival of the Ukrainian leader, had boosted his party’s ratings. In other words, Zelensky has managed to become a factor in the domestic politics of a country far removed from Ukraine. The need for a strong, personal, unifying motif is clear. In the absence of such elements, these communities tend to disintegrate because the world is not really two-dimensional. It is not only diverse, it is actually fragmented by interests, perceptions and agendas, and it needs maximum flexibility to respond to increasingly diverse challenges. It is very difficult to maintain cohesion without heavy artillery, both figuratively and, unfortunately, literally.

What should those against whom this consolidation is targeted do? Probably the opposite, i.e. they should aim to maximize the diversity of their connections and their options for development, and insist on the right not to make final and irrevocable choices about joining one bloc or the other. The good versus evil dichotomy is understandable and morally appealing, but in most cases irrelevant to the real international process. And the G7’s attempts to draw India, Brazil and others into its orbit on this basis will not be effective.

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China will call the shots…

Lavrov Hails China’s “Balanced Position”, Ukraine Asked To Cede Territory (ZH)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hailed China’s “balanced position” on the conflict in Ukraine during a Friday meeting with Chinese special envoy Li Hui in Moscow. China has thus far resisted Western pressure to condemn Moscow, but has instead tried to present a neutral stance while issuing occasional statements condemning NATO expansion and US global dominance. Beijing has also been among a handful of Asian countries to have greatly expanded Russian energy imports since the start of the war. The Chinese envoy on Friday once again called for an immediate ceasefire, at a moment Russian forces are consolidating gains in Donetsk, particularly in Bakhmut where Wagner finally declared victory over the weekend following more than 200 days of fierce fighting.

According to The Wall Street Journal Li Hui conveyed a clear message that: “US allies in Europe should assert their autonomy and urge an immediate ceasefire, leaving Russia in possession of the parts [of Ukraine] …that it now occupies.” China has also sent representatives to Ukraine and Europe, with EU officials conveying their stance that freezing the conflict was not in their interest. The Zelensky government too believes that a ‘freeze’ would only allow the Russians to resupply, regroup, and fortify their positions. Western allies have also been arguing against a freeze. EU officials reportedly told the Chinese envoy that “it’s impossible to split Europe from America” and that Europe remains committed and unified in support of Ukraine.

According to a review of Friday’s meeting between Russian and Chinese representatives: Russia’s Lavrov expressed gratitude for China’s “balanced position” and willingness to play a positive role in a meeting with China’s Ukraine envoy, the foreign ministry said. China’s Li Hui, who spent 10 years as ambassador to Moscow, has been on a tour of European capitals, and last week visited Kyiv. After those talks, China said it wanted to “form the greatest common denominator for resolving the Ukrainian crisis, and make its own efforts to stop the fighting and (establish a) ceasefire and restore peace as soon as possible”. Kyiv has told Li, however, that it would not accept any proposal that involved Ukraine losing territory.

Hawks in both Britain and the United States have urged Ukraine to stay the course, despite mounting troop casualties in the tens of thousands. The UK especially has long been accused of actively thwarting attempts at peace talks which were proposed last year – instead encouraging Ukraine to ‘win’ militarily. President Zelensky has all the while maintained that talks with Moscow are impossible until Russian troops leave every bit of Ukrainian territory.

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But now that is has all those weapons, it must join NATO anyway?! He doesn’t understand the “mistake”.

NATO’s ‘Grave Mistake’ Led To Ukraine Conflict – Kissinger (RT)

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger has explained how his views on prospective NATO membership for Ukraine changed between 2008, when the bloc first acknowledged Kiev’s “aspirations” to join, and now when the stream of Western military aid turned its into the “best-armed country” in the region. “I’m in the ironical position that I was alone when I opposed membership, and I’m nearly alone when I advocate NATO membership,” the veteran politician told a Wall Street Journal contributor in an interview recorded days before his 100th birthday. “I think the offer to put Ukraine into NATO was a grave mistake and led to this war,” he explained, yet claimed that the scale of the conflict and “its nature, is a Russian peculiarity, and we were absolutely right to resist it.”

But after Washington and its allies turned Ukraine into the “best-armed country in Europe,” it clearly belongs to the US-led military bloc, the politician stated, reiterating his firm belief that peace in Europe cannot be achieved without Ukraine in NATO. Back in 2008, NATO declared that Kiev would join the bloc, but did not specify a date for that to happen. Russia, which sees the bloc’s eastward expansion as a major security threat, had singled out Kiev’s growing push to join the bloc as among the main reasons for launching its military operation in Ukraine more than a year ago. Kissinger drew the ire of Kiev last year when he suggested that Ukraine should accept a return to the “status quo ante,” or relinquish its territorial claims to Crimea and grant autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, in the name of peace.

In an interview with WSJ he went as far as to claim that from his “perspective, the Ukraine war is won,” but any peace terms are unlikely to include Crimea. “For Russia, the loss of Sevastopol, which was always not Ukrainian in history, would be such a comedown that the cohesion of the state would be in danger. And I think that’s not desirable for the world after Ukraine,” he said. The US-led bloc is already waging a proxy war against Russia, and Kissinger, despite his vast experience, is “totally wrong” to suggest that Ukrainian membership in NATO would somehow guarantee peace, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said earlier this month. Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said that until the “Ukrainian nationalist regime” is dismantled it “won’t give up on attempts to regain lost territories,” and in response Moscow “would have to reply harshly with all available means,” likely triggering NATO’s Article 5.

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95+% of Crimeans voted to join Russia in 2014.

Russia Protests To US Embassy Over Sullivan’s Crimea Statements (RT)

The Russian Foreign Ministry has summoned senior US diplomats and expressed a strong protest in connection with the words of White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan about strikes on the territory of Russia, Report informs referring to TASS. On May 21, Sullivan said Washington does not allow Kyiv to use Western weapons to strike at the territory of Russia, noting that he does not consider Crimea to be part of it. “Senior diplomats of the US diplomatic mission in Moscow were summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on May 26, a strong protest was expressed about the unacceptable statements of the White House National Security Advisor J. Sullivan, who actually approved the strikes of the armed formations of the regime in Kyiv on Russian territory, including the Republic of Crimea and the Belgorod region,” the statement said.


Washington’s words about strikes on Crimea are hypocritical and false, the ministry said. “The assurances of US officials that the United States does not encourage such attacks on Russia are hypocritical and false, given the direct evidence of the use of weapons and equipment supplied for the needs of the Ukraine military by the Pentagon for the preparation and implementation of terrorist acts by Ukrainian militants,” the ministry said. The ministry noted that the hostile actions of the United States, which has long been a party to the conflict, plunged Russian-US relations into a deep and dangerous crisis, fraught with unpredictable consequences.

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“Washington believes that its self-preservation is ensured by the Atlantic Ocean.”

US Incites European Yes-Men To Poke Russia – Lavrov (TASS)

Washington is unleashing its European satellites to nip at Moscow’s heels, believing it can get away with anything, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. “For now, Washington is egging its European satellites on [to antagonize] the Russian Federation, thinking they can get away with anything,” he said in an appearance on the “Moscow.Kremlin.Putin” television program, according to an excerpt posted on Friday on journalist Pavel Zarubin’s Telegram channel. According to Lavrov, the US is sorely mistaken in entertaining the deluded belief that its “self-preservation” in any World War III scenario would be ensured by the Atlantic Ocean serving as a buffer zone. “Washington believes that its self-preservation is ensured by the Atlantic Ocean. This also represents a serious fallacy if they [the US] are preparing to bring the world to the very brink of World War III,” the top diplomat pointed out.

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“..Europe is stumbling around the stage of history as a clumsy sideshow, drifting from crisis to crisis..”

The EU Has No Leadership, Only NGOs And Think Tanks – Hungarian Minister (RMX)

No one has the courage and aptitude to lead Europe today, meaning there is no political leadership in the European Union, especially in the European Commission, said Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga at a Budapest conference on Thursday. “In the European Union today, it is non-governmental organizations (NGOs), foundations and think tanks that tell Europe how to run Europe, according to the will of their own leaders,” she said. “Recently, for asymmetric reasons, a crisis of confidence has arisen between the EU leadership and the Hungarian government. This is because the Hungarian government, unlike the EU institutions, says what it thinks and does what it says,” she added.

Varga said Europe is stumbling around the stage of history as a clumsy sideshow, drifting from crisis to crisis, and since the migration crisis, it has been trying to make policy in a way that is completely divorced from the real needs of its citizens. She said the institutional system also failed during the Covid crisis and then shot itself in the foot with sanctions against Russia after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war She warned that immigration is a crisis that still affects Europe and continues to cost the Hungarian budget heavily. “At the same time, by defending Europe, we have to constantly fight the judgments and proceedings of the European Court of Justice,” she said. “Waiting for yet another slap in the face instead of any good deed, that is the fate of Hungary.” Varga noted that during the coronavirus crisis, the EU made deals regarding vaccines, and yet those text messages have never been produced, referring to the murky case involving EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“We make no secret of the fact that we want to hold the functioning of the institutions in the European Union accountable in terms of the rule of law. Let’s talk about whether the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European institutions are respecting the rules, whether the rule of law is working in the institutions,” said the minister. On the issue of the Hungarian EU presidency, the European Parliament has no say in this, the minister said, stressing that more than 10 years ago, a unanimous European Council decision had established the order of the member states, which can only be changed by unanimity. The presidency is not only a right but also an obligation, and the opposition will not achieve anything by such an attempt, but it could do enormous damage. According to the minister, the European Parliament wants to block Hungary’s EU presidency precisely because it fears that Hungary will take stock of the dysfunctional state of EU institutions.

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“..urging the three members to stop “ignoring the concerns of the international community.”

Anti-China Bloc Tests AI-Powered Drone Swarms (RT)

The US, UK and Australia have shown off new AI-powered drone swarms, marking the first-ever collaboration on autonomous UAV technology between the members of the AUKUS security pact, described by officials as a way to counter China. The allies carried out the three-way “capabilities trial” late last month in Wiltshire, Britain, where they achieved the “live collaborative retraining of models in flight and the interchange of AI models between AUKUS nations” for the first time, according to the US military. “The work saw the initial joint deployment of Australian, UK and US AI-enabled assets in a collaborative swarm to detect and track military targets in a representative environment in real time,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Friday.

Formed in 2021 as a way to deter China in the Indo-Pacific region, the AUKUS pact has repeatedly come under fire from Beijing. Under the “Pillar I” of the deal, the United States pledged to furnish nuclear submarine technology to Australia “at the earliest date possible.” Hosted by the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the drone tests were conducted as part of “Pillar II” of the AUKUS partnership, which calls to “develop and provide joint advanced military capabilities” between the three allies in order to “promote security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry insists that the new military initiatives will only “motivate an arms race, damage the international nuclear nonproliferation regime and harm regional stability and peace,” urging the three members to stop “ignoring the concerns of the international community.”

While officials have not offered extensive details about the UAV trials, the British military said they involved “more than 70 military and civilian defense personnel and industry contractors,” who tested swarms of Blue Bear Ghost and Boeing/Insitu CT220 drones. UK forces provided several tanks and armored vehicles for the demo, while private contractors supplied a number of self-propelled howitzers and Soviet-era BMP vehicles produced in the former Czechoslovakia. The gear was used to test the drones’ ability to track military targets on the battlefield.

“This trial demonstrates the military advantage of AUKUS advanced capabilities, as we work in coalition to identify, track and counter potential adversaries from a greater distance and with greater speed,” British Lt. Gen. Rob Magowan, a senior Defence Ministry official, said in a statement. The Australian military stated that the tests “achieved several world firsts,” including the live retraining of the drone swarms in flight. Russia also sees the West’s expansion of its military presence in Asia as a risk that could lead to prolonged conflict. “I cannot imagine the great Asian civilizations toeing the line the way the EU unfortunately did, and obediently delivering Washington’s agenda,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in March.

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“..we are living in a very badly-ordered society these days, a society in which anything goes and nothing matters, which is a poor principle for civilization.”

Trial By Ordeal (Kunstler)

Would it surprise you to learn that children well beneath the age of puberty are not inclined to think about sex at all? In a well-ordered society that recognizes children as different from adults, they don’t. And if something sexual comes to their attention, they are generally perplexed by it. Unless they’re born into an era when adults are busy erasing boundaries, guard-rails, and cultural inhibitions, in which case I must imagine that young children exposed to, say, pornography in a chaotic household find it traumatically sinister. So, why the gleeful celebration about sexualizing children now? I’ll tell you why: because we are living in a very badly-ordered society these days, a society in which anything goes and nothing matters, which is a poor principle for civilization.

It’s the same principle that has people shitting all over the sidewalks of San Francisco, looting Walgreens stores in broad daylight, pushing ineffective and unsafe vaccines (and lying about it), and arresting people for thought crimes. It’s a degenerate society. Morally bankrupt. Wicked. You might ask, how did it get that way? The concise answer is that a broken business model for daily life and a collapsing economy have so disordered millions of minds that values are seen as having no value. The scaffold for truth, beauty, honor, dignity, courage, prudence, generosity, etc., folded some time ago, in slow-motion, so we didn’t notice. The keepers of our culture have replaced it with a tacky system of ritual virtue-signaling fakery that they don’t really believe in, that persists simply because the moral vacuum it stands for provokes such unbearable anxiety.

The main lesson of the recent Durham Report — missed by even the most punctilious observers — is that our country does not want to fix itself, indeed the whole broken apparatus of fixing it is in the hands of the people who broke it. This epic negligence leaves the doors wide open for the broad range of lower-order criminal mischief we’re seeing expressed all around us. Now I will venture into shadowland. There is a rumor floating around the Internet that this seemingly coordinated campaign to sexualize children and initiate them into marginal behaviors was started to soften up the public for forthcoming shocking revelations contained in the much-whispered-about Jeffrey Epstein archive of videos that show eminent international figures caught in compromising sexual situations that include sexual acts with children.

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“What is new is that the climate crowd now has the political power they need to push their agenda using fear and the regulatory state..”

The Green Fraud (Jim Rickards)

Those yelling the loudest about climate change want to destroy the oil and natural gas industry, destroy nuclear power plant construction, shut down coal-fired plants, end coal mining, mandate electric vehicles (EVs) on very short deadlines and eliminate gas stoves in your kitchen, fireplaces and even outdoor barbecues. They also want to build wind turbine arrays offshore and on deserts, plains and even mountains near you. They want to install solar module fields on every rooftop and open space near a population center. The climate change radicals want to increase the mining of lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, rare earths and other dangerous chemicals to feed their obsession with EV batteries. They’re spending hundreds of billions of tax dollars to subsidize the EVs, battery manufacturing and a coast-to-coast network of charging stations to keep the EVs moving (even if they do have to stop for a charge every 180 miles).

The greenies also want to mandate “15-minute cities” where you can walk everywhere in town within 15 minutes, which means you won’t need your car to visit a doctor, dry cleaner, grocery store, pharmacy or any of the other locations we routinely visit for errands and necessities. That may sound attractive if you chose it voluntarily. That’s not what the greenies have in mind. They want 15-minute cities as a Trojan horse to eliminate automobiles entirely and force you to ride bicycles or use public transportation. In the end, you’ll need a permit to fly to another city. The permits will be rationed and you’ll have to put yourself on a waiting list until your turn. You can pay for your ticket with the new central bank digital currency (CBDC), assuming your social credit score is high enough and you didn’t vote for the wrong candidate in the last election.


In short, the climate change agenda is not about climate change. It’s about total political and economic control of the population. So-called climate change is an elite scare tactic to get you to fall into line and obey government orders (as most people do). Elites claim that if we don’t radically reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) and CH4 (methane) emissions, global warming will melt the ice caps, raise sea levels, put island nations underwater and flood the New York City subway system in 10 years or less. They’ve been making similar claims for 40 years and they’ve been wrong every time. That doesn’t stop them. Fear works. What is new is that the climate crowd now has the political power they need to push their agenda using fear and the regulatory state to attack your means of transportation, your personal conveniences and your consumer choices.

Rickards

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“I don’t want to do any of this.”

IRS Whistleblower Defies the Biden Administration and the Media (Turley)

“I don’t want to do any of this.” Those words from 14-year IRS veteran Gary Shapley may be the most important line in his CBS News interview this week. After weeks of Democrats dismissing whistleblowers alleging the president’s administration interfered with investigations of Hunter Biden, Shapley had enough. Putting his career and much of his life at risk, Shapley came forward to say he and others believe Hunter is being protected and identified the Justice Department as the source of the protection. Shapley has every reason not to want to do any of this. After all, as President Joe Biden stated last year, “No one f–ks with a Biden.” For years, a Democrat-controlled Congress refused to investigate Biden family influence-peddling, and the press dismissed people raising Hunter’s laptop as spreading “Russian disinformation.”

The media have worked hard to minimize the blowback after acknowledging the laptop’s authenticity and the growing evidence of millions in influence-peddling. Part of this effort at “scandal implosion” has been to dismiss any criminal charges as relatively minor tax violations unconnected to the president. Indeed, when the president recently agreed to a rare sit-down interview, the White House chose MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. Before asking about his son Hunter’s scandal, Ruhle emphasized it was “something personal” with “no ties to you.” Many of us guffawed at the claim given multiple references on the laptop to President Biden, including possibly sharing in the proceeds from influence-peddling with foreign governments.

The problem is Shapley suggests some uncomfortable questions on how Biden’s administration may have worked to minimize charges against his son and, according to Shapley, “slow-walked” the investigation. His interview explains why the Justice Department can indict figures like Rep. George Santos (R-NY) on a variety of fraud and money-laundering charges in a few months while spending years investigating Hunter Biden with no conclusion. Shapley made clear he had never seen this level of interference in his long service at the IRS and said it was done “at the direction of the Department of Justice.” And he said the interference began as soon as he “took control of this particular investigation”: “I immediately saw deviations from the normal process. It was way outside the norm of what I’ve experienced in the past.”

Navy Seal

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“Nobody would tolerate the price of gasoline varying by 10:1 based on which company you bought auto insurance from. Yet this sort of nonsense is bog-standard through the medical industry.”

The DeSantis -Or GOP Generally- Political Question (Denninger)

Is it not reasonable to expect that manufacturers are legally responsible for the integrity of their products? If, after discovering that a flaw or risk exists they continue trials, sweep said evidence under the rug or otherwise obfuscate what’s going on a courtroom is accessible to those allegedly harmed in which such evidence can be heard and a determination made? How about the rank price-fixing? What has DeSantis done in Florida about it? I can tell you what he did during the time I lived there: Nothing. In fact there are medical centers in NW FL in particular that feast on such disparities and have been known to be doing it for a very long time. In fact Florida has long been the capital of this sort of abuse and you have paid for it if you live in the state, directly and indirectly, particularly when inmates in a jail require care and thus you get the bill in your property taxes.

Can this be fixed at the state level with legislation or even just executive action? You bet; States are the exclusive issuers of both business and medical licenses. Any state can condition said licensing on non-discriminatory pricing irrespective of the method of payment. You expect this at WalMart, the grocery store and gas station. Nobody would tolerate the price of gasoline varying by 10:1 based on which company you bought auto insurance from. Yet this sort of nonsense is bog-standard through the medical industry. Where is the candidate who will put a stop to it and, if they’re a governor, can demonstrate they’re serious because they did put a stop to it? In addition the executive, which is the Governor’s department controls the prosecuting apparatus. DeSantis could have directed his prosecutors to go after medical providers for violations of the State anti-trust laws, which absolutely do exist in each state and which are available under existing law — no new legislation required. He, like the rest, actively refused.

DeSantis is NOT a governor who did either of these things. Folks if we are going to fix what’s wrong with this nation it starts with the medical system. If we don’t force one of the political parties to do it neither will because there are billions of reasons for them not to spread around the politicians in both parties. This has to stop because CMS, Medicare and Medicaid services, consumed one third of all dollars spent federally last year — $2 trillion of the $6 trillion total — and is in fact responsible for the entire trillion dollar deficit. That’s right — if it was stopped (that is, it spent only what it took in via taxes by stopping the screwing medical system-wide) the federal government would in fact run a modest surplus and the inflation you are having happen right now would not be happening.

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“The US public debt is a global financial pyramid, built by Washington to defraud other nations..”

US Debt A Pyramid Scheme – Russia’s Top MP (RT)

Senior Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Volodin has branded the US federal government debt a global pyramid scheme that is heading for an inevitable collapse. The comments come as Washington struggles to agree on raising its debt ceiling to avoid a default. “Just think about it, in 2023 interest payments on the US debt could reach $1.5 trillion – almost a third of all US budget revenue!”Volodin, who serves as chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament, said in a Telegram post on Friday. “The US public debt is a global financial pyramid, built by Washington to defraud other nations,” the State Duma member wrote. “History has shown that all pyramid schemes eventually fail,”he added, warning that the dollar is becoming toxic. Countries dependent on the US dollar should start looking for alternatives such as national currencies, to reduce risks for their citizens, Volodin concluded.


The US government faces a default on its $31 trillion in debt if lawmakers fail to raise the federal borrowing limit. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Congress earlier this week that bills can’t be paid if the debt ceiling is not raised by June 1. Reuters reported on Thursday that President Joe Biden and top Republican lawmaker Kevin McCarthy were edging close to a deal on the debt ceiling but have yet to agree on cuts to discretionary spending, which powers a wide range of military and domestic programs. Russia started settling trade deals with its partners in national currencies after the US effectively cut it off from dollar-denominated trade as part of sanctions arising from Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Wednesday that the ruble and the yuan are now dominating trade between Russia and China, and are used in 70% of mutual payments.

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A/ Joe Biden creates nothing.

B/ The US sees itself in the center of this ‘New Economic World Order’. It won’t be.

Inside Joe Biden’s Struggles To Create A ‘New Economic World Order’ (Pol.)

The Biden administration has been trying to bury the free-trade era for months. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai drove a nail into its coffin in January, telling the world’s one percent at Davos that the Biden administration would try to shape a “new economic world order” around protecting workers. And National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan sought to deliver last rites in April, promising the White House would forge a “new Washington consensus” to replace the one that had governed the globe for over a generation. “I remain convinced that through all of this disruption we’re moving towards a new economic order,” Tai told POLITICO in an interview. “I’d really like to fill that gap with a positive vision that we will be prepared for it.”

The goal is to replace the old paradigms of globalization — free trade and a reliance on markets — with a “worker-centered” trade policy that raises wages not just for Americans, but around the world. But building a new world economy is proving more difficult than eulogizing the old one. While the pro-globalization consensus has shown cracks for years — from the financial crisis to the election of former President Donald Trump — Biden’s team has struggled to outline how it will shape new rules and institutions to replace those that governed the world for the last half-century. Biden’s team is moving slowly to transform a paralyzed World Trade Organization, once the premier facilitator of globalization, into a new-look economic club that reflects its progressive values.

As those efforts crawl along, Biden has sought to forge new economic partnerships in Asia and Latin America, but the nascent efforts pale in comparison to China’s trillion-dollar infrastructure program for developing nations and risk replicating the corporate-friendly trade policies of the old system. Meanwhile, Biden’s quest to counter China’s technological growth risks sparking a new Cold War and dividing the world into two or more global trading blocs — a fate the White House insists it is trying to avoid. More fundamentally, Biden’s brain trust has yet to settle on a vision for how the next era of global economics will be constructed. Their initial ideas are abstract at best.

[..] Biden’s critics — from centrist free-trade holdouts to Trump-fueled populists who focus on competition with China — are hardly more concrete in their own ideas. Across the political spectrum, American policymakers are grappling with how to shape a new global economic system to replace the one they built decades ago. “I don’t know if the administration has clearly outlined what that new world looks like,” Sen. Marco Rubio , the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, told POLITICO after a Capitol Hill hearing in February when he assailed the old, pro-globalization paradigm. “But I don’t know if anybody else has either.”

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Jimmy Dore Bitcoin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662133413132873728

Sunfish

 

 

Cobra mantis
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662149543926939668

 

 

Flying fox
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662010935051968514

 

 

WTF

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

May 262023
 


Damien Hirst Renewal Blossom 2018

 

Ukraine Sent Poor, Untrained Men Into Bakhmut Meat Grinder (Antiwar)
US Has Been Preparing Ukrainian Counteroffensive ‘For Months’ – Nuland (RT)
Shoigu Sees West Waging Undeclared War On Russia, Belarus (TASS)
More Than 2,500 Foreign Mercenaries Fighting For Ukraine – Shoigu (RT)
Kiev Regime Must Cease To Exist – Medvedev (RT)
China Tells EU To Look At ‘Root Cause’ Of Ukraine Conflict (RT)
What Matters Is A Guy With Dementia Not Elected US President – Medvedev (TASS)
Top US General Milley Delivers Sober Take On Ukrainian Ambitions (RT)
Minsk, Moscow Sign Documents On Storage Of Russian Nukes In Belarus (TASS)
Kremlin Responds To Ukrainian Threat To Kill Putin (RT)
Hungary: European Parliament Trying To Block Budapest’s EU Presidency (TASS)
The G7 Must Accept That It Cannot Run The World (Martin Wolf)
Catastrophic “Loss of Control” Data Breach in NY Elections (UncoverDC)

 

 

Hodkinson
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661722712677535744

 

 

 

 

Putin Valdai

 

 


 

 

Hillary
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661749513600798720

 

 

Rasmussen.

 

 

Bowie Tina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661460057710632961

 

 

Pepe Escobar:
European Central Bank (ECB) at 25:

Industrial production: – 16%
Real wages: – 11.2%
GDP per (occupied) person: -5%
Absolute poverty: +234%
Precarious: +81%
Expats: +140,2%
Savings rate: -82,5%

With friends like this, Europeans definitely don’t need enemies.

 

 

 

 

“.. to Save Better Forces for Counteroffensive..”

“..he was being sent fresh recruits who didn’t want to fire their guns because they were afraid of the sound..”

Ukraine Sent Poor, Untrained Men Into Bakhmut Meat Grinder (Antiwar)

Ukraine sent untrained recruits into the battle of Bakhmut to save its professional soldiers for an expected counteroffensive, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The Journal spoke with men who were part of a small group that was sent into Bakhmut, which became known as the meat grinder, just a few days after being mobilized. Out of 16 men in the group of draftees, 11 were either killed or captured. The Journal described them as “mostly poor men from villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region, many of them unemployed, doing odd jobs as handymen or shift work at factories in the regional capital.” Some of the men had military training years or decades ago, but none had combat experience. A few of them threatened to refuse orders when they were told they were being sent to the frontlines on February 21, citing a lack of training, but they ultimately went.

One man, Vladyslav Yudin, told the Journal that he told a sergeant major that he had never fired or even held a gun before. “Bakhmut will teach you,” Yudin was told. The men participated in brutal house-to-house combat in Bakhmut. Many of them are presumed dead, but their families are still holding out hope that they were captured by the Russians and are still alive. The men’s accounts match what Ukrainians fighting on the frontlines had been telling the media while the battle was still raging. They told stories of troops being sent in with little support, training, or ammunition. The Washington Post spoke to a Ukrainian battalion commander in March who said he was being sent fresh recruits who didn’t want to fire their guns because they were afraid of the sound.

Despite Kyiv’s Western backers advising against expending resources on Bakhmut, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to hold onto the city for as long as he could, but it was fully captured by the Wagner Group and Russian forces this past weekend. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin estimated that 50,000 Ukrainians lost their lives fighting for the city, but the number is not confirmed. Prigozhin also said that he recruited 50,000 people from prison to fight in Bakhmut and about 20% of them were killed.

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The wicked witch is back..

US Has Been Preparing Ukrainian Counteroffensive ‘For Months’ – Nuland (RT)

The US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland told an audience in Kiev on Thursday that Washington has been helping plan the Ukrainian ‘counteroffensive’ against Russia for almost half a year. “Even as you plan for the counteroffensive, which we have been working on with you for some 4-5 months, we are already beginning our discussions with [the] Ukrainian government and with friends in Kiev – both on the civilian side and on the military side – about Ukraine’s long-term future,” Nuland told the Kiev Security Forum via video-link from the State Department. She added that the attack will be “likely starting and moving concurrently” with events such as the NATO summit in Lithuania, scheduled for July 11.

According to Nuland, the US is also planning for Ukraine’s future military to deter Russia, so “wherever and however this ends – one year, six years, 16 years – we are not doing this again.” She also painted a rosy picture of a future in which Ukraine would be the “engine of Europe’s revitalization” and “setting the democratic example… for the whole world.” The forum was organized by the Open Ukraine Foundation, established by former Ukrainian PM Arseny Yatseniuk, who moderated the panel at which Nuland spoke. Another panel was co-sponsored by the Atlantic Council, whose officials argued that “transatlantic unity and robust support can help Ukraine defeat Russia and renew European security.”

The government in Kiev had been heralding a major “counteroffensive” for months. President Vladimir Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have argued that they didn’t have quite enough weapons, ammunition and equipment and needed the West to send more. As of Thursday, two of Zelensky’s advisers gave public statements implying the offensive hasn’t started yet, while a third insisted it was already underway along the 1,500-kilometer long frontline. Nuland famously traveled to Kiev to support the Maidan protests in December 2013, handing out pastries to the crowds demanding a pact with the EU. In a February 2014 phone call, she discussed the composition of the future Ukrainian government with US ambassador to Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt. Three weeks later, the nationalists would violently seize power from President Viktor Yanukovich, triggering events that would lead to Crimea rejoining Russia and clashes in the Donbass.

Returning to the State Department in 2021 as part of Joe Biden’s administration, Nuland was once again put in charge of Ukraine policy. Speaking at a Carnegie Foundation event in February, she said the conquest of Crimea and regime change in Moscow would be the ideal outcome of the current conflict. Her sister-in-law Kimberly Kagan runs the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington advocacy group frequently quoted by Western media about the situation on the Ukraine frontline.

Greenwald Sachs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661768345211764738

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“Today, we are being confronted by the collective West, which, in effect, is waging an undeclared war on our countries..”

Shoigu Sees West Waging Undeclared War On Russia, Belarus (TASS)

A Western-led undeclared war is being waged against Moscow and Minsk, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Viktor Khrenin, on Thursday. “Today, we are being confronted by the collective West, which, in effect, is waging an undeclared war on our countries,” Shoigu said. According to him, NATO’s military activities “have been most aggressive of late.” “A number of measures to enhance the combat readiness of the [North Atlantic] Alliance’s Joint Armed Forces in Eastern Europe is currently being implemented. Extra troops and military infrastructure are being deployed there, and combat training and reconnaissance activities have intensified near the border of the [Russia-Belarus] Union State,” Shoigu said.

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“The West is forcing the Kiev regime, regardless of losses, to show tactical successes and willingness to fight ‘to the last Ukrainian’ and pumping it with weapons..”

More Than 2,500 Foreign Mercenaries Fighting For Ukraine – Shoigu (RT)

Western countries are forcing Kiev to show tactical successes on the battlefield regardless of the cost to human lives and “pumping” the country full of weapons and fighters, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said. Speaking at a meeting of the council of defense ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Minsk on Thursday, the Russian minister said the value of the West’s military-technical assistance to Kiev has already exceeded $65 billion and more than 2,500 foreign mercenaries are currently taking part in military operations in the country. He also claimed that Kiev’s tactics have evolved to include terrorist methods of confrontation, including sabotage and high-profile killings.

“The most tense situation today has developed in the Eastern European region. The West is forcing the Kiev regime, regardless of losses, to show tactical successes and willingness to fight ‘to the last Ukrainian’ and pumping it with weapons,” Shoigu said. He claimed that this would only lead to further escalation and prolong the conflict. Shoigu suggested that this was being done intentionally and that NATO had been using the Ukraine crisis as an excuse to build up its military capabilities and modernize its infrastructure in Central and Eastern Europe. Shoigu claimed the US and its allies are intentionally creating hotbeds of tension and provoking crises near the borders of CSTO members, leading to an “extremely unstable” military-political situation in these areas. The minister accused the West of providing support for terrorist and extremist structures, and also using sanctions, threats and blackmail to achieve their goals of destabilizing the region.

On Thursday, Shoigu also spoke with his Belarusian counterpart Viktor Khrenin. During their meeting, he explained that the West was waging an “undeclared war” against Russia and Belarus and that NATO’s military activity had taken a “most aggressive direction.” In response to the West’s “increasingly aggressive rhetoric” and joint “nuclear missions,” which involve drills on deploying weapons of mass destruction, Moscow and Minsk officially signed a nuclear weapons deal on Thursday, allowing the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus. Shoigu explained that control over the weapons remains in Moscow’s hands, but noted that “additional measures” could be taken going forward in order to ensure the security of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

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“..the root cause of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine stems from decades of Western disregard of Russian national security..”

Kiev Regime Must Cease To Exist – Medvedev (RT)

There is no doubt that Ukraine has no future in its current form, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, outlining three possible scenarios for the collapse of its statehood and assessing the risks of renewed conflict in Europe and a global war. “This conflict will last for long. For decades, probably. This is a new reality,” the former Russian leader, now the vice-chair of the national security council, told journalists upon wrapping his visit to Vietnam earlier this week. “It is necessary to destroy the very nature of the Nazi government in Kiev,” Medvedev added, claiming that otherwise the conflict could drag on perpetually, with “three years of truce, two years of conflict, rinse and repeat.”

In a Telegram post on Thursday evening, Medvedev elaborated that Ukraine’s statehood could either collapse quickly, or through a “relatively slow erosion, with the gradual loss of remaining elements of sovereignty.” He went even further to outline exactly how he believes the “Kiev regime” would cease to exist. In the first scenario, parts of Western Ukraine will come under control and eventually be annexed by the neighboring European Union states, Medvedev claimed. The remaining “no man’s land” wedged between Russia and the EU protectorate will become the “new Ukraine,” still striving to join NATO and posing a threat to Russia. In that case, he believes, the armed conflict will shortly reignite, likely becoming permanent with a risk of quickly escalating into a full-blown world war.

In the second scenario, Ukraine would get a government-in-exile but de-facto cease to exist, with control over its entire territory split between the EU and Russia. In that case, according to Medvedev, the risk of world war is “moderate,” but the “terrorist activity by Ukrainian neo-Nazis” on the territories annexed by the EU neighbors would drag on. Medvedev said he would prefer the third scenario, in which Ukraine’s Western territories voluntarily join their EU neighbors, while the Eastern and some central regions exercise their “right for self-determination sealed in Article 1 of the UN Charter.” Officials in Moscow have said repeatedly that the root cause of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine stems from decades of Western disregard of Russian national security.

Back in 2021, the Kremlin made an attempt to push NATO to negotiate on long-standing political and defense grievances, but was ignored. In late February 2022, Russia launched its military operation to curb the threat, and now calls for a neutral, non-aligned status for a demilitarized and denazified Ukraine, insists Kiev drops its plans to join NATO and the EU and demands Kiev confirms its non-nuclear status. Medvedev was president of Russia between 2008 and 2012, and then prime minister until 2020. Currently, he serves as the deputy head of the national security council, which is formally chaired by President Vladimir Putin. Despite his prior reputation as a moderate liberal, he has been far more hawkish on Ukraine than the official Kremlin.

Ritter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661399405029736453

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The west still doesn’t take China seriously. Big mistake.

China Tells EU To Look At ‘Root Cause’ Of Ukraine Conflict (RT)

European countries should focus on finding and fixing the “root causes” that led to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, Chinese Special Representative on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui told German Federal Foreign Office State Secretary Andreas Michaelis during a meeting in Berlin on Wednesday. Li said Beijing’s position on the Ukrainian issue remains unchanged and is focused on promoting peace talks and a political settlement to the conflict, according to a statement released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Recalling Chinese President Xi Jinping’s words, Li said that “there is no panacea to resolve the crisis” and that all parties needed to create favorable conditions for the resumption of peace talks through the accumulation of mutual trust.

“China supports European countries to start from the root causes of the crisis and find solutions to both symptoms and the root causes, and make efforts for the long-term stability of the European continent,” Li said, adding that Beijing is willing to maintain close communication with Germany on this issue. According to the statement, Michaelis said the German side highly valued China’s positive efforts to de-escalate the Ukrainian crisis and noted that it was “useful and necessary” for the two countries to strengthen dialogue on a number of major international and regional issues, including the situation in Ukraine. Li and Michalis’s meeting comes as the Chinese special representative is on a week-long tour of Europe intended to encourage a political settlement for Ukraine and promote China’s 12-point road map to achieving peace in the region.

The envoy has already met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, Poland’s deputy foreign minister and French foreign ministry officials. He is set to conclude the tour with a visit to Moscow on Friday. China’s peace efforts have been welcomed by Russia and several other nations, with Russian President Vladimir Putin saying many points on Beijing’s plan are “in tune” with Moscow’s position. However, most Western powers have dismissed China’s roadmap, stating that it lacked “credibility” amid Beijing’s refusal to join the West’s anti-Russian sanction campaign. The EU’s Foreign Policy chief has also called China’s plan “wishful thinking” and insisted that the only solution worth considering is one proposed by Kiev, which includes a complete withdrawal of Russian forces and an international tribunal.

Xi/EEF

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“Donald Trump: the Russian politician described him as “a nice guy, but a bit of a coward.”

What Matters Is A Guy With Dementia Not Elected US President – Medvedev (TASS)

The only thing that matters for Moscow is that US voters do not choose a president suffering from dementia during the 2024 election, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters during a visit to Vietnam. When asked which candidate would be preferable for Moscow, Medvedev replied: “The only thing that matters is that a guy with dementia is not elected.” “But this is possible,” he added. Speaking about electoral chances of former US President Donald Trump, the Russian politician described him as “a nice guy, but a bit of a coward.” “Historically, it was always easier for us to work with the Republicans,” he added. Donald Trump announced his presidential bid in November 2022. Incumbent US President Joe Biden said he would seek re-election on April 25. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis joined the race on May 24.

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We’re being prepared for years of warfare.

Top US General Milley Delivers Sober Take On Ukrainian Ambitions (RT)

The fighting in Ukraine is going to continue with no military solution in the near future, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday. Milley spoke alongside Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin after the virtual meeting of the ‘Ukrainian Defense Contact Group’, a collection of Western countries pledging to supply Kiev with weapons, equipment and ammunition to use against Russia – while insisting they are not a party to the conflict. Ukraine’s strategic objectives are to take all the territory “occupied”by Russia, where “a couple hundred thousand” Russian troops are currently positioned, Milley told reporters. “That might be achievable militarily, but probably not in the near term.”

“That means fighting is going to continue. It’s gonna be bloody. It’s gonna be hard. And at some point both sides will either negotiate a settlement or they will come to a military conclusion,” he said. Meanwhile, the US will continue supporting Ukraine. Austin and Milley insisted throughout that Kiev was not losing. They painted the months-long battle for Bakhmut, which Ukraine lost, as a triumph of defense. They also claimed that the Ukrainians were using the US-supplied Patriot air defense systems “very effectively.” The Russian Defense Ministry said it had used Kinzhal hypersonic missiles to destroy a Patriot battery in the Ukrainian capital earlier this month. Milley also defended the decision not to send F-16 fighters to Ukraine sooner, arguing that the US was not ramping up weapons deliveries as a result of public pressure, but always sending Kiev precisely what it needed at any given moment, using “hardcore military analysis” of cost, benefit and risk.

Deploying just ten F-16 fighters would cost $2 billion, including operations and maintenance, Milley explained, while Russia has over 1,000 modern jets. So the decision was made to supply Kiev with air defenses first, and send the F-16s as a more long-term solution. “It’s going to take a considerable length of time to build up an air force that’s the size and scope and scale that’ll be necessary,” Milley said. He also cautioned reporters to curb their enthusiasm, as “there are no magic weapons. An F-16 is not, and neither is anything else.” It has been known since February that Milley would retire at some point this year. On Thursday, US President Joe Biden nominated as his replacement the current Air Force chief of staff, General Charles Q. Brown Jr.

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“..The measures taken by Russia and Belarus “comply with all existing international legal obligations..”

Minsk, Moscow Sign Documents On Storage Of Russian Nukes In Belarus (TASS)

The defense ministers of Russia and Belarus, Sergey Shoigu and Viktor Khrenin, respectively, signed documents in Minsk on Thursday defining the procedures for storing Russian nuclear weapons at a special storage facility on Belarusian territory, the Belarusian Defense Ministry reported. “During the meeting, documents determining the procedure for keeping Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in a special storage facility on the territory of the Republic of Belarus were signed,” the ministry’s press service said. The measures taken by Russia and Belarus “comply with all existing international legal obligations,” Shoigu stressed.


The defense ministers discussed the current military and political situation and issues of military and technical cooperation between the two countries’ defense ministries. On March 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that, at Minsk’s request, Moscow would deploy its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, similar to what the United States has long been doing on the territory of its allies. As the Russian leader indicated, the construction of storage facilities for tactical nuclear weapons will be completed in Belarus by July 1. Moscow has already provided Minsk with Iskander tactical missile systems capable of carrying nuclear weapons and has helped Minsk to re-equip its military aircraft to carry specialized weapons. As well, Belarusian missile crews and pilots have undergone training in Russia.

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The death of Putin would mean the death of Ukraine.

Kremlin Responds To Ukrainian Threat To Kill Putin (RT)

Ukraine’s leadership has again proven its “terrorist” nature by threatening to assassinate President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has said, while giving assurances that the Russian leader is well protected. “A terrorist regime talks about its terrorist aspirations,” Peskov told the Rossiya 24 broadcaster on Thursday. The spokesman was commenting on an acknowledgement by Vadim Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), who told the German outlet Die Welt on Wednesday that Putin was on his agency’s kill list. Peskov said such statements show that the military operation, launched by Russia in Ukraine in February 2022, was “more than justified, more than necessary and that it must be completed.”

When asked if the Russian president’s security detail had been boosted after the threat from Kiev, Peskov replied: “Trust me, our security services know their job and know what they’re doing.” In his interview, Skibitsky claimed that Putin “notices that we’re getting ever closer to him.” Ukrainian operatives have so far been unable to get to him because the Russian leader “stays holed up,” he added. The intelligence official said the GUR was also “trying to kill” the head of the Wagner private military company, Evgeny Prighozhin, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. In early May, two small drones were disabled by air defenses, while trying to strike Putin’s Kremlin residence in Moscow. The Russian leader was not there at the time of the failed attack, and no one was hurt.

Despite the Ukrainian authorities denying any involvement, Moscow called the incident a “a pre-planned terrorist act” and an attempt on Putin’s life perpetrated by Kiev. The Kremlin vowed that Russia would retaliate to the raid “anywhere and anytime it deems necessary,” while senior lawmaker Vyacheslav Volodin called for the use of “weapons capable of stopping and destroying the Kiev terrorist regime.” Russia has accused Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s government of engaging in “terrorist tactics” since last fall, when it said Ukraine was targeting Russian infrastructure, including nuclear facilities and the strategic Crimean Bridge. The accusations were followed by the launch of a large-scale missile campaign across Ukraine, which delivered serious damage to the country’s energy system and depleted the capabilities of Ukrainian air defenses.

Podolyak

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No qualms about breaking their own rules..

Hungary: European Parliament Trying To Block Budapest’s EU Presidency (TASS)

The European Parliament has prepared a draft resolution depriving Hungary of the right to preside over the European Union in the second half of 2024, Hungarian Justice Ministry Judit Varga said. “Next week, the European Parliament will once again vote on a resolution against Hungary in a bid to block its EU presidency in the second half of 2024. We will not let them take this opportunity away from Hungary,” she wrote on Facebook (banned in Russia due to its ownership by Meta, which has been designated as extremist).


The European Parliament has passed resolutions criticizing Hungary before, which are recommendatory and not legally binding. The Hungarian authorities argue that European Parliament members from leftist parties dislike the country’s independent position on a number of international issues, including the conflict in Ukraine. Varga pointed out that it was up to the Council of the European Union and not the European Parliament to make decisions on the EU presidency rotation. According to her, the Hungarian government is “in daily contact with the Council’s general secretariat and continues to make preparations to perform the mission.”

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“..between 2000 and 2023, its share in global output (at purchasing power) will have fallen from 44 to 30 per cent, while that of all high-income countries will have fallen from 57 to 41 per cent..”

The G7 Must Accept That It Cannot Run The World (Martin Wolf)

“Goodbye G7, hello G20.” That was the headline on an article in The Economist on the first summit of the Group of 20 in Washington in 2008 which argued that this represented “a decisive shift in the old order”. Today, hopes of a co-operative global economic order, which reached their zenith at the G20’s London summit of April 2009(opens a new window), have evaporated. Yet it is hardly a case of “Goodbye G20, hello G7”. The earlier world of G7 domination is even more remote than that of G20 co-operation. Neither global co-operation nor western domination look feasible. What might follow? Alas, “division” might be one answer and “anarchy” another. That is not what the communiqué from the meeting of G7 heads of government in Hiroshima suggests.

It is breathtakingly comprehensive. It covers: Ukraine; disarmament and non-proliferation; the Indo-Pacific region; the global economy; climate change; the environment; energy, including clean energy; economic resilience and economic security; trade; food security; health; labour; education; digital; science and technology; gender; human rights, refugees, migration and democracy; terrorism, violent extremism and transnational organised crime; and relations with China, Afghanistan and Iran (among other countries). At 19,000 words, this reads like a manifesto for a world government. In contrast, the communiqué of the London G20 summit in April 2009 was just over 3,000 words. This comparison is unfair, given the focus at that time on the economic crisis. But an unfocused wish list cannot be useful: when everything is a priority, nothing is.

Moreover, both the “unipolar” moment of the US and the economic dominance of the G7 are history. True, the latter is still the most powerful and cohesive economic bloc in the world. It continues, for example, to produce all the world’s leading reserve currencies. Yet, between 2000 and 2023, its share in global output (at purchasing power) will have fallen from 44 to 30 per cent, while that of all high-income countries will have fallen from 57 to 41 per cent. Meanwhile, China’s share will have risen from 7 to 19 per cent. China is now an economic superpower. Via its Belt and Road Initiative it has become a huge investor in (and creditor of) developing countries, though, predictably, it is having to deal with the consequent bad debts so familiar to G7 countries. For some emerging and developing countries, China is a more important economic partner than the G7: Brazil is one example. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may have attended the G7, but he cannot sensibly ignore China’s heft.

The G7 are also reaching out to others: their meeting in Japan included India, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia and South Korea. But 19 countries (opens a new window)have apparently applied to join the Brics(opens a new window), which already include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. When Jim O’Neill invented the idea of the Brics back in 2001(opens a new window), he thought this would be an economically relevant category. I thought the Brics would be about just China and India. Economically, that was right. But the Brics now seem to be on the way to being a relevant worldwide grouping. Clearly, what brings its members together is the desire not to be dependent on the whims of the US and its close allies, who have dominated the world for the past two centuries. How long, after all, can (or, for that matter, should) the G7, with 10 per cent of the world’s population, continue to do so?

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“..recovery from such an incident is not possible..”

Catastrophic “Loss of Control” Data Breach in NY Elections (UncoverDC)

A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Information Warfare (JIW) confirms a “Loss of Control” breach has occurred in the NYSVoter Database. A peer-reviewed paper of their results in a respected journal is a hard-won and “significant milestone,” according to Marly Hornik, Executive Director of the NY Citizens Audit. The audit of the voter rolls was led by Marly Hornik and Andrew Paquette, Ph.D., Director of Research, who submitted the paper to JIW. Paquette “co-founded the International Game Architecture and Design Academy (now BUAS) in the Netherlands after a career in the feature film and video game industries. He received his Ph.D. from King’s College, London, in 2018 for a thesis on the development of expertise.”

In July 2021, Hornik and Paquette assembled a group of volunteers in New York that has grown to around 2000 individuals statewide to investigate the state’s voter registration rolls. Hornik presented the group’s preliminary findings to attendees at The Pit, sponsored by True the Vote, in August 2022. In her recent letter to New York citizens, Hornik explains the seriousness of the group’s findings:

“Through auditing the voter roll databases, obtained directly from state and local boards of elections, we have uncovered millions of invalid registrations, hundreds of thousands of votes cast by legally invalid registrations, hundreds of thousands of votes cast by legally invalid registrants, massive vote discrepancies, and the clear presence of algorithmic patterns we reverse engineered from within the state’s own official records. To be absolutely clear, there is no known innocent purpose or explanation for why these algorithms exist. I am told by cyber-intelligence experts they indicate a ‘Total Loss of Control’ data breach, the most severe kind of data breach recognized by our federal government. The law says it renders the affected NYSVoter database completely untrustworthy.”

[..] A “Loss of Control Breach” is a catastrophic level of “impact,” both functionally and in terms of information lost. It is important to note that the designation indicates “recovery from such an incident is not possible.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

EV

 

 

Coleman

 

 

 

 

Language
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661404186989264899

 

 

Coconut Octopus
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661731592254160898

 

 

Fish
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661872894207574016

 

 

Humpback
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661682803648479237

 

 

 

 

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May 252023
 
 May 25, 2023  Posted by at 8:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  29 Responses »


Damien Hirst Spiritual Day Blossom 2018

 

Zelensky A ‘Servant Of The People’ – But Not The Ukrainian People (Kornilov)
Putin Has Led Russia To Failure With His Invasion – Prigozhin (DM)
Wagner Chief Reveals Losses In Fight For Artyomovsk (RT)
Russia Opposes ‘Freezing’ Ukraine Conflict – Kremlin (RT)
Mearsheimers Latest Talk On The War In Ukraine (MoA)
British Warmongering Is Driving Europe Towards Catastrophe In Ukraine (Cook)
NATO’s Eastward Expansion Shares Intent With Hitlerian Policies – Lavrov (TASS)
Neocolonial Model Of World To Become Thing Of The Past – Putin (TASS)
Ukraine’s Top General Gravely Wounded In Russian Strike (RT)
The War in Ukraine Was Provoked (Jeffrey Sachs)
The G7 Is An Outdated Tool Of The US Neo-Empire (Fomenko)
Catastrophic Borrowing Kills Global Financial System – John Rubino
The Inside Story Of Russia-Iran-India Connectivity (Pepe Escobar)
The FBI Has Crossed The Rubicon (Faddis)
US, EU Politicians Demand Withdrawal Of COP28 Chief (Cradle)

 

 

 

 

DeSantis Twitter Space
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661542033884958723

 

 

P.e.n.i.s.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1660828620506509312

 

 


Pulp Fiction meets Nighthawks

 

 

Whistleblower
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661552527265918980

 

 

In 1996 RFK jr suffered a neurological injury which baffled doctors. Years later when he was in litigation over a particular flu vaccine he discovered that his condition, spasmodic dysphonia, was listed as one of the top side effects.

 

 

 

 

“But his promises to his new master are very different: not peace, but war.”

Zelensky A ‘Servant Of The People’ – But Not The Ukrainian People (Kornilov)

Every May, Vladimir Zelensky makes a show of proving that he remains what Ukrainians elected him to be: a servant of the people. This is part of the comedian-turned-politician’s myth, borrowed from the eponymous TV show he fronted prior to seeking high office. On the anniversary of his inauguration, every May 20, he gives a showpiece performance in the form of a report on the past year of his rule. He plays the role of the “servant,” informing his “masters” – the voters of Ukraine. Just two years ago, and it seems like ages now, Zelensky chose the Antonov aircraft hangar and a huge, unfinished Mriya cargo plane without wings (a Soviet project that independent Ukraine had spent 30 years talking about getting moving again) – as his backdrop. He went on to paint Ukrainians a beautiful picture of their country’s future, in which the Mriya (which means ‘dream’ in the local language) would finally take to the skies.

Less than a year later, soldiers under Zelensky’s command bombed both the hangar where he held the press conference and the plane, which never managed to take off. Everything seemed possible in Zelensky’s world, but he did forget one thing. Two years ago, when he was talking about turning Ukraine into a new Eden, he forgot the main promise that prompted Ukrainians to vote for him: his pledge to bring peace. Now, it’s even funny to remember the words the “servant of the people” uttered in his inaugural speech on May 20, 2019: “Our first priority is a ceasefire [in Kiev’s war with the Donbass]… I would not hesitate to lose my position for the sake of peace.” Over the intervening years, Zelensky has remained true to his tradition and, on the anniversary of his inauguration, he has continued to report as a true servant. But as time has passed he has acquired new masters – the US leadership.

This is a very significant change and confirms that, for Zelensky, Ukraine and its people have long been nothing more than a prop for his bloody adventures and their future well-being certainly is not part of the plan. His visit to Japan for the G7 summit was yet another venue in which to beg for weapons. Ukrainian diplomats take great offense when elements of the Western press liken Zelensky’s foreign trips to a traveling circus, but that is the reality. The whole point of his many trips is to raise yet more funds, and promises, to keep the war going – and thus to keep Ukrainians dying. As retired Italian general Marco Bertolini rightly pointed out the other day, if Western arms supplies to Ukraine had stopped, “the war would have ended a year ago and would not have cost hundreds of thousands of lives.”

The worst part is that everyone understands this very well. The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, says practically the same thing. However, even with the full knowledge that supplying Kiev with new lethal weapons means using Ukrainians as cannon fodder, the West keeps pumping in supplies. Of course, those same Ukrainians were promised Zelensky as a “servant” two years ago before he found himself some new masters. In Hiroshima, Zelensky fawned over his current bosses as best he could. He pathetically likened his request for F-16 jets to seeking “wings for freedom.”

[..] To sweeten the bitter pill of the humiliating defeat in Donbass, the Ukrainian president is trying to label the West’s promises to provide Kiev with F-16 fighter jets as a victory. What this will look like in practice is anyone’s guess, and no one knows how close it will bring the world to a potential catastrophe. Of course, Hiroshima is probably the best place to assess the consequences and understand how they could affect the entire planet. Especially the Ukrainian people, whom Zelensky promised to serve faithfully four years ago. But his promises to his new master are very different: not peace, but war.

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“..the guilty people will receive their punishment – as a minimum, they’ll be hanged on the Red Square.”

“So if they had at the start of it 500 tanks – now they have 5,000. If there were 20,000 men who were able to fight – now there are 400,000. So how exactly did we demilitarise it?”

Putin Has Led Russia To Failure With His Invasion – Prigozhin (DM)

Vladimir Putin has led Russia to abject failure with his invasion of Ukraine, the head of the Russian Wagner mercenary group has said in an astonishing outburst. Far from demilitarising Ukraine – Russia’s key war aim – Putin’s botched strategy has seen Kyiv amass ‘one of the world’s strongest armies’ through massive Western supplies, Yevgeny Prigozhin said. The Wagner chief was once considered a close ally and confidant of Russia’s tyrant and had been nicknamed Putin’s ‘chef’. But in the latest of his increasingly frequent outbursts, Prigozhin has given a devastating critique of his war strategy. He then warned of impending ‘revolution’ in Russia unless changes were made by the Kremlin leadership.

In an astonishing attack on military leaders, he said Russia would restore the death penalty and the guilty – he named defence ministry Sergei Shoigu and chief of the defence staff Valery Gerasimov as responsible for the war crisis – would be ‘hanged on Red Square’. Prigozhin blamed both Shoigu and Gerasimov for losing more men in Bakhmut than in the entire ten-year Soviet war in Afghanistan from 1979-89, which eventually led to the collapse of the USSR. ‘So the de-nazification of Ukraine, which we announced – we made Ukraine a nation, known to everyone around the globe,’ he said, mocking Putin’s warped purpose for going to war. ‘They are like Greeks at their peak, or Romans.’ He told interviewer Konstantin Dolgov – a prominent pro-war blogger: ‘We legitimised Ukraine, it became a country which is known to everyone.

‘As for de-militarisation… [this is] a painful issue indeed. ‘So if they had at the start of it 500 tanks – now they have 5,000. If there were 20,000 men who were able to fight – now there are 400,000. So how exactly did we demilitarise it? ‘Quite the opposite! We militarised it up to the brim. ‘I think Ukrainians today are one of the world’s strongest armies. They have high levels of organisation, training, military intelligence. ‘They have various ammunition and moreover, they are able to switch between any system – Soviet, Nato, anything at all – with the same success. They take their losses philosophically. ‘All they do is to achieve the supreme goal, just like us during the Great Patriotic War [Second World War].’ Prigozhin’s armed force of convicts and volunteers – named Wagner private military company – has claimed to have taken Bakhmut but at a devastating toll.

He admitted that in Bakhmut his force had lost 10,000 prisoners freed to fight for Putin, and the same number of volunteers. Many experts estimate the Wagner losses to be higher. Prigozhin then claimed Ukraine had lost 50,000 with 70,000 wounded. ‘During the [special military operation] I pulled out 50,000 inmates from jails,’ he said. Twenty per cent of them died.’ Adding to the latest of his outbursts, Prigozhin said he saw Shoigu and Gerasimov as guilty, not least for failing to supply Wagner with ammunition and weapons. ‘Without a doubt the death penalty will be brought back, because we are in a state of war,’ he said. And the guilty people will receive their punishment – as a minimum, they’ll be hanged on the Red Square.’

He lambasted the comfortable elites in Russia who continued to live normally while cannon fodder troops at the front lost their lives in huge numbers. Their sons must be forced to the war, he said. He singled out the defence minister Sergei Shoigu, whose daughter and son -in-law flaunt their wealth on social media. While last year it emerged the foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s stepdaughter owns a £4 million luxury apartment in Kensington, London. Mr Prigozhin said: ‘Everything might end as in 1917, with a revolution, when first the soldiers rise up and then their loved ones.

Read more …

From a different source:

1. 6.5 thousand foreign mercenaries of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were destroyed.
2. 10 thousand units of military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed.
3. 35 thousand units of weapons of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were taken as trophies.
4. More than 50 aircraft and helicopters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed.
5. 55,000 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were killed.
6. 85 thousand soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were wounded.
7. Such a large percentage of the dead was due to the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were almost surrounded and did not have time to take out the wounded.
8. PMC Wagner has also losses, but several times less.
9. 10 brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were completely destroyed and deprived of combat capability.
10. 21 brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were defeated and withdrawn to the rear for reorganization.
11. All these brigades were preparing for the offensive but instead of an offensive, they were defeated in Bakhmut.

Wagner Chief Reveals Losses In Fight For Artyomovsk (RT)

The head of Russia’s Wagner Group, Evgeny Prigozhin, has revealed that the private military company lost around 20,000 servicemen during the liberation of the strategic Donbass city of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, from Ukrainian forces. In an interview published by Wagner’s press service on Tuesday, Prigozhin said that during the long-running battle he had boosted the company’s ranks with 50,000 inmates from Russian prisons, who were offered the chance to fight instead of completing their sentences. “Around 20% of them have died,”Prigozhin said. “The casualties among them were the same as among those who enlisted by contract with us.” This suggests that Wagner’s losses in Artyomovsk, which is a key settlement in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), amounted to some 10,000 former prisoners and 10,000 military professionals.

Around 20% of Wagner’s forces had also received injuries that would require at least three months to recover from, Prigozhin stated. However, he insisted that the Ukrainian military had suffered far greater losses in what he previously called “the Bakhmut meat-grinder.” “We’ve destroyed 50,000 troops of the Ukrainian armed forces [in Artyomovsk],” the Wagner chief claimed, adding that another 50,000 to 70,000 had been seriously wounded. Prigozhin announced on Saturday that the operation to take control of Artyomovsk, which had been spearheaded by Wagner, had ended and that the city had been “fully captured.” The battle for the major logistics hub had been fought for 224 days, he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed later the same day that the city had been taken, with President Vladimir Putin congratulating Wagner servicemen and regular Russian military troops on their success. Ukraine, which previously claimed that Artyomovsk would be defended at any cost and would become a turning point in the conflict with Moscow, has thus far refused to admit the loss of the city. On Sunday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that the settlement “is only in our hearts”when asked by US counterpart Joe Biden at the G7 summit in Japan if Kiev still controlled Artyomovsk. A few hours later, Zelensky changed his stance and denied that the settlement was“occupied by Russia.”

Bakhmut

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“..Moscow is only considering the option of “completing the special military operation..”

Russia Opposes ‘Freezing’ Ukraine Conflict – Kremlin (RT)

Russia is “in solidarity” with the West on the view that the conflict in Ukraine cannot be frozen, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Russia’s TASS news agency on Wednesday. Asked whether Russia was considering putting the fighting on hold, Peskov stated that Moscow is only considering the option of “completing the special military operation,” which means securing Russia’s interests and achieving its goals either through military, or other available means. The spokesperson said it’s premature to talk about a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict, as there are no prerequisites for such an outcome yet. “It is unlikely that we can talk about real negotiations with any of the representatives of the current Kiev authorities, because there [in Ukraine] any negotiations with the Russian Federation are simply prohibited now,” Peskov explained.

Earlier, the German chancellor stated that any peace talks on the situation in Ukraine cannot aim to freeze the conflict. “Russia must withdraw its troops,” Olaf Scholz insisted on the sidelines of the G7 summit on Sunday. Meanwhile, the US is reportedly seeking to stretch out the conflict for years or even decades. According to the Politico news website, Joe Biden’s administration has been considering freezing the fighting instead of pushing for Ukraine’s victory, with the goal of achieving a situation similar to that between North and South Korea. “A Korea-style stoppage is certainly something that’s been discussed by experts and analysts in and out of government,” a source told the outlet. “It’s plausible, because neither side would need to recognize any new borders, and the only thing that would have to be agreed is to stop shooting along a set line.”

The benefit of such a scenario for the US would be that it would cost less for Western nations to support Ukraine, draw less public attention, and reduce the pressure to assist Kiev. Additionally, it would allow Ukraine to continue switching its military to NATO standards, in the hope of joining the military alliance. Russia, meanwhile, has repeatedly criticized NATO’s expansion into Europe and its attempts to build a presence in Ukraine without the country’s formal accession. Moscow has cited such moves as one of the key reasons for launching its military offensive in February 2022.

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“Mearsheimer expects that Russia, which already has incorporated four Ukrainian oblast plus Crimea, will take another four oblast from Ukraine.”

Mearsheimers Latest Talk On The War In Ukraine (MoA)

Yesterday the well known international relations scholar John Mearsheimer gave a talk (video, 1:33h) about the war in Ukraine to the Committee for the Republic. Mearsheimer made two major points: Ukraine can not win this war because the kill ratio in this war is in its disfavor. Mearheimer estimates that two Ukrainians die for one Russian soldier but says that many of his friends think that the ratio is more like 3:1 or 4:1. The reason for this is the WWI-style static war in which artillery is the most deadly weapon. Russia has an immense artillery advantage. During an offensive the attacker will often have more casualties than the defender. But in this war the Ukraine side has been (counter-)attacked most of the time while the Russians defended.

The Ukraine also has a much smaller population than Russia. The current ratio is about 5 Russians for 1 Ukrainian. With a much smaller population and much higher casualties the Ukraine will run out of able bodies way before Russia does. Mearsheimer expects that Russia, which already has incorporated four Ukrainian oblast plus Crimea, will take another four oblast from Ukraine. (I predicted this on February 24 2022, the day the war began. Those eight oblast plus Crimea are historically Russian land inhabited by Russian people. During the last thirty years they have consistently voted for pro-Russian candidates while the people in west Ukraine consistently opted for anti-Russian candidates.) Ukraine will end up as a dysfunctional (and poor) rump state.

Mearsheimer says that there will be no peace agreement in Ukraine. The war is seen by both sides as existential. Ukraine insists of regaining territory it sees as part of the country. Ukraine wants security guarantees from the ‘west’ which Russia opposes. The problem of hyper-nationalism (fascism) on the Ukrainian side also makes peace impossible. Then there is the problem that Russia, after having been lied to over the Minsk agreements, has zero trust in any ‘western’ word.

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“Storm Shadow allows the Ukrainian military to strike deep into Russian-annexed parts of Ukraine – and potentially at Russian cities too..”

British Warmongering Is Driving Europe Towards Catastrophe In Ukraine (Cook)

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky made an unexpected trip to Britain last week on a whistle-stop tour of European capitals, pleading for more powerful and longer-range weapons to use in his war against Russia. What was hard to ignore once again was the extent to which the UK is playing an outsize role in Ukraine. Last year, shortly after the start of the war, the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, hurried to Kyiv – presumably on Washington’s instructions – apparently to warn Zelensky off fledgling peace talks with Moscow. At around the same time, the Biden administration made clear it favoured an escalation in fighting, not an end to it, as an opportunity to “weaken” Russia, a geo-strategic rival along with China. Since then, the UK has been at the forefront of European efforts to entrench the conflict, helping to lobby for the supply of weapons, training and military intelligence to Ukrainian forces.

British tanks and thousands of tank shells – including, controversially, some made from depleted uranium – are being shipped out. Last week, the UK added hundreds of long-range attack drones to the inventory. And an unspecified number of £2m-a-blast Storm Shadow cruise missiles, with a range of nearly 300km, have started arriving. Last week Ben Wallace, Britain’s defence secretary, said the missiles were already in use, adding that Kyiv alone was deciding on the targets. Storm Shadow allows the Ukrainian military to strike deep into Russian-annexed parts of Ukraine – and potentially at Russian cities too. A recent leak revealed that the Pentagon had learnt through electronic eavesdropping of Zelensky’s eagerness for longer-range missiles so that his forces were “capable of reaching Russian troop deployments in Russia”.

Britain now pays little more than lip service to the West’s claim that its role is only to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression. The supply of increasingly offensive weapons has turned Ukraine into what amounts to a proxy battleground on which the Cold War can be revived. During Zelensky’s visit to the UK last week, Johnson’s successor, Rishi Sunak, effectively acted as an arms broker for Ukraine, joining with the Netherlands in what was grandly dubbed an “international coalition” to pressure the Biden administration and other European states to supply Kiev with F-16 fighter jets. Washington appeared not to need much cajoling. Three days later, Biden dramatically changed tack at a G7 summit in Japan. He effectively gave a green light for US allies to supply Ukraine not only with US-made F-16s but similar fourth-generation fighter jets, including Britain’s Eurofighter Typhoon and France’s Mirage 2000.

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“NATO’s reckless expansion reflects the same intentions that undergirded the Hitlerian doctrine of ‘Drang nach Osten’..”

NATO’s Eastward Expansion Shares Intent With Hitlerian Policies – Lavrov (TASS)

Behind NATO’s latest expansion push lie the same underlying intentions as the policies of Hitler, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at an international meeting of high-level officials responsible for security issues in Moscow on Wednesday. “In essence, NATO’s reckless expansion reflects the same intentions that undergirded the Hitlerian doctrine of ‘Drang nach Osten’ (German for ‘Drive to the East,’ which was the Nazi slogan justifying the conquest of Central and Eastern European lands – TASS),” Lavrov said. According to Russia’s top diplomat, the United States has purposefully set about destroying the architecture of European security, “while focusing in particular on engendering threats that are unacceptable to Russia.”


“It is enough just to mention the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty more than 20 years ago, as well as from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and from the Open Skies Treaty,” he maintained. Lavrov accused Washington and its allies of marginalizing the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a body that he said no longer played any role in European security. The Russian foreign minister criticized the NATO countries’ “provocative” course toward relentlessly expanding the alliance eastward, which he said has been done in spite of the top-level Western pledges made to the then-leadership of the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand “one inch.” Also, this policy “contravenes [Western countries’] commitments made at the highest level to refrain from bolstering their own security at the expense of the security of other [nations],” he lamented.

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“I am confident that, together, we will achieve the formation of a more equitable, multipolar world..”

Neocolonial Model Of World To Become Thing Of The Past – Putin (TASS)

Russia, together with other countries, will assuredly achieve a fair world order, whereas the model under which certain countries develop at the expense of others will become a thing of the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, greeting the participants in the 11th International Meeting of High-Level Officials Responsible for Security Issues. “I am confident that, together, we will achieve the formation of a more equitable, multipolar world, while the ideology of exceptionalism as well as the neocolonial system, which has undergirded the exploitation of the resources of the entire world, will inevitably recede into the past,” he noted. Putin assured the foreign security officials that Russia was ready to engage in the closest level of interaction with all interested countries in efforts to counteract common threats and tackle the challenges that humankind is facing today.

“We highly appreciate the fact that Russia has numerous allies and partners across diverse regions and continents. We sincerely cherish our historically strong, friendly, and genuinely trust-based ties with Asian, African and Latin American countries, and we will continue to do all we can to strengthen them,” he assured his audience. Separately, Putin talked about the significance of the conference for the global situation, noting that, over the years, regular interactions between security officials aimed at sharing their expertise and assessments have proven their utility and relevance, and have been instrumental in resolving key issues of regional and global security as well as strategic stability. The Russian president also noted that the conference’s agenda is very intensive and substantive. Above all, the meeting’s participants will discuss the current global situation and the prospects for its further development, as well as analyze the most pressing contemporary threats.

“Among them are international terrorism, extremism, illegal arms and drug trafficking, transnational crime and illegal migration. And, of course, issues pertaining to food and information security,” the Russian leader elaborated. Putin hoped that the meeting would be constructive and produce useful results, while helping to determine new methods and areas for practical cooperation “for the benefit of countries and peoples, and in the interest of peace and stability on the planet.” The meeting is being held in the Moscow Region on May 23-25. Russia’s delegation is headed by Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev.

EFF

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Ukraine denies.

Ukraine’s Top General Gravely Wounded In Russian Strike (RT)

General Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, who had disappeared from the public eye in recent weeks, was seriously wounded some weeks ago in a Russian strike near the city of Kherson, a security source told RIA Novosti. Zaluzhny suffered a head trauma and numerous shrapnel wounds in early May, in a missile attack on a Ukrainian command post not far from the village of Posad-Pokrovskoe, the agency reported on Wednesday. The general had undergone a craniotomy at a military hospital in Kiev after the strike, the source claimed. The prognosis by the doctors is that the 49-year-old is going to live but won’t be able to execute his duties as commander anymore, he added. Zaluzhny’s condition is further complicated by the fact that he has an underlying condition namely diabetes, the agency also reported.

Speculations about Zaluzhny’s whereabouts emerged after he refrained from participating in a high-profile NATO meeting on May 10. The chairman of the bloc’s military committee, Rob Bauer, said that Kiev told Brussels that the Ukrainian commander couldn’t attend in person nor via a video-link due to a “complex operational situation” on the ground in the conflict with Moscow. The general hasn’t been seen in public since then, even though footage that has emerged online in recent days that suggested he was fine, turned out to have been made before his disappearance. On Saturday, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar claimed Zaluzhny was in good health and remained in charge of the armed forces. “The commander-in-chief is in his place. He’s doing his job. We just talked,” she wrote on Telegram.

Malyar suggested that rumors of Zaluzhny’s possible injury or death were being spread by Russia in an attempt to demoralize the Ukrainian forces during the battle for the strategic city of Artyomovsk, which the Ukrainians call Bakhmut. Moscow announced the “full capture” of Artyomovsk on Saturday, but Kiev has thus far been reluctant to acknowledge the loss of its key stronghold in Donbass. Zaluzhny has been popular with the Western media and portrayed as a key figure in Ukraine’s resistance to Russia. Throughout the conflict, the so-called ‘Iron General’ has given lengthy interviews to outlets like The Economist and Time, which listed him among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022.

Read more …

We still have to state the obvious?

The War in Ukraine Was Provoked (Jeffrey Sachs)

George Orwell wrote in 1984 that “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Governments work relentlessly to distort public perceptions of the past. Regarding the Ukraine War, the Biden administration has repeatedly and falsely claimed that the Ukraine War started with an unprovoked attack by Russia on Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. In fact, the war was provoked by the U.S. in ways that leading U.S. diplomats anticipated for decades in the lead-up to the war, meaning that the war could have been avoided and should now be stopped through negotiations. Recognizing that the war was provoked helps us to understand how to stop it. It doesn’t justify Russia’s invasion. A far better approach for Russia might have been to step up diplomacy with Europe and with the non-Western world to explain and oppose U.S. militarism and unilateralism.

In fact, the relentless U.S. push to expand NATO is widely opposed throughout the world, so Russian diplomacy rather than war would likely have been effective. The Biden team uses the word “unprovoked” incessantly, most recently in Biden’s major speech on the first-year anniversary of the war, in a recent NATO statement, and in the most recent G7 statement. Mainstream media friendly to Biden simply parrot the White House. The New York Times is the lead culprit, describing the invasion as “unprovoked” no fewer than 26 times, in five editorials, 14 opinion columns by NYT writers, and seven guest op-eds. The first was the U.S. intention to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia in order to surround Russia in the Black Sea region by NATO countries (Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria Turkey, and Georgia, in counterclockwise order).

The second was the U.S. role in installing a Russophobic regime in Ukraine by the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014. The shooting war in Ukraine began with Yanukovych’s overthrow nine years ago, not in February 2022 as the U.S. government, NATO, and the G7 leaders would have us believe. Biden and his foreign policy team refuse to discuss these roots of the war. To recognize them would undermine the administration in three ways. First, it would expose how the war could have been avoided, or stopped early, sparing Ukraine its current devastation and the U.S. more than $100 billion in outlays to date. Second, it would expose Biden’s personal role in the war as a participant in the overthrow of Yanukovych, and before that as a staunch backer of the military-industrial complex and very early advocate of NATO enlargement. Third, it would push Biden to the negotiating table, undermining the administration’s continued push for NATO expansion.

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“..the G7 is an effective aggregation of former empires that once dominated the world unchallenged, now held under the wings and servitude of the US.”

The G7 Is An Outdated Tool Of The US Neo-Empire (Fomenko)

The summit of G7 nations took place in Hiroshima, Japan over the last weekend. Hiroshima is significant for a few reasons. First of all, it is known to the world as the location that the United States nuked, along with Nagasaki, at the end of World War II, which led to the surrender of the Empire of Japan and that country’s transformation into a US client state. Secondly, Japan is working to remilitarize itself in line with America’s dual containment effort against China and Russia. Thus, while Japan is chair of the G7 this year, the event was a rubber-stamping of US-centric geopolitical goals which took aim at both countries. However, what might be said about the G7 itself? Founded as a Cold War-era organization in 1975, and briefly incorporating the West’s aspirations for post-Soviet Russia, the group professes to represent the world’s “most advanced industrial countries,” but anyone could tell you this is an outdated category.

Countries such as China and India, with economies larger than most G7 members, are not part of the group. Rather, the character and agenda of the G7 is distinctly ideological, and its goal is to preserve a Western-dominated concept of the world at all costs. It should not go unnoticed that the G7 is an effective aggregation of former empires that once dominated the world unchallenged, now held under the wings and servitude of the US. Remarkably, all three Axis powers of World War II, defeated by the allies, are a part of this grouping. Although the respective fascist-oriented regimes of Germany, Italy and Japan were rightfully destroyed, these countries were all rebuilt as American client states following the war and their respective interests placed in the hands of Washington.

Similarly, the allied empires, which emerged victorious, including France, Britain and its imperial dominion, Canada, found that the war had severely depleted their national resources and strength to the point they could no longer continue as the global superpowers they had been. Consequently, they surrendered their leadership baton to the US and have ever since relied on following its lead to secure their interests around the world. In each instance, all of these countries held positions of privilege from their imperial eras. Having colonized most of the globe, and Japan having militarily occupied much of Asia, these countries had made themselves tremendously wealthy. Britain’s fabulous wealth, for one, is tailored directly to the exploitation of Africa and India. Colonial empires were strictly commercial in character, using ideology as a justifying force for aggression, upholding their economic interests by immense military power. This gave these countries privilege, which thus formed the distinction between the Global North and the Global South.

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Borrowed from Sun Tzu: “They are willing to burn down the world around them to get what they want.”

Catastrophic Borrowing Kills Global Financial System – John Rubino

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino says this time, the so-called debt ceiling fight could end in a systemic failure. Rubino points out, “In a well-run society, the debt limit would be zero. Governments should not borrow money in the first place…” “The amount of money we are borrowing is catastrophic. Historians are going to look back at this era, and they are just going to wonder why we allowed it to happen and what were we thinking. We are destroying the global financial system by allowing governments to borrow this much money. The debt limit thing is being called a crisis, and if they let it go too far, it will be a crisis… …I think this game of chicken will end in the not-too-distant future, and if it doesn’t, they have an ulterior motive. They want to crash the economy because that achieves something for them…

…We can speculate about this. The party in power wants to crash the economy, and that is a very dark scenario… They are willing to burn down the world around them to get what they want. Look at Russia-gate and the contents of the Durham Report. The Democrats are willing to do stuff like that… I would not put it past the Democrats to plan and implement it if they think it benefits them.” The economy is already doing bad and getting ready to tumble. So, why not tank it with a debt ceiling impasse and blame it on the Republicans? Some speculate that is the Dem plan because the Obama/Biden economy is going down anyway. If the economy sinks low enough, how much money will the Fed print to bail it out. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is already warning there is going to be more bank consolidation.

In other words, more banks will be going under. Rubino says that is a huge worry and explains, “The dark part of this scenario is the government has to step in and bail out those little banks. Let’s say it’s a couple of trillion dollars . . . to them, it’s play money . . .but what if the markets look at that and say what happens if all the other sectors blow up and the government has to come up with $10 trillion or $15 trillion? What does that do to the dollar? Then you go from a banking crisis to a currency crisis, which is almost impossible to contain. I think it is completely possible that we go to that next stage.”

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“India, in thesis, from the beginning regarded Chabahar as a key plank of its “Diamond Necklace” strategy, counterpunching the Chinese “String of Pearls..”

The Inside Story Of Russia-Iran-India Connectivity (Pepe Escobar)

The key New Silk Roads of emerging multipolarity are China’s ambitious, multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Russia-Iran-India International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC). They have evolved in parallel and may sometimes overlap. What is clear is the G7/G9 will go to the ends of the earth to undermine them. The recent $1.6 billion deal between Iran and Russia to build the 162-km long Rasht-Astara railway is an INSTC game-changer. Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazpash and Russia’s Minister of Transport Vialy Saveliev signed the deal in Tehran, in front of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and with Russian President Vladimir Putin attending on video conference. Call it the marriage of Iran’s “Look East” with Russia’s “pivot to the East.” Both are now official policies.

Rasht is close to the Caspian Sea. Astara is on the border with Azerbaijan. Connecting them will be part of a Russia-Iran-Azerbaijan deal on railway and cargo transportation – solidifying the INSTC as a key connectivity corridor between South Asia and Northern Europe. The multimodal INSTC advances via three main routes: the Western route links Russia-Azerbaijan-Iran-India; the Middle or Trans-Caspian route links Russia-Iran-India; and the Eastern one links Russia-Central Asia-Iran-India. The Eastern route features the immensely strategic port of Chabahar in southeast Iran, in the volatile Sistan-Balochistan province. That’s the only Iranian port with direct access to the Indian Ocean. In 2016, Iran, India, and an Afghanistan still under US occupation signed a tripartite deal in which Chabahar miraculously escaped unilateral US “maximum pressure” sanctions.

That was a stepping stone configuring Chabahar as the privileged gateway for Indian products to enter Afghanistan, and then further on down the road, toward Central Asia. Russia, Iran, and India signed a formal INSTC deal in May 2022, detailing a multimodal network – ship, rail, road – which proceeds via the previously mentioned three axes: Western, Middle or Trans-Caspian, and Eastern. The Russian port of Astrakhan, by the Caspian Sea, is crucial on all three. The Eastern route connects eastern and central Russia, through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, to the southern part of Iran as well as India and the Arab lands on the southern edge of the Persian Gulf. Dozens of trains are already plying the overland route from Russia to India via Turkmenistan and Iran.

The problem is that in the past few years, New Delhi, for several complex reasons, seemed to be asleep at the wheel. And that led Tehran to become much more interested in Russian and Chinese involvement to develop two strategic ports in the Chabahar Free Trade Industrial Zone: Shahid Beheshti and Shahid Zalantari. Chabahar is a tough nut to crack. Iran has invested heavily to turn it into an inescapable regional transit hub. India, in thesis, from the beginning regarded Chabahar as a key plank of its “Diamond Necklace” strategy, counterpunching the Chinese “String of Pearls,” which are ports linked by the BRI across the Indian Ocean.

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“While the FBI was manufacturing evidence of a non-existent Trump-Putin connection it was actively covering for Hillary – and it is continuing to do so.”

The FBI Has Crossed The Rubicon (Faddis)

The recently released Durham report paints a graphic picture of an agency out of control. The FBI did not blunder into an investigation of Donald Trump, his campaign, and his associates. The FBI undertook to deliberately destroy Trump and those around him including General Flynn. The FBI took unto itself the power to decide who could be President. That fact has now been publicly exposed. The whole nation can see that the FBI acted in violation of law and every tradition we have had since the inception of the republic. The FBI has responded with remarkable clarity. It did nothing wrong. It does not care what Durham (or countless whistleblowers) say(s). It does not care what Congress thinks. It will do as it pleases.

The Assistant Director of the FBI for Counterintelligence, Suzanne Turner, just testified before Congress. Asked about the Durham report, the one that said her agency had run amok and tried to stage what amounted to a coup, she responded by saying she had not bothered to read the report nor had she been briefed on it. When pressed further she offered to take questions back to the FBI and see if she could get someone else to answer them. Contempt dripped from her every word and every mannerism. The concerns of the people’s elected representatives were clearly of no interest whatsoever to her.

The House Oversight Committee is investigating the possibility that the current President of the United States took money from foreign interests, including Communist China, in exchange for policy decisions. In other words, the House is pursuing evidence that suggests pretty strongly that Joe Biden works for Beijing. As part of that investigation, the House has demanded from the FBI copies of reports that apparently show the FBI knew about this some time ago. The FBI has refused to provide the documents. Meanwhile, there are continuing reports that whistleblowers from within the federal workforce who provide information about the Bidens are being retaliated against and sidelined. In some cases, they have had their security clearances taken away and been suspended without pay. That’s what happens to FBI agents who think Congress is still in charge.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has blasted the FBI for impeding the investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings, calling the federal agency “very patronizing.” He has also said that the FBI does not “respect anyone.” All of that is crystal clear. The days when the FBI would scurry to take action and avoid Congressional disfavor are long gone. The Bureau is above all that now. Meanwhile, the FBI has announced that it destroyed all of the evidence it gathered into the actions of Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and the mountains of foreign money that flowed to the Clintons when Hillary was Secretary of State. This comes after revelations that the FBI shut down four separate investigations into the Clinton campaign in the runup to the 2016 election. While the FBI was manufacturing evidence of a non-existent Trump-Putin connection it was actively covering for Hillary – and it is continuing to do so.

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They want a monopoly on opinion. Because The Science. Same as with Covid.

US, EU Politicians Demand Withdrawal Of COP28 Chief (Cradle)

Over 100 members of the US Congress and European Parliament signed a letter calling for Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber to be removed as the head of the upcoming COP28 climate conference, Reuters reported on 24 May. COP28 will be hosted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in December and will center around efforts to mobilize $100 billion of public and private climate finance for developing economies. Jaber, who heads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and serves as the UAE’s climate envoy, was designated in January to lead the talks. In the public letter, lawmakers, including US Democratic senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, voiced “profound concern” that oil companies would be able to “exert undue influence” on the climate negotiations.

Addressing US President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and the UN, the letter stated, “We urge you to … engage in diplomatic efforts to secure the withdrawal of the president-designate of COP28.” On the European side, the signatories hailed mostly from green political parties, which have exercised increasing influence over the continent’s energy policies, perhaps most prominently in Germany. Germany’s Green Party has been losing support as its energy policies move forward, increasing energy costs and threatening Germany’s energy intensive industrial economy. Energy costs have risen in part due to efforts to shut down both the coal and nuclear energy industries, while supporting sanctions against Russia due to the Ukraine war which have blocked imports of cheap Russian natural gas.

An effort to mandate the installation of expensive heat pumps in homes in the place of gas and oil heating systems as well as a proposal to ban combustion-engine cars as of 2035, have also been unpopular. Meanwhile, Sultan al-Jaber called for a major boost to public and private finance for the climate change project in Africa. At the African Development Bank 2023 Annual Meetings in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, Jaber said that Africa has “huge potential for low-carbon growth and sustainable development.” “But one critical challenge stands in its way – and that is the lack of available, accessible, affordable finance. And this lack of finance is putting the world’s climate goals and Africa’s sustainable development at risk,” he said, according to UAE news agency Wam. “Cop28 is exploring additional mechanisms to supercharge the flow of private finance to Africa.”

@JunkScience

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Luxembourg based P. Adams Schwertransporte, who specialize in the transport of heavy items, revealed striking photos of how it transported a 67-meter-long blade for a wind turbine

 

 

Filefish
https://twitter.com/i/status/1661281159244926977

 

 


The Inca tern is a uniquely plumaged bird that breeds on the coasts of Peru and Chile. It can be identified by its dark grey body, white moustache on both sides of its head, and red-orange beak and feet

 

 

Macropinna

 

 

 

 

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War

May 222023
 
 May 22, 2023  Posted by at 2:40 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  22 Responses »


Nicolas Poussin A Dance to the Music of Time 1634-36

 

 

I haven’t written articles for a while, but instead focused on the Debt Rattle news overviews. My focus has always been on conveying information in the best possible way, so you guys can make up your own mind, instead of me doing it for you. And it’s been hard to counter the MSM reporting, which does exactly that -make up people’s minds-, on Ukraine, with better sources. RT has been a great help. The west ban them because “propaganda”, but it’s clear who is really propaganda. They are a solid news operation, and I can look past that supposed propaganda part.

Anyway, it has made me only work harder over the past few months. And I hope I’ve done well. The fall of Artyomovsk seems a good moment to move towards original articles again. Not that I think MSM/NATO or all the “leaders” involved will stop their practices anytime soon. But at least they’ve been clearly beaten, even if you won’t see it reported in the western media. The world has changed, and we must change with it.

Note: If my writing is a bit rusty, please forgive me.

 

 

In Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, all of NATO, all 31 member nations, were defeated by a restaurant owner and a bunch of convicts, is how I saw someone describe it. That of course caricatures the situation somewhat (Wagner is well-organized), but it’s not that far off. And that spells a serious problem for NATO. All of those 31 members may have lots of control over their media, but in the end you can’t endlessly deny being defeated.

So what will NATO do now? They will double down, and then again. And at the end of the “doubling down road” lie nuclear weapons. Not Russian nukes, because as my friend Wayne wrote the other day, their high-precision hypersonic missiles make nukes look crude and primitive, Middle Ages territory. But NATO/US never developed such weapons. They spent 10+ times as much money on weapons, still do, and -comparatively – ended up with bows and arrows.

Nuclear bombs are good only to create widespread panic and destruction. But that includes your own destruction, because of Mutually Assured Destruction protocols. Which also go back almost as far as the bow and arrow. If you fire a nuclear missile, one very much like it will land on your head a few minutes later. End of story, end of you.

US/NATO, the “collective west”, the hegemon, has lost. And has missed the moment when that occurred. Because hegemon equals hubris. Look at what they’ve all still been saying, and you notice they can’t see, and can’t acknowledge, that -and how- the world has changed. Not just this weekend, and the 9 months before, in Artyomovsk. It’s the entire story of Ukraine: it illustrates how the West “lost it”.

The US plotted a coup and moved NATO’s borders east, and Russia reacted exactly how they said they would. No nukes, no nazis, no NATO. They got the last two, and know they can expect the first too. But still the west maintains Russia’s special operation was entirely unprovoked. Look, they’re not even listening anymore. They would like to negotiate and end all this, but negotiate about what? Putting AZOV back on the borders of the Donbass, so they can kill more Russians there? Not going to happen.

It’s not only about weaponry, though that plays a major role: the hegemon can no longer make its demands based on military might. It’s been surpassed. Nor can it make demands based on the dollar’s reserve currency status, and it caused that itself. Weaponization of the currency has backfired to the extent that de-dollarization has become a process that can no longer be halted.

The moment that Saudi prince MbS turned his back on “Joe Biden” is a milestone. Because once he did that, it was obvious many would follow. In central Asia, if you are Kazachstan or Uzbekistan, why on earth would you opt to go with G7/US/NATO instead of BRICS? Why go with the power that is waning, and not the one in ascendancy? Russia is your biggest neighbor, strongly connected to China which is building its BRI network in your region, and the nearby Arab states are about to join that network. Why would you link yourself to the G7? When you know all your neighbors do not?

Then there are the voices that say the US will push for a bigger and wider war, perhaps including American troops. First, because NATO is losing, and second, because it could mean American boots on the ground, and presidents don’t lose elections in wartime. I’ve said before, I would expect them to go with Polish troops first, possibly on Polish territory too. But the Polish don’t appear all that eager anymore. And neither would any other European NATO country. German and French and Dutch troops are in no shape for war, and in the US over 70% of potential troops are grossly overweight and/or handicapped in some other way.

Ukraine had perhaps the best boots on the ground force in Europe, financed and trained since 2014 by NATO, and they lost to a caterer and a loose group of hired hands. You’re not going to win that. Your only option is long distance weapons, missiles, planes, you name it. But NATO has no advantage in that over Russia. To put it mildly.

The sole thing that’s in your favor is that Russia doesn’t seek to destroy you. They want to live in peace and trade with you. Same thing for China. NATO equals unipolar. But the world has moved towards multipolar. Ergo, NATO is obsolete. Ukraine will never reconquer its “lost” territories, and Zelensky will move to some property in Italy or Florida, never to be heard from again, unless perhaps in his obituary. The deaths of some 300,000 of his countrymen will be on his conscience.

But also on that of all the “leaders” who have sent their second-hand armory to Kiev. They are just as responsible for all those deaths. The world has changed a lot in the past few years, and ignorance is no excuse if you are a “leader”, or a “Joe Biden”. Not even if you’re “just” a voter or reader. Those deaths will be on your head when you go see St. Peter at the gate.

PS: Don’t be surprised if “Joe Biden” sends US boots on the ground anyway. No hegemon has ever given up power lightly. That part of the road is yours, US and EU voters. You may have to fill up the streets like you’ve never seen. The rest, the majority, of the world will be waiting to see if you do or not. They’re prepared for either of the two options.

 

 

 

 

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May 212023
 


Odilon Redon Sunset 1902

 

Key Donbass City Captured – Wagner Chief (RT)
Bakhmut Has Fallen – Artyomovsk Has Been Liberated (MoA)
Putin Congratulates Wagner Assault Teams With Liberation Of Artyomovsk (TASS)
Zelenskyy Appears To Confirm Loss Of Bakhmut (Az.)
Ukraine To Recapture Artyomovsk – Zelensky’s Top Aide (RT)
Russian Hypersonic Strikes Likely Caused Mercenary Casualties (MWM)
Germany Pours Cold Water On Fighter Jets For Ukraine (RT)
F-16s May Suffer Considerable Losses If Deployed To Ukraine – Magazine (TASS)
Poland Wants Zelensky To Apologize For WW2 Ukrainian Nazi Massacre (RT)
The United States Has Been Destroyed by Its Ruling Elites (PCR)
China Questions ‘Credibility’ Of G7 Members (RT)
US and Israeli Envoys Clash Over Soros (RT)
Exxon Crushes Progressive “Net Zero” Dreams (ZH)
FBI Improperly Used Surveillance Program to Spy on Jan. 6 Suspects – Court (ET)
Monty Python Pressured To Drop Gender Transition Skit (RT)

 

 

May 20, 2019: Zelensky becomes president

May 20, 2022: loses Mariupol

May 20, 2023: loses Bakhmut

 

 

 

RFK jr
https://twitter.com/i/status/1660045079187267589

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We’ve taken the whole city – every building – so that nobody could say that we didn’t capture some small part of it..”

In the last few months, they went slow, to minimize casualties.

Key Donbass City Captured – Wagner Chief (RT)

The key Donbass city of Artyomovsk, known as Bakhmut in Ukraine, has been fully liberated by the Russian forces, Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company has announced. “Today at noon, Bakhmut was fully captured,” Prigozhin said in a video address published on Saturday. The last part of an area of high-rise buildings where the Ukrainians were holed up is now under the control of Russian forces, he stated. The Wagner Group will remain in Artyomovsk until Thursday, Prigozhin said, adding that during this period, fortifications will be created across the city. Control will then be passed on to the Russian Defense Ministry, and Wagner Group servicemen will go on leave to rest and regroup following months of intense fighting. According to Prigozhin, the PMC’s operation in the city, which he called ‘the Bakhmut meat-grinder’, had gone on for 224 days.


“We’ve taken the whole city – every building – so that nobody could say that we didn’t capture some small part of it,” he said. Kiev has denied Prigozhin’s claims that Artyomovsk has been captured. Ukrainian military spokesman Sergey Cherevaty told Reuters: “This is not true. Our units are fighting in Bakhmut.” The Wagner chief also personally addressed Ukraine’s president, Vladimir Zelensky, saying, “without sarcasm” that the Ukrainian troops “fought bravely, fought well”defending Artyomovsk. “Today, when you see [US President Joe] Biden, kiss him on the top of his head and tell him that I said ‘hi,’” he said. Earlier on Saturday, Zelensky arrived at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, where he is expected to hold talks with Biden.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1659923608683126784

https://twitter.com/i/status/1659942493771759616

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“The losses there for the Ukrainians amounted to 300 to 500 men per day over that last 5 months. That sums up to a total of 60,000 casualties.”

Bakhmut Has Fallen – Artyomovsk Has Been Liberated (MoA)

The so far largest battle of the 21st century ended today. Bakhmut has fallen. Artyomovsk (the Russian/Soviet name of the city) has been liberated. This was announced today by the titular leader of the Wagner forces, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a video posted on Telegram. Why the Ukrainian leadership had decided to hold onto the city even months after the situation there was already in its disfavor is beyond me. The fight was decided by the numerical superiority of Russian artillery fire and the Ukraine had never a chance to top that. The losses there for the Ukrainians amounted to 300 to 500 men per day over that last 5 months. That sums up to a total of 60,000 casualties. Ten days ago Ukrainian units, including the fascist Azov brigade, rolled up the Russian flanks north and south of Bakhmut to allow the Ukrainian troops in the city to flee west.


That attack alone, only one or 2 kilometer deep, cost them some 1,600+ men and some 50+ armored vehicles. On the Russian side the fighting in the city was largely done by Wagner troops. But they were never able to do it on their own. Russian military intelligence, artillery and logistics all played an important role in the fight. The city has been destroyed but it will continued to exist as it is an important logistical hub with several rail and road connections running through it. Mariupol, which fell/was liberated a year ago, is already being rebuild. In a month or two, when the frontline has moved away from Artyomovsk, rebuilding will start there too. For a moment now the front line in Ukraine seems all around relative quit. It is not clear to me when or where a new operational move will start.

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I’ve consistently used Bakhmut. Maybe it’s time to change that?

Putin Congratulates Wagner Assault Teams With Liberation Of Artyomovsk (TASS)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated assault teams of the Wagner private military company and Russian troops with the liberation of the city of Artyomovsk, the Kremlin’s press office said in a statement on Sunday. “Vladimir Putin congratulates Wagner assault teams as well as all Russian troops, who rendered the required assistance and shielded the flanks, with the completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk,” the statement reads. “Everyone, who distinguished himself in the battle, will be recommended for the state decorations,” the statement added. The Russian Defense Ministry announced earlier in the day that the city of Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine) has been completely liberated in the course of the special military operation in Ukraine.


“In the Artyomovsk tactical direction, the assault teams of the Wagner private military company with the support of artillery and aviation of the southern battlegroup have completed the liberation of the city of Artyomovsk,” the ministry stated. Artyomovsk is located in the north of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and it served as a major transportation hub for the Ukrainian army’s supplies in Donbass. Fierce fighting to liberate the city started on August 1, 2022. The battle for this city is one of the largest battles during the liberation of Donbass since 2014. Some 72,000 people lived in Artyomovsk before the battle started.

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“It is tragedy,” Zelenskiy said. “There is nothing on this place.”

Zelenskyy Appears To Confirm Loss Of Bakhmut (Az.)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared to confirm the loss of the city of Bakhmut to Russia on Sunday, when asked if it remained in Kyiv’s control, Report informs via Reuters. “I think no,” he said ahead of a meeting with US President Joe Biden in Japan. “For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts.” Russia claimed on Saturday to have fully captured the smashed eastern Ukrainian city, which if true would mark an end to the longest and bloodiest battle of the 15-month war. “It is tragedy,” Zelenskiy said. “There is nothing on this place.” The assault on the largely levelled city was led by troops from the Wagner Group of mercenaries, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said earlier in the day that his troops had finally pushed the Ukrainians out of the last built-up area inside the city.

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“The Ukrainian Defense Ministry denied that the city had fallen and insisted that the fighting is still ongoing..”

Ukraine To Recapture Artyomovsk – Zelensky’s Top Aide (RT)

Ukraine will recapture the key Donbass city of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, President Vladimir Zelensky’s senior adviser Mikhail Podoliak said on Saturday night. His remarks came after Wagner private military company boss Evgen Prigozhin announced that his fighters had taken complete control of the city. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed in the early hours of Sunday that Wagner had executed the operation with the help from regular troops. Podoliak, however, insisted that the Russians were exhausted by the fighting. “What will Russia do next, even if it captures two more [city] blocks? With what forces will they proceed, and where, and why?” Podoliak said in an interview on Ukrainian TV. “As for us, we cannot stop somewhere in the middle. Bakhmut will be liberated, just like any other Ukrainian territory,” the adviser said.


The Ukrainian Defense Ministry denied that the city had fallen and insisted that the fighting is still ongoing. Podoliak claimed that Prigozhin sought to divert attention from Zelensky’s overseas tour with stops in several European countries, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. The Ukrainian leader attended the Arab League summit in Jeddah on Friday and the G7 meeting in Hiroshima the next day. The news of the fall of Artyomovsk also comes as Ukraine is gearing up for its much-touted counteroffensive. Officials in Kiev repeatedly stressed that its timing and success would depend on weapons deliveries from the West. Zelensky promised last month that Ukrainian soldiers would not leave Artyomovsk because the retreat would “give Russian troops and Wagner a chance to capture more of our land.” The city itself has been largely destroyed by months in intense warfare.

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”..when the systems were deployed as early as April 2023 there was widespread speculation that military contractors from Western countries were responsible for manning and maintaining them..”

Russian Hypersonic Strikes Likely Caused Mercenary Casualties (MWM)

On May 16 as part of a broad spectrum of attacks on targets in the Ukrainian capital Kiev Russian Air Force MiG-31K strike fighters launched Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ballistic missiles to target Ukraine’s Patriot air defence systems. Recently delivered from Germany and the United States, Patriots are considered by far the most costly and high end weapons systems in Ukrainian service, and are very widely deployed both by seven NATO members and by key overseas strategic partners such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Israel. The strikes on the Patriots followed warnings form Russian officials, as well as from several analysts in the West, that any systems delivered to Ukraine would very quickly be targeted and destroyed after becoming operational. The reputational loss the Patriot was expected to suffer was thus reportedly a major factor leading Washington to hesitate to approve transfers of the assets.

While a radar system and five missile batteries from the Patriot system were reported to have been destroyed in the MiG-31K strike, reportedly after firing 32 surface to air missiles as part of unsuccessful attempts to intercept the Kinzhal missiles, little remains known regarding casualties among the system’s crew or the nature of the personnel which were manning it when it was struck. Washington’s decision to deliver Patriot systems announced in December was largely motivated by an urgent need to strengthen the defences of major Ukrainian cities. Not only were cities such as Kiev considered at serious risk of needing to be abandoned due to the rapid destruction of infrastructure in Russian strikes, but Ukraine’s existing air defence network reliant on massive arsenals inherited from the Soviet era had also been very seriously depleted limiting their ability to defend either cities or frontline forces.

Nevertheless the Patriot as a highly complex weapons system was considered far too advanced for Ukrainian personnel to be able to train to operate in time for the assets to have an impact on the war, meaning when the systems were deployed as early as April 2023 there was widespread speculation that military contractors from Western countries were responsible for manning and maintaining them. Western personnel on the ground have played a very large role in the Russian-Ukrainian War, from British Royal Marines deployed to the frontlines and massive ‘stealth networks’ of CIA and other personnel performing roles such as organising logistics, to contractors usually formerly members of Western militaries who have deployed in an unofficial capacity often in full frontline units.

The presence of Western contractors already trained in operating a range of Western weapons systems has according to multiple reports played a key role in Ukraine’s seemingly seamless integration of new military hardware from its supporters in Europe and the United States, where non-Soviet equipment was previously used only in very limited roles before February 2022. Regarding the need for contractors to operate Patriot systems in Ukraine, the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) advisory body was among many sources to issue reports that Ukrainian personnel would be unable to operate Patriot missile systems before 2024 at the earliest. “There is a lot of learning to do before Ukraine will have a functioning Patriot system on the ground,” it emphasised, highlighting taking local repair crews as an example that this would take approximately 53 weeks. With Ukrainian personnel thus unlikely to have been manning the Patriot systems deployed in April and attacked in May, less than five months after the decision was taken to supply the systems, it is likely that contractors from NATO member states with experience operating the Patriots were the ones targeted. The scale of the destruction caused by the strikes means casualties among these personnel are likely, although they are unlikely to be disclosed at least until many years after the war’s conclusion.

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“..Western countries are “sticking to the escalation scenario,” which is “fraught with colossal risks.”

Germany Pours Cold Water On Fighter Jets For Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine should not expect F-16 fighter jet deliveries from the West in the near future, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday, while expressing support for a plan to train pilots to fly the advanced jets. Speaking on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Scholz stated that “what is connected with the training of pilots is a long-term project,” adding that the US has not yet decided what will happen at the end of the program. “The project has a message for Russia: Russia cannot count on winning if it bets on a long war,” he said. Scholz stated, however, that there is no chance Germany will take part in F-16 deliveries to Ukraine. “First of all, everyone knows that we don’t even have such aircraft.”

The chancellor noted that Berlin is providing Kiev with what is “immediately important now,” including tanks, ammunition, and air defense equipment, adding that Germany “will support Ukraine for as long as it is necessary, financially, humanitarianly and also with arms.” “We have mobilized our resources,” he said. “We can continue to do this for a long time.” The comments come after US President Joe Biden told G7 leaders on Friday that Washington will support a joint training program for Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s, which would take place in Europe.

This week, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that he and his Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte, agreed to establish an ‘international coalition’ to “provide Ukraine with combat air capabilities, supporting with everything from training to procuring F-16 jets,” with a number of European countries supporting the move. On Friday, several US media outlets reported that Washington will not block its allies from sending F-16s to Ukraine, which Kiev has been requesting for months. Commenting on the potential plans to send modern fighter jets to Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko said that Western countries are “sticking to the escalation scenario,” which is “fraught with colossal risks.” “In any case, all our plans will take this into consideration, and we have all the necessary means to achieve our goals” regarding the military campaign in Ukraine, Grushko added.

F16

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Key line: “..which would be a major blow to the F-16’s reputation..”

F-16s May Suffer Considerable Losses If Deployed To Ukraine – Magazine (TASS)

The US-manufactured F-16 fighter jets may suffer significant losses in Ukraine, as a result of Russian strikes on their airfields or air combat, which would be a major blow to the reputation of that jet, the US’ Military Watch Magazine reported on Saturday. “A likely key reason for the discrepancy in the American and European positions is that the United States still has a very large stake in the F-16 program, not only as the fighter will continue to form the backbone of the U.S. Air Force for decades, but also because it continues to offer modernized variants of the class for export at times for hundreds of millions of dollars per airframe,” the article said.


“Thus should F-16s be deployed to Ukraine, the United States would be bearing the primary risk. Not only is there a possibility that the fighter or its technologies could fall into Russian hands, as other Western equipment has in considerable quantities, but there is also a much greater chance that the fighters could suffer significant losses both to strikes on their airfields and in air to air combat which would be a major blow to the F-16’s reputation,” the article reads. On Friday, NBC reported that the US and its allies had plans to provide F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, and that Washington’s allies may help Ukraine procure the planes. US President Joe Biden told G7 leaders in Hiroshima that Washington supports international efforts to train Ukrainian pilots on modern fighter jets, including F-16s. Zelensky said that he looking forward to bringing this issue up at the G7 summit. On Saturday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said commenting on F-16 potential supplies to Kiev that Western countries continued down the path of escalation in the Ukraine conflict and Russia would keep this in mind in its plans.

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Like Poland was squeaky clean.. Anyone seen Shoah?

Poland Wants Zelensky To Apologize For WW2 Ukrainian Nazi Massacre (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky should assume more responsibility for his nation when it comes to the Volyn massacre, a mass murder committed by Ukrainian nationalists against ethnic Poles during WWII, a spokesman for the Polish Foreign Ministry, Lukasz Jasina, has said. In an interview with Poland’s Onet online news media outlet on Friday, the official was asked if Zelensky should apologize for the massacre. “The Ukrainian side did not do this but president Zelensky should take more responsibility [for] Ukraine,”Jasina said. The issue has such an importance for Warsaw that it must be dealt with at the highest level, he added. The dark legacy of the Volyn massacre still haunts the bilateral relations between the two neighbors and “blocks many joint initiatives,” the ministry’s spokesman said.

In 2016, the Polish parliament recognized the Volyn Massacres as genocide at the hands of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). “You can’t change that fact. You can’t turn back time and there will never be a good time to talk about it…” Jasina said. According to the official, saying “I’m sorry and please forgive me” always works very well in Polish-Ukrainian relations “but there is still not enough of it.” The Volyn massacre was part of an ethnic cleansing campaign waged by UPA nationalist militants against the local Polish population in the regions of Western Ukraine and eastern Poland also known as Volhynia and Galicia between 1943 and 1944, during the Nazi occupation. According to various estimates, from 40,000 to 60,000 Poles were killed in total. The UPA was a paramilitary wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) known for its radical anti-Semitic ideology.

The UPA assisted Nazi Germany’s troops in the extermination of Jews on the territory of Ukraine on multiple occasions, in addition to the tens of thousands of Poles it killed in western Ukraine. Glorification of Ukrainian nationalists by Kiev, including the OUN leader, Stepan Bandera, has long been a contentious issue in relations between Ukraine and Poland as well as Israel. In 2018, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed a bill that banned the promotion of the ideology associated with Stepan Bandera. Israel also repeatedly urged Kiev to refrain from glorifying “war criminals.” Kiev still apparently fails to understand just how important this issue is for the Poles, Jasina said, adding that “this is… not the most important thing for Ukrainians” and their “understanding is still too weak.” The people in Poland, however, “clearly said this is more important than some behind-the-scenes diplomatic negotiations,”he added.

Kiev blasted Warsaw over what it called bossing Ukraine around. “Any attempt to impose on the Ukrainian president or Ukraine [and tell us] what we must [do] about our common past is unacceptable and unfortunate,” Ukraine’s ambassador to Warsaw, Vasily Zvarych said on Twitter on Saturday. He also said that Ukraine “remembers history” and called for what he called “balance and respect in statements.” Bandera has been officially hailed as a national hero in Ukraine since 2010. Ukrainian nationalists have regularly marked his birthday on January 1 with torchlit marches and massive demonstrations. Warsaw has repeatedly protested such actions. In January, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki vowed to raise the issue of Bandera with Kiev at the first opportunity.

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Note: both Paul Craig Roberts and Martin Armstrong see the US going to war before the elections. In order to win the elections. I’ve been toying with the idea for a long time, and I would add the option to use the war to have no elections at all.

The United States Has Been Destroyed by Its Ruling Elites (PCR)

The Special Counsel’s vindication of Donald Trump and denunciation of the FBI for conducting a politically motivated investigation devoid of any evidence should collapse the equally fraudulent Biden regime investigation of Trump on fake documents charges and the New York state prosecution of Trump on alleged expense misreporting charges. It has been clear for a long time that the list of fake charges against Trump, supported by the media, are propaganda to prevent Trump again running for President and to teach all future potential presidential candidates that they will be destroyed if they attempt to represent the people instead of the unelected ruling oligarchy.


However, the Democrat Party and the presstitutes that service them have no respect whatsoever for truth. Facts simply do not matter to them. This is true also of American Universities, law associations, medical associations, the CIA, FBI, NSA, the State Department, the regulatory agencies such as NIH, CDC, FDA, the large corporations, and many establishment Republican members of the House and Senate who serve the economic interests that pay them, not truth. It is also the case with a high percentage of Democrat voters who have been conditioned by propaganda to hate Trump. To Democrats what matters is not facts, but getting Trump. Truth is not permitted to prevent the destruction of Trump.

Consequently, the US is moving toward a fatal split in the society from which recovery is impossible. Trump represents ordinary Americans who prefer peace to the neoconservatives’ wars, who want their jobs back that the greed-driven capitalist global corporations sent to China and Asia, who want their children properly educated instead of indoctrinated with sexual perversion, Satanism, and told that they are racists. In contrast, the Democrats are increasingly Woke–people who believe that truth is an oppressive tool of white supremacy, that Christian morality is tyrannical and discriminatory against pedophiles and other sexual perverts, and that, as “President” Biden himself has said, white people are the greatest threat to America.


Now that official investigations by the House Republicans have brought the utter corruption of Biden and his son to light, the Democrats, the dangerous and corrupt military/security complex, and the complicit whore American media, are desperate. They all stand as being exposed. So, rather than apologize for their mistreatment of Trump and his supporters–1,000 of whom the Democrats have illegally imprisoned–they will likely strike out while they still control the Executive Branch, the US Senate, the CIA, FBI, NSA, and federal agencies such as the IRS that have been armed and militarized. Alternatively, the corrupt and threatened Democrats might cause war between the US and Russia, or Iran, or China in the hopes that a war will unify even Trump supporters, especially the super-patriots among them, around the “President” against “foreign enemies.”

Armstrong

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“The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules..”

China Questions ‘Credibility’ Of G7 Members (RT)

The international community will not fall in line with the pro-Western rules pushed by the G7 and not allow the US-led group to dominate world affairs, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. “China will never accept the so-called rules imposed by the few. The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world based on ideologies and values,” the statement read. The Foreign Ministry went on to accuse the group of acting on behalf of “America-first” policies and attempting to impose its will on others. “That simply shows how little international credibility means to the G7,” the ministry said. “Gone are the days when a handful of Western countries can just willfully meddle in other countries’ internal affairs and manipulate global affairs.” The Group of Seven is an informal club consisting of the US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. The G7 annual meetings are typically also attended by officials representing the EU.


In a joint communique adopted at the summit in Hiroshima, Japan on Saturday, the G7 listed multiple allegations aimed at Beijing, including technology theft, “economic coercion,” and human rights abuses at home. The group said that it strongly opposes “any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force” around Taiwan and in the South China Sea. Beijing responded by saying that “affairs related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet are purely China’s internal affairs.” China accused the G7 of endangering peace in the region by providing “support for ‘Taiwan independence’ forces.” Although G7 members refrain from formally establishing diplomatic ties with Taiwan, the US has sold weapons to Taipei and promised to defend it from a potential attack from the mainland. US politicians have also met with officials from Taiwan, prompting harsh criticism from Beijing, which opposes any form of diplomatic contacts with the Taipei authorities.

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“..criticism of Soros – who finances the most hostile organizations to the Jewish people and the state of Israel is anything but anti-Semitism, quite the opposite!”

US and Israeli Envoys Clash Over Soros (RT)

The US and Israeli anti-Semitism envoys have taken opposing positions on whether supporters or critics of Jewish financier George Soros is anti-Semitic. The argument kicked off when Twitter CEO Elon Musk compared Soros to a cartoon supervillain. In a tweet on Monday, Musk said that Soros reminds him of “Magneto,” a mutant-supremacist scientist from Marvel’s ‘X-Men’ universe. When a commenter pointed out that Magneto was depicted – like Soros – as a Holocaust survivor and that both have “good intentions,” Musk doubled down. “You assume they are good intentions,” he wrote. “They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.” Musk was quickly accused of anti-Semitism, with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt declaring that by comparing the billionaire “to a Jewish supervillain,” Musk would “embolden extremists.”

The Israeli government disagreed. “The Israeli government and the vast majority of Israeli citizens see Elon Musk as an amazing entrepreneur and a role model,” Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli tweeted on Thursday, adding that “criticism of Soros – who finances the most hostile organizations to the Jewish people and the state of Israel is anything but anti-Semitism, quite the opposite!” Soros has donated more than $32 billion to liberal political causes through his Open Society Foundations NGO, and was the largest donor in last year’s midterm elections in the US, gifting $128 million to Democratic Party candidates and organizations. Soros funds a number of Palestinian activist groups that accuse the Israeli state of war crimes, and several international organizations that promote boycotts of Israeli goods and sanctions against its leaders. In the US, the Biden administration sided with its leading donor against Chikli’s criticism.

“Irrespective of how one feels about George Soros’s politics or policies, it is entirely disingenuous to deny that many ad hominem attacks on him rely on classic antisemitic tropes and rhetoric,” US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt tweeted on Friday. “In bygone eras, the antisemites invoked the Rothschild family to advance their conspiracies about Jews. Today they use Soros to do so,” she declared. Neither Soros nor his Open Society Foundations have responded to Musk’s comments. Asked on Tuesday whether he was worried his controversial tweets would drive advertisers away from Twitter, Musk told CNBC News “I don’t care. I’ll say what I want to say, and if the consequences are losing money, so be it.”

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“It is highly unlikely that society would accept the degradation in global standard of living..”

Exxon Crushes Progressive “Net Zero” Dreams (ZH)

In a world of suffocating snowflakery, ESG hypocrisy and, well… Tranheuser Busch, a corporation telling the truth without fear of reprisals from the Open Society-funded virtue signaling cabal is rarer than an mRNA-injected, genetically engineered hen’s teeth. And yet that’s what the company hated by every progressive, Exxon Mobil, did this week when it became the first corporation to denounce the insidious and laughable claims that “net zero” is even a remote possibility by 2050. The US supermajor pushed back against investors pressing the company to report on the risks to its business from restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and potential environmental disasters when in a reply to proxy advisor Glass Lewis, Exxon said the prospect of the world achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 is remote and should not be further evaluated in its financial statements.

A shareholder proposal seeking a report on the cost of having to abandon projects faces a shareholder vote on May 31. Glass Lewis backed the initiative, concluding Exxon could face material financial risks from the net-zero scenario. Exxon disagreed, and said the world is not on a path to achieve net-zero emissions in 2050 as limiting energy production to levels below consumption demand would lead to a spike in energy prices, as observed in Europe following oil sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. Exxon, is of course, correct however that won’t stop the green fanatics from beating the drum that somehow the world can transition to “green” energy (at a cost of some $150 trillion mind you) in the next 27 years without an energy cataclysm.

At the heart of the issue is the 2050 net-zero emissions (NZE) scenario of the International Energy Agency (IEA) which envisions a path to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. For the NZE scenario to be met, the IEA had hilariously said new oil exploration would have to have stopped in 2021 and nations would have to switch to renewable energy from fossil fuels (good luck with that). Exxon is among the companies heavily investing in new exploration to generate oil and gas for decades to come, and in retrospect, one can thank their deity of choice for Exxon’s decision to do so as opposed to sending the world back into the dark ages, an outcome which so many from the World Economic Forum seems to aspire to. “It is clear that the IEA NZE does not, by the scenario authors’ own assessment, meet the level of likelihood required to be considered in our financial statements,” Exxon said in a response filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. “It is highly unlikely that society would accept the degradation in global standard of living required to permanently achieve a scenario like the IEA NZE,” Exxon said in dismissing the proposal.

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So free them all.

FBI Improperly Used Surveillance Program to Spy on Jan. 6 Suspects – Court (ET)

The FBI abused its surveillance powers while spying on suspects in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol and Black Lives Matter protesters, a federal court said in a newly unsealed ruling. FBI agents violated standards the agency developed for the Section 702 program, which enables spying on Americans and others, more than 278,000 times, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in the 2022 ruling, which was made public for the first time on May 19. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act enables agencies like the FBI to collect information like emails without warrants from foreigners, even if they’re in the United States, and bars intentionally targeting Americans.

The FBI developed its own standard for Section 702 searches, stating that queries “must be reasonably likely to retrieve foreign intelligence information, as defined by FISA, or evidence of a crime, unless otherwise specifically excepted.” But FBI agents have been violating the standard, the court has found, with the newest ruling disclosing hundreds of thousands of abusive searches in addition to those already known. The abusive searches include multiple improper queries targeting suspected or confirmed Jan. 6 suspects. In one instance, an analyst searched for information on 13 people suspected of being involved in the Capitol breach. The analyst “said she ran the queries to determine whether these individuals had foreign ties,” but the Department of Justice’s National Security Division (NSD) “concluded the queries were not reasonably likely to retrieve foreign intelligence information or evidence of crime,” the newly unsealed ruling states.


In another case, widespread searches that in total consisted of more than 23,000 separate queries looked for information on presumed Americans to see whether the people were “being used by a group” involved in the breach. “The queries were run against unminimized Section 702 information to find evidence of possible foreign influence, although the analyst conducting the queries had no indications of foreign influence related to the query terms used,” the court said. “NSD assessed there was no specific factual basis to believe the queries were reasonably likely to retrieve foreign intelligence information or evidence of crime from Section 702 information.”

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“Cleese last year complained that “cancel culture” had had a “disastrous effect” on comedy and had even caused the “death of creativity..”

Monty Python Pressured To Drop Gender Transition Skit (RT)

Beloved British comedy troupe Monty Python was pressured to do away with a skit from their classic film ‘Life of Brian’ that jokes about a man wanting to become a woman and have babies, co-founder John Cleese told an audience at his one-man show last week. “We love the script, but you can’t do that stuff about Loretta nowadays,” performers conducting a read-through of the Biblical parody last year supposedly told Cleese, claiming the skit – in which the character Stan insists on being called ‘Loretta’ and declares “it’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them” – would offend modern audiences. “So here you have something there’s never been a complaint about in 40 years, that I’ve heard of, and now all of a sudden we can’t do it because it’ll offend people,” Cleese lamented. “What is one supposed to make of that?”

In the skit, Stan’s comrades in the People’s Front of Judea are split on whether to support ‘Loretta’s’ new identity, and the self-declared woman accuses his detractor of “oppressing” him. “I’m not oppressing you, Stan, you haven’t got a womb! Where’s the fetus gonna gestate? You gonna keep it in a box?” his friend asks. The lone female of the group, Judith, suggests a compromise. “Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies – not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’ – but that he can have the right to have babies.” Stan’s friend Reg likes that idea, declaring it’s “symbolic of our struggle against oppression” – while the naysayer mutters it’s merely “symbolic of [Stan’s] struggle against reality.” The film version of ‘Life of Brian’ was previously banned in some countries for its supposedly blasphemous subject matter, being a profoundly irreverent satire on the Biblical stories chronicling the life and times of the Christian messiah Jesus Christ.

The 2024 stage show adaptation, set to open next year in London, will reportedly excise the film’s crucifixion scene, in which the characters sing the incongruously catchy and upbeat tune ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ while the messiah character Brian is being executed. Eric Idle, another founding member of Monty Python, clarified in a tweet on Friday that he was not involved in the stage show version after British Comedy Guide referred to “Cleese and Idle” having made changes to the original script. Cleese last year complained that “cancel culture” had had a “disastrous effect” on comedy and had even caused the “death of creativity,” explaining that “if you’re worried about offending people and constantly thinking of that, you are not going to be very creative.”

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The Mauna Kea silversword, Argyroxiphium, or the Flower of Patience. It opens every 7 years and it lasts only for 7 days.

 

 


This is a newfound species of tardigrade, one of about 1,300 known types of water bears. It was discovered in moss growing on dead tree trunks in Germany’s Black Forest. SEM image, magnified 2,400 times.

 

 

Duckling
https://twitter.com/i/status/1660000602833731584

 

 


The Philippine eagle is considered the largest of the extant eagles in the world in terms of length and wing surface. Being a critically endangered species, killing a Philippine eagle is punishable under Philippine law up to 12 years in prison [read more: https://buff.ly/2lKrawh]

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 092023
 
 April 9, 2023  Posted by at 8:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  24 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Abraham and the angels 1646

 

Why Will Ukraine Disappear? Because Nobody Needs It (Medvedev)
Human Destiny In Ukraine (Eve Ottenberg)
BRICS Carries Greater Economic Weight Than G7 – Study (RT)
US Ready For War With China – Congressman (RT)
‘Peace In The Middle East? That’s A Threat.’ (MoA)
US Will Threaten Europe To Implement Sanctions on Russia (Antiwar)
Details Of Kiev’s Botched Assault On Nuclear Plant Emerge – The Times (RT)
Hidden Sanctions On Russian Grain Could Spark Global Famine – Official (RT)
Poland Suspends Imports Of Ukrainian Grain (Pol.eu)
Finland May Come To Regret Joining NATO When Everyone Sobers Up (Lukyanov)
Italy’s Birth Rate At Historic Low (RT)
RFK Jr. Strongly Disapproves Of CBDCs And Digital IDs (IP)
When Trump Sucks All The Oxygen In The Race – Katty Kay (BBC)
The Case Against the Case Against Julian Assange (Rohde)
Biden Admin Has No Plans To Drop Charges Against Assange (Maynard)

 

 

 

 

Ritter: “[Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery] Zaluzhny, in a conversation with Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Pentagon, said that 250,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed. About 83,000 are missing, of which about 60,000 are most likely dead. This gives an approximate number of 315,000 dead.”

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

Just start in 1950

 

 

Ukr batallion
https://twitter.com/i/status/1644650854702538758

 

 

Odessa 2014

 

 

MAGS

 

 

 

 

Country 404.

“..those who stayed want to leave for any place: the hated Poland, EU, NATO, to be America’s 51nd state. Joining the Antarctic with its pinguins will also be fine.”

Why Will Ukraine Disappear? Because Nobody Needs It (Medvedev)

1. Europe doesn’t need Ukraine. The forced support of the Nazi regime, by the American mentor’s order, has put Europeans into a financial and political inferno. All for the sake of bandera’s unterukraine, that even the snobby, insolent Polacks don’t take for a valid country, and time and again toss in the issue of its western areas anschluss. There’s a nice perspective ahead: to permanently put the nouveau-Ukrainian blood-sucking parasites on the decrepit EU’s arthritis-crippled neck. That’ll be the final fall of Europe, once majestic, but robbed off by degeneration.

2. The US doesn’t need Ukraine. True, the military and sanction campaigns are attempted for PR by political blabbermouths, who long ago attested to their impotence and imbecility. Average Americans don’t understand what “Ukraine” is, and where “it” is. Most of them won’t show this “power” on the map on the first take. Why won’t the US establishment focus on inflation and job issues, or emergencies in their home States, instead of a country 404, unbeknownst to them? Why does so much dough go across the ocean? Sooner or later, they’ll ask for that. Then, storming of the Capitol in January 2021 would seem like scout games.

3. Africa and Latin America don’t need Ukraine. The hundreds of millions spent by US on pointless fights in Ukraine, could finance many development programmes for Latin American and African states. Latin America is gringos’ backyard – that’s what they’ve been rubbing in for decades. Africa’s had its share of suffering from the genocide, and colonial dependence, imposed by former western slave traders. That’s why the people of African huts and Latin American favelas ask a very reasonable question: for their former suffering and present-day loyalty, why is somebody else rewarded – very, very far away?

4. Asia doesn’t need Ukraine. By Russia’s example, they see “colour” technologies at work to eradicate the largest competing powers. They understand what scenario the America-led collective West has for them if they disobey. “Help us to overcome Russia, and we’ll soon come to you”, the utterly brazen Western leaders tell them. Such gigantic countries as India, China, and other Asia-Pacific states face the big enough challenge of post-pandemic economic recovery, let aside the drugged clowns, with their whining for aid. “We are not interested in you”, Asia tells their messengers, responding to the calls to support Ukraine and confine Russia. The country, geopolitically many times closer to Asian powers, the one that historically has proven itself a reliable strategic partner. Do Asian giants need such headache coming from former colonisers?

5. Russia doesn’t need Ukraine. A threadbare quilt, torn, shaggy, and greasy. The new Malorossiya of 1991 is made up of the artificially cut territories, many of which are indigenously Russian, separated by accident in the 20th century. Millions of our compatriots live there, harassed for years by the Nazi Kiev regime. It is them who we defend in our special military operation, relentlessly eradicating the enemy. We don’t need unterukraine. We need Big Great Russia.

6. Finally, its own citizens don’t need the Nazi-headed Ukraine. That’s why out of 45 million people there’re only some 20 million remaining. That’s why those who stayed want to leave for any place: the hated Poland, EU, NATO, to be America’s 51nd state. Joining the Antarctic with its pinguins will also be fine. As long as it’s quiet, and the food’s good. The ruling junta’s criminal ambitions forced Ukrainians to beg and roam around the countries and continents, searching for a better life. All that is for an obscure European perspective. Or rather, to let the harlequin in a khaki tricot and his band of thievish Nazi clowns to put the money stolen from the West into their offshore accounts. Would ordinary Ukrainians need that? Nobody on this planet needs such a Ukraine. That’s why it will disappear

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“The strengthening of [Ukraine’s] military power alongside powerful fortifications erected near Donbass indicates the U.S. intention to initiate a conflict in the region.”

Human Destiny In Ukraine (Eve Ottenberg)

The deficiencies in the American character have rotted the world. And that’s without discussion of the abyss of human wickedness of senators who, like Lindsay Graham or Tom Cotton, call for war which would end in nuclear winter and five billion starving, then dead humans, or Joe Manchin, who wanted a no-fly zone – with, of course, the same radioactive results. But these character deficiencies at the top also have had unintended consequences that could spell a swerve off the U.S.-caused fatal trajectory of human destiny. American bullying and relentless aggression has created problems for itself, namely the tremendous Russia/China alliance and the eagerness and support that union receives from the Global South. Washington elites would like nothing better than to splinter that alliance, and thus perhaps succeed at destroying first Russia then China, separately. But Beijing and Moscow have caught on. So has the Global South, whose members pile as fast as they can into Russian and Chinese-led groups like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, which has now outstripped the G-7 in how much wealth – and certainly population – it represents.


Humanity stands at a crossroads. The American Empire’s hubris has brought our fate to a point where the two most heavily nuclear-armed nations could get into a shooting war. If nuclear war erupts, we’re not just talking about the incineration of American and Russian cities, but more – to repeat, those five billion people who starve to death due to nuclear winter. But this was the atrocious risk American elites were prepared to take when they provoked Russia. As John Ross writes in a new book, Waging the New Cold War, coauthored with Deborah Veneziale and John Bellamy Foster, since the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, Washington has prepared for war against Russia in Ukraine, thrusting the human future into a crucible for superpower conflict centered on Kiev. “The strengthening of [Ukraine’s] military power alongside powerful fortifications erected near Donbass indicates the U.S. intention to initiate a conflict in the region.”

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That’s nothing yet. Pepe Escobar talks of BRIICSS, adding Iran and Saudi Arabia. And then there’s Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, all of whom want in.

BRICS Carries Greater Economic Weight Than G7 – Study (RT)

The BRICS group, comprising the world’s five major developing economies, has overtaken the Group of Seven (G7) by making up a larger share of the global gross domestic product (GDP) based on purchasing power parity, data compiled by Acorn Macro Consulting, a UK-based macroeconomic research firm, shows. According to the findings, the bloc of BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, contributes 31.5% of the world’s GDP. Meanwhile, the G7, consisting of the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK, and considered the most advanced economic bloc of countries on the planet, add up to 30.7%. The gap between the two groups is expected to continue to grow, analysts say, as China and India are experiencing robust economic growth, and more countries are interested in joining BRICS.


Earlier this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “more than a dozen” nations have expressed an interest in joining BRICS, including Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bangladesh have acquired equity in the New Development Bank, BRICS’ funding organization. Last year, BRICS countries proposed creating their own currency in order to move away from the US dollar and the euro in mutual transactions. International settlements in those currencies were made difficult for Russia, a BRICS founding member, by Ukraine-related sanctions. More recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested the use of the Chinese yuan in transactions with BRICS allies and other international partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Malaysia
https://twitter.com/i/status/1644672070117097472

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McCaul is the quintessential American idiot.

US Ready For War With China – Congressman (RT)

US Congress would authorize a direct military confrontation with China if Beijing launched an attack against Taiwan, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul told Fox News on Friday evening. The Texas Republican representative was talking from Taipei during a three-day bipartisan delegation visit to the self-governing island. American lawmakers would consent to putting boots on the ground if people in the US support the measure, McCaul said, without elaborating on how exactly such support would be measured. “If communist China invaded Taiwan, it would certainly be on the table and something that would be discussed by Congress and with the American people,” he said, adding that “if the American people support this, the Congress will follow.”

However, McCaul insisted that a “conflict is always a last resort” and described the US delegation’s visit as a way to “provide deterrence to China.” US-Chinese relations have previously been strained by the visits of American delegations to Taiwan, which China considers an inalienable part of its sovereign territory. The representative also maintained that discussions about a potential use of force by America in the Indo-Pacific region serve as a “deterrent for peace” since “you don’t have NATO in the Pacific.” Doing otherwise would mean inviting “aggression and war,” McCaul claimed. Beijing has repeatedly opposed Taiwan’s contacts with the US. The Chinese Foreign Ministry warned on Wednesday that the Taiwan issue is “the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations.” Washington formally adheres to the One China policy, by which Taiwan is considered an integral part of China. At the same time, the US enjoys close informal relations with the self-governing island and supplies it with weapons.

Washington has ramped up military support for Taiwan in recent months. In the Wall Street Journal, it was reported that the US was planning to increase its troop presence on the island from 30 to between 100 and 200 soldiers as it seeks to help Taiwan make the island “harder to assault.” In early March, the US State Department also announced that it was approving arms sales to Taipei, including $619 million worth of munitions for F-16 fighter jets. On Saturday, the Chinese military announced the launch of three days of exercises in the Taiwan Strait. The drills, held at the same time as McCaul’s visit to Taipei and just a day after Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen returned from the US, was designed as a warning to Taiwan and “external forces,” the Chinese military said.

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“Brazilian journalist Jamil Chade reports that China and Brazil have already begun working on a joint peace proposal for the Russia/Ukraine conflict, which will be finalized and presented to the public during Lula’s visit to China (April 11-15).”

“The Saudis have had enough of U.S. interference in their region. They are looking for development and development requires peace.”

Ending the war on Yemen is the deal clincher.

‘Peace In The Middle East? That’s A Threat.’ (MoA)

Thanks to China’s and Russia’s mediation peace is breaking out in the Middle East. Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai – 4:14 UTC · Apr 8, 2023 #BreakingNews: “The United Arab Emirates has begun withdrawing its forces from #Yemen. The Saudi-Emirati-Yemenite agreement will be announced soon.” The Middle East is solving its conflicts without the #US negative impact. Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai · Apr 7 Great news: “#SaudiArabia will announce the end of the war in #Yemen after the Eid al-Fitr. Saudi is ending all its (high/low) conflicts in the Middle East with #Iran, #Syria, #Iraq, #Yemen & #Lebanon (not interested in the country for now) to turn towards its own development. …” Peace will also come to Syria. The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia will soon visit Damascus. He will invite Syria to rejoin the Arab League. An Arab League summit will be held next month in Saudi Arabia and the Syrian president Bashar al Assad is expected to be there.

This comes after agreements between Iran and Saudi Arabia to bury the hatchet and after agreements between Iraq and Iran to reign in a Kurdish uprising in Iran that was controlled by Kurdish forces in Iraq. ‘We can’t have that’, says U.S. president Joe Biden. He sent CIA director Bill Burns to Saudi Arabia to threaten consequences: “CIA Director Bill Burns made an unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia this week where he reportedly aired Washington’s frustrations over Riyadh’s opening to Iran and Syria through mediation brokered by US rivals China and Russia. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a US official confirmed the trip to Al-Monitor. “Director Burns traveled to Saudi Arabia where he met with intelligence counterparts and country leaders on issues of shared interest,” the US official said.”


The official did not disclose the exact day of the trip but said that Burns discussed intelligence cooperation, especially in the area of counterterrorism. The CIA director met the country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Burns likely threatened to withhold U.S. intelligence on terrorist groups from the Saudis. The CIA could additionally push some of its ISIS assets to make some nasty appearances in Saudi Arabia to then offer ‘help’ to ‘fight terrorism’. I do not think that this will work. The Saudis have had enough of U.S. interference in their region. They are looking for development and development requires peace.

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It is simple: “..the more countries the US sanctions, the more these targeted nations may cooperate as trading partners..”

US Will Threaten Europe To Implement Sanctions on Russia (Antiwar)

The White House plans to send a clear message to its European partners in the economic war against Russia, “you are either with us or against us.” Two US Treasury officials will visit European and Central Asian partners next month to demand all sanctions on Russia be implemented. Treasury officials Liz Rosenberg and Brian Nelson will meet with leaders of financial institutions in Switzerland, Italy and Germany. The AP reports the officials will have a simple message, “1. Continue to provide Moscow with material support or 2. Keep doing business with countries that represent 50 percent of the global economy.” Rosenberg and Nelson will provide their European counterparts with intelligence on alleged sanctions evaders. If those countries fail to crack down on those still doing business with Russia, then Washington is threatening to issue “penalties.”

It is unclear how far the Joe Biden administration is willing to punish NATO allies for violating sanctions. The policy echoes President George W. Bush’s doctrine that countries must either actively align with Washington in its Middle East wars, or else be judged as working “with the terrorists.” It is unclear how Europe will respond to the Joe Biden administration’s threats. Some EU members were in favor of a plan that would lift sanctions on the Belarusian fertilizer industry. Additionally, stricter sanctions implementation could threaten the Black Sea grain export agreement. The deal, brokered by Turkey and the UN, allows Ukraine’s heavily mined Black Sea ports to export agricultural products. Moscow has been willing to extend the agreement several times but is threatening to terminate it over Western sanctions preventing Russia from reaping the agreement’s benefits. After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the White House unleashed a series of sanctions that it considered an economic nuclear weapon.

However, the attempt to isolate Moscow’s economy has largely floundered. While the Russian rouble has dipped in recent days, throughout most of the war Moscow has weathered the sanctions by increasing trade with Asia. Washington has only rallied its NATO allies and other close partners to adopt the sanctions. Meanwhile, China has added more countries to its Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Saudi Arabia and Turkey are two of the latest prospective members. Upon becoming a member of the SCO, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi observed that the more countries the US sanctions, the more these targeted nations may cooperate as trading partners.”The relationship between countries that are sanctioned by the US, such as Iran, Russia or other countries, can overcome many problems and issues and make them stronger,” he said. “The Americans think whichever country they impose sanctions on, it will be stopped, their perception is a wrong one.”

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“..the attack involved some 600 elite Ukrainian soldiers who tried to cross the Dnieper River on October 19 by boat..”

Details Of Kiev’s Botched Assault On Nuclear Plant Emerge – The Times (RT)

Ukraine’s “highly dangerous”operation to capture the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant last year ended in failure due to heavy Russian resistance, The Times reported on Friday, citing its sources. According to Kiev’s military personnel interviewed by the British newspaper, the attack involved some 600 elite Ukrainian soldiers who tried to cross the Dnieper River on October 19 by boat. The operation hinged on the presumption that Moscow’s troops would not be able to fire artillery so close to the nuclear power plant, which is the largest in Europe, one officer told The Times. However, the paper’s sources said the team met unexpected resistance. Moscow’s forces had “mined everything” and “even pulled up tanks and artillery” to fire on Kiev’s forces while they were on the water, the officer added.

The assault was supported by Ukrainian artillery, including US-made HIMARS systems, but Russian resistance resulted in only a fraction of the Ukrainian force coming ashore. After a three-hour firefight on the outskirts of Energodar, the town hosting the plant, the Ukrainian soldiers were forced to retreat, the report says. Some senior Ukrainian officials viewed the offensive as controversial, with the president of Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom, Pyotr Kotin, telling The Times: “it is very dangerous to do such things near nuclear material. Any damage will bring radiation to the people and to the whole world.” The report appears to echo the Russian Defense Ministry’s statement at the time. On October 19, it said Kiev’s forces attempted – without success – to mount an amphibious operation in the area, involving up to two Ukrainian companies and a total of 37 boats.

The military claimed Ukraine lost over 90 soldiers and 14 boats. Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of shelling the Zaporozhye NPP, which has been under Moscow’s control since last February. Russian officials have on numerous occasions warned that Kiev’s attacks could trigger a nuclear disaster. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called on both parties to create a safe zone around the facility, but the negotiations on the matter have failed to achieve a breakthrough. In late March, Rafael Grossi, the nuclear watchdog’s chief, said the idea was no longer being considered. Instead of establishing a safe zone, the IAEA now wants Kiev and Moscow to promise not to target the plant, or use it for staging attacks.

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Short: you can buy it, but you cannot pay for it.

Hidden Sanctions On Russian Grain Could Spark Global Famine – Official (RT)

Russian grain exporters have been hit by indirect sanctions, as Western businesses were unable to provide services critical to the industry, the head of the Russian Union of Grain Exporters has said in an interview with RT. Eduard Zernin explained that even though grain is exempt from anti-Russia sanctions imposed by Western powers, firms located or registered in those countries were systemically refusing to work with Russian suppliers. “Among them are banking institutions of this or that country that have been rejecting payments, or vessels flying the flag of this or that country that suddenly stopped entering Russian ports despite all the valid licenses,” Zernin said. “We have seen a wave of individual initiatives, the scale of which was massive.”

Russia accounts for more than 20% of the world’s grain shipments, the official noted, adding that the latest attempts “to erase or cancel Russian produce from global markets has failed,” as the elimination of such a prodigious amount of supplies would inevitably trigger a global food crisis. “Direct pressure is impossible, but if we face another upsurge in disguised sanctions targeting shipments of Russian grain, famine may be inevitable,” he warned. According to Zernin, the hidden sanctions applied to Russian exporters last year sent prices for wheat surging from $300 to $450 per ton. He added that prices began declining only when those restrictions were eased, after the Russian Union of Grain Exporters raised concerns on the international level, having alerted the United Nations to the issue.

“We have faced and are still facing challenges related to banking operations,” Zerin said. “We managed to resolve nearly all the issues relating to fleets, partly arising from increased freight tariffs.” According to the head of the union, Russian grain exporters have also been cut off from the legal regulation platform as part of Western restrictions. “As a result, we are not able to resolve any legal disputes at specialised arbitration platforms,” he said. Zernin noted that the Russian Union of Grain Exporters has had to establish direct contacts with major importers of agricultural produce, to reduce the impact of sanctions. “We have defined our focus markets, such as the Middle East and North African countries, the world’s biggest grain consumers, we have established direct ties with them, and developed new strategies for trading with every nation separately,” he explained. According to the official, Russian exporters now work either under Russian legislation or follow the requirements of domestic laws of partners, staying out of global legislative framework.

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“Romania and Bulgaria have seen similar waves of unrest, with farmers staging demonstrations in the capitals and blocking border crossings.”

Poland Suspends Imports Of Ukrainian Grain (Pol.eu)

Poland will temporarily stop all imports of grain from Ukraine, the two countries’ governments announced Friday. The measure comes after a meeting earlier in the day between Poland’s new Agriculture Minister Robert Telus, who took office Thursday, with his Ukrainian counterpart Mykola Solskyi at a border crossing between the two countries. “The Ukrainian side has proposed to severely restrict, and for the moment even stop completely, grain arrivals to Poland,” Telus said during a joint press conference after the meeting. He added that restrictions would not extend to the transit of grain intended for other countries. Following Russia’s invasion, Ukraine was forced to divert around half of its exports from the blocked Black Sea ports into Poland, Hungary, Romania and other border countries.

The move, facilitated by the European Commission and EU countries, was meant to throw an economic lifeline to Ukraine, one of the world’s largest agricultural producers, and ensure its exports could reach global markets. But, instead of leaving the EU’s eastern member countries, much of the produce has instead flooded local markets. Earlier this week, Telus’ predecessor, Henryk Kowalczyk, resigned amid mass farmers’ protests over the issue. Romania and Bulgaria have seen similar waves of unrest, with farmers staging demonstrations in the capitals and blocking border crossings.

“The situation is difficult for both Ukrainian and Polish farmers. We all understand who is to blame, but we have to solve this problem. The Ukrainian side will refrain from exporting wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower to Poland until the new season,” Solskyi said, referring to this summer’s harvest. Solskyi added that the two sides would meet again in the coming days to ensure smooth transit of grain intended for other countries. “We are counting on the most constructive position of the Polish side regarding the transit of Ukrainian grain to Polish ports and ports of other EU countries,” he said.

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“..the desire for a sense of security (belonging to a powerful community) overrides the practical considerations of avoiding danger (the prospect of becoming a target or a battlefield)”

Finland May Come To Regret Joining NATO When Everyone Sobers Up (Lukyanov)

The idea of abandoning the policy of non-alignment has always been present in Finland, as has a public and political consensus that it was inadvisable. Indeed, for 30 years the idea of a new military confrontation in Europe was solely the preserve of the most indomitable ‘Cold Warriors,’ and even the enlargement of NATO was presented primarily in political and ideological, not military, terms. The return of the reality of war has shaken all of Europe. In Sweden and Finland, the decision to abandon non-alignment and join NATO was taken immediately, and public opinion was turned on its head. Remarkably, there was almost no discussion of whether neutral status was a more reliable way of ensuring national security; membership of the military bloc was seen as the only option. Before that, non-participation had long been considered the most sensible approach. So, why the sudden change?

There are several reasons for this, but one is worth highlighting. There is a term known as ‘securitization’ – where a security dimension is given to everything: economic, cultural and even humanitarian processes. There is now a counter-experience, with the issue of classical security taking on a value-based form. That is, belonging to a particular ideological and ethical group, and being openly opposed to others, is seen as a more effective way of protecting oneself than remaining aloof from confrontation. This is a psychological rather than a military-technical phenomenon. Put simply, the desire for a sense of security (belonging to a powerful community) overrides the practical considerations of avoiding danger (the prospect of becoming a target or a battlefield).

This in itself is a result of the radicalization of values that took place in the West, as part of the wave of euphoria following the Cold War, when the “right side of history” prevailed. Hence the rejection of neutrality and the need to take into consideration the concerns of the “wrong” side, on the basis that those who aren’t in the same moral and ethical boat can’t be trusted. The current attitude to neutrality is the product of two simultaneous concepts: ’the long peace’ and ’the end of history.’ The first is because it has become obvious that delicate balances and safeguards are simply no longer relevant. The second is down to the belief that it’s clear whose side the historical truth is on (the West), so there is no need to flirt with representatives of the “doomed” opponent. Both perspectives are already things of the past. A rethink is inevitable.

Ritter Finland

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” Italy had 12 deaths for every seven births last year..”

Italy’s Birth Rate At Historic Low (RT)

Fewer than 400,000 babies were born in Italy in 2022, deepening what has been referred to as a “national emergency” as the country’s population declines to historically low levels, according to figures released by the EU nation’s National Institute of Statistics. The total number of newborns dropped about 1.8% from the 400,249 births recorded in Italy in 2021, the lowest such figure since 1861. The newly tallied statistics, released on Friday by Italy’s statistics bureau, mean that Italy had 12 deaths for every seven births last year as the country’s overall population dropped by 179,000. “It’s a demographic crisis,” said Maria Rita Testa, a demographer at Luiss University in Rome, via the Financial Times. “We are going to lose a lot of people in the future,” she said of a situation attributable simply to the fact that “women are just having fewer children.”

The population decline follows the introduction of a financial incentive scheme in 2021 by the former government led by Mario Draghi, which would provide families with monthly financial incentives for each child born, ranging between €50 to €175 ($55 to $192) depending on the family’s income. The leader of Italy’s current right-wing government, Giorgia Meloni, made addressing the population decline a key element of her election campaign last year. This policy pledge came amid concerns that the dwindling populace would put increasing strain on various key public sectors such as the funding of healthcare systems. Italy already has one of the highest debt-to-GDP levels in Europe at 135%.

“Having a low fertility rate is an issue that doesn’t belong to the right or the left-wing political side, it’s a national emergency,” Senator Lavinia Mennuni of the ruling Brothers of Italy party said last year. “We have to put working mothers back at the center of any political decision.” Italy’s population has been falling since 2014, with a total drop of around 1.36 million people during that time – roughly equivalent to the population of Milan, Italy’s second-largest city. However, these numbers have been partially offset by immigration as immigrants exceeded emigrants by 229,000 in 2022.

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“The central bank will have the power to enforce dollar limits on our transactions restricting where you can send money, where you can spend it, and when money expires.”

RFK Jr. Strongly Disapproves Of CBDCs And Digital IDs (IP)

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is resisting the notion of centralized control and recently blasted CBDCs and digital IDs. Kennedy, who is an environmental lawyer, has announced his plan to run for the US presidency as a Democrat in 2024. He made this announcement after filing the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on April 5th. In a separate event, Kennedy shared his views on CBDCs on Twitter. “The Fed just announced it will introduce its ‘FedNow’ Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in July,” he said.

This statement is not entirely accurate. Although the Federal Reserve has revealed its plans to launch the FedNow payment system in July, it is not considered a CBDC. Nevertheless, the implementation of this system could potentially aid in the development of a future CBDC, which the Biden Administration has expressed interest in supporting. “While cash transactions are anonymous, a #CBDC will allow the government to surveil all our private financial affairs,” the environmental lawyer warned. “The central bank will have the power to enforce dollar limits on our transactions restricting where you can send money, where you can spend it, and when money expires.” Kennedy also warned about the possible risks of such technology.


“A CBDC tied to digital ID and social credit score will allow the government to freeze your assets or limit your spending to approved vendors if you fail to comply with arbitrary diktats, i.e. vaccine mandates. “The Fed will initially limit its CBDC to interbank transactions but we should not be blind to the obvious danger that this is the first step in banning and seizing bitcoin as the Treasury did with gold 90 years ago today in 1933. “Watch as governments, which never let a good crisis go to waste, use Covid-19 and the banking crisis to usher in a new wave of CBDCs as a safe haven from germ-laden paper currencies or as protection against bank runs.” His tweet had 7.3 million views at the time of writing this article.

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“Trump still makes news and boosts ratings in a way that no other US political candidate ever has. Which is a problem for anyone running against him.”

When Trump Sucks All The Oxygen In The Race – Katty Kay (BBC)

“Down in Mar-a-Lago, they’re calling it total dominance,” the Trump associate chuckled as he slid his phone across the desk to show me a photo. The image was of a dozen different TV channels all tuned to Trump’s speech hours after the former president’s historic arrest. It was taken by one of Trump’s aides who was with him down in Florida and then sent around as bragging rights to show how much coverage Trump can still command. “They just give us free airtime,” the associate added, almost perplexed. If American election campaigns are a war, TV is the battlefield and this week team Trump blew all his opponents off the map. [..] The arrest was a big deal and it will change American politics. But hours of coverage of an uneventful journey from Palm Beach to Manhattan gave Mr Trump a lot of TV time that he didn’t have to pay for out of campaign funds.

Back in 2016 the US press was criticised for covering the ever colourful Mr Trump more extensively than his Republican rivals for the presidential nomination. He would famously call into cable news TV shows on his cell phone and get 20 minutes of airtime (full disclosure, I took part in some of those interviews. He once told me I was too negative about his campaign, but added that I shouldn’t worry about it.) Afterwards there was some hand wringing among Democrats who accused the media of helping Mr Trump win the White House just by covering him so much – which is ironic since the American media is often accused of skewing left. But at least when Mr Trump called into TV shows he was talking and saying something and being interviewed by reporters who had often tough questions and he got a lot of push back.

This week he got airtime by just sitting on the tarmac. Total dominance. This is not 2016, and most newsrooms have thought hard about their Trump coverage. On Tuesday night several TV stations, including the BBC, dipped out of Trump’s speech after a couple of minutes in order not to relay what was effectively a campaign rally. MSNBC didn’t run the speech at all. But nearly all stations were glued to his flight up to New York the day before his court appearance – I even saw a tweet that an Italian TV channel was running it live. And of course the reason is clear. Trump still makes news and boosts ratings in a way that no other US political candidate ever has. Which is a problem for anyone running against him. Did you know that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was in the swing state of Michigan this week, talking to a packed convention hall of Republican voters?

Or that Nikki Haley, one of only three Republicans actually officially running for the presidency, announced this week that she’s raised $11 million in campaign funds? Maybe you missed that news because you were glued instead to President Joe Biden’s speech in Minnesota, touting the benefits of his administration’s manufacturing policy. No? Don’t feel bad, we’re all in the same Trump-powered boat. It is too soon to say whether this week’s arrest is good news for Donald Trump’s candidacy or not. But it did teach us one thing for sure – Mr Trump still dominates headlines. Which means the other Republican candidates, as well as the current president himself, will have to find a way to get media coverage of their own. And the American TV networks will have to decide what is newsworthy in the Trump campaign, and what isn’t. None of that is easy.

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Book review.

The Case Against the Case Against Julian Assange (Rohde)

Like the Trump administration that preceded it, the Biden administration is seeking the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to stand trial on an indictment under the infamous Espionage Act of 1917. As the unprecedented U.S. prosecution of Assange reaches a critical stage, a growing number of elite media outlets, human rights advocates and press freedom organizations around the world are demanding his release. All have expressed basic agreement with Nils Melzer, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, who describes the case against Assange as a scandal that “represents the failure of Western rule of law.”

Time is running out to correct this failure. Last August, Assange filed an appeal before the U.K. High Court of Justice Administrative Court arguing that his extradition would violate U.K. law because he is being prosecuted for his political opinions and protected speech; that the request itself violates the U.S.-UK Extradition Treaty and international law because it is based on “political offenses;” that the U.S. government has misrepresented the core facts of the case to the British courts; and that the extradition request and its surrounding circumstances constitute an abuse of process. If Assange loses this appeal, his last resort is the European Court of Human Rights.

No one has covered the Assange case more tenaciously, as well as the broader attack on whistleblowers, than journalist Kevin Gosztola. In “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange,” Gosztola expands upon his reports of Assange’s extradition hearings in London during September and October 2020, and in a clear and compelling style, recounts the key events in the case. But he also does more than that. “Guilty of Journalism” offers revelations of egregious conduct by the U.S., including the use of knowingly false testimony, illegal surveillance of Assange and his lawyers and CIA plans to kidnap and assassinate him. These disclosures compound an already shocking tale of injustice at the hands of the U.S. government.

Opening his first chapter with the unequivocal declaration, “Julian Assange is a journalist,” Kosztola never loses sight of the extraordinary contributions WikiLeaks has made through its public disclosures since its founding in 2006. He includes an informative Appendix entitled, “Thirty WikiLeaks Files the Government Doesn’t Want You to Read,” covering climate change and the environment, corporate power, human rights abuses, regime change, foreign policy and U.S. politics. These files, he writes, “reflect the positive impact that WikiLeaks has had by boosting our shared knowledge of a government that rules the most powerful country in the world.”

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“I can confirm we are continuing our efforts to seek the extradition of Julian Assange..”

Biden Admin Has No Plans To Drop Charges Against Assange (Maynard)

In a week when the Biden administration worked to free a truth teller arrested in Russia, it doubled down on its commitment to punish another truth teller arrested in Western Europe. “I can confirm we are continuing our efforts to seek the extradition of Julian Assange,” Justice Department spokesperson Nicole Navas Oxman told Poynter on Monday. The statement was released in a period when pressure to release the WikiLeaks founder has come from many directions, with members of Congress, the British press and a Russian state official all chiming in on Assange’s continued detention in Britain at the behest of American authorities.

[..] The U.S. government’s push to punish Assange is a matter of the public’s right to know, Morinière said, with his case setting “a dangerous precedent that any member of the media, in any country, can now be targeted by governments, anywhere in the world, to answer for publishing information in the public interest.” “Debating whether he is a journalist is a distraction from the indisputable fact that he’s being (prosecuted) for committing acts of journalism,” said Seth Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, in an email. “The First Amendment doesn’t limit itself to protecting card-carrying journalists,” he said. “It says ‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’ Assange is being prosecuted under a law that not only abridges freedom of the press but criminalizes essentially the dictionary definition of investigative journalism. If that’s permitted by the First Amendment then the First Amendment does not mean much.”

[..] Much of the debate over WikiLeaks during the Obama administration — which used the constitutionally dubious Espionage Act of 1917 more than all past administrations combined, but still restrained itself when it came to prosecuting Assange — hinged on what was at the time called the “New York Times problem.” That debate postulated that if the prosecution of Assange set a marker, there would be little to prevent future administrations from prosecuting reporters from The New York Times, as most Times reporters who wrote military and national security stories regularly did most of the actions Assange was accused of doing. Prosecuting such a publication “would obviously be undesirable,” said a representative for Britain’s National Union of Journalists via email. That’s both because the Times is North America’s most established and trusted news organization, the spokesperson said, and also because “when it was tried in 1971 (USA v. NYT) over publication of the Pentagon Papers, the Supreme Court upheld the NYT’s rights under the First Amendment.”

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O’Looney funeral director
https://twitter.com/i/status/1644656316173160449
https://twitter.com/i/status/1641600075531968512

 

 

Makis
https://twitter.com/i/status/1644670228008239106

 

 

Food vaccines


https://twitter.com/i/status/1642910169230381056

 

 


Yareta is an evergreen perennial plant with tens of thousands of flowering buds. It is estimated to grow approximately 1.5 centimeters per year and many yaretas are estimated to be over 3,000 years old.

 

 


Grandala are deeply sexually dimorphic and this is the difference. While females are brown with white streaks all over the head, males are almost eye-searing blue. This picture captured by Rajesh Panwar in North Sikkim, India

 

 

Orca
https://twitter.com/i/status/1644743191596285952

 

 

 

 

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Mar 262023
 
 March 26, 2023  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  37 Responses »


Jasper Johns Map 1961

 

Ukraine Not Ready For Offensive – Zelensky (RT)
No Ukraine Offensive Without More Weapons – Zelensky (BBC)
Biden Downplays Russia-China Ties (RT)
G7 vs BRICS – Off to the Races (Scott Ritter)
Hungary Comments On Ukraine’s NATO and EU bids (RT)
Biden Snubs Türkiye And Hungary For ‘Democracy’ Summit (RT)
Putin Indictment Deals Fatal Blow to ICC Legitimacy (Develay)
Western Economic Prosperity Is Over And Not Coming Back Any Time Soon (Fomenko)
New Worldwide Financial System/Banking Crisis is Upon Us (Mannarino)
Is A Full-Blown Global Banking Meltdown In The Offing? (Satyajit Das)
Could Trump Win By Losing? Sometimes ‘Nothing’ Is ‘A Real Cool Hand’ (Turley)
Fired FBI Goon Peter Strzok Issues Veiled Death Threat to Donald Trump (GP)
Prosecutor Admits DC Police Officers Acted as Provocateurs on Jan. 6 (ET)
CIA Says Americans Who Visited Assange Had No Privacy Rights (Gosztola)

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

France fire
https://twitter.com/i/status/1639775790698217472

 

 

 

 

ATF

 

 

GI bacteria

 

 

 

 

Greenwald

 

 

Bhakdi

 

 

Atlas

 

 

 

 

“..Moscow is well aware of Ukrainian plans to stage an offensive, noting that Russia’s General Staff is making its own assessments on the matter and planning a response.”

Ukraine Not Ready For Offensive – Zelensky (RT)

Ukraine has not yet accumulated enough resources to stage an offensive, President Vladimir Zelensky has admitted. In an interview released on Saturday by the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri, Zelensky said that the situation on the frontline “was not good,” explaining that Ukraine was lacking enough ammunition for successful operations. On the subject of an offensive, the Ukrainian president stated that “we can’t start [it] yet. Without tanks, artillery and [US-supplied rocket launchers] HIMARS, we cannot send our brave soldiers to the front lines.” “We are waiting for ammunition to arrive from our partners,” he added, claiming that Russian troops had been firing three times as many shells as the Ukrainian side. In light of this, he reiterated his calls for Kiev’s Western backers to send more arms and urged them to sign off on deliveries of fighter jets.

Commenting on a potential dialogue with Russia, Zelensky insisted that “absolutely no conditions have been formed for this,” suggesting that Moscow would have to leave the territories Ukraine claims as its own first. Moscow has repeatedly said that it is open to talks with Kiev on condition that it recognize the “reality on the ground,” referring to the new status of four former Ukrainian regions as part of Russia. Speculations about an imminent Ukrainian spring counteroffensive have been swirling in the Western media for several weeks now. Last week, Politico reported that the US expected Kiev to start the offensive in May, with Ukrainian troops attempting to push into Crimea either by crossing the Dnieper River – which was considered an unlikely option – or moving out from their positions in the north.

Around the same time, the New York Times reported that Western officials were worried that Ukraine’s costly attempts to hold on to the strategic Donbass city of Artyomovsk (known as Bakhmut in Ukraine) could jeopardize the upcoming offensive, given that Kiev’s Western backers would not be able to replenish its ammunition stocks any time soon. With this in mind, one Pentagon official cited by the outlet described the anticipated push as a “last-ditch effort.” On Friday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Security Council, said that Moscow is well aware of Ukrainian plans to stage an offensive, noting that Russia’s General Staff is making its own assessments on the matter and planning a response.

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BBC=MSM

No Ukraine Offensive Without More Weapons – Zelensky (BBC)

President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine’s counter-offensive against Russia cannot start until Western allies send more military support. He told a Japanese newspaper he would not send his troops to the frontlines without more tanks, artillery and Himars rocket launchers. In an interview with Yomiuri Shimbun, he said the situation in eastern Ukraine was “not good”. “We are waiting for ammunition to arrive from our partners,” he said. And when asked about the expected counter-offensive, he said: “We can’t start yet, we can’t send our brave soldiers to the front line without tanks, artillery and long-range rockets.” He added: “If you have the political will, you can find a way to help us. We are at war and can’t wait.” There has been talk for some weeks of Ukraine launching a spring offensive against Russian forces. Ukrainian commanders have hinted it might be imminent.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said this week it might come “very soon”. Some analysts say Ukraine’s military is talking up the idea of a counter-offensive to discomfit their Russian counterparts. They want Russian commanders to spread their forces thinly along the front lines, ready for any attack, rather than concentrate them in particular places, such as the eastern city of Bakhmut. Other analysts believe a counter-offensive is possible soon. A US-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, last week suggested that Russia’s own offensive was potentially losing momentum and concluded: “Ukraine is therefore well positioned to regain the initiative and launch counter-offensives in critical sectors of the current frontline.”

But President Zelensky is more pessimistic. He has often warned that the war could drag on for years unless Western allies speeded up the delivery of weapons. But this is the first time he has actually said the counter-offensive itself might be delayed by the lack of Western equipment. His remarks reflect not only his desire to encourage more speed, but also his frustration at what he sees as the lack of haste.

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“..the Western countries have “significantly expanded our alliances.” “I haven’t seen that happen with China and/or Russia or anybody else in the world..”

Biden Downplays Russia-China Ties (RT)

The global community is paying too much attention to cooperation between China and Russia, US President Joe Biden said on Friday. His comments came several days after Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded a landmark three-day visit to Russia. Speaking at a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Biden was asked to comment on China’s efforts to deepen economic ties with Russia. The president replied that the Western countries have “significantly expanded our alliances.” “I haven’t seen that happen with China and/or Russia or anybody else in the world,” he added. Biden went on to say that he has met with 80% of the world leaders since being sworn into office. “We’re the ones expanding the alliances. The opposition is not,” he claimed.

“We’re in a situation in the United States where NATO is stronger, we’re all together – the G7, the Quad [security agreement between Australia, India, Japan, and the US], the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], Japan, and Korea,” Biden said. The president stated that while he does not take China and Russia lightly, “we vastly exaggerate” their ties. “I’ve been hearing now for the past three months about ‘China is going to provide significant weapons to Russia, and they’re going to…’ They haven’t yet. Doesn’t mean they won’t, but they haven’t yet.” The US has said that China is considering arms shipments to help Russia in the Ukraine conflict. This claim has been vehemently denied by Beijing, which has positioned itself as a neutral party in the context of hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, while repeatedly calling for a peace settlement.

Earlier this week, Xi wrapped up a three-day visit to Moscow, which included talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and resulted in the signing of more than a dozen agreements on cooperation in the defense, economic, and industrial spheres. Moscow and Beijing also pledged to “deepen relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction entering a new era,” while urging the US “to stop undermining international and regional security… in order to maintain its own unilateral military superiority.”

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“This was not a projection, but rather a statement of accomplished fact: BRICS was responsible for 31.5 percent of the PPP-adjusted global GDP, while the G7 provided 30.7 percent..”

G7 vs BRICS – Off to the Races (Scott Ritter)

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an ideological divide that has gripped the world, with one side (led by the G7) condemning the invasion and seeking to punish Russia economically, and the other (led by BRICS) taking a more nuanced stance by neither supporting the Russian action nor joining in on the sanctions. This has created a intellectual vacuum when it comes to assessing the true state of play in global economic affairs. It is now widely accepted that the U.S. and its G7 partners miscalculated both the impact sanctions would have on the Russian economy, as well as the blowback that would hit the West. Angus King, the Independent senator from Maine, recently observed that he remembers “when this started a year ago, all the talk was the sanctions are going to cripple Russia. They’re going to be just out of business and riots in the street absolutely hasn’t worked …[w]ere they the wrong sanctions? Were they not applied well? Did we underestimate the Russian capacity to circumvent them? Why have the sanctions regime not played a bigger part in this conflict?”

It should be noted that the IMF calculated that the Russian economy, as a result of these sanctions, would contract by at least 8 percent. The real number was 2 percent and the Russian economy — despite sanctions — is expected to grow in 2023 and beyond. This kind of miscalculation has permeated Western thinking about the global economy and the respective roles played by the G7 and BRICS. In October 2022, the IMF published its annual World Economic Outlook (WEO), with a focus on traditional GDP calculations. Mainstream economic analysts, accordingly, were comforted that — despite the political challenge put forward by BRICS in the summer of 2022 — the IMF was calculating that the G7 still held strong as the leading global economic bloc.

In January 2023 the IMF published an update to the October 2022 WEO, reinforcing the strong position of the G7. According to Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, the “balance of risks to the outlook remains tilted to the downside but is less skewed toward adverse outcomes than in the October WEO.” This positive hint prevented mainstream Western economic analysts from digging deeper into the data contained in the update. I can personally attest to the reluctance of conservative editors trying to draw current relevance from “old data.” Fortunately, there are other economic analysts, such as Richard Dias of Acorn Macro Consulting, a self-described “boutique macroeconomic research firm employing a top-down approach to the analysis of the global economy and financial markets.”

Rather than accept the IMF’s rosy outlook as gospel, Dias did what analysts are supposed to do — dig through the data and extract relevant conclusions. After rooting through the IMF’s World Economic Outlook Data Base, Dias conducted a comparative analysis of the percentage of global GDP adjusted for PPP between the G7 and BRICS, and made a surprising discovery: BRICS had surpassed the G7. This was not a projection, but rather a statement of accomplished fact: BRICS was responsible for 31.5 percent of the PPP-adjusted global GDP, while the G7 provided 30.7 percent. Making matters worse for the G7, the trends projected showed that the gap between the two economic blocs would only widen going forward.

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“Around 156,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Ukraine, most of them in the western region of Transcarpathia. Ukraine is also home to around 150,000 ethnic Romanians and more than 250,000 Moldovans..”

Hungary Comments On Ukraine’s NATO and EU bids (RT)

Hungary will not agree to Ukraine joining NATO and the EU as long as Kiev continues to discriminate against ethnic Hungarians living in Transcarpathia, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. Szijjarto added that he raised the issue at a meeting with the UN assistant secretary general for human rights, Ilze Brands Kehris. Up to 99 Hungarian primary and secondary schools are in danger of being closed in Ukraine due to the nation’s education law, Szijjarto said. “I made it clear to Ilze Brands Kehris… that Hungary will not be able to support Ukraine’s transatlantic and European integration [bids] under any circumstances as long as Hungarian schools in the Transcarpathia region are in danger,” the minister wrote on Facebook on Friday. Kiev has been cracking down on minority language rights for years.

Laws enforcing the use of Ukrainian in education and television were adopted as early as 2017 under then-President Pyotr Poroshenko. In 2018, another law banned the teaching of Russian, as well as Romanian, Polish, and Hungarian beyond the primary school level. In 2019, the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission criticized Ukraine’s State Language Law, saying it “fails to strike balance between strengthening Ukrainian and safeguarding minorities’ linguistic rights.” Budapest has been among the most vocal critics of Kiev’s language policies in the West. According to Szijjarto, Ukraine has not done anything substantial to address Hungary’s concerns. “For the past eight years, we have continuously received promises from the Ukrainian authorities that they will solve this problem, but they have not actually done anything,” he said.

Around 156,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Ukraine, most of them in the western region of Transcarpathia. Ukraine is also home to around 150,000 ethnic Romanians and more than 250,000 Moldovans, and Bucharest previously joined Budapest in demanding that the language laws be revised. In February, Szijjarto announced that the Council of Europe will review Kiev’s treatment of minorities and issue a report on its alleged discrimination against ethnic Hungarians and Romanians living in Ukraine this summer. He pointed to yet another law adopted in December 2022, which mandated the use of Ukrainian in most aspects of daily and public life, including schools.

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They want a declaration of wonderful unity, not diverse voices.

Biden Snubs Türkiye And Hungary For ‘Democracy’ Summit (RT)

The administration of US President Joe Biden has left NATO allies Türkiye and Hungary off the invite list for next week’s Summit for Democracy, Foreign Policy magazine reported on Thursday, citing three US officials familiar with the decision. The two countries were also snubbed from last year’s inaugural rendition of the summit, an event that, despite being held only twice, Biden has lauded as one of his signature foreign policy achievements. A State Department official confirmed that all participants in the 2021 summit had received an invitation for this year’s event, plus some additions. However, he said, the Biden administration was “not interested in this event being seen as an all-encompassing judgment on the strength of another country’s democracy.”

Rob Berschinksi, senior director for human rights and democracy in the National Security Council, told al-Monitor that while Türkiye was “an important NATO ally of the United States and an incredibly important partner,” Washington had “been quite clear in terms of [its] assessment of the status of democracy and human rights within the country,” namely, that it was declining. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement last week that the country would begin ratifying Finland’s membership in NATO but not Sweden’s likely contributed to the decision to leave it off the list a second time. While Erdogan has not ruled out admitting Sweden to the military alliance, he stressed that Stockholm’s refusal to turn over more than 210 alleged terrorists to Turkish custody was a deal-breaker.

Hungary, which Biden memorably denounced as “totalitarian” in 2020, has fallen into disfavor among NATO allies for its refusal to support the strictest sanctions the EU has attempted to deploy against the Russian oil and gas industry. With about 80% of its natural gas coming from Russia, Budapest has repeatedly pointed out that an embargo would hurt Hungary and other European nations much more than it would punish Moscow for the conflict in Ukraine. The Hungarian prime minister’s office earlier this week reiterated calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine and condemned the UK’s decision to send depleted uranium ammunition to Kiev. The country’s opposition to allowing Ukraine into the EU will not change unless “basic human rights norms are complied with” regarding the use of EU languages in Ukraine, Gergely Gulyas, head of the PM’s office, told reporters on Thursday, though Hungary has expressed support for Finland and Sweden joining NATO. The Summit for Democracy will take place from March 28-30 in Washington, as well as in partner countries Costa Rica, South Korea, and Zambia.

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The ICC is just another black hole for money and truth.

Putin Indictment Deals Fatal Blow to ICC Legitimacy (Develay)

Already under considerable pressure these past few years for its perceived selective prosecution of mostly African leaders, the International Criminal Court has placed its own proverbial “nail in the coffin” on March 17th when it issued an arrest warrant against the Russian Federation’s President Vladimir Putin. To be sure, the Court had since its inception faced numerous obstacle in trying to establish its status as the preeminent jurisdiction tasked with prosecuting senior official alleged to have committed or abetted the most heinous crimes under international criminal law. First, the United States never ratified the Rome Statute. While former US President William J. CLINTON had hinted that the US would join the list of Member-States by signing (but not ratifying the Treaty of Rome), George W. BUSH (egged on by his then Permanent Ambassador to the UN, John BOLTON) promptly dashed any hopes that this would ever happen.

Indeed, the BUSH administration presided over the adoption of the Hague Invasion Act of 2002 (the same year the Court effectively came into existence in the wake of its having collected the prerequisites sixty signatures from its Members). The Act openly called if necessary for the US military to storm the ICC in order to exfiltrate US soldiers. If that wasn’t enough of a message that some (the most powerful) States would take a pass on granting the Court jurisdiction over their nationals (China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, India and Israel never even signed the Treaty), Washington proceeded to amend all of the SOFAs (Status of Forced Agreements) negotiated with the governments of every country having ratified the Rome Statute where the US has some of its troops stationed by providing that American soldiers would not be subjected to any types of extradition proceedings to the Hague (ASPA).

This sequence of events essentially set the tone for 20 years of subsequent campaigns engineered by the Court so as to establish its own relevance. The powerlessness of the Court is to be found within the Rome Statute itself. Indeed, the Court may not claim jurisdiction over occurrences of alleged Jus Cogens violations (those violations not subjected to any Statute of limitations) unless said violations are alleged to have occurred on the territory of a Member-State which thus has accepted the Court’s jurisdiction or if said jurisdiction is expressly granted through a resolution adopted by the UN Security Council (not subjected to a veto from any of its Five Permanent Members).

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“US leadership is in the past, living in denial, and running policies on how they assume the world “should be,” rather than how it actually “is..”

Western Economic Prosperity Is Over And Not Coming Back Any Time Soon (Fomenko)

The years of Western boom, enjoyed in the 90s and early 2000s, never returned and if the past few years are any indication, won’t anytime soon. The geopolitical climate is now in such a position that globalization is being rolled back, deliberately. The economic system the US once built and heralded as a virtue to show communist countries the light of capitalism is now being dismantled because it is perceived not to have converted, but empowered “adversarial” states. The US now opposes free trade, opposes economic integration between its allies and both China and Russia, and has no qualms about tearing up the roots of the globalization tree. The answer is less free trade, more tariffs, more sanctions, more export controls, more forcing allies to comply with what it wants, and unreasonable investments fueled by geopolitics, not market needs.

The Biden administration’s economic policy is a disaster precisely because it is a mix of geopolitical assertiveness, heavy-handed protectionism, and catastrophic fiscal policy. Washington’s decision to inject trillions to shore up the US economy, prolong a war which produces a running inflation crisis, insist on a growing economic war with China, and then be forced to raise interest rates multiple times, despite banks going under, is a cocktail of death. The US has drastically narrowed its options, and continually lied that it can handle the fallout.

Thus, the good old days of Western prosperity are over. The neoliberal Reaganite economic order was once the bedrock of global growth, as unfair and uneven as it was. But it is fair to say that by 2023, the geopolitical conditions which enabled this system no longer exist. The world has changed, and it is little wonder why. The US has not truly been able to arrest the rise of China despite trying its darndest to disrupt it, or to deal a death blow to the Russian economy, which Washington officials had prematurely declared doomed. All of it indicates that US leadership is in the past, living in denial, and running policies on how they assume the world “should be,” rather than how it actually “is,” and it’s ordinary people who are footing the bill for it all.

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” Year over year mortgage applications have dropped a record 43 percent, and bank refi’s have dropped another record 74 percent.”

New Worldwide Financial System/Banking Crisis is Upon Us (Mannarino)

Once again! The global financial system finds itself in crisis. Indeed, a new full-on worldwide financial system/banking crisis is upon us. (And it’s just getting started). Let us consider… Is it even remotely possible that banking regulators and central banks simply missed this? Meanwhile, We the People saw this coming? Is that even possible? Really? How about no. There is absolutely no feasible or realistic way that banking regulators and central banks could have not seen this coming from miles away, and here are just a few reasons why. Let’s start with this. Every bank is required to submit financial reports to regulatory authorities every quarter and moreover, even without seeing these reports, it’s plainly obvious that banks were failing because of just three things. Number 1. No deposits, Number 2. No loans, and Number 3. No deals.

I brought these three things listed above up to the attention of those who follow my work beginning no less than eight months ago. Now, just to put this into further perspective. The average savings rate, which is calculated as the percentage of cash which people put away after expenses, is 8.84 percent. Again 8.84 percent is the average. Well today, the savings rate has dropped to just 4.7 percent (and personally I believe that this number is inflated). This 4.7 percent savings rate appears inflated to me because currently more and more people are becoming dependent on credit card usage. (Credit card debt has exploded, rising 11 percent in just the last year). With respect to “no loans and no deals.” Year over year mortgage applications have dropped a record 43 percent, and bank refi’s have dropped another record 74 percent.

And on top of all this, loan delinquencies across the board continue to skyrocket. But it gets even worse. People are withdrawing cash from both their money market and savings accounts at a record pace. So, no… It is not possible, even in the remote! That those who stand in charge of the world economy, the banking system, and the markets just missed all this. Therefore, it is deliberate. In fact, it’s more than just deliberate! This entire banking system crisis/global financial system collapse has been perfectly orchestrated and engineered by central planners/banks. But why? The question of why comes down to just a few things. Central banks are “rearranging the deck chairs” so to speak, and it comes down to a consolidation of the banking system in preparation for the rollout of an entirely new central bank digital/cashless system.

It is also about a consolidation of power. Understanding that even the Super Banks are also facing those same issues as the smaller regional banks, with “no deposits, no loans, and no deals.” That situation, combined with rising loan delinquencies. Let’s not forget the flight of cash from people who are being forced to deplete their savings and money market accounts just to make ends meet in this ongoing inflationary environment. What better way could central planners use to re-liquify the large Wall Street Super Banks than to foster a meltdown of the smaller regional banks who will have no choice but to be forced into selling their assets to the mega banks at fire sale prices?

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“In Annie Hall, Woody Allen cannot have his brother, who thinks he is a chicken, treated by a psychiatrist because the family needs the eggs. Banking regulation flounders on the same logic.”

Is A Full-Blown Global Banking Meltdown In The Offing? (Satyajit Das)

The UBS acquisition of Credit Suisse requires the Swiss National Bank to assume certain risks. It will provide a Swiss Franc 100 billion ($108 billion) liquidity line backed by an enigmatically titled government default guarantee, presumably in addition to the earlier credit support. The Swiss government is also providing a loss guarantee on certain assets of up to Swiss Franc 9 billion ($9.7 billion), which operates after UBS bears the first Swiss Franc 5 billion ($5.4 billion) of losses. The state can underwrite bank liabilities including all deposits as some countries did after 2008. As US Treasury Secretary Yellen reluctantly admitted to Congress, the extension of FDIC coverage was contingent on US officials and regulators determining systemic risk as happened with SVB and Signature. Another alternative is to recapitalise banks with public money as was done after 2008 or finance the removal of distressed or toxic assets from bank books.

Socialisation of losses is politically and financially expensive. Despite protestations to the contrary, the dismal truth is that in a major financial crisis, lenders to and owners of systemic large banks will be bailed out to some extent. European supervisors have been critical of the US decision to break with its own standard of guaranteeing only the first $250,000 of deposits by invoking a systemic risk exception while excluding SVB as too small to be required to comply with the higher standards applicable to larger banks. There now exist voluminous manuals on handling bank collapses such as imposing losses on owners, bondholders and other unsecured creditors, including depositors with funds exceeding guarantee limit, as well as resolution plans designed to minimise the fallout from failures.

Prepared by expensive consultants, they serve the essential function of satisfying regulatory checklists. Theoretically sound reforms are not consistently followed in practice. Under fire in trenches, regulators concentrate on more practical priorities. The debate about bank regulation misses a central point. Since the 1980s, the economic system has become addicted to borrowing-funded consumption and investment. Bank credit is central to this process. Some recommendations propose a drastic reduction in bank leverage from the current 10-to-1 to a mere 3-to-1. The resulting contraction would have serious implications for economic activity and asset values. In Annie Hall, Woody Allen cannot have his brother, who thinks he is a chicken, treated by a psychiatrist because the family needs the eggs. Banking regulation flounders on the same logic.

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“..The level of excitement could prompt Pornhub to do its first live courthouse feed…”

Could Trump Win By Losing? Sometimes ‘Nothing’ Is ‘A Real Cool Hand’ (Turley)

Donald Trump was back in all caps this week, denouncing prosecutors, warning of “death and destruction” if he is arrested, and even posting a picture wielding a baseball bat menacingly near a headshot of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. After each tirade, many of us denounced the inflammatory rhetoric while others insisted the former president was becoming unhinged at the prospect of being arrested. As if to speed along that decline, others posted viral fake AI-generated pictures showing Trump being arrested. Then Trump shared his own AI-generated photo of praying. The fact is that Trump is in his element: In the land of rage, the most enraged man is king. If you surf cable shows, you will see pundits in virtual ecstasy as they prepare for the possibility of a Trump mug shot or perp walk. The level of excitement could prompt Pornhub to do its first live courthouse feed.

[..]Trump is unlikely to see the inside of a prison before the election. Even after the election, courts likely would allow appeals to be exhausted before ordering the arrest of a sitting president — and those appeals could take years. On the federal charge, special counsel Jack Smith would have to finish his grand jury investigation and then convince Attorney General Garland to green-light criminal charges. He then may need to bring an indictment before the end of summer 2024, since Justice Department policy discourages filings that might affect an election. For the presidential election, that period would likely extend to August 2024. If Smith cannot indict Trump before then, he would run into another long-standing Justice Department policy. The department has long maintained (in my view, incorrectly) that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

If Smith secured a conviction before the election, Trump could still stay on the ballot. Indeed, even if he were jailed, he still could be elected president. After all, Eugene Debs ran for president in 1920 on the Socialist ticket despite being in prison for violating the Espionage Act. Trump literally could run on a promise to self-pardon and then immediately negate any conviction. Indeed, that issue may prove the ultimate anti-establishment rallying point for him. Trump won in 2016 in part because many of his voters wanted to stick it to the media and political elites. So, a charge or conviction before the election could well turn that anti-establishment wave into a tsunami. Of course, Trump could not pardon himself on a state conviction. Moreover, Georgia is one of only three states that do not give pardon authority to the governor; that authority rests with Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. (Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who has long been a target of Trump’s ire, may feel relieved to have his authority limited in this instance.)

However, the state could push for changes to negate a conviction or prevent enforcement against a sitting president. To most people, that may seem like an utter mess. For Donald Trump, it is an opportunity. Trump has always found advantage in chaos. That is why, if much of the public continues to view these legal cases as political prosecutions, Democrats may be handing Trump a winning hand. A Washington Post columnist previously declared that Trump has nothing to offer in defense to federal charges. That may or may not be true, but “nothing” could prove a major “something” in an election year. In the film, “Cool Hand Luke,” fellow prisoners asked Paul Newman’s character why he would continually raise the stakes in a poker game when he was holding nothing of value. His reply: “Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.”

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“Strzok, who is famous for running an illicit coup on the US president and banging a colleague in the broom closet..”

Fired FBI Goon Peter Strzok Issues Veiled Death Threat to Donald Trump (GP)

It’s been 30 years since the ATF-FBI siege on the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas in 1993. The government siege led to a massacre of 76 people including 25 children. The deadly assault on David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound took place from February 28 through April 19, 1993, over suspected weapons violations. The ATF had attempted to raid the compound and a gun battle ensued, leaving four government agents and six Branch Davidians dead. For the next 50 days, the government would use psychological warfare, such as playing the sound of animals being slaughtered, until ultimately the compound was burned to the ground with nearly everyone still inside.


The siege ended with the massacre of 76 people. On Friday fired FBI agent Peter Strzok posted a veiled death threat against President Trump just hours before his historic rally Saturday in Waco, Texas. Strzok, who is famous for running an illicit coup on the US president and banging a colleague in the broom closet, posted a photo of the government-led massacre at the religious compound in Waco, Texas. Everyone knows it was the feds who were ultimately blamed for this horrible mass killing. And, now Peter Strzok is posting this warning to Trump and his supporters. It is shocking to see today that such an unhinged and unethical monster was sitting at the top level of the FBI!

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Where are Tucker’s 40,000 hours of video?

Prosecutor Admits DC Police Officers Acted as Provocateurs on Jan. 6 (ET)

A federal prosecutor admitted in court papers that three D.C. Metropolitan Police Department undercover officers acted as provocateurs at the northwest steps of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The admission came in a March 24 filing before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras that seeks to keep video footage shot by the officers under court seal. Prosecutors accused the case defendant—William Pope of Topeka, Kansas—of an “illegitimate” attempt to unmask the video as part of his alleged strategy to try the case in the news media. Pope filed a motion to remove the court seal on Feb. 21. [..] Nearly 30 members of the Electronic Surveillance Unit were assigned to duty on Jan. 6, some of whom were gathering evidence on crowd activity. Members wore special bands on their left wrists to identify themselves as part of the Electronic Surveillance Unit, according to the MPD’s 96-page Jan. 6 action plan.

Officer 1 repeatedly joined in chants of “Drain the swamp!” and “Our house! Our house! Our house!” A little closer to the Capitol, the video captures a protester shouting, “Joe Biden! We wanna hear you speak, you [expletive] pedophile satanist [expletive]!” A short time later, Officer 1 joined the crowd in a “USA!” chant, repeating the phrase five times. At the foot of the northwest stairs, someone leaned part of a bicycle rack against the balustrade. As a protester climbed up the makeshift ladder, Officer 1 shouted, “C’mon, man, let’s go! Leave that sh*t.” Officer 1 got help from a protester climbing onto the balustrade of the steps. Then, surveying the people moving up the staircase, he shouted, “C’mon, go, go, go!” Officer 1 encouraged the crowd to move up the stairs with repeated shouts, “Keep going! Keep going!” and “Keep going, keep going, come on!”

Once Officer 1 jumped from the balustrade onto the stairs, he passed someone he knew, a man in a blue sweatshirt wearing a dark cap, protective goggles, and what appeared to be a Halloween mask. “Tim!” the officer said, to which the unidentified man replied, “What’s going on, bro?” Walking on a sidewalk next to the Capitol, Officer 1 hears a protester say, “Now they’re letting everybody in, there ain’t nowhere to go.” Officer 1 replied, “I think it’s gonna…they’re going to trap everyone in.” “This video clearly evidences undercover law enforcement officers urging the crowds to advance up the stairs and scaffolding towards the Capitol on January 6,” Pope wrote in an earlier case filing. “The government may claim that incidents like this did not happen, but the facts show they did.”


Two undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers walk behind Ashli Babbitt on the northwest side of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. One had earlier remarked “someone would get shot.” (William Pope via U.S. District Court/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

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“..the United States government believes that any American who talked to Assange forfeited their privacy rights under the U.S. Constitution.”

CIA Says Americans Who Visited Assange Had No Privacy Rights (Gosztola)

The Central Intelligence Agency and former CIA director Mike Pompeo contend that attorneys and journalists, who visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, had no “legitimate expectation of privacy” when it came to conversations with a “notorious wanted fugitive in a foreign embassy.” “There is no plausible argument that it would be unreasonable or indiscriminate for the government to surveil Assange, who oversaw WikiLeaks’ publication of large amounts of U.S. national security information,” the CIA and Pompeo additionally contend. “Thus, any alleged surveillance of Assange that incidentally captured his conversations with U.S. citizens such as plaintiffs would not violate the Fourth Amendment [right to privacy] as a matter of law.”

The statements are part of a motion to dismiss a lawsuit that was brought by a group of Americans, who allege that they were spied on by the CIA when they met with Assange while he was living under political asylum in the Ecuador embassy. When one considers that Assange has been held in detention at Belmarsh prison and faces Espionage Act charges for publishing classified documents, the government is essentially arguing that it may spy on any journalist who publishes such documents and “incidentally capture” the communications of anyone communicating with that particular journalist. The CIA and Pompeo are also making it clear that the United States government believes that any American who talked to Assange forfeited their privacy rights under the U.S. Constitution.

In August 2022, four Americans who visited Assange in the embassy sued the CIA and Pompeo in his individual capacity: Margaret Ratner Kunstler, a civil rights activist and human rights attorney; Deborah Hrbek, a media lawyer, represented Assange or WikiLeaks; journalist John Goetz, who worked for Der Spiegel when the German media organization first partnered with WikiLeaks; and journalist Charles Glass, who wrote articles on Assange for The Intercept. The filed complaint alleged that as visitors Glass, Goetz, Hrbek, and Kunstler were required to “surrender” their electronic devices to employees of a private company called UC Global that was contracted to provide security for the embassy. They did not know that UC Global “copied the information stored on the devices” and allegedly shared the information with the CIA, and that Pompeo allegedly authorized and approved the action.

They further claim, “Security contractors required the attorneys and journalists to leave their devices with them, which contained ‘confidential and privileged information about their sources or clients.’” In the motion to dismiss filed on March 20 by United States Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York, the government asserts that the attorneys and journalists “cannot show they had a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to conversations that took place on the property of a foreign embassy located in a foreign country.” The government insists any searches that may have taken place were reasonable or authorized. “Indeed, U.S. citizens who communicate with foreign surveillance targets have diminished Fourth Amendment rights that are easily overcome in the alleged circumstances at issue.”

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Hare

 

 

Horse power

 

 

Head lice

 

 


Schalow’s turaco birds have long white tripped crests with small red beaks and red skin around their dark eyes lined with white feathers. Mature birds have, on average, the longest crests of any turaco species

 

 

Platysternon megacephalum (or big headed turtle) is a very odd-shaped turtle with a huge head and a long tail that are almost the same size as its body.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1639360896085417999

 

 

Otters
https://twitter.com/i/status/1639785211679457283

 

 

 

 

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Jan 112023
 
 January 11, 2023  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  86 Responses »


Dorothea Lange Ex-slave with long memory, Alabama 1937

 

Zelensky Achieves Unique Results In The Destruction Of Ukraine (Zadorozhnaya)
Wagner Group Claims Full Control Of Soledar (RT)
What Would It Take? (Saker)
A Rift in the Lute? (Batiushka)
G7 Seeks Two Price Caps For Russian Oil Products (RT)
G7 Wants To Force India To Accept Russian Oil Price Cap – Reuters (RT)
The Ukrainian Crisis And Europe – The Opinion Of Experts (Milacic)
Why The CIA Attempted A ‘Maidan Uprising’ In Brazil (Escobar)
Biden’s Classified-Records Headache Is Garland’s Nightmare (Turley)
Biden May Have Taken Secret Documents For His Book (Turley)
We Now Have Evidence Pfizer Committed Fraud (midwesterndoctor)
Excess Deaths In 2022 Among Worst In 50 Years (BBC)

 

 

 

 

Tucker op-ed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you read one thing today… Alyona Zadorozhnaya, translated for the Saker. Devastating.

Zelensky Achieves Unique Results In The Destruction Of Ukraine (Zadorozhnaya)

By the end of 2022, Vladimir Zelensky has achieved unique and in many ways tragic results. He managed to reduce the population of Ukraine to the level of a century ago, put the country in bondage to the West and deprive fellow citizens of the elementary benefits of civilization. What other “successes” could be added to Zelensky’s track record? In 2023, a catastrophic drop in the birth rate is expected in Ukraine. This was stated by the director of the Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Research, academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Ella Libanova. According to her, by 2030 the population will decrease to 35 million people, and the reduction process has been going on since 1994. At the same time, Libanova assures that 34-35 million people still live in Ukraine.

However, these figures are questionable. The number of refugees who arrived in Russia from the territory of Donbass and Ukraine has already exceeded five million people. In the summer, according to the UN, there were about 6.3 million Ukrainian citizens who left the country in all the European states. Experts are convinced that Libanova gives inflated figures – and already today there are significantly fewer people living in Ukraine than she claims.. “Even before the start of the SVO, it was difficult to understand how many people really live in Ukraine. Official figures were around 40 million people, while in reality there were approximately 33 million people, if not less,” economist Ivan Lizan told the newspaper VZGLYAD. “From 2016 to 2019, Ukrainians were leaders among those who obtained primary residence permits in Poland. Every year, up to 500 thousand people “flowed out” this way. Also, do not forget that a large number of their refugees have recently moved to Europe,” the expert emphasizes.

“Thus, there are at best 25-27 million people left in Ukraine, which is comparable to the population as of the 1920s of the last century. Mostly men remained in the country, because they were simply banned from traveling abroad,” the source notes. “I am sure that these trends will continue in 2023. We will also observe internal migration. In those areas of the front where the situation is heating up, people will run away. As, for example, from the Kiev–controlled part of Donbass, local residents fled to Dnepropetrovsk,” the economist claims. “A terrible situation is developing in the labor market. State employees mostly live on bare salaries. Teachers who are forced to move to other regions of Ukraine due to the proximity of hostilities have enough money only to pay for rented housing,” says Lizan.

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Bakhmut is next.

Wagner Group Claims Full Control Of Soledar (RT)

Units of Wagner Group have taken control of the “entire territory” of Soledar, the head of the private military company Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed on Tuesday evening. Fighting is still going on in the center of town, where an unknown number of Ukrainian soldiers has been encircled. “There is a cauldron in the center of town, where urban fighting is taking place,” Prigozhin said in a statement released to the media. “We’ll announce the number of prisoners tomorrow.” He added that only Wagner “and no other units” had taken part in the storming of Soledar. A video showing two Wagner fighters standing calmly outside the town administration building was released on social media earlier in the day.


Such recordings, usually accompanied with geospatial coordinates, have commonly been used during the conflict to announce territorial control. Named after its salt mines, Soledar had around 10,000 residents before the conflict. The Ukrainian army turned it into a strongpoint after being pushed out of Popasnaya in mid-2022. Russian control over the town creates problems for Kiev’s forces in the embattled bastion of Artyomovsk, which Ukraine has renamed Bakhmut. Prigozhin said last week that his objective was not necessarily to take the towns, but “the destruction of the Ukrainian army and the reduction of its combat potential.” On Sunday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged that the situation in Soledar was “very difficult” and called it “one of the bloodiest spots along the front line,” but vowed that Ukrainian troops would continue to hold “no matter what.”

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“..it appears that 40% of the Ukrainian electrical grid is down forever, since nobody (except Russia) can replace the extremely heavy (and costly) transformers..”

What Would It Take? (Saker)

NATO did “celebrate” the Orthodox Nativity, but in its own way. First, a few headlines:
Remember the truce offered by Russia? It was rejected. Instead we got this:
• Donetsk shelled in first minute of Christmas truce – authorities
• Two Serbs shot in Kosovo Christmas Eve attack
And, just to clarify, NATO uses Serbia as a defenseless victim to show Russia what it can do to its allies, the message being, as Stoble Talbott said, “after Serbia, you are next”, so the link here is strong. NATO did not stop at that, it also continued its policy of persecutions, see these headlines:
• Zelensky sanctions over 100 Russian public figures
• Zelensky deprives Orthodox priests of citizenship – media.
Speaking of issues of freedom of religion, NATO is planning to completely ban the parishes which used to have an autonomous status under the Moscow Patriarchate, which then turned against Moscow and condemned the SMO. But that was not enough, so, just like in NATO occupied Kosovo, the persecution of Orthodox clergy and faithful is both a “feel good” operation for Orthodoxy-haters and a “message” to Moscow. NATO did not stop at that, it also announced yet another military aid package for Banderastan: (no translation needed I suppose)

None of that will be enough to make a difference, but there are many more such “aid” programs being discussed, so NATO wants to continue to draw out this war for as long as possible and fight the Russians down to the last Ukrainian. Not that any of this did any good to “Ze” and his gang: having rejected the Russian truce, the Ukronazis are now loosing the towns of Soledar and Artemovsk (see here for details), which are not only tactical victories for the Russians, but this now threatens the operational defenses of the Ukronazis which will have to fall back on what we could call a “third line of defense” if they want to restabilize the front.


Russia has also continued with her strikes, including an absolutely huge explosion at the NATO base in Ochakovo and a retaliatory attack following the HIMARS strike which killed nearly 100 Russian soldiers. The retaliatory attack was aimed at two barracks in Kramatorsk and, according to the Russian, it killed 600 Ukronazis soldiers. Finally, it appears that 40% of the Ukrainian electrical grid is down forever, since nobody (except Russia) can replace the extremely heavy (and costly) transformers needed to reconnect that grid (now all electrical power is local, with no means to distribute it through the grid).

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“Civil war in the USA. Bankruptcy in the UK. Collapse in Germany. Revolt in France and Southern Europe. Chaos in Eastern Europe. The end of NATO.”

A Rift in the Lute? (Batiushka)

There is no such thing as racial superiority among modern woke Americans, only of moral superiority. This is in fact even more insulting and condescending nonsense, which means the acceptance of ‘our’ values, i.e. ‘freedom and democracy’. Thus, Victorian London imposed the Puritan Englishman as the model for salvation (‘wash more often and your skin will become as white as ours’), whereas ‘liberal’ Washington says ‘wear jeans and trainers, eat at MacDonalds, drink coca cola and watch Disney, and you too will be saved, even though you are the wrong skin colour’. Same old, same old. Among the Victorians there were politicians with personalities: Palmerston, Disraeli and Gladstone, the only one adored by Bulgarians. Of course, the first two were obnoxious imperialists – but they did have personalities.

Among them we can also include the Kurd-gassing Churchill and the Pinochet-loving Thatcher. They were Victorians in their mentality. Racist to the core. But they did have personalities. It seems now that they were the last of the line. After Thatcher came a series of nonentities, the believing in his own delusions Blair and then in 2022 the three geniuses: Johnson, whose name is now a synonym for a buffoon; Truss, who gave the world a new word, a ‘Trussism’, e.g. ‘Peru is the capital of Africa’ or ‘Inflation is overcome by printing more money’; and then there is the Indian banker, sunny Sunak, not quite a billionaire, but well on his way. Say no more.

Such British geniuses should recall that the neocons who run NATO and then think that if they extend their war in the Ukraine and hope to drag it out for a decade or so, that will destroy Russia. Clearly, they live not in the real world, but in a virtual world. The longer it lasts, the greater the damage to the West. This is what they will create: Civil war in the USA. Bankruptcy in the UK. Collapse in Germany. Revolt in France and Southern Europe. Chaos in Eastern Europe. The end of NATO. The trouble is that, as Col. Douglas MacGregor always quotes his Spanish NATO friend as saying: ‘The USA is not another country, it is another planet’. Having been to different parts of the USA four times, visiting from the Old World, I can confirm the words of the Spanish officer.

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Exercise in futility.

G7 Seeks Two Price Caps For Russian Oil Products (RT)

The Group of Seven (G7) coalition will seek to set two price caps on Russian refined products in February, one for products trading at a premium to crude oil and the other for those trading at a discount, a G7 official said, Report informs via Reuters. The coalition – which consists of Australia, Canada, Japan and the United States, plus the 27-nation European Union – introduced a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian crude from Dec. 5, on top of the EU embargo on imports of Russian crude by sea. From Feb. 5, the coalition will also impose price caps on Russian products, such as diesel, kerosene and fuel oil, to further reduce Moscow’s revenue from energy exports and its ability to finance its invasion of Ukraine. But capping Russian oil product prices is more complicated than setting a price limit on crude alone, because there are many oil products and their price often depends on where they are bought, rather than where they are produced, the official said, asking not to be named.

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India is an independent country.

G7 Wants To Force India To Accept Russian Oil Price Cap – Reuters (RT)

The G7 intends to impose two price caps on Russian petroleum products in February that will target refined products trading at a premium to oil and those which are being sold at a discount, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed G7 official. Additional restrictions would come on top of the previously agreed upon price ceiling on oil products, such as diesel, kerosene and fuel oil, which is due to come into force on February 5. Late last year, the EU, G7 countries, and Australia introduced a price cap on Russian seaborne oil exports, which bans Western companies from providing insurance and other services to vessels transporting Russian oil unless the cargo is purchased at or below the set price. Imposing a price ceiling on refined products is more complicated than capping crude alone, the official told Reuters, explaining that the price of oil products “often depends on where they are bought, rather than where they are produced.”


Meanwhile, India may also join the Russian oil price cap if crude costs go above $60 per barrel, The Telegraph reported on Tuesday, citing the country’s oil ministry and industry officials. Oil supplies to India, which remained Russia’s top importer for three months in a row as of December, have not been affected by Western sanctions, as the country is buying crude at a discount with prices standing between $53 to $56 per barrel, the outlet said, quoting sources familiar with the matter. Russia supplied a record 1.17 million barrels a day to New Delhi in December, up from November volumes by 24%, according to oil-flow tracking data from energy intelligence company Vortexa. Indian authorities, however, are “weighing options” to slash oil imports from Russia if the EU imposes additional restrictions for nations buying crude from the sanctioned country or if the price crosses the set limit of $60 per barrel, according to the outlet.

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“Treating Ukrainian soldiers in German hospitals is a good sign of humanity. Sending weapons and training soldiers has nothing to do with humanity.”

The Ukrainian Crisis And Europe – The Opinion Of Experts (Milacic)

Since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, we have been bombarded with mass information and opinions about the war and Europe’s attitude towards it. As someone who deals with geopolitics, I carefully followed the conferences and debates of European experts and politicians and their arguments. That is exactly why I would recommend the online conference and debate that was held on January 5th. The information presented in the debate is very interesting for anyone dealing with the Ukrainian crisis and European policy towards the crisis.

Hansjörg MÜLLER (former member of Bundestag from AfD): Training soldiers makes Germany participant of the war. A Bundestag council stated that Russia would be right if attacking Germany in the framework of international law, because Germany started participating in anti-Russian aggression. Treating Ukrainian soldiers in German hospitals is a good sign of humanity. Sending weapons and training soldiers has nothing to do with humanity. It is act of aggression of war. Regarding the peace opposition in Germany: about 40 percent of German citizens do not believe the media propaganda that Russia started the war. Every history has its prehistory. The war did not start 24.2.2022, but six days earlier, when Ukraine started to shell Donbass 10 times more than before.

The prehistory for that is the illegal coup on Maidan, which was financed and operated by the Americans. In Bratislava conference NATO drew a red line where Baltic States, Ukraine and Belarus should be dragged into NATO. All this started in the beginning of the 20th century, when the Anglo-Saxons realised that if the German empire develops further, there will be a power independent of Anglo-Saxon control of seaways, which was the initial spark of the WWI. The ongoing crisis is nothing more than continuation of the ongoing Anglo-Saxon aggression against Germany and Russia for more than 120 years. Land-Lease of 1941 was renewed in 2022. Who provoked this war? It is the Anglo-American weapons industry. There will be no regime change in Russia. The main questions is: who has bigger warehouses and production of weapons. When Russia wins, it will be a change for the new financial system and a big blew for the US.

Patrick POPPEL (geopolitical expert from Austria): Austria is part of the West in this conflict and supporting the interest of NATO. NATO is supporting Ukraine. Austria is a neutral country by constitutional law but in practice not. Also during the pandemics, many politicians worked against the law and the constitution of Austria. People in our government and the media are not neutral. Neutrality is the special weapon of Austria. This neutrality was given to us by Russia, because SovietUnion liberated us. Austria was kept outside NATO and Warsaw Pact and given a constitution of neutrality. Supporting Ukraine is a big mistake because Austria is loosing the reputation of neutral country.

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BRI.

Why The CIA Attempted A ‘Maidan Uprising’ In Brazil (Escobar)

The failed coup in Brazil is the latest CIA stunt, just as the country is forging stronger ties with the east. A former US intelligence official has confirmed that the shambolic Maidan remix staged in Brasilia on 8 January was a CIA operation, and linked it to the recent attempts at color revolution in Iran. On Sunday, alleged supporters of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace, bypassing flimsy security barricades, climbing on roofs, smashing windows, destroying public property including precious paintings, while calling for a military coup as part of a regime change scheme targeting elected President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva. According to the US source, the reason for staging the operation – which bears visible signs of hasty planning – now, is that Brazil is set to reassert itself in global geopolitics alongside fellow BRICS states Russia, India, and China.

That suggests CIA planners are avid readers of Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar, formerly of the New York Fed. In his ground-breaking 27 December report titled War and Commodity Encumbrance, Pozsar states that “the multipolar world order is being built not by G7 heads of state but by the ‘G7 of the East’ (the BRICS heads of state), which is a G5 really but because of ‘BRICSpansion’, I took the liberty to round up.” He refers here to reports that Algeria, Argentina, Iran have already applied to join the BRICS – or rather its expanded version “BRICS+” – with further interest expressed by Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Indonesia. The US source drew a parallel between the CIA’s Maidan in Brazil and a series of recent street demonstrations in Iran instrumentalized by the agency as part of a new color revolution drive: “These CIA operations in Brazil and Iran parallel the operation in Venezuela in 2002 that was highly successful at the start as rioters managed to seize Hugo Chavez.”

Straussian neo-cons placed at the top of the CIA, irrespective of their political affiliation, are livid that the “G7 of the East” – as in the BRICS+ configuration of the near future – are fast moving out of the US dollar orbit. Straussian John Bolton – who has just publicized his interest in running for the US presidency – is now demanding the ouster of Turkey from NATO as the Global South realigns rapidly within new multipolar institutions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his new Chinese counterpart Qin Gang have just announced the merging of the China-driven Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Russia-driven Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). This means that the largest 21st century trade/connectivity/development project – the Chinese New Silk Roads – is now even more complex, and keeps expanding.

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“..some of those experts have rushed to distinguish the two cases and assure us that there really is no comparison..”

Biden’s Classified-Records Headache Is Garland’s Nightmare (Turley)

The Justice Department reportedly is investigating the discovery of 10 classified documents found in an old private office used by President Biden when he served as vice president. The discovery could not come at a worse time for the Justice Department — or a better time for former President Trump. While there are significant differences in the number of the documents involved in each case and the reported response of the Biden and Trump teams, the underlying allegation — removing and retaining classified material — is the same. Moreover, there remain questions that are likely to be pursued by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in the coming weeks. Those questions not only deal with the scope of the alleged violations but the increasingly conflicted and irreconcilable positions of Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding the Biden and Trump investigations.

Biden’s lawyers have said they found the documents just days before the midterm elections and are “cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration records.” The White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives on Nov. 2 of the discovery as it was closing out a Washington office, the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, that Biden used as part of his relationship with the University of Pennsylvania after he left the vice presidency in 2017. That academic appointment itself is considered controversial by some Biden critics. Biden was made an honorary professor from 2017 to 2019 and reportedly paid nearly $1 million for a few visits to the school. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he was paid $371,159 in 2017 and $540,484 in 2018-2019. He has used the appointment to claim the status of a professor in speeches.

The newly discovered material reportedly includes some top-secret files with the “sensitive compartmented information” designation, also known as TS-SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources. There is no accusation of false statements or obstruction in this instance, both of which are being investigated in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago matter. However, the incident further highlights AG Garland’s unintelligible position. This controversy will again raise prior cases of knowing or negligent removal of classified material by government officials and the relatively light punishment given in even some of the most egregious cases. After the raid on Mar-a-Lago, experts and pundits went into a frenzy about Trump being given an “orange jumpsuit,” and some insisted that even a misdemeanor conviction should bar him from office. It is not clear if the same view (which I criticized then) will now apply to Biden — but some of those experts have rushed to distinguish the two cases and assure us that there really is no comparison.

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“.. Biden insisted “if I had intended to cheat, would I have been so stupid?” Many are likely to be asking the same question in the weeks ahead.”

Biden May Have Taken Secret Documents For His Book (Turley)

“How that could possibly happen, how anyone could be that irresponsible,” President Biden, struggling to find words to express his revulsion at the very idea of moving classified material to Mar-a-Lago in a “60 Minutes” interview. “And I thought what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods.” So how does Biden explain the roughly dozen documents found sitting in a closet at a private office supplied by the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement? For the moment, he is not saying anything at all. It is easy to understand why. According to reports, the clearly marked classified documents include those at the highly classified “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information” (TS/SCI) level. The documents reportedly include material related to Iran, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. When the documents on such subjects were found at Mar-a-Lago, media experts immediately opined that Donald Trump may have sold material or was endangering national security for a book or vanity.

For two days, Biden has refused to answer questions from reporters as his allies in the media struggle for a spin out of this scandal. His silence is hardly surprising. Biden has always been better at expressing revulsion than responsibility. Time and again, he has literally rushed before cameras to denounce others, often without basis, for alleged crimes. He has not waited for investigations, let alone trials. For instance, when mounted agents were falsely accused of whipping migrants in Texas, the president was there. Even though the whipping story was clearly refuted by the available videotape, Biden rode the wave of media outrage, declaring: “It was horrible what — to see, as you saw — to see people treated like they did: horses nearly running them over and people being strapped. It’s outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay.” This week, the president appeared on the southern border and held a photo op with border agents. Yet he has never had the decency to apologize to the agents who were cleared of all whipping allegations. Instead, his administration is still seeking to punish them on other grounds.

Biden may have to take responsibility for this debacle, but he faces a potential criminal charge. While Attorney General Merrick Garland has again refused to appoint a special counsel, any acknowledgment of Biden’s knowledge or interaction with the documents could have serious legal ramifications. These documents may have been relevant to his last book. The book, “Promise Me, Dad,” released in November 2017, was marketed as his insider view of America’s relations with countries like Iran and Ukraine: “As vice president, Biden traveled more than a hundred thousand miles that year, across the world, dealing with crises in Ukraine, Central America, and Iraq.” If he worked off these documents, it is impossible to deny the violation — or his hypocrisy in his comments on Mar-a-Lago.

He is now the subject of the same inquiries he raised with CBS’s Scott Pelley: “I thought what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods. By that, I mean, names of people helped or et cetera.” The fact is past cases of the removal or mishandling of classified material have not resulted in major prosecutions. Yet many in the Democratic Party and the media have insisted on criminal charges in the Mar-a-Lago case, including barring Trump from office for even a misdemeanor conviction on unlawful possession. Biden has previously weathered scandals, often by denying culpable intent. When accused of plagiarism, for instance, Biden insisted “if I had intended to cheat, would I have been so stupid?” Many are likely to be asking the same question in the weeks ahead.

Dem top lawyer Aug 2022

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“..although by all reasonable standards, Pfizer and Moderna should be criminally convicted for allowing such a dangerous vaccine on the market (they clearly knew the vaccines had to be dangerous), nothing has been done..”

We Now Have Evidence Pfizer Committed Fraud (midwesterndoctor)

Fraud is a huge allegation to put forward, so since that time we did our best to vet the discovery and sent it out to independent parties who could validate it prior to publishing. Based on the feedback we have received since publishing this, I am no longer sure if one of my allegations holds (that the image being a digital straight line means it was not representative of the actual proteins present) as there was an additional approach to evaluating this we were not aware of at the time of publication. I still believe the central allegation (that the vaccines do not contain what was advertised) holds true and is critically important to understand, but we do not presently have the information to determine if the numerous suspicious characteristics we specifically identified in Pfizer’s western blots could be explained by something besides fraud.

One of the things that is less appreciated about governance is that governments will never have the resources to address every single problem that arises in their territory. Because of this, governments inevitably prioritize addressing problems which would otherwise cause them to lose money, and will prioritize protecting the (typically financial) interests of the upper class who support government officials (e.g., by paying for their election). This has lead to the curious phenomena whereby there are much harsher penalties for institutional level fraud than there are for an institution harming members of the general public. For example, as I have tried to show throughout this Substack, pharmaceutical companies frequently commit egregious harm against consumers and clinical trial participants, but in spite of this, most of our institutions will refuse to prosecute them for this conduct.

Conversely, one of my friends who is a paralegal in the industry has told me that pharmaceutical companies have to be honest with their investors, or they can and will be sued for financial fraud. For this reason, you can get typically get the most accurate information on their products by reviewing what pharmaceutical companies share with their investors. Similarly, although by all reasonable standards, Pfizer and Moderna should be criminally convicted for allowing such a dangerous vaccine on the market (they clearly knew the vaccines had to be dangerous), nothing has been done. However, Brook Jackson is currently pushing through a whistleblower lawsuit against Pfizer which makes the case that Pfizer conducted their clinical trials in a fraudulent manner, and by extension, committed fraud. The sale of the vaccines to the US government was predicated upon their clinical trial data and thus if that data was fraudulent, Pfizer’s sales constitute fraud.

Because fraud has much greater standing in our legal system than harming the general public, Brook’s lawsuit is critically important, and if it succeeds in proving fraud on Pfizer’s end, can collapse this entire vaccination campaign. Likewise, Brook has an even stronger case if a smoking gun were to be present which: 1) Showed that Pfizer beyond a shadow of a doubt intentionally committed fraud. 2) This fraud directly undermined the entire basis for their product. So understandably, we wanted to make sure our allegations were correct before moving forward.

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Does mention the vaccine, but only to insist that couldn’t be it.

Excess Deaths In 2022 Among Worst In 50 Years (BBC)

More than 650,000 deaths were registered in the UK in 2022 – 9% more than 2019. This represents one of the largest excess death levels outside the pandemic in 50 years. Though far below peak pandemic levels, it has prompted questions about why more people are still dying than normal. Data indicates pandemic effects on health and NHS pressures are among the leading explanations. Covid is still killing people, but is involved in fewer deaths now than at the start of the pandemic. Roughly 38,000 deaths involved Covid in 2022 compared with more than 95,000 in 2020. We are still seeing more deaths overall than would be expected based on recent history. The difference in 2022 – compared with 2020 and 2021 – is that Covid deaths were one of several factors, rather than the main explanation for this excess.

So what else might be going on? A number of doctors are blaming the wider crisis in the NHS. At the start of 2022, death rates were looking like they’d returned to pre-pandemic levels. It wasn’t until June that excess deaths really started to rise – just as the number of people waiting for hours on trolleys in English hospitals hit levels normally seen in winter. On 1 January 2023, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine suggested the crisis in urgent care could be causing “300-500 deaths a week”. It is not a figure recognised by NHS England, but it’s roughly what you get if you multiply the number of people waiting long periods in A&E with the extra risk of dying estimated to come with those long waits (of between five and 12 hours).

It is possible to debate the precise numbers, but it’s not controversial to say that your chances are worse if you wait longer for treatment, be that waiting for an ambulance to get to you, being stuck in an ambulance outside a hospital or in A&E. And we are seeing record waits in each of those areas. In November, for example, it took 48 minutes on average for an ambulance in England to respond to a suspected heart attack or stroke, compared to a target of 18 minutes. Some of the excess may be people whose deaths were hastened by the after-effects of a Covid infection. A number of studies have found people are more likely to have heart problems and strokes in the weeks and months after catching Covid, and some of these may not end up being linked to the virus when the death is registered. As well as the impact on the heart of the virus itself, some of this may be contributed to by the fact many people didn’t come in for screenings and non-urgent treatment during the peak of the pandemic, storing up trouble for the future.

[..] The rise in cardiac problems has been pointed to by some online as evidence that Covid vaccines are driving the rise in deaths, but this conclusion is not supported by the data. One type of Covid vaccine has been linked to a small rise in cases of heart inflammation and scarring (pericarditis and myocarditis). But this particular vaccine side-effect was mainly seen in boys and young men, while the excess deaths are highest in older men – aged 50 or more. And these cases are too rare – and mostly not fatal – to account for the excess in deaths.

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