Dec 302022
 
 December 30, 2022  Posted by at 10:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  44 Responses »


Henri Matisse Harmony in red 1908

 

We’ve Reached Peak Zelensky. Now What? (Freeman)
World Could Reach ‘Critical Mass’ At Any Moment – Ex-Polish President (RT)
On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine (Lauria)
Lavrov Suggests ‘Hundreds’ Of US Troops Are In Ukraine (RT)
Ukraine Falsifying History And ‘Replacing’ Memory – Moscow (RT)
Türkiye Warns Greece Against Expansion In Aegean Sea (RT)
SBF Met With Senior White House Officials Shortly Before FTX Collapse (ZH)
Integrity Lost and Regained (Malone)
Study Finds Worse Antibodies After mRNA Boosters (JTN)
The New Yorker Promotes “People’s CDC” And Mask Mandates Forever (ZH)
Half of Chinese Arrivals to Italy Carrying COVID-19 Virus – All Omicron (CTH)
Elon Musk’s Net Worth Collapse Is Biggest Loss Of Wealth In Modern History (Ind.)
Britain’s Renewable Power Hits New Peak, Fossil Fuel Also Rises (R.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

GVB
https://twitter.com/i/status/1608247624544526336

 

 

Anecdotals
https://twitter.com/i/status/1608529574286999553

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Ukraine is losing soldiers at a rate 141 TIMES that of U.S. losses in Vietnam.”

We’ve Reached Peak Zelensky. Now What? (Freeman)

When the president of the poorest, most corrupt nation in Europe is feted with multiple standing ovations by the combined Houses of Congress, and his name invoked in the same breath as Winston Churchill, you know we’ve reached Peak Zelensky. It’s a farcical, almost psychotic over-promotion, probably surpassed only by the media’s shameful, hyperbolic railroading of the country into war with Iraq, in 2003. Paraphrasing Gertrude from Hamlet, “Methinks the media doth hype too much.” Let’s remember that before ascending to his country’s presidency, Volodymyr Zelensky’s greatest claim to fame was that he could play the piano with his penis. I’m not joking. And he ran on a platform to unite his country for peace, and for making amends with Russia. Again, I’m not joking.

Now, he’s Europe’s George Washington, FDR and Douglas MacArthur all rolled into one and before whom the mighty and powerful genuflect. Please. The only place to go from here is down. And, that is surely coming. Soon. Consider some inconvenient facts that the fawning media, which is essentially the public relations arm of the weapons industry, doesn’t want you to know. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, recently let slip that the Ukrainian army has lost more than 100,000 troops in the eight months since the beginning of the war. Over the nine-year span of the Vietnam War, the U.S. with a population six times that of Ukraine, lost a total of 58,220 men. In other words, on a per day, per capita basis, Ukraine is losing soldiers at a rate 141 TIMES that of U.S. losses in Vietnam.

The U.S. lost the public on Vietnam when middle class white boys began coming home in body bags. Does anybody with half a brain believe such losses in Ukraine are sustainable? Does anybody have another plan to avert such slaughter? Von der Leyen is shrewdly laying the predicate for Western withdrawal from Ukraine and ending the war. If you look at the facts on the ground, not the boosterish propaganda ladled out by the media, you can understand why. In a matter of weeks, Russia, with its hypersonic missiles, destroyed half of Ukraine’s electrical power infrastructure. This, as winter is coming on. It can just as easily take out the other half, effectively bombing Ukraine back into the Stone Age. Is that what anybody wants?

The startling, indeed, terrifying part of this is that neither Ukraine nor the West have any defense against these hypersonic missiles. They travel so fast, and on variable trajectories, they cannot be shot down, even by the most advanced Western systems. They represent one of the greatest asymmetries in deliverable destructive power in the history of warfare, probably dwarfed only by the U.S.’s possession of atomic bombs at the end of World War II. Again, there is no effective defense against them. The Russians have them. The Ukrainians don’t. Game over. Can you understand why leaders in the West are beginning to wake up?

Churchill

Read more …

“..Russia is similar to Nazi Germany and has to be defeated militarily..”

World Could Reach ‘Critical Mass’ At Any Moment – Ex-Polish President (RT)

The world is in chaos and could reach “critical mass” anytime, former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski has warned, citing the turbulence created by the Ukrainian crisis. The conflict has put an end to the old world order, the former head of state said during a TV interview on Thursday. “In short, we are in a time of dangerous chaos,” he concluded. “If we add further unrest, such as on the Serbian border, the critical mass may be easily exceeded.” The very fact that the possibility of a new world war is now being discussed is terrifying, he believes. Kwasniewski started his political career in Soviet times as a Polish youth organizer, and after the fall of communist rule, was elected to lead the country for two terms between 1995 and 2005.

He blamed Russia for the crisis in Ukraine and praised US President Joe Biden for leading Western nations in opposition to Moscow. The former politician claimed that Russia “turned out to be not so strong.” Poland, in turn, “is doing what it can do” to help Ukraine and the effort is being appreciated, he said. Kwasniewski cited a letter he received from former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma as evidence, in which he called Poles “true friends of Ukraine.” The Polish government has been one of the most vocal supporters of Kiev and has spared no words in accusing Russia of various misdeeds. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has claimed that Russia is similar to Nazi Germany and has to be defeated militarily. Warsaw has also offered to host US nuclear weapons on its soil, but Washington has said it has no plans for such a deployment.

Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine in late February, citing what it calls NATO’s creeping expansion into the country as one of the main reasons. Russia has accused Western nations of torpedoing peace talks with Kiev. The US and its allies want to hurt Russia as much as possible and are using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” Russian President Putin has declared.

Read more …

Long history.

On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine (Lauria)

The U.S. relationship with Ukrainian fascists began after the Second World War. During the war, units of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) took part in the Holocaust, killing at least 100,000 Jews and Poles. Mykola Lebed, a top aide to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the fascist OUN-B, was recruited by the C.I.A. after the war, according to a 2010 study by the U.S. National Archives. The government study said, “Bandera’s wing (OUN/B) was a militant fascist organization.” Bandera’s closest deputy, Yaroslav Stetsko, said: ““I…fully appreciate the undeniably harmful and hostile role of the Jews, who are helping Moscow to enslave Ukraine…. I therefore support the destruction of the Jews and the expedience of bringing German methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine….”

The study says: “At a July 6, 1941, meeting in Lwów, Bandera loyalists determined that Jews ‘have to be treated harshly…. We must finish them off…. Regarding the Jews, we will adopt any methods that lead to their destruction.’” Lebed himself proposed to “’cleanse the entire revolutionary territory of the Polish population,’ so that a resurgent Polish state would not claim the region as in 1918.” Lebed was the “foreign minister” of a Banderite government in exile, but he later broke with Bandera for acting as a dictator. The U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps termed Bandera “extremely dangerous” yet said he was “looked upon as the spiritual and national hero of all Ukrainians….” The C.I.A. was not interested in working with Bandera, pages 81-82 of the report say, but the British MI6 was.

“MI6 argued, Bandera’s group was ‘the strongest Ukrainian organization abroad, is deemed competent to train party cadres, [and] build a morally and politically healthy organization….’” An early 1954 MI6 summary noted that, “the operational aspect of this [British] collaboration [with Bandera] was developing satisfactorily. Gradually a more complete control was obtained over infiltration operations…” Britain ended its collaboration with Bandera in 1954. West German intelligence, under former Nazi intelligence chief Reinhard Gehlen, then worked with Bandera, who was eventually assassinated with cyanide dust by the KGB in Munich in 1959. Instead of Bandera, the C.I.A. was interested in Lebed, despite his fascist background. They set him up in an office in New York City from which he directed sabotage and propaganda operations on the agency’s behalf inside Ukraine against the Soviet Union.

Read more …

No doubt.

Lavrov Suggests ‘Hundreds’ Of US Troops Are In Ukraine (RT)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has alleged that “hundreds” of American servicemen are deployed to Ukraine, claiming that US soldiers, military advisers and intelligence officers have long been direct participants in the conflict. Sitting down with Russia’s Channel One for an interview on Wednesday, Lavrov spoke at length about Washington’s deep involvement in the hostilities in Ukraine, which has steadily grown despite repeated assurances from American leaders that US personnel would have no role in the fighting. “Dozens, maybe even hundreds of American troops are in Ukraine, they were there even before the coup,” the FM said, referring to the 2014 ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich by nationalist formations and pro-Western activists. “CIA officers occupied at least one floor in the Security Service of Ukraine.”

Lavrov also claimed that the US military attache based in Kiev has provided significant advice to Ukrainian authorities, saying “Military specialists are obviously engaged not only in making visits to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, but, of course, in one way or another they provide direct advisory, and maybe even more than advisory, services.” He noted that a separate team of US specialists has traveled to Ukraine to monitor the flow of Western arms to the country, created after American lawmakers demanded a more robust mechanism for tracking billions in lethal aid. Given that “Ukraine is receiving more and more and better Western weapons,” the FM said Russian forces are now formulating plans to disrupt the arms shipments, adding that “Railway lines, bridges and tunnels” are being considered as targets to “make these deliveries more difficult or, ideally, stop them altogether.”

Lavrov went on to argue that Western states declared “war” on Russia nearly a decade ago, soon after the 2014 Euromaidan revolution, which was soon followed by US and NATO military support to the post-coup government. “The collective West, which is headed by a nuclear power – the United States – is at war with us,” he said. “This war was declared on us quite a long time ago, after the coup d’etat in Ukraine that was orchestrated by the United States and, in fact, backed by the European Union.” So far this year, Washington has authorized more than $20 billion in direct military aid to Ukraine, not counting the separate ‘Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative’ and billions more in economic and humanitarian assistance. US officials have indicated those policies are set to continue, having pledged to supply Kiev with as much aid as needed for “as long as it takes.”

Read more …

“The statue of Catherine II was restored by the citizens of Odessa themselves, back in 2007..”

Ukraine Falsifying History And ‘Replacing’ Memory – Moscow (RT)

With its campaign of removing monuments and erasing Russian culture, the government in Kiev is attempting to rewrite Ukraine’s history and forcibly alter the memory of its own population, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday. She was commenting on the removal of the statues of Empress Catherine the Great and General Alexander Suvorov from the port city of Odessa. Local authorities ordered the monument to Catherine to be taken down “under the cover of night, like criminals,” Zakharova said, accusing Ukraine of “falsifying its own history, and destroying and replacing the historical memory of its people.”

“In their futile attempt to abolish Russian culture, to ban speaking and even thinking in Russian, Ukrainian authorities are trying to wipe off the face of the earth any objects that could awaken in the large Russian-speaking population of the country the awareness of what they are trying to take from them,” Zakharova noted. Part of that process is removing the monuments their own ancestors put up, she explained. The statue of Catherine II was restored by the citizens of Odessa themselves, back in 2007, to replace the 1900 monument taken down by the Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1920. Suvorov commanded Russian troops that took the Ottoman fort of Khadjibey in 1791. Three years later, by imperial decree, Catherine II established the city that would be named Odessa in 1795. The port ended up becoming the Russian Empire’s “pearl by the sea.” Some nationalists in Ukraine have called these facts “myths” imposed by “Russian occupiers” and urged the removal of monuments to Catherine, Suvorov and other Russians.

President Vladimir Zelensky’s government created a special task force for “de-Russification, de-Communization and decolonization” in June, expanding the policy of removing Soviet-era names and monuments adopted after the US-backed coup in 2014. Zelensky himself endorsed the removal of the Odessa monument in July, though he stopped short of approving a petition to replace the empress with a statue to American porn actor Billy Herrington. Two statues to Suvorov, in the city of Odessa and nearby Izmail, were also taken down in recent days. “The history of these places, like the entire history of Ukraine, is inseparable from Russian history, and any attempts of the Kiev regime to rewrite it are doomed to failure,” said Zakharova, vowing that the removed monuments will be restored to their place of honor once Ukraine is no longer under “the yoke of aggressive radical nationalists” and everything “returns to normal.”

Read more …

Erdogan thrives on his neutral stance, but still has some 90% inflation.

Türkiye Warns Greece Against Expansion In Aegean Sea (RT)

Türkiye will not give Greece a single mile of territorial waters in the Aegean Sea, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday, warning that Ankara will use all means at its disposal to protect its interests. “We will not allow the expansion of [Greek] territorial waters by even one mile in the Aegean, let alone 12,” Cavusoglu was quoted as saying by the state-run Anadolu Agency. His comments came in response to reports that Athens plans to extend its territorial waters around the island of Crete to 12 nautical miles. Cavusoglu recalled a 1995 Turkish parliamentary decision that states that if Greece increases its territorial waters in the Aegean beyond six miles, the parliament would provide the government with “all powers,” including military ones, in order to defend Türkiye’s national interests. The minister went on to warn Greece not to “get into sham heroism by trusting those who might have your back.”


“Don’t seek adventurism. It won’t end well for you!” Cavusoglu warned. Last week, the Greek government announced that it plans to extend its territorial waters to the south and west of Crete in March, citing favorable international and regional developments, according to the online news outlet In.Gr, which cited sources from the presidential administration. The move puts further strain on the already fraught relations between Ankara and Athens. Back in May, Erdogan officially cut ties with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and closed all other communication channels between the countries. Although the two nations are NATO partners, they have a long history of rivalry and are entwined in a number of ongoing disputes, including over control of several Aegean islands, as well as about drilling rights in the Mediterranean, and the status of Cyprus.

Read more …

Coordinated.

SBF Met With Senior White House Officials Shortly Before FTX Collapse (ZH)

FTX founder and accused crypto-crook Sam Bankman-Fried met with senior White House officials on at least four occasions in the months leading up to his firm’s massive implosion, Bloomberg reports. On Sept. 8, SBF met with senior Biden adviser Steve Ricchetti in a previously unreported encounter, White House officials familiar with the matter said. The meeting was “the latest in a handful of sessions,” according to the report. “Bankman-Fried had at least three others previously disclosed in White House visitor logs. They include one April 22 and another May 12, each with Ricchetti, and one a day later, on May 13, with Bruce Reed, another senior Biden aide, officials confirmed. The final meeting is recorded in logs as two meetings held back-to-back, but was one meeting, officials said. Some of the prior White House meetings included others from FTX. -Bloomberg”

What’s more, Bankman-Fried’s brother, Gabriel, held a March meeting of his own and was also at the May 13 meeting – bringing the total number up to five meetings that involved one or both brothers. According to one source, “politics” were not discussed despite SBF being a Democrat megadonor credited as a major factor in President Biden’s 2020 win. Instead, the brothers allegedly talked about general matters related to the ‘crypto industry and exchanges,’ as well as “pandemic prevention related to the foundation, Guarding Against Pandemics, run by Gabe Bankman-Fried,” according to an official. SBF now faces several criminal charges related to the collapse of FTX. His ties to Washington have come under the microscope since the collapse of his exchange – as Bankman-Fried gave millions of dollars to Democratic politicians – becoming the party’s second-largest individual donor in the 2022 session.

One person familiar with the meetings, speaking on condition they not be identified, said that politics was not discussed at the White House meetings. “While Bankman-Fried, or SBF as he’s known, lived in the Bahamas, he made frequent trips to Washington — testifying before Congress and meeting with key regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as well as with White House officials. -Bloomberg”. According to US prosecutors, SBF allegedly conspired with others to use corporate funds and shadow donors for political contributions, and illegally commingled billions of dollars of customers’ funds lent to his trading arm, Alameda Research.

Read more …

“I have a very busy day job running a $6 billion institute. I don’t have time to worry about things like the Great Barrington Declaration.”

Integrity Lost and Regained (Malone)

Human beings can be characterized by exhibiting integrity or its opposites, hypocrisy and deceit. Buildings can have structural integrity, or they can be unsound, a danger to inhabitants. Organizations can have integrity, or can be corrupt. And a Nation can have integrity, or be divided against itself. Ed Dowd, Tom Lewis and their Maui colleagues diagnosed loss of integrity as a core problem contributing to the Covid crisis across virtually all governmental and corporate “verticals” and developed a solution which they (generously) named the “Malone Doctrine.” Subsequent events have validated their assessment. One needs look no further than the latest headlines. Election integrity has become one of the most trending of hashtags (in USA, Brazil, and so many other places).

Nord Stream (NS) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2) have been sabotaged, most certainly not by either Russia or Germany, but fearing retaliation no one dares even whisper the name of the culprit all know to be responsible. The deep corruption associated with the Biden family is being revealed, as is the role of corporate media in trying to keep it from impacting elections. The omniscient Anthony Fauci has followed in the footsteps of Hillary Clinton and so many others in deploying the “I cannot remember” defense, but with a new wrinkle of belligerent defiance; recently testifying that “I have a very busy day job running a $6 billion institute. I don’t have time to worry about things like the Great Barrington Declaration.”

Clear and compelling evidence released to Blaze Media under FOIA request document otherwise. During the Covid crisis, both CDC director Rochelle Walensky and Deborah Birx resorted to substituting “hope” for data in making major public health decisions, and then enforcing these decisions via deployment of highly refined psychological operations techniques against objecting United States Citizens. And then we have the cascading collapse of corruption known as the FTX scandal. Just to highlight some of the most recent examples. I argue that the Imperial Administrative State which the United States Federal Government has been transformed into has clearly lost any semblance of integrity.

Read more …

The stories on IgG4 keep coming..

Study Finds Worse Antibodies After mRNA Boosters (JTN)

IgG4 antibodies, known for their noninflammatory properties, constituted just 0.04% of all IgG subclasses shortly after the second mRNA dose, the German study says. The fourth subclass started ramping up several months after the full series and reached a high of 19.27% “late after the third vaccination.” “Importantly, this class switch was associated with a reduced capacity of the spike-specific antibodies to mediate antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis [ingesting and eliminating pathogens] and complement deposition,” the study’s introduction says. Serum samples taken after the booster and “normalized to the amount of anti-spike antibodies yielded significant[ly] lower phagocytic scores than sera from the same donors after two immunizations,” the study found.

The increased IgG4 “might result in longer viral persistence in case of infection,” according to the researchers, most of whom are associated with the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. The findings “may have consequences for the choice and timing” of mRNA vaccine regimens, including subsequent boosters. Co-author Kilian Schober wrote in a tweet thread that the 1-in-5 proportion of IgG4 after boosting jumped to 40-80% of antibodies after subsequent breakthrough infections, which is “very unusual.” While the researchers “saw improved antibody avidity [accumulated binding] and cross-neutralization after 3rd vs. 2nd vaccination,” he said, the “fragment crystallizable” antibody functions on cell receptors “are indeed deteriorated (!).” But Schober also cautioned against the view “among some anti-vax circles,” prompted by the paper’s preprint release this summer, that mRNA vaccines are inducing “tolerance” to infection rather than fighting it.

The study didn’t answer whether “the class switch [is] irrelevant in terms of consequences on subsequent infections,” he said. It is “conceivable” that the noninflammatory IgG4 response prevents “immunological over-activation while virus is still being neutralized [blocked from entering] via high-avidity antibody variable regions.” The IgG4 subclass is associated with increased COVID-related mortality, according to a letter by Italian researchers published in Elvesier’s European Journal of Internal Medicine a year ago. “Because anti-spike IgG4 have shown poor in vitro neutralizing capacity compared to IgG1, IgG2, and IgG3 antibodies, a first possibility is that hosts with prominent IgG4 immune responses might be more permissive to SARS-CoV-2 infection,” according to those San Raffaele Scientific Institute researchers.

Read more …

“They feel betrayed by the very government agencies that once fed their craving for fear.”

The New Yorker Promotes “People’s CDC” And Mask Mandates Forever (ZH)

When the science no longer supports the establishment narrative, the science no longer matters. This is the lesson we have learned time and time again over the course of the past few years when it comes to covid mandates and vaccine cultism. Americans in particular have been whipped with incessant claims since 2020 that the “science is settled” when it comes to mask restrictions, lockdowns, mRNA technology, etc. Yet, as time passes, every “conspiracy theory” asserted by the anti-mandate crowd turns out to be true. This, however, is not stopping the covid cult (made up mostly of political leftists) from blindly marching forward as they cling to the sweet taste of ultimate power they experienced from 2020 – 2021. They just can’t let it go.

The pandemic world is their ideal world, and they continue to reveal their addiction in a steady outcry for ongoing restrictions. The New Yorker has recently joined the trend for perpetual medical tyranny with an article titled ‘The Case For Wearing Masks Forever’ in which they promote the concept of a new politicized version of the CDC, called the People’s CDC, which ignores the actual science and enables the irrational fears of covid obsessives. The People’s CDC is made up of academics, doctors, activists, and artists who believe that the government has left them to fend for themselves against Covid-19. They believe the CDC’s data and guidelines have been distorted by powerful forces with vested interests in keeping people at work and keeping anxieties about the pandemic down.

This is a fascinating juxtaposition of previous narratives. Two years ago, anti-mandate movements argued the exact opposite – That data and guidelines had been distorted by powerful forces vested in keeping the public afraid and under control. As it turns out, the anti-mandate crowd was right about everything. The public was being lied to about the effectiveness of the masks, the effectiveness of the lockdowns and the effectiveness of the vaccines. Establishment institutions have been forced by the wider dissemination of scientific data to admit this reality.

And now, leftists are livid. They feel betrayed by the very government agencies that once fed their craving for fear. The People’s CDC admits they don’t really know what their larger goal is, only that they are seeking to provide an “alternative source of information”, one that essentially reinforces their ideological assumptions. It should be noted that when conservatives and liberty activists tried to share scientific information that was contrary to the establishment narrative, it was these same leftists that cried for censorship and called anti-mandate groups “dangerous”.

Read more …

No new mutations at all.

Half of Chinese Arrivals to Italy Carrying COVID-19 Virus – All Omicron (CTH)

Yesterday Italian officials announced that half the airline passengers arriving from China tested positive for COVID-19. However, in a follow-up today Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said so far all of the testing shows the omicron variant, no new sub-variants of the virus. The Biden administration CDC announced yesterday that effective January 5, 2023, all passengers traveling to the U.S. from China will be required to show a negative COVID-19 test prior to arrival.

(Bloomberg) — “Italy didn’t find any new concerning Covid-19 mutations among recent arrivals from China who tested positive for the virus, a relief for officials worried about fresh health threats. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Italy already sequenced half of the samples tested in Milan and they all show the omicron strain of the coronavirus. “This is quite reassuring,” she said at a press conference Thursday. “The situation in Italy is under control, and there are no immediate concerns.” China has scrapped its strict lockdown measures in recent weeks, leading to a surge in infections in the country. While the exact numbers are unclear, the rapid spread has led to concerns around the world about new strains emerging. The US and Italy on Wednesday joined an increasing number of nations demanding Covid tests for travelers from China, after Japan and Taiwan unveiled similar measures.”

It seems odd that with all this time passed, China is still struggling with COVID-19 mitigation and treatment while the rest of the world seems to have moved beyond it. Perhaps this is an outcome of China’s zero covid approach.

Read more …

Only $138 billion left..

Elon Musk’s Net Worth Collapse Is Biggest Loss Of Wealth In Modern History (Ind.)

Elon Musk‘s net worth has plummeted by more than $200bn over the past 13 months, the biggest loss of wealth in recent history. The tech tycoon lost more than half of his fortune between November 2021 and December this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, largely due to the collapse of Tesla stock during that time. The $208bn wiped from Mr Musk’s net worth is roughly equivalent to the GDP of Greece. The amount lost is also more than the net worth of the world’s richest person, Bernard Arnault. After topping the rich list for most of the year, Mr Musk lost his place to the French business magnate earlier this month, although he remains ahead of other US tech billionaires that have dominated the list in recent years.


Mr Musk’s net worth peaked at $338bn in November 2021, according to Bloomberg, coinciding with the fortunes of Tesla. The electric car maker has lost roughly 70 per cent of its value in 2022 following production delays in China, vehicle recalls, and concerns among investors that its CEO has been distracted by his new role as head of Twitter. Tesla’s market cap is down by nearly $900bn since November 2021, causing it to drop out of the top 10 most valuable companies. Despite the losses, Tesla remains the world’s most valuable car maker by a distance, with its losses over the last year equivalent to the combined market cap of all other automakers.

Read more …

“- UK renewable power hit a peak;
– the UK experienced its ‘warmest’ year; and
– the UK experienced its worst energy crisis in 40+ years.
So renewables didn’t solve the ‘problem’ they were supposed to, but instead caused a crisis.”

Britain’s Renewable Power Hits New Peak, Fossil Fuel Also Rises (R.)

Renewable power sources generated 40% of Britain’s electricity in 2022, up from 35% in 2021, while the share of fossil fuel in the energy mix also rose, a report by academics from Imperial College London for Drax Electric Insights showed on Thursday. Overall generation from renewables has more than quadrupled over the last decade. Wind, solar, biomass and hydro are the main sources of renewable power. Fossil fuel still has a larger share, providing 42% of Britain’s power in 2022, which was its biggest contribution to the country’s fuel mix since 2016. Iain Staffell of Imperial College London, and lead author of the report, said 2022 had been “a year like no other for the energy industry”.

Although renewables provide “more cheap, green energy than ever before,” he said, the public is feeling the pain of gas prices, which surged in response to supply disruption linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. Britain, in common with other European countries, extended the life of coal-fired power units to try to ensure adequate supplies during winter peak demand as Britain’s power imports dropped to zero in 2022, compared with 8% of supplies in 2021, Drax said. The country has significantly reduced its reliance on coal, the most carbon-intensive form of power generation. The National Grid said 0.7% of generation came from coal in November compared with 11.3% at the same time in 2017. On one day in May, renewables provided almost 73% of power to the grid, the report said.

The rise of renewable power cut Britain’s carbon emissions by 2.7 million tonnes compared to the previous year, according to Thursday’s report. Another report by Drax, once heavily reliant on coal and now Britain’s biggest renewable power generator by output, said that between 2010-19, Britain cut its carbon emissions from its power grid further and faster than any other major economy.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spud the beaver
https://twitter.com/i/status/1608278905886216192

 

 

Smallest cat

 

 

Lions

 

 

Deer jumping

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 292022
 


Max Ernst Inspired hill 1950

 

A War of Rhetoric & Reality (Patrick Lawrence)
Report Warns Risk of Nuclear War At Its Highest Since US Nuked Japan (Antiwar)
Russia Steps Up Kherson Shelling, Dismisses Zelenskiy’s Peace Plan (RT)
Zelensky To Join WEF in Davos, Sign New Postwar Loans With BlackRock (PM)
Ukrainian Proposal Is Not ‘A Peace Plan’ – Kremlin (RT)
Italian Minister: Russia Will Dare Use Nuclear Weapons If It Is Defeated (RT)
Ukraine Law Firm Runs Campaign Targeting Ordinary People In Western Europe (RT)
Jan. 6 Committee Withdraws Trump Subpoena (ZH)
‘Just Take A Look At’ Biden’s Accounts’: Trump Tells GOP (DCE)
Elon Musk Says Gain-of-function Research In Wuhan Was Bioweapon Research (PM)
PIC Updates Its ‘Aluminum – Vaccine Risk Statement’ (PIC)
‘Health Experts’ Slam DeSantis’ Probe into Moderna, Pfizer (FlV)
IgG4-Related Disease (IgG4RD) Means Fibrosis And Organ Destruction (Rose)

 

 

 

 

Barak Avi

 

 

 

 

GVB

 

 

 

 

FBI/Twitter

 

 

 

 

“Either Russia prevails on its terms,” came the answer, “or there is a nuclear exchange.”

A War of Rhetoric & Reality (Patrick Lawrence)

Passing through Austin, Texas, the other night, we had drinks with a distinguished observer of global affairs and took the opportunity to ask how he thought the war in Ukraine would conclude. It is a common question these days. While no answer can be definitive, it is always interesting to discover what wise heads see out front. “Either Russia prevails on its terms,” came the answer, “or there is a nuclear exchange.” I do not think this stark assessment would have necessarily held up even a month ago. I may not have agreed with it, in any case. But the war has escalated markedly over the past week or two. And our Austin companion’s either/or prediction seems now to be the terrible truth of new circumstances. There are numerous indications that Russia is preparing to launch a major offensive in coming weeks or months.

With Volodymyr Zelensky’s circus-like visit to Washington last week, the Biden administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress have drastically, recklessly increased their investment in the Ukrainian president’s regime — a good-money-after-bad judgment if ever there was one. This now shakes out as a war between rhetoric and reality. And the former, a war waged with immense volumes of Western weaponry in defense of ideological bombast, is far more dangerous than the latter, a war waged on the ground with clearly defined objectives. As John Mearsheimer and Jack Matlock, two astute students of this conflict, have argued, neither side can afford to lose in Ukraine. But what is at stake for Russia and the West — Ukraine being the latter’s proxy — is very different.

A Russian defeat in Ukraine would be a direct threat to its security, sovereignty, and altogether its survival. These are legitimate causes. What people would not defend themselves against such a threat — especially given Washington’s long record of subterfuge in nations, not least the Russian Federation, that insist on their independence. The Biden administration’s rhetoric since the Ukraine crisis sharpened prior to the outbreak of hostilities in February has cast this conflict as a near-cosmic confrontation between liberalism and authoritarianism. I do not see that this is very different from Bush II’s biblical baloney about Gog and Magog as it prepared to invade Iraq, or Mike Pompeo’s unhinged end-times talk when he was whipping up war fever against Russia and China while serving as Donald Trump’s secretary of state.

This irresponsible rhetoric has painted every breathing, walking-around American into a corner from which the only escape is capitulation. That is why it is dangerous. Russia can win battles and wage extensive artillery and rocket campaigns and remain open to negotiation at any opportunity conditions present. Putin made this point clear once again on Sunday. It is difficult to see, by contrast, how our addled president can find his way to talks given how he and the third-rate neoconservatives who control his foreign policies have cast this conflict. And it is too easy to imagine these people reaching for the nuclear buttons once their follies become evident.

Read more …

“..an all-out nuclear exchange would send enough dust in the air to block sunlight resulting in “a period of chaos and violence, during which most of the surviving world population would die from hunger.”

Report Warns Risk of Nuclear War At Its Highest Since US Nuked Japan (Antiwar)

A Swedish group that assesses catastrophic risks warned in its annual report this year that the risk of nuclear weapons use is higher today than at any point since the US dropped nuclear weapons on Japan in 1945, AFP reported on Tuesday. Kennette Benedict, an advisor to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists who led the report for the Global Challenges Foundation, said the risk of nuclear war was greater than during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The report warned that an all-out nuclear exchange would send enough dust in the air to block sunlight resulting in “a period of chaos and violence, during which most of the surviving world population would die from hunger.”

President Biden acknowledged the risk back in October when he said the chances of nuclear “armageddon” are higher today than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Despite his recognition of the danger of his policy of supporting Ukraine against Russia, Biden continues to escalate US involvement in the war, and there is no end in sight to the fighting. Ukraine’s war effort is entirely reliant on Western support, and the US is not just sending weapons but also providing training, intelligence, and other kinds of targeting support. According to recent media reports, the Pentagon now tacitly backs Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, and the CIA is directing sabotage operations inside Russia.

Russian officials have made clear that they believe they are not just fighting Ukrainian forces in the war but also the US and NATO. This means Russia has the pretext to launch strikes on the US and NATO, although there’s no sign that such a decision has been made. If Russia eventually chooses to retaliate by using conventional weapons against NATO, the conflict could quickly spiral into nuclear war. If Moscow decides to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, most experts believe it would lead to a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia.

Read more …

It was never going to be a quiet New Year’s.

Russia Steps Up Kherson Shelling, Dismisses Zelenskiy’s Peace Plan (RT)

Ukraine’s recently liberated southern city of Kherson suffered intense mortar and artillery attacks from Russian forces across the Dnipro river, while the Kremlin rejected a Ukrainian peace plan, demanding that Kyiv accept its annexation of four regions. Kherson has remained under bombardment from Russian forces which had retreated to the east bank of the river when the city was retaken in a major victory for Ukraine last month. On Wednesday, the shelling hit the maternity wing of a hospital, though no-one was hurt, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s deputy chief of staff. Staff and patients were moved to a shelter, Tymoshenko said in a post on Telegram. “It was frightening … the explosions began abruptly, the window handle started to tear off … oh, my hands are still shaking,” Olha Prysidko, a new mother, said. “When we came to the basement, the shelling wasn’t over. Not for a minute.”

Macgregor

Read more …

“..already helping Ukraine to structure the fund for the reconstruction of our state.”

Who’s going to pay? Not BlackRock.

Zelensky To Join WEF in Davos, Sign New Postwar Loans With BlackRock (PM)

On Wednesday it was revealed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government is prepping to participate in January’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, and that the Ukrainian leader is in talks with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink regarding rebuilding efforts following the war with Russia. According to Bloomberg, Zelensky said in an evening address to the nation, “Specialists of this company are already helping Ukraine to structure the fund for the reconstruction of our state.” Zelensky reportedly had a video call with Fink in September. He did not reveal whether he would be attending the WEF in person or virtually.


According to a Wednesday post on the Ukrainian President’s official website, Zelensky said, “In accordance with the preliminary agreements struck earlier this year between the Head of State and Larry Fink, the BlackRock team has been working for several months on a project to advise the Ukrainian government on how to structure the country’s reconstruction funds.” “Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Larry Fink agreed to focus in the near term on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of our country, channeling investment into the most relevant and impactful sectors of the Ukrainian economy,” the post added. “During the conversation, it was emphasized that certain BlackRock leaders plan to visit Ukraine in the new year,” the post continued. “The President thanked Larry Fink for the work of the professional team that BlackRock has allocated to advise on structuring the reconstruction projects.”

Read more …

“No plan that ignores that reality can pretend to have peace in mind..”

Ukrainian Proposal Is Not ‘A Peace Plan’ – Kremlin (RT)

No proposal that refuses to account for reality can pretend to aim for peace, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday, responding to a question about Russia’s official position on a “peace plan” floated by the Ukrainian government. “No plan that ignores that reality can pretend to have peace in mind,” Peskov said. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s proposal, floated earlier this month, envisioned a UN-sponsored “Global Peace Summit” taking place in February 2023. According to Zelensky, the agenda would be based on his ten-point “peace formula,” which includes the withdrawal of Russian troops from all territories claimed by Ukraine, Moscow paying reparations, and holding war crimes trials for individuals that Kiev accuses of aggression.

Zelensky’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba brought up the proposal anew on Monday, insisting that Russia must face judgment by an “international court” before being allowed at the table. Moscow’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky dismissed Kuleba’s statement as “nonsense,” commenting that there can be no peace talks without Russia, while the actions of Ukraine’s government may result in such a meeting eventually taking place without their participation. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Kiev must recognize the status of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as parts of Russia as a prerequisite for any peace talks. In addition to the four regions, Moscow seeks to “prevent the creation and continuation of any threats to our security from Ukrainian territory,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview on Wednesday.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the 2014 ceasefire, brokered by Germany and France, to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.” Moscow demands that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

Read more …

Good thing then that it won’t be defeated.

Italian Minister: Russia Will Dare Use Nuclear Weapons If It Is Defeated (RT)

“Russia will dare to use nuclear weapons if it is defeated,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said in an interview with the local media, Report informs.He said that the use of tactical nuclear power is foreseen by Russia: “For us, it is inconceivable, but for Moscow, yes. But if Moscow understands that there is no return, it will go for it.” The minister assured that Rome will stand by Kyiv until the last Russian soldier leaves the sovereign lands of Ukraine: “We will help Ukraine to protect itself. Russia has crossed the border it should not have crossed.”

Read more …

“rashists”

Ukraine Law Firm Runs Campaign Targeting Ordinary People In Western Europe (RT)

Boutique Ukrainian law firm T&M has launched an appalling new service allowing residents of Western European countries to “cleanse Europe of rashists,” a reference to the derogatory neologism used by officials in Kiev, which combines the words “Russian” and “fascist.” Titled “give in charge rashist” (apparently a bad translation of the Ukrainian title “turn in a rashist”), the webportal invites visitors who are “tired of potential invaders living near you” to “let us know and we will try to solve this issue in the legal field.” “We are a team of lawyers who decided to use legal methods to cleanse Europe of potential invaders,” the site explains. “No one will know who surrendered the rashist. It’s completely free. You pay nothing, but you get a bonus to karma. You are making a personal contribution to a peaceful future.”

Reporting a “possible aggressor” is said to be “easy.” Concerned citizens can easily use a form to anonymously submit the names and social media accounts of Russian citizens living in any European country, who may be “potentially dangerous” and a “carrier of propaganda and violence.” In return, the Lviv-based T&M “do everything to ensure that the relevant European authorities check the legality of such a person’s stay in Europe,” and “send a corresponding statement to the state authorities of the country in which the presence of a potentially dangerous rashist was reported.” The obvious desired end result is that the Russian in question will be arrested and deported, or perhaps even worse. A disclaimer at the bottom of the page states the service “is not intended to incite ethnic, racial, religious or other enmity,” and only serves to bring its stated targets “to justice.”

T&M has been operating in Lviv since 2014, specializing in sports law, road traffic accidents, IT and technology transfer, and corporate relations. “Give in charge rashist” is a sub-page of T&M’s main site and links back to it in its disclaimers section. “We do not collect your personal data in any way, and we use the personal data of rashists that you provide us exclusively for contacting state authorities,” it concludes. It is unknown if any “rashists” have been reported to authorities as a result of this abhorrent resource, or where they are located or what has happened to them if so. This is just the latest example of how a highly hostile environment for Russians is being created abroad, in which they are, regardless of their political leanings and beliefs, viewed as one and the same. The purpose is to ensure all Russians are falsely considered “the enemy within” by local citizens in their host countries, plotting misdeeds and wrongdoing in support of the Kremlin’s devilish plans for global domination.

Read more …

“..the West should be engaged in the “permanent strengthening of our common security in the face of Russia.”

Berlin Promises To Ramp Up Sanctions Against Moscow (RT)

Any business as usual with Russia is impossible in the near future due to the Ukraine conflict, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Tuesday. She also vowed that Berlin and its allies would intensify sanctions pressure against Moscow. Speaking to Romania’s Digi 24 TV Channel, the minister emphasized that “there can be no normal relations with this Russia” amid the fighting between Moscow and Kiev’s forces and the stand-off with the West. EU would prefer “a peaceful and democratic Russia that does not pose a threat to its neighbors,” Baerbock stated, adding that she harbors “no illusions” on the matter. “We are living in a different reality right now.” Against this backdrop, the minister noted that the West should be engaged in the “permanent strengthening of our common security in the face of Russia.”

According to Baerbock, as long as Moscow wages “the brutal war of aggression,” the West will gradually tighten its sanctions policy. However, she did not clarify what additional restrictions could be in the offing. She went on to add that Western capitals would support Ukraine “as long as necessary,” providing it with arms, as well as humanitarian and financial aid, because the nation “defends the freedom of Europe.” However, she struck a more cautious tone about Kiev’s aspirations to join the EU. While hailing the bloc’s decision to grant Ukraine candidate status in June as a “historic moment,” Baerbock admitted that “the road there will still be long and certainly sometimes difficult.” To pave the way for Kiev’ accession, Western countries are doing their best to help the nation harmonize its legal system with EU standards, she said.

Following the start of Russia’s military operation against Ukraine in late February, Germany has provided Ukraine with large amounts of weaponry and joined Western sanctions against Moscow. The restrictions targeted entire sectors of the Russian economy, particularly energy exports, while hundreds of senior officials were blacklisted, and about half of the nation’s foreign exchange reserves were frozen, a move that was denounced by Moscow as essentially “theft.” On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated that the EU is waging a “hybrid war” against Moscow, arguing that Brussels’ policies have only hurt the interests of the bloc’s citizens while bringing its relations with Russia to their “lowest point.”

Read more …

What a catastrophic failure. Do call it was it is.

But they still keep arresting people two years later.

Julie Kelly: “And Senate GOP just handed FBI a half-billion dollar raise and gave DOJ $212 million just to prosecute Trump supporters.”

Jan. 6 Committee Withdraws Trump Subpoena (ZH)

The January 6th special committee has formally withdrawn its subpoena of former President Donald Trump. “In light of the imminent end of our investigation, the Select Committee can no longer pursue the specific information covered by the subpoena,” wrote Rep. Bernie Thompson (D-MI) in a Wednesday night letter sent to Trump’s attorneys, which was obtained by CNN. “Therefore, through this letter, I hereby formally withdraw the subpoena issued to former President Trump, and notify you that he is no longer obligated to comply or produce records in response to said subpoena,” the letter continues.


Trump took a victory lap on Truth Social, writing: “Was just advised that the Unselect Committee of political Thugs has withdrawn the Subpoena of me concerning the January 6th Protest of the CROOKED 2020 Presidential Election. They probably did so because they knew I did nothing wrong, or they were about to lose in Court. Perhaps the FBI’s involvement in RIGGING the Election played into their decision. In any event, the Subpoena is DEAD!” As CNN notes, the committee has already dropped several subpoenas against other witnesses, and has wrapped up its investigation by referring Trump to the DOJ for potential criminal prosecution on four separate charges. The referrals, however, hold no legal weight.

Read more …

“evidence that the finances, credit cards, and bank accounts of Hunter and Joe Biden were co-mingled, if not shared.”

‘Just Take A Look At’ Biden’s Accounts’: Trump Tells GOP (DCE)

Former President Donald J. Trump shared a campaign video to Truth Social providing a stern rebuke to the release of his 2015-2020 tax returns by the Democrat-led House Means and Ways Committee on Tuesday. He further called for the new Republican-led House to “immediately obtain the financial records of Joe Biden and his entire criminal enterprise.” The dramatic legal battle over the former president’s tax records ended in November when the United States Supreme Court declined to overturn an appellate court ruling that ordered Trump to hand over the records to Congress. The sole Republican candidate to announce for the 2024 presidential race denounced the move as “an outrageous abuse of power” from “radical Democrats” Friday.

“There is no legitimate legislative purpose for their action, and if you look at what they’ve done, it’s so sad for our country,” he said, after sharing the video with Breitbart. The former president called the action “unconstitutional.” “It’s nothing but another deranged political witch-hunt, which has been going on from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower,” he added. “Although these tax returns contain relatively little information and not information that almost anybody would understand — they’re extremely complex — the radical Democrats’ behavior is a shame upon the U.S. Congress,” Trump added. He then called upon the House GOP to aggressively acquire Biden’s financial records, as reported by Breitbart:

“The new Republican House should immediately obtain the financial records of Joe Biden and his entire criminal enterprise because that’s exactly what it is. Biden is a corrupt politician who spent years selling out America all over the world, including to Communist China. Just take a look at his accounts, take a look at all of his homes, and take a look at what his son, Hunter, has contributed to the family. The American public deserves to know the truth. We should also get to the bottom line on how Biden, on a salary of a U.S. Senator, was able to buy one mansion after another, all these different locations. When I’m president, we will expose the Washington cartel, and we will Make America Great Again.”

Incoming Republican Chairman Rep. James Comer of the U.S. House Oversight Committee told CNN in November that Hunter Biden is expected to be subpoenaed about his father’s involvement in his business dealings overseas. Comer explicitly told reporters “This is an investigation of Joe Biden.” “This committee will evaluate whether this president is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars,” Comer added. He explained, as previously reported by Newsweek, that the investigation will have “evidence that the finances, credit cards, and bank accounts of Hunter and Joe Biden were co-mingled, if not shared.”

Read more …

“Musk argues that “‘Gain-of-function’ in this context is just another way of saying ‘bioweapon.'”

Elon Musk Says Gain-of-function Research In Wuhan Was Bioweapon Research (PM)

Elon Musk went on the Fauci attack on Wednesday, insinuating that the gain-of-function (GoF) work the doctor was advocating for was essentially bioweapon research. “‘Gain-of-function’ should be called ‘bioweapon’ research, as the function referred is death!” Musk tweeted. The Twitter CEO points to a Yahoo News article from last year that unearthed a paper that Fauci wrote a decade ago, where he argues that the benefits of GoF research outweigh the potential pandemic risk. GoF research consists of genetically altering an organism, such as a virus, in order to gain an increased understanding of its function, work that was taking place at the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. “In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic?,” Fauci asks in his 2012 paper.


He goes on to say that GoF research is “important work,” clearly stating that the benefits “outweigh the risks.” Musk argues that “‘Gain-of-function’ in this context is just another way of saying ‘bioweapon.'” He also points out that Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, is the head of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, where she is “the person who is supposed to make sure that Fauci behaves ethically.” There is mounting evidence pointing to the fact that the COVID-19 virus originated from a leak at the Wuhan lab, despite insistence from the government and from Fauci himself that this was not the case. It was revealed earlier this year that many scientists in Britain and the United States were more concerned about keeping “international harmony” than with opening the debate regarding the lab-leak theory.

Read more …

“..up to 22 doses of aluminum-containing vaccines are administered to children..”

PIC Updates Its ‘Aluminum – Vaccine Risk Statement’ (PIC)

The document explains that both the FDA and ATSDR have raised concerns about the negative effects of aluminum exposure in humans. Scientific studies have shown that small amounts of aluminum can interfere with cellular and metabolic processes in the nervous system. Some of the most damaging effects of aluminum range from motor skill impairment to encephalopathy (altered mental state, personality changes, difficulty thinking, loss of memory, seizures, coma, and more). Studies have also shown that adverse effects of aluminum may not be restricted to neurological conditions.* A study referenced in the PIC document and published in Academic Pediatrics found that asthma occurred in 1 in 183 vaccinated children for every 1 mg (1,000 mcg) increase in aluminum exposure.

In the United States, up to 22 doses of aluminum-containing vaccines are administered to children, with 11 doses administered from birth to 6 months of age. “Overexposure to aluminum may lead to significant harm,” said Dr. Shira Miller, founder and president of Physicians for Informed Consent. “In California, where PIC is headquartered, since Senate Bill 277 (SB 277) was enacted in 2015, numerous doses of aluminum-containing vaccines are mandated for public and private K-12 school attendance — with no exceptions for religious or personal belief exemptions. PIC asserts that vaccine mandates are unscientific and unethical and a threat to public health. SB 277, and any other law that coerces vaccination, needs to be repealed.”

Read more …

“..decades of established procedure designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccines..”

‘Health Experts’ Slam DeSantis’ Probe into Moderna, Pfizer (FlV)

After the Florida Supreme Court accepted Gov. Ron DeSantis’ request to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate mRNA COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, “health experts” fear the move “betrays decades of established procedure designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, and only serves to stoke further immunization fears.” Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of public health group the de Beaumont Foundation, told The Hill that the governor “appears to be focused on creating fear around vaccines that have been shown to be safe and effective.” “These vaccines have been tested and scrutinized more than any other vaccine, and they continue to save lives. Vaccine safety is not a partisan issue and attempting to make it one puts lives at risk,” he went on.

At a roundtable earlier in December, DeSantis was joined by Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and other health experts telling their personal stories and experience dealing with adverse effects of the mRNA vaccines. Doctors warned that more research should have been conducted to weigh the risk and benefits for certain age groups and between men and women. For example, Ladapo’s Department of Health warn of a higher risk of cardiac death particularly among young males. “It is against the law to mislead and to misrepresent, particularly when you’re talking about the efficacy of a drug,” DeSantis said of the mRNA vaccine manufacturers. The petition to the Court argued it is “likely” the companies and those who benefit from the vaccines made misleading claims to consumers “for financial gain.”

It specifically points out Moderna and Pfizer’s claims about preventing the COVID-19 disease with “94.1% efficacy” and “91.3% vaccine efficacy.” Earlier in December, DeSantis also announced that a public health integrity committee will be established. The board will advise the public and provide oversight moving forward of the public health establishment. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at Johns Hopkins University and former principal deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told The Hill that DeSantis’ request is not a good example of a “legitimate avenue” for scrutinizing vaccine recommendations.

“This is turning a matter of health and science into a political wedge issue, with the likely consequence that many people will be misled into placing themselves and their families at risk of serious illness and death,” he said. At the roundtable, DeSantis slammed ‘experts’ for dismissing dissenting opinions. “Part of the reason I think it’s been a bad response is because from the very beginning, you had a lot of arrogance, that it’s our way or the highway, and anyone that offers any type of a dissenting opinion, and they were censoring from day one, people that would write anti lock down things in March of 2020, April 2020, some of those would get taken down off some of these big tech platforms,” DeSantis said. “Anything [the CDC will] put out, you just assume, at this point, that it’s not worth the paper that it’s printed on.”

Read more …

Jessica Rose is one of many -but never enough- doctors reinstated on Twitter.

IgG4-Related Disease (IgG4RD) Means Fibrosis And Organ Destruction (Rose)

A recent paper published in Science confirms what many of us have been saying for well over a year now: repeated injections with modified mRNA encapsulated by LNPs messes up your immune system. It messes it up in a specific way. We have evidence from this work that the fibrosis and organ destruction we are witnessing in countless numbers of folks post COVID injection, is due to the shots and more specifically, likely due to the eventual class switching to IgG4 and subsequent prevalence (perhaps dominance) of this antibody subclass. Just so that you know, the typical relative percentages of the four subclasses of IgG in the blood are the following: 60-70% IgG1, 20-30% IgG2, 5-8% IgG3, 1-3% IgG4. So if IgG4 percentages are much higher than 1-3% in the blood, then something is out of the ordinary.

It may even manifest pathologically. To reiterate from my last Substack article, the authors found a 48,075% increase (from 0.04% – 19.27%) in spike-specific IgG4 antibodies in test subjects between the 2nd and 3rd injections of the Comirnaty product, so I suppose this would translate to a presence of IgG4 in the blood at levels higher than 1-3%. Probably closer to 20%? In any case, the shift in IgG subclass ratios is notable following the 2nd and 3rd injections. Before I dig into IgG4RD, I want to make something clear. The role of IgG4 as a ‘tolerizing antibody’ is inherently linked to T regulatory cells (Tregs) – the immune ‘tolerancers’: IgG4 is not directly responsible for tolerization. This means that IgG4 is not so much the tolerizer, as it is a medium for tolerization via Tregs.


I think calling it a tolerizing antibody is appropriate. I have provided background on Tregs in a previous Substack, but I will give a very quick summary here of their role in immunological tolerance – and also what immunological tolerance is! Immunological tolerance is the process of making sure that your immune system doesn’t turn on you. Imagine if you didn’t have a system in place to ensure that your immune cells only recognized foreign antigens as bag guys? Imagine what would happen, therefore, if your immune cells recognized your antigens as bad guys? Maybe… autoimmunity? An antigen (Ag) is a molecule that can bind to a specific antibody or T-cell receptor. Antigens can be proteins, peptides (amino acid chains), polysaccharides (chains of monosaccharides/simple sugars), lipids, or nucleic acids.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

BBee woman

 

 

 

 

Throwback to subprime. John Bird (smaller of the two Johns) died aged 86 yesterday.

 

 

 

 

Big art

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 282022
 
 December 28, 2022  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  77 Responses »


Lorenzo Monaco (Piero di Giovanni) Nativity 1406-10

 

The Most Important Question (Saker)
US Should Think Twice Before Contemplating ‘Decapitating Strike’ – Lavrov (RT)
Russia Issues Cyber Warning About Ukraine (RT)
US Adviser To Ukraine Calls For Cluster Bombs (RT)
Putin Bans Russian Oil Exports To Countries That Implement Price Cap (R.)
Every Social Media Company Censoring For Government – Elon Musk (RT)
63% of Americans Want FBI ‘Censorship’ of Twitter Investigated (ET)
Twitter Won’t Go Bankrupt Anytime Soon – Musk (RT)
World Economic Forum Cancels Twitter (Schachtel)
TEACH Your Kids, and LEARN Yourself (Denninger)
CIA Should Get Out of the Laboratory (John Kiriakou)
Fighting the ‘Psyopcracy’ (Lauria)
What Did Nancy Pelosi Know and When Did She Know It? (Julie Kelly)
Do Covid mRNA Vaccines Damage Our Immune Systems? (Berenson)
The Sudden Decline In Birth Rates Post-Vaccination (Horowitz)

 

 

 

 

Rogan Gates

 

 

 

 

libsoftiktok

 

 

 

 

Julian
https://twitter.com/i/status/1607804349857554433

 

 

 

 

 

 

Existential: “So, will we make it to December 31, 2023? Maybe, but this is by no means sure.”

The Most Important Question (Saker)

For Russia this war is clearly, undeniably and officially an existential one. To dismiss this reality would be the height of folly. When the strongest nuclear power on the planet declares, repeatedly, that this is an existential war everybody ought to really take it seriously and not go into deep denial. For the US Neocons this is also an existential war: if Russia wins, then NATO loses and, therefore, the US loses too. Which means that all those SOBs who for months fed everybody nonsense about Russia loosing the war to the general public will be held responsible for the inevitable disaster.

[..] I submit that the fact that the US ruling class is seriously contemplating both a “limited” use of “tactical” nukes and “decapitating strikes” is a very good indicator of the fact that the US is running out of Wunderwaffen and that the Neocons are desperate. And to those who might be tempted to accuse me of hyperbole or paranoid delusions I will say the following: This war is NOT, repeat, NOT about the Ukraine (or Poland or the three Baltic statelets). At its absolute minimum this is a war about the future of Europe. Fundamentally it is a war about the complete reorganization of our planet’s international order. I would even argue that the outcome of this war will have a bigger impact that either WWI or WWII. The Russians clearly understand this (see video above if you doubt that). And so do the Neocons, even if they don’t speak about it.

The current situation is much more dangerous than even the Cuban missile crisis or the standoff in Berlin. At least then both sides openly admitted that the situation was really dangerous. This time around, however, the ruling elites of the West are using their formidable PSYOP/propaganda capability to conceal the true scope what is really going on. If every citizen of the US (and EU) understood that there is a nuclear and conventional cross-hairs painted on his/her head things might be different. Alas, this is clearly not the case, hence the non-existent peace movement and the quasi consensus about pouring tens of BILLIONS of dollars into the Ukrainian black hole. Right now, the crazies are playing around with all sorts of silly ideas, including booting Russia off the UNSC (not gonna happen, since both Russia and China have veto power) or even creating a “peace conference” about the Ukraine without Russia’s participation (in a remake of the “friends of Syria” and “friends of Venezuela” thingie). Well, good luck with that! Apparently Guaido and Tikhanovskaia are not enough to discourage the Neocons and they are now repeating the exact same nonsense with “Ze”.

So, will we make it to December 31, 2023? Maybe, but this is by no means sure. Clearly, this is not an assumption the Kremlin makes, hence the truly immense strengthening of all of Russia’s strategic deterrence capabilities (both nuclear and conventional). God willing, the old adage “si vis pacem, para bellum” will save the day, as Russia is very clearly prepared for any time of conflict, including a nuclear one. China will also get there soon, but it is likely that 2023 will see some kind of end to the Ukrainian war: either a Russian victory in the Ukraine or a full-scale continental war which Russia will also win, (albeit at a much higher cost!). So by the time the Chinese will be truly ready (they probably need another 2-5 years) the world will be a very different place. For all these reasons I submit that 2023 might well be one of the most important years in human history. How many of us will actually survive it is an open question.

Why is Russia Conducting its Special Military Operation this Way?

Read more …

Twice is by no means enough.

US Should Think Twice Before Contemplating ‘Decapitating Strike’ – Lavrov (RT)

Reported comments by US officials about the possibility of a “decapitating strike” against Russia strongly suggest that Washington does not rule out the assassination of President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TASS news agency published on Tuesday. The minister noted that some “‘unnamed officials from the Pentagon actually threatened to conduct a ‘decapitating strike’ on the Kremlin…What we are talking about is the threat of the physical elimination of the head of the Russian state,” he said. The top diplomat went on to warn against such a line of thinking. “If such ideas are actually being nourished by someone, this someone should think very carefully about the possible consequences of such plans.”

Lavrov was apparently referring to a September article by Newsweek, which alleged that US defense officials are considering a number of options to respond against a potential Russian nuclear strike, including “a decapitation strike to kill Putin in the heart of the Kremlin.” Fears of a possible nuclear conflict have been sparked in the West after Putin said in September that Moscow would use “all means” necessary to defend Russia and its people if its territorial integrity is threatened. However, Moscow has repeatedly stated that it has no plans to deploy atomic weapons, maintaining that a nuclear war should never be fought.

The foreign minister also accused some of America’s partners of embracing a confrontational approach in the nuclear sphere. “They seem to have gone completely beyond the bounds of decency,” he said, recalling that former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss “without a shadow of a doubt declared during the election debates that she was quite ready to order a nuclear strike.” Lavrov also recalled Ukraine’s statements on the matter, saying “I not even mentioning the Kiev regime’s provocations, that go off the chart. [Ukrainian President] Vladimir Zelensky went as far as to demand preventive nuclear strikes by NATO countries on Russia. This is also beyond the bounds of what is acceptable,” he noted.

Read more …

“..the US-led military bloc “is essentially distributing digital weapons in an uncontrolled fashion” via Ukraine..”

Russia Issues Cyber Warning About Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine poses a global challenge to the international community, as the country is being used by NATO as a vehicle for the uncontrolled sharing of cyberweapons, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said on Wednesday. Speaking to RIA Novosti, Syromolotov stated that the “threats posed by Ukraine in the information space are of a universal nature.” He went on to say that the US-led military bloc “is essentially distributing digital weapons in an uncontrolled fashion” via Ukraine. These activities could trigger “unpredictable consequences for all members of the international community,” the deputy foreign minister warned. “Today, it is Russia which is in the crosshairs, and tomorrow it may be any other state that Washington dislikes.”

Syromolotov did not elaborate on the type of weapons he meant, but noted that after Russia began its military operation in the neighboring state in late February, it faced “unprecedented external aggression in the information space,” with the number of cyber-attacks on Russia increasing by as much as 80%. Earlier, he claimed that these attacks mostly come from the EU and North America. In October, he said that the US Department of Defense and National Security Agency (NSA) encourage “Russophobia” among international hackers while leveraging the private sector, including tech giant Microsoft, to “implement their aggressive plans.” The US-based company has committed more than $400 million in support of Kiev.

In early August, Syromolotov also claimed that the US and their allies had admitted to creating a volunteer “IT-army of Ukraine” to attack Russian infrastructure. This came after General Paul Nakasone, the head of US Cyber Command, confirmed that Washington had “conducted a series of operations” in support of Kiev, including offensive, defensive, and information operations. In September, the Washington Post revealed that the US had developed a network of fake social media accounts to conduct psychological and information warfare and spread pro-Western narratives. It allegedly deployed hundreds of accounts over the past five years, to advance “anti-Russia narratives.”

Read more …

“..though the export of such weapons has been banned by Congress, media outlets such as Politico have suggested that President Joe Biden and even his Secretary of State Antony Blinken could potentially override this ban.”

US Adviser To Ukraine Calls For Cluster Bombs (RT)

Dan Rice, an American adviser to the Ukrainian military, has called on Washington to authorize the delivery of cluster munitions to Kiev to increase its “base lethality” and “win the war” against Russia. During an interview with CNN last week, Rice, who is officially the special adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, insisted that the US “really needs to” supply Kiev’s forces with cluster bombs. They are like throwing “a flame thrower at a bunch of ants” and would “multiply the artillery shells by five to ten times more lethal,” he argued, according to a transcript posted by the channel. “This is how you increase the base lethality and win the war. If we want to win it, we need to give them something like that,” he told the outlet, calling cluster bombs a “game changer.”

However, he noted that US President Joe Biden’s administration is not currently willing to supply such munitions to Ukraine, as it would anger Western European states that have signed a treaty banning these weapons. “According to our own policy, we have concerns about the use of those kinds of munitions,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists earlier this month. The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) banning these types of weapons was signed by over 100 nations, including most EU member states. Russia, the US and Ukraine have not signed the Convention. One of the main concerns related to cluster bombs is the large amount of unexploded munitions left behind after strikes which pose a threat to civilians.

Rice, however, insists that Kiev forces would use these weapons responsibly and “clean up” after themselves “as soon as they liberate a town.” Russia has repeatedly accused Kiev of using Soviet-made cluster bombs both before and after Moscow launched its military campaign against the country. In March, the Ukrainian army reportedly used a Tochka-U missile with a cluster payload to strike the center of Donetsk, leaving over 20 civilians dead and dozens injured. In October, Russian officials accused Kiev’s forces of using a cluster munition for the US-made HIMARS rocket launcher to strike a river crossing in Kherson, which killed four civilians, including a journalist. Kiev has denied responsibility for the attacks.

The US is believed to be sitting on a stockpile of cluster munitions but has so far refrained from officially sending any of it to Ukraine. However, even though the export of such weapons has been banned by Congress, media outlets such as Politico have suggested that President Joe Biden and even his Secretary of State Antony Blinken could potentially override this ban.

Read more …

Consistent.

Putin Bans Russian Oil Exports To Countries That Implement Price Cap (R.)

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday delivered Russia’s long-awaited response to a Western price cap, signing a decree that bans the supply of crude oil and oil products from Feb. 1 for five months to nations that abide by the cap. The Group of Seven major powers, the European Union and Australia agreed this month to a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil effective from Dec. 5 over Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. The cap is close to the current price for Russian oil, but well beneath the windfall price Russia was able to sell for this year and that helped offset the impact of financial sanctions on Moscow.


Russia is the world’s second-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, and a major disruption to its sales would have far reaching consequences for global energy supplies. The decree, published on a government portal and the Kremlin website, was presented as a direct response to “actions that are unfriendly and contradictory to international law by the United States and foreign states and international organisations joining them”.

Read more …

“..mountains of domestic moderation requests.”

Every Social Media Company Censoring For Government – Elon Musk (RT)

All social media platforms work with the US government to censor content, Twitter CEO Elon Musk claimed on Tuesday. Documents released by Musk following his purchase of Twitter showed that the platform colluded with the FBI, CIA, Pentagon and other government agencies to suppress information on elections, Ukraine, and Covid-19. “*Every* social media company is engaged in heavy censorship, with significant involvement of and, at times, explicit direction of the government,” Musk tweeted, adding that “Google frequently makes links disappear, for example.” Musk was referring to internal Twitter communications published by journalist Matt Taibbi, which suggested that the platform’s senior executives held regular meetings with members of the FBI and CIA, during which the agencies gave them lists of “hundreds of problem accounts” to suspend in the runup to the 2020 election.

In addition to Twitter, the government was in contact “with virtually every major tech firm,” Taibbi claimed. “These included Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit, even Pinterest.” CIA agents “nearly always” sat in on meetings of these firms with the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, Taibbi claimed, explaining that although this task force was convened to fight alleged election interference by foreign states, it made “mountains of domestic moderation requests.” A lawsuit filed earlier this year by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana alleges that officials from no fewer than 12 government agencies met weekly with representatives of Twitter, Facebook, and other Big Tech firms in 2020 to decide which narratives and users to censor, with topics ranging from alleged election interference to Covid-19.

A self-described “free speech absolutist,” Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October. He has since released batches of documents shedding light on the platform’s previously opaque censorship policies. Published by several independent journalists, these document dumps have shown how Twitter suppressed information damaging to Joe Biden’s election campaign, colluded with the FBI to remove content the agency wanted hidden, assisted the US military’s online influence campaigns, and censored “anti-Ukraine narratives” on behalf of multiple US intelligence agencies. The FBI said last week that correspondence between its agents and Twitter staff “show nothing more than examples of our tradition [of] longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements.”

Read more …

Let’s see them do it.

63% of Americans Want FBI ‘Censorship’ of Twitter Investigated (ET)

A majority of Americans want Congress to investigate whether the FBI was involved in censoring posts on Twitter and other social media sites following new revelations from billionaire CEO Elon Musk’s release of the “Twitter Files,” a poll released on Dec. 26 found. A total of 63 percent of likely voters think Congress should probe “whether the FBI was involved in censoring information on social media sites” and only 22 percent oppose such an investigation, the poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports found. Another 15 percent said they weren’t decided. Rasmussen also found that 63 percent “believe it is likely that the FBI encouraged social media sites like Facebook and Twitter” to “suppress, silence, or reduce the reach of certain political speech and speakers.”

About 27 percent said it isn’t likely that the FBI didn’t try to silence or suppress political speech on social media, and 11 percent said they’re not sure. About 46 percent view the FBI unfavorably, while 50 percent view the bureau favorably, the poll showed. Some 74 percent of Democrats have a favorable opinion of the FBI, while only 34 percent of Republicans share the same perception. About 40 percent of Republicans, 28 percent of unaffiliated voters, and 10 percent of Democrats have a “very unfavorable” opinion of the law enforcement agency, it found. The survey was released after several journalists published Twitter’s internal communications, showing that the FBI had extensive communications with Twitter’s previous management before Musk’s takeover. Starting in early December, Musk endorsed the disclosure of that information, known as the “Twitter Files.”

House Republicans have signaled they’re willing to conduct a top-to-bottom of investigation of the FBI following the recent disclosures on Twitter. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have floated a Church Committee-style probe, referring to the 1970s investigations led by then-Sen. Frank Church into allegations of U.S. government spying on its own citizens. “We’ve been looking at a Church-style committee to look at this,” Jordan told Just the News last week. McCarthy also told Fox News, “We’ve got to get to the very bottom, and I think just subpoenas are starting, but you’re almost going to have to have a Church-style investigation to reform the FBI, the more that we are learning.”

Read more …

“..in the beginning, we’ll make a lot more mistakes because I’m new. Hey, I just got here, man!“

Twitter Won’t Go Bankrupt Anytime Soon – Musk (RT)

Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, has stated that the social media platform is no longer “in the fast lane to bankruptcy.” However, Musk said that there is a lot that needs to be done on the platform. “But overall it seems to be heading in a good direction,” he said. Musk said over the weekend on the All-In podcast that the company will not be filing for bankruptcy soon. He said, “We’ve got the expenses reasonably under control, so the company’s not in the fast lane to bankruptcy anymore. It has been quite a roller coaster. It has its highs and lows, to say the least, but overall it seems to be going in a good direction.” Following the podcast, Musk tweeted saying that Twitter is not secure yet and there is still “much to do.” The Twitter boss further shared on the podcast: “My error rate and sort of being the chief twit will be less over time but, in the beginning, we’ll make a lot more mistakes because I’m new. Hey, I just got here, man!”


He added: “If you look at the actual amount of improvement that has happened at Twitter in terms of having costs that aren’t insane and shipping product that, on balance, is good, I think that’s great. We’re executing well, and getting things done.” The billionaire first warned about the prospect of bankruptcy for Twitter just a few weeks after he took over the social media platform. After purchasing Twitter for about $44 billion at the end of October, Musk immediately made some drastic changes to the platform as he focused on free speech. Soon the company lost half of its top 100 advertisers which made up a large chunk of Twitter’s revenue. Since then Musk has been trying to generate revenue for the social media company, including charging $8 ($11 for iPhone users) a month for the Twitter blue checkmark.

Read more …

Schwab goes TikTok.

World Economic Forum Cancels Twitter (Schachtel)

Prior to its upcoming conference in Davos next month, the World Economic Forum (WEF) appears to have joined the cancel campaign against Twitter, taking to recommending Chinese state-controlled social media apps to “follow along” with Davos Man into the future. Twitter is noticeably absent from the entities listed on the organization’s “How to follow Davos 2023” social media pamphlet, and that appears to be no accident. To stay up to speed with all that is happening within the invite-only doors of the ruling class confab, the WEF recommends following along through a handful of social media sites. They include the U.S.-based narrative-compliant Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, along with the Chinese social media apps TikTok WeChat, and Weibo.

Twitter, which has freed itself from the grasp of the WEF-endorsed censorship-compliant social apps, is no longer included. Through its founder Klaus Schwab and partner organizations, the WEF has a very cozy relationship with the Chinese government. Davos recently revealed that their China office now has 40 full time staffers. Moreover, every year in Beijing, the WEF hosts its “Annual Meeting of the New Champions,” which facilitates partnerships between international businesses and the Chinese Community Party. In 2018, the CCP awarded Klaus Schwab with its China Reform Friendship Medal, a medal for non-Chinese people who do the CCP’s bidding overseas. Davos 2023 will feature Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, on stage. First reported by The Dossier, he will appear at an event titled “Tackling Harm in The Digital Era.”

In case you missed it, The Dossier has obtained an early, partial list of both events and confirmed speakers for Davos 2023. On the agenda for the 2023 conference includes event titles such as Why We Need Battery Passports, Leading The Charge Through Earth’s New Normal, A Living Wage For All, Enabling An Equitable Transition, and Beyond The Rainbow: Advancing LGBTQ+ Rights, among others. The Bird App has faced a ferocious cancel campaign following its change of management. Elon Musk’s pledge to turn Twitter into a free speech platform has met major resistance from the institutional corporate and governmental ruling class. Several WEF partners, such as BlackRock, have joined the attacks against Twitter, boycotting the platform in protest of its “content moderation” policies.

Read more …

“Use your head. It’s Winter.”

TEACH Your Kids, and LEARN Yourself (Denninger)

Cold is much more dangerous than heat is. I can always take off more of my clothes and as long as I can find a source of water and shade, which is not all that hard in most places (Death Valley and similar are exceptions, of course) I won’t die. In 0F cold with the wind blasting at 30kts if I’m caught without shelter and a means of keeping warm I’m dead within hours every single time. Easy times and nostrums make for soft people because thinking becomes optional, or so said people come to believe. When bad things happen soft people die. Don’t be one of them. You were conned into believing a pack of lies, starting with the weather and that this is “all man’s fault” when its warm and then, magically, “all man’s fault” when its cold and is “unprecedented” when utterly none of that is true.

Nashville, which is well south of Buffalo, had a daily mean record low of -5F in 1985. That is not “once in a lifetime”; I was an adult in 1985 and that is a 24 hour mean temperature! Buffalo had a -8F record recorded in 1993 and in fact had a two-day nasty cold snap over Christmas that year so save me the “never before” nonsense as I see plenty of single-digit high temperatures recorded across December in Buffalo, as was the case where I used to live that was at roughly-equivalent latitude, and it often snowed like Hell too because I was on the leeward side of a large lake just as Buffalo is. You were led to believe that magic little box in your pocket could always summon help immediately and you’d get it if you needed it. In short you were led to believe that whatever befell you wouldn’t impact everyone else like, for example, the dude with the tow truck.

What happens when the roads become impassable? Even if your phone works that doesn’t mean someone can get to you. Never mind that this storm was forecast a week in advance so if you didn’t have blankets and survival gear in the car you had plenty of warning and decided to ignore it. Its WINTER. In WINTER it snows. It gets cold — life threatening cold. Cold is not “inconvenient” — it is deadly if you can’t obtain shelter from it or warmth to stave it off. That shelter and/or warmth had better be reliable, 100% of the time or you are very likely to die. If you have a good reason to go out in those conditions (such as work) you need emergency gear in your vehicle sufficient to survive for a day or two because you might need it.

I put over 30,000 miles a year on my rattrap vehicles in the late 70s and early 80s (Buick Skylark with the infamous garbage-can 231-V6 anyone?) and where I lived these sort of outdoor conditions were utterly common from Thanksgiving to roughly the end of March. If I had to go somewhere, I went — but I had proper snow tires on my car, I had emergency equipment in the vehicle and I never left to go anywhere without that stuff because if I crashed or broke down 20 miles from anything and couldn’t keep warm I was going to be dead and I knew it. Stop relying on technology; its great when it works but it doesn’t always work and sometimes the same thing that got you in trouble will prevent those who you would summon from being able to reach you. Its the same thing I tell people who go out in the backcountry — why don’t you have a PLB? Yeah, it costs a bit of money. Can you hike out 10 miles or more down that trail if you break your leg back there? Well? Use your head. It’s Winter.

Read more …

There is much more of this.

CIA Should Get Out of the Laboratory (John Kiriakou)

The Central Intelligence Agency announced in October 2020 — which was ignored until just the past few weeks, when it began circulating on social media — that it had launched something called C.I.A. Labs, “a federal laboratory and in-house research and development arm for C.I.A. to drive science and technology breakthroughs for tomorrow’s intelligence challenges.” [..] The new lab is actually not new. The C.I.A. has long had labs, whether overt or covert, where terrible things happened. Before we celebrate this new C.I.A. lab, let’s look at what its predecessors did.

MKULTRA is probably the best-known example of something awful that came out of a C.I.A. lab. The official explanation to Congress of the purpose of MKULTRA was the development of drugs to aid in interrogations. But it wasn’t quite that simple. Under MKULTRA, the C.I.A. experimented on unwitting Americans, including their own employees. The Church Committee’s investigators concluded that MKULTRA “aimed to develop mind-controlling drugs for use against the Soviet bloc” and “to produce a perfect truth drug for interrogating suspected Soviet spies and to explore other possibilities of mind control.”

MKCHICKWIT was a program whereby the C.I.A. would infiltrate foreign pharmaceutical companies to steal drug samples and information about the drugs’ development. It would then seek to duplicate or to modify those drugs in its own labs. A similar operation, dubbed MKOFTEN, started off as a study on dopamine before morphing into something far more sinister. By the end of the “study,” it had expanded to include the hallucinogen ibogaine and to LSD in the hopes of “creating a new pharmacologically active drug affecting the central nervous system to modify men’s behavior.” Thousands of active duty U.S. servicemen were unwittingly dosed during this operation.

Operation Midnight Climax was a program in the 1960s and 1970s, carried out in C.I.A. safehouses in San Francisco, to dose non-consenting individuals —mostly homeless men and prostitutes — with LSD and other drugs, monitor them from behind one-way glass, and determine if they would voluntarily reveal secrets. The prostitutes eventually were also taught to dose their clients and were then debriefed as to whether or not the johns had revealed any personal secrets. The C.I.A.’s very first foray into drug experimentation was Project CHATTER, in which both animals and humans were dosed with the drugs anabasine (a product of the tobacco plant, it is chemically similar to nicotine,) scopolamine (a drug used to treat motion sickness and post-operative nausea,) and mescaline (a hallucinogen similar to LSD and psilocybin) to see what the effects might be. The operation ended in 1953.

As you can see, the C.I.A.’s track record when it comes to developing things in labs isn’t a good one. And we only know about the above programs thanks to the Church Committee and the Freedom of Information Act. Otherwise, the information likely would still be kept from the American people.

Read more …

“..many examples have followed of completely false stories being planted into people’s minds to start and keep a war going..”

Fighting the ‘Psyopcracy’ (Lauria)

Cathy Vogan, the executive producer of Consortium News‘ webcast CN Live!, recently coined a new term to describe rule by psyops, or psychological operations: psyopcracy. According to Wikipedia: “Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of United States psychological operations is to induce or reinforce behavior perceived to be favorable to U.S. objectives.” William Casey, C.I.A. director under Ronald Reagan, said: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

Thus the American people are continuously subject to a number of psychological operations otherwise known as “the news.” U.S. intelligence officials feed journalists disinformation to create a false narrative that is intended to mislead the public and cover-up what is actually taking place. The constant reinforcement of these lies becomes entrenched in the public mind and after time comes to be accepted as unquestionable truth. [..] Through such operations, the American people were led to believe for years that the United States was winning in Vietnam, when it was actually losing, as the Pentagon Papers proved. Since then, many examples have followed of completely false stories being planted into people’s minds to start and keep a war going, the fake WMD narrative in Iraq perhaps the most infamous.

Today the war people are being fooled about is in Ukraine. Sometimes a psyop doesn’t involve inserting false information, so much as leaving out what’s true. The American people, and by extension people around the world, have been led to believe that an unprovoked Russian madman started the war last February. That’s because they are purposely not told that the war actually began in 2014 after a U.S.-backed coup in Kiev led Russian speakers in Donbass to declare independence, after which the coup government militarily attacked them. Other facts are removed from the story, such as Russia’s proposed treaties with the U.S. and NATO last December that would have prevented Russia’s intervention in the Ukrainian civil war.

Read more …

“In one case, Irving even asked a senior Democratic staffer to ‘act surprised’ when he sent key information about plans for the Joint Session on January 6, 2021 to him and his Republican counterpart. The senior Democratic staffer replied: ‘I’m startled.’”

What Did Nancy Pelosi Know and When Did She Know It? (Julie Kelly)

Analysis of how law enforcement and intelligence services failed to prepare for the “attack,” a promise made by the committee in its original sell job to the public, is buried in a relatively brief appendix at the end. And despite confirmation the government was aware violence might occur—the FBI used a threat tag, “CERTUNREST2021,” purportedly to categorize in advance information related to January 6—federal and local agencies did not prevent what the Biden regime branded a terror attack comparable to 9/11. (FBI Director Christopher Wray’s name is not mentioned once in the report and it appears unlikely he sat for a transcribed interview.)

Even so, in the face of extensive evidence that those agencies were on high alert, committee members still faulted Trump: “Few in law enforcement predicted that the President of the United States would incite a mob attack on the Capitol, that he would send them to stop the joint session knowing they were armed and dangerous, that he would further incite them against his own vice President while the attack was underway, or that he would do nothing to stop the assault for hours,” the report dishonestly stated. Another official who escaped accountability in the report is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the lawmaker mainly responsible for protecting Capitol grounds. Committee members avoided any criticism of Pelosi, instead allowing her to write the foreword. (It’s also unclear whether committee investigators interviewed the speaker.)

For two years, Pelosi has played the role of victimized bystander in the events of January 6 rather than being recognized as the incompetent steward of public safety she is—or worse, someone who was complicit in manufacturing the entire spectacle. After all, her filmmaker daughter just happened to be on site as the historic event, one usually considered a pro forma ceremony, went down. But a competing report also released last week by a handful of Republican House members did not let Pelosi off the hook; to the contrary, “Security Failures at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021” presented new disclosures about how Pelosi’s staff spent weeks ostensibly preparing for the electoral certification vote that afternoon.

“[Then] House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving—who served on the Capitol Police Board by virtue of his position—succumbed to political pressures from the Office of Speaker Pelosi and House Democrat leadership leading up to January 6, 2021,” the report authored by Representatives Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), James Banks (R-Ind.) and others revealed. “He coordinated closely with the Speaker and her staff and left Republicans out of important discussions related to security. Irving only provided information to Republicans after receiving instruction from the Speaker’s office. In one case, Irving even asked a senior Democratic staffer to ‘act surprised’ when he sent key information about plans for the Joint Session on January 6, 2021 to him and his Republican counterpart. The senior Democratic staffer replied: ‘I’m startled.’”

Read more …

Your immune system is shifted to see the virus as a harmless allergen.

I use Berenson’s take, but there’s much more from Igor Chudov: Booster-Caused IgG4 Immune Tolerance Explains Excess Mortality , leaning heavily on Rintrah Radagast’s The Trainwreck Of All Trainwrecks: Billions Of People Stuck With A Broken Immune Response .

Do Covid mRNA Vaccines Damage Our Immune Systems? (Berenson)

A group of German scientists released the research as a preprint in July, but it attracted little notice until Science Immunology formally published it on Dec. 22. It is not clear if the new interest comes because the paper has passed peer review or because Covid’s continued surge is troubling researchers. Like many other scientists, the German researchers measured anti-spike-protein antibodies that people produce after Covid vaccination. Both mRNA and DNA jabs cause the body’s cells to produce spike proteins like those on the surface of the coronavirus. Those proteins then cause the immune system to make antibodies – Y-shaped proteins which attach to pieces of the spikes. In the case of a real coronavirus infection, the vaccine-generated antibodies stick to the surface spikes on the coronavirus and keep it from attaching to our cells.

Confirming hundreds of similar studies, the German researchers found that levels of a crucial antibody called Immunoglobulin G, or IgG, rose dramatically after the second and third mRNA doses. Those increased antibodies have been the triumph of the mRNA vaccines. Then the German scientists took a step other researchers had not. They looked at the specific subtype of IgG antibodies people had produced over time. IgG antibodies come in four subcategories, called IgG1 through IgG4. IgG1 is the most common, while IgG4 is the least, accounting for fewer than 5 percent of all IgG antibodies under normal circumstances. One 2009 review calls it an “odd antibody.” Most notably, unlike the other three antibodies in its class, IgG4 does little to help other immune system cells attack viral or bacterial invaders directly.

Compared to the other IgGs, it rarely promotes “phagocytosis,” the process by which other immune cells “eat” the virus or bacteria to which the antibody has attached. A 2017 review found that it “plays a limited role in the immune process.” In fact, because it provokes a weaker immune response, IgG4 has been shown to become more common in people chronically exposed to allergens. Beekeepers famously develop higher levels of IgG4 antibodies to bee venom over time, for example. When the German researchers looked at the way the classes of IgG antibodies changed over time, they saw something they weren’t expecting. Shortly after a second mRNA dose, vaccinated people had almost no IgG4 spike protein antibodies. Only 0.04 percent of all the IgG antibodies were IgG4 at that point.

But then the level of IgG4 antibodies began to rise. And they skyrocketed after the third shot, topping 19 percent about six months after that jab. In other words, they rose from 1 out of 2,500 shortly after the second shot to about 1 in 5 a few months after the third. In people who had been infected after being receiving a third dose, the percentage of IgG4 antibodies rose even further, in some cases becoming more than half all anti-spike IgG antibodies, the researchers found. The researchers then checked whether the rise in IgG4 antibodies after the third dose had any appreciable effect on people’s overall ability to destroy the virus. They found it had.

Read more …

“It ranks alongside “died suddenly” both in terms of its magnitude to humanity and the shocking degree of silence in response..”

The Sudden Decline In Birth Rates Post-Vaccination (Horowitz)

In 2010, Bill Gates famously articulated a four-part equation to reducing the world’s carbon output. Seemingly bizarrely, his first component was reducing the population — through vaccination. “The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about nine billion,” bemoaned Gates in his now infamous TED Talk. “Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10% or 15%.” Until recently, I thought this must have been a gaffe. After all, how could vaccines reduce the world’s population? Well, enter the COVID jabs – if you even want to call them vaccines – and we might have our answer. Questions about fertility issues, stillbirths, and neonatal deaths began to be raised last winter when Scotland experienced a month of higher infant mortality than at any time over the past three decades.

Then in the spring of 2022, roughly nine months after most young adults were jabbed with the COVID shots, COVID data analysists began noticing unusual drops in birth rates. The hope was that these numbers were just short-term aberrations due to some unknown transient cause. But months later, the evidence is growing too strong to ignore, suggesting a much longer-term problem, which bizarrely has garnered little concern from policymakers, governments, the medical establishment, or the media. It ranks alongside “died suddenly” both in terms of its magnitude to humanity and the shocking degree of silence in response. In fact, some media outlets were even celebrating the low birth rates without expressing any curiosity as to the sudden cause. While it’s impossible to prove definitively that the correlation equals causation, it’s stupefying that these shots are not under suspicion given that they are already tied to heart problems, blood clots, massive inflammatory syndromes, and menstrual irregularities and that the lipid nano particles are deposited largely in the ovaries and the testes.

When you are dealing with 1-in-1,000-year anomalies, it takes a civilization-changing event to account for the anomaly. COVID itself cannot be a factor in the sudden drop, because the birth rates were not declining nine months after COVID hit or even in the first year and a half. The other culprit could have been lockdowns, which perhaps disrupted travel, relationships, and cohabitation. But if that were the case, by now we should be seeing a bounce-back effect. Instead, as my friend “Gato Malo” points out on his Substack, the numbers are getting worse.

Read more …

 

 

 

 


Picasso Moth (Baorisa hieroglyphica)

 

 

 

 

Bald Eagles
https://twitter.com/i/status/1607451350975262722

 

 

Ghost crab

 

 

 

 

 

 

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