Sep 042023
 


Claude Monet Japanese Footbridge 1899

 

A Comprehensive Ukrainian Defeat Is The Only Possible Outcome (Scott Ritter)
US Intelligence Sending Mixed Messages On Ukraine (Larry Johnson)
About 280,000 Individuals Enlisted By Contract From January 1 – Medvedev (TASS)
Hungary Calls For ‘Security Guarantees’ For Russia (RT)
G20: Last Waltz In A World Torn Apart (Bhadrakumar)
Ex-UK Defense Chief Sparked Rift With US Over Helicopter Deal (RT)
NATO May Collapse By 2025 – Academic (RT)
No Respite For France As A ‘New Africa’ Rises (Pepe Escobar)
US Dollar A ‘Very Problematic’ Currency – Zakharova (RT)
Gold’s Role Rises As Dollar Hegemony Falls (ZH)
Soros Vows to Stop ‘MAGA-Style Republicans’ From Winning 2024 Election (Sp.)
US Congress is Older Than Ever, But Reform is Unlikely (Sp.)
Biden Asserts Executive Privilege on Hunter Emails, But Waived Trump’s (GP)
Fani Willis Possesses Evidence Exonerating Georgia’s Alternate Electors (Fed.)
Ivermectin Is a Proven Cure for Covid (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

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Fauci masks

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

“Having articulated the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as an existential struggle where the very survival of NATO is on the line..”

Russians see an existential threat to their country.

In response, NATO pretends to see an existential threat to their power structure.

Not the same thing.

A Comprehensive Ukrainian Defeat Is The Only Possible Outcome (Scott Ritter)

First and foremost, Ukraine must reflect honestly about the causes of this conflict, and which side bears the burden of responsibility for the fighting. ‘Denazification’ is a term that the Russian government has used in describing one of its stated goals and objectives. President Vladimir Putin has made numerous references to the odious legacy of Stepan Bandera, the notorious mass murderer and associate of Nazi Germany who is feted by modern-day Ukrainian nationalists as a hero and all but a founding father of their nation. That present-day Ukraine would see fit to elevate a man such as Bandera to such a level speaks volumes about the rotten foundation of Kiev’s cause, and the dearth of moral fiber in the nation today.

The role played by the modern-day adherents of the Nazi collaborator’s hateful nationalist ideology in promulgating the key events that led to the initiation of the military operation by Russia can neither be ignored nor minimized. It was the Banderists, with their long relationship with the CIA and other foreign intelligence services hostile to Moscow, who used violence to oust the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, from office in February 2014. From the act of illicit politicized violence came the mainstreaming of the forces of ethnic and cultural genocide, manifested in the form of the present-day Banderists, who initiated acts of violence and oppression in eastern Ukraine. This, in turn, triggered the Russian response in Crimea and the actions of the citizens of Donbass, who organized to resist the rampage of the Bandera-affiliated Ukrainian nationalists.

Mariupol

The Minsk Accords, and the subsequent betrayal by Kiev and its Western partners of the potential path for peace that these represented, followed. Ukraine cannot disassociate itself from the role played by the modern-day Banderists in shaping the present reality. In this, Kiev mirrors the militarists of Imperial Japan, whose blind allegiance to the precepts of Bushido, the traditional ‘way of the warrior’ dating back to the Samurai of 17th century Japan, helped push the country into global conflict. Part of Japan’s obligations upon surrender was to purge its society of the influence of the militarists, and to enact a constitution that deplatformed them by making wars of aggression – and the military forces needed to wage them – unconstitutional.

Banderism, in all its manifestations, must be eradicated from Ukrainian society in the same manner that Bushido-inspired militarism was removed from Japan, to include the creation of a new constitution that enshrines this purge as law. Any failure to do so only allows the cancer of Banderism to survive, festering inside the defeated body of post-conflict Ukraine until some future time when it can metastasize once again to bring harm. This is precisely the message that was being sent by Putin when, during the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum this past July, he showed a video where the crimes of the Banderists during the Second World War were put on public display. “How can you not fight it?” Putin said. “And if this is not neo-Nazism in its current manifestation, then what is it?” he asked. “We have every right,” the Russian president declared, “to believe that the task of the denazification of Ukraine set by us is one of the key ones.”

As the Western establishment media begins to come to grips with the scope and scale of Ukraine’s eventual military defeat (and, by extension, the reality of a decisive Russian military victory), their political overseers in the US, NATO, and the European Union struggle to define what the endgame will be. Having articulated the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as an existential struggle where the very survival of NATO is on the line, these Western politicians now have the task of shaping public perception in a manner that mitigates any meaningful, sustained political blowback from constituents who have been deceived into tolerating the transfer of billions of dollars from their respective national treasuries, and billions more dollars’ worth of weapons from their respective arsenals, into a lost and disgraced cause.

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“Putin and his team are seen in the West as weak, control freaks who block the military from taking off the white gloves and making the magic happen..”

US Intelligence Sending Mixed Messages On Ukraine (Larry Johnson)

The U.S. Intelligence Community is not a monolith. It is more like a feudal society. The big three Feudal lords for intelligence analysis are the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). All three produce “raw intelligence” — the CIA’s case officers produce reports from foreigners who have agreed to work in secret for the United States, the NSA scoops up all forms of electronic intelligence (e.g., phone calls, emails) and the DIA produces reports from U.S. Defense Attaches assigned to U.S. embassies around the world. Each jealously guards its own product and the employees of these three agencies can be considered the vassals. (Gots to have a vassal if you’re a feudal lord.)

Then there is the Director of National Intelligence (aka DNI). This position/office was created in the aftermath of 9-11 and is supposed to “manage” and “coordinate” all members of the Intelligence Community. The standard solution in Washington, DC is to create another layer of bureaucracy to solve a failure of already behemoth bureaucracies who rarely cooperate. The reality is something else — the Big 3 do not always kow tow to the DNI. I am hearing that the CIA and the DIA are doing a pretty good job of reporting honestly what is taking place on the ground in Ukraine — i.e., Ukraine is suffering terrible casualties and the counter offensive is failing. Unfortunately, as Sy Hersh has reported previously, Biden and his National Security team are ignoring those intelligence reports and are embracing “analysis” coming out of the Office of the DNI.

The DNI reportedly is proffering the meme that Ukraine is grinding down the Russian military and that the United States and NATO only need to be patient and wait for Russia’s inevitable collapse. Some of the U.S. military leaders — who are flat out ignorant of Russia’s recent history in dealing with a domestic radical Islamic insurgency — firmly believe that Russia cannot win a military victory over Ukraine, that the war is a stalemate and the Russia will be bogged down for years battling Bandera insurgents. The leaders of the USIC and the military still believe in their initial conclusion that Russia is weak because it did not steamroll through Ukraine and rout Zelensky off 12 months ago. They attribute Russia’s “failure” to inept and corrupt bureaucrats keen on reining in the Russian military.

Putin also gets a heavy share of the blame by these leaders for allegedly not listening to the Russian military leaders and Wagner chiefs to do what is necessary to achieve victory. Putin and his team are seen in the West as weak, control freaks who block the military from taking off the white gloves and making the magic happen. Because the US intelligence and military leaders are looking at the war in Ukraine through this prism, the analysts and their managers, for the most part, face enormous pressure to conclude that Russia is a feckless and incompetent near-peer adversary and cannot last.

I continue to believe that the assumptions about Russia’s alleged failure is ignoring the contravening narrative:
• The Russian economy is robust and healthy despite Western sanctions.
• Russia’s political influence in the world is growing, not shrinking. BRICS is a case in point.
• Russia is inflicting enormous casualties on Ukraine’s military and decimating infrastructure critical to the Ukrainian military campaign.
• Russia’s defense industry has ramped up to levels of production that the West cannot match.
• Russia’s seemingly unlimited access to natural resources, energy and rare earth minerals strengthens Russia’s military position in the world.
• Russia enjoys a massive technological advantage over NATO in terms of electronic warfare, air defense systems, mine laying vehicles and hypersonic missiles.
• Russian leaders and their people genuinely believe they face an existential threat from the West.
• Ukraine is totally dependent on the West to provide money and weapons to continue to fight.

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No forced conscription.

About 280,000 Individuals Enlisted By Contract From January 1 – Medvedev (TASS)

Around 280,000 individuals were enlisted by contract with the Russian Armed Forces from January 1, 2023, Deputy Head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said. “Let us continue discussing the critical topic that gathered us here this time in the Far Eastern District. This time I meet heads of regions of the [Russian] Federation in person, in view of significant of the staffing work,” Medvedev said when opening the meeting. “According to data of the Defense Ministry, about 280,000 persons were enlisted by contracts to ranks of the [Russian] Armed Forces since January 1,” he noted. Some of them were in the reserve and the other ones are volunteers, Medvedev added.

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“..Russia does not pose a threat to Central Europe” because Moscow has not been able to accomplish a quick and resounding victory in the conflict..”

Hungary Calls For ‘Security Guarantees’ For Russia (RT)

A lasting peace following the Ukraine conflict can only be achieved if Russia receives security guarantees from the West, Gergely Gulyas, the minister in charge of the Hungarian prime minister’s office, has said. Speaking at a students’ event on Saturday, Gulyas stated that Kiev has no realistic chance of regaining the territories it claims as its own from Russia. He added that “it is also clear that Russia does not pose a threat to Central Europe” because Moscow has not been able to accomplish a quick and resounding victory in the conflict. According to Gulyas, peace talks between Russia and Ukraine are impossible without the involvement of the US.

He further stated that Kiev’s Western backers “must give security guarantees to Russia, but definitely not NATO membership to the Ukrainians,” adding that in the long run, peace between Moscow and Kiev could be maintained through the deployment of peacekeepers. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson last month that “without involving the Russians in a security architecture of Europe, we cannot provide a safe life for its citizens.” Hungary is not the only Western nation to call for Russian interests to be taken into account. Last December, French President Emmanuel Macron urged the West to think about how to provide security guarantees not only to Ukraine, but also to Russia, arguing that NATO must address Moscow’s concerns about the US-led military bloc “coming right up to its doors and deploying weapons that could threaten Russia.”

The debate over security guarantees for Russia heated up before the start of the Ukraine conflict when in December 2021, Moscow presented a list of demands to the US and NATO, asking the West to impose a ban on Ukraine entering the military bloc, while insisting that the alliance should retreat to its borders as of 1997 before it expanded. The overture, however, was rebuffed by the West. President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that Ukrainian neutrality is an issue of “fundamental importance” to Russia, arguing that Kiev’s push to join NATO was one of the key reasons behind the military operation in the neighboring country.

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“I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

G20: Last Waltz In A World Torn Apart (Bhadrakumar)

The Modi government is not perplexed by the absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the G20 Summit on September 9-10. Its intuitive cognition helps to be stoical. This is, arguably, a Shakespearean predicament — “I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” [..] One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the common thread in the decisions taken in Moscow and Beijing is that their leaderships are not in the least interested in any interaction with the US President Joe Biden who will be camping in Delhi for four days with all the time at his disposal for some structured meetings, at the very least, some “pull asides” and the like at a minimum that could be caught on camera.

Biden’s considerations are political: anything that helps to distract attention from the gathering storm in US politics which is threatening to culminate in his impeachment that might in turn blight his candidacy in the 2024 election. Of course, this is not Biden’s Lyndon Johnson moment. Johnson made the tumultuous decision in March 1968 to retire from politics as a strong step toward healing the nation’s fissures, while agonising deeply that “There is division in the American house now.” But Biden is anything but a visionary. He was setting up a bear trap for Putin to reinforce his false narrative that if only the latter dismounted from his high horse, the Ukraine war would end overnight, whereas on its part, the Kremlin is well aware that the White House continues to be the strongest proponent of the thesis that a prolonged war would weaken Russia.

Indeed, Biden has gone to extraordinary extents that none of this predecessors ever dared to reach — aiding and abetting Ukrainian terrorist attacks deep inside Russia. In a way, Xi Jinping also faces a trap, as Biden administration is going to great extent to project itself as conciliatory toward China, as the beeline of US officials heading for Beijing recently would testify — Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in June; Treasury Secretary and Climate Envoy John Kerry in July; and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in August. The New York Times on Tuesday carried a report titled U.S. Officials Are Streaming to China. Will Beijing Return the Favor? It chastised Beijing:

“China has much to gain from dispatching officials to the United States. It would signal to the world it was making an effort to ease tensions with Washington, particularly at a time when China needs to bolster confidence in its shaky economy. A visit could also help lay the groundwork for a potential, highly anticipated meeting between President Biden and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, at a forum in San Francisco in November. “Beijing, however, has been noncommittal.”

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… and lost his job.

Ex-UK Defense Chief Sparked Rift With US Over Helicopter Deal (RT)

Former UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace tried to derail a major deal to buy heavy military helicopters from the US, triggering a diplomatic row between the two long-time allies, The Times reported on Saturday, citing sources. The incident is said to have occurred after Washington reportedly shunned Wallace’s bid to become the next NATO secretary general, although the outlet’s sources insisted that the two issues were not related. According to the paper, Wallace, who resigned on Thursday, spent his last weeks in office trying to cancel the purchase of 14 Boeing Chinook H-47 two-motor lift helicopters. The former defense secretary reportedly had serious doubts about the £2.3 billion ($2.9 billion) deal and suggested canceling it to ease the pressure on the defense budget.

Wallace argued that Britain already has the largest heavy-lift fleet in Europe and favored investment in medium-lift support helicopters, which would have allowed London to save money, the article said. Another concern, according to the report, was that Britain lacked the communications, satellite technology, and transport means to carry out special operations involving US-designed aircraft. However, the initiative left many UK officials unhappy, with one describing it as “mad.” Another Times source suggested that Wallace “was trying to piss off the Americans.” As the diplomatic row was reportedly brewing, Karen Pierce, the UK ambassador to the US, is said to have warned London that canceling the deal would be a bad idea. UK officials reportedly scrambled to calm down their America counterparts, telling them that the tensions would be defused once Wallace was out of the government.

“There has been a lot of reconciliation, just to keep the US reassured,” a source told the paper. The apparent controversy comes after US President Joe Biden refused to endorse Wallace’s candidacy to succeed long-serving NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. According to a Daily Telegraph report in July, Wallace, who was once considered a front-runner for the job, failed to secure Washington’s backing because the UK announced a coalition to help Ukraine procure F-16 fighter jets without first consulting the US. A Times source categorically rejected the “pathetic” speculation that Wallace’s apparent attempts to cancel the helicopter deal were linked to his NATO ambitions. However, one source said that he was “deeply disappointed” that his aspirations to succeed Stoltenberg had come to nothing, which he is said to have blamed on the White House.

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Funny, Tucker Carlson predicted the demise of NATO just a few days ago…

NATO May Collapse By 2025 – Academic (RT)

The return of Donald Trump to the White House could spell the end for US military aid to Ukraine, leaving a divided Europe to foot Kiev’s bills and ultimately ending the NATO pact, academic Phillips Payson O’Brien claimed in The Atlantic on Saturday. Opposition to arming Ukraine is now the position of Trump’s supporter base, who O’Brien estimated account for three quarters of the Republican Party’s electorate. Trump has repeatedly vowed to use military aid as leverage to force Ukraine into peace talks with Russia “within 24 hours” of his inauguration, while his two nearest competitors for the GOP’s nomination – Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy – have also discussed restricting support for Kiev.

Of the three potential candidates, Ramaswamy has gone the furthest, suggesting that the US recognize Russia’s territorial claims in Ukraine in exchange for Moscow distancing itself from Beijing. “If Trump or one of his imitators wins the presidency in November 2024, Europe could find itself faced with a new American administration that will halt all support for Ukraine,” O’Brien warned. In this scenario, he continued, European nations would be unable to make up for the loss of US military aid, resulting in a military defeat for Ukraine. With the US out of the picture, Europe would be divided on the issue too, he added, with the Eastern and Baltic nations eager but unable to keep the arms flowing to Kiev, and Western nations like France and Germany more likely to seek peace with Russia.

“The result could be a legacy of bitterness and distrust at best, and a permanent fracturing of European cooperation at worst,” he stated. A fervent supporter of Ukraine, O’Brien argued that European countries need to increase military production immediately to prepare for this possibility. However, with the Eurozone entering recession in the first three months of 2023 and industrial production down in Germany, European states are unlikely to be able to sustain the Ukrainian military on their own.

O’Brien’s predictions are based on the assumption that Ukraine will still be able to fight by 2025. According to Russian figures, Kiev lost 43,000 men in the first two months of its ongoing counteroffensive, without managing to penetrate the multiple layers of trenches and fortifications laid by Russia along the entire Kherson-Donetsk front line. Before the operation began in early June, multiple Western media reports suggested that continued US and NATO military aid to Kiev depended on the success of the offensive. Now, almost three months in, the counteroffensive is widely regarded as a failure.

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“..Over 30 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day, and in over 60 percent of regions have zero access to healthcare and drinking water.”

No Respite For France As A ‘New Africa’ Rises (Pepe Escobar)

Africa still lags far behind its Eurasian cousins on the road toward breaking the shackles of neocolonialism. The continent today faces horrendous odds in its fight against the deeply entrenched financial and political institutions of colonization, especially when it comes to smashing French monetary hegemony in the form of the Franc CFA – or the Communauté Financière Africaine (African Financial Community). Still, one domino is falling after another – Chad, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and now Gabon. This process has already turned Burkina Faso’s President Captain Ibrahim Traoré, into a new hero of the multipolar world – as a dazed and confused collective west can’t even begin to comprehend the blowback represented by its 8 coups in West and Central Africa in less than 3 years.

Military officers decided to take power in Gabon after hyper pro-France President Ali Bongo won a dodgy election that “lacked credibility.” Institutions were dissolved. Borders with Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and the Republic of Congo were closed. All security deals with France were annulled. No one knows what will happen with the French military base. All that was as popular as it comes: soldiers took to the streets of the capital Libreville in joyful singing, cheered on by onlookers. Bongo and his father, who preceded him, have ruled Gabon since 1967. He was educated at a French private school and graduated from the Sorbonne. Gabon is a small nation of 2.4 million with a small army of 5,000 personnel that could fit into Donald Trump’s penthouse. Over 30 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day, and in over 60 percent of regions have zero access to healthcare and drinking water.

The military qualified Bongo’s 14-year rule as leading to a “deterioration in social cohesion” that was plunging the country “into chaos.” On cue, French mining company Eramet suspended its operations after the coup. That’s a near monopoly. Gabon is all about lavish mineral wealth – in gold, diamonds, manganese, uranium, niobium, iron ore, not to mention oil, natural gas, and hydropower. In OPEC-member Gabon, virtually the whole economy revolves around mining. The case of Niger is even more complex. France exploits uranium and high-purity petrol as well as other types of mineral wealth. And the Americans are on site, operating three bases in Niger with up to 4,000 military personnel. The key strategic node in their ‘Empire of Bases’ is the drone facility in Agadez, known as Niger Air Base 201, the second-largest in Africa after Djibouti.

French and American interests clash, though, when it comes to the saga over the Trans-Sahara gas pipeline. After Washington broke the umbilical steel cord between Russia and Europe by bombing the Nord Streams, the EU, and especially Germany, badly needed an alternative. Algerian gas supply can barely cover southern Europe. American gas is horribly expensive. The ideal solution for Europeans would be Nigerian gas crossing the Sahara and then the deep Mediterranean.

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“..the US initially proposed the dollar as an international currency “to make everyone’s life better, easier, more comfortable.”

US Dollar A ‘Very Problematic’ Currency – Zakharova (RT)

Ever more countries are turning to national currencies for trade rather than use the US dollar, which has become a “very problematic” means of payment, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated in an interview with the Turkish news outlet Aydinlik published on Sunday. According to Zakharova, the US initially proposed the dollar as an international currency “to make everyone’s life better, easier, more comfortable.” “They were very insistent on this, saying that it would bring the world economy to a new level and simplify our transactions and relationships… And at the time, those who made such a policy in the US and abroad… probably wanted to take that first step towards globalization honestly.” Now, according to Zakharova, the dollar is used to pressure Washington’s political opponents.

“What we faced last year is something completely different,” she stated, referring to the numerous Western sanctions placed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict, including an effective ban on Russia using the dollar in international transactions. “There is no simplifying or making our lives easier. The currency is being used as a tool of hegemony and a new kind of colonialism, used to punish, segregate, and make our lives a nightmare.” According to Zakharova, the process of de-dollarization, which Russia and a growing number of other countries have been pursuing in cross-border trade, is not a goal in and of itself but a simple fact of reality.

“They say de-dollarization is a kind of ultimate goal of different organizations or some countries. But it is not. This is not our target. This is just a reality… The dollar is a very problematic currency these days. This is not my political view, it is an objective economic fact.” Zakharova noted that most global economic problems originate in the US, including the 2008 global economic crisis. National currencies, on the other hand, are more stable, which is why an increasing number of countries are opting for them, she believes. They want to establish and create a kind of a guarantee, a financial guarantee system in order not to once again be a victim of an American crisis… It is up to the countries to decide [how to do it], but as I understand it, more and more countries want to do something to avoid becoming another victim of the American financial system,” the official said.

Russia has been reducing the use of the dollar in foreign trade since 2014, but last year’s sanctions forced the country to step up these efforts. For instance, the share of national and ‘friendly’ currencies in the country’s trade with the Eurasian Economic Union grew to nearly 80% in 2022, and is expected to reach 90% by the end of this year. Last week, reports emerged that the BRICS group of emerging economies – which presently comprises Russia, Brazil, India, China, and South Africa, but is due to add six new members next year – is also considering switching all cross-border trade to national currencies.

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“.. this increasingly beleaguered, self-destructive, debased and less popular US currency.”

Gold’s Role Rises As Dollar Hegemony Falls (ZH)

Rickards noted, “It’s the weaponization of the dollar… you’re not just stealing our money with inflation, you’re actually telling us we can’t get it back,” emphasizing that while the BRICS countries might not fully trust each other, they are more likely to trust a “common trading currency backed by gold.” Rule described the U.S. dollar’s previous “exorbitant privilege” advantage is coming to an end, thereby making things more expensive for Americans. “The enemy of the U.S. dollar isn’t in Beijing or Moscow or Riyadh, it’s in Washington.” For Piepenburg, the end-game is clear. Debt drives policy and debt drives current market directions. This debt will not and cannot be sustained by GDP growth or tax revenues,… …which means ultimately money printers will continue to de-value that world reserve currency,… …and hence devalue the once hegemonic respect for the US holder of that currency.

Piepenburg states, “America doesn’t seem to be the America that it was in 1944 or the America that it was under Kissinger in the early 70s,” indicating a significant shift in global economic dynamics. While all experts seemed to agree that gold could play an increasingly important role, Piepenburg was skeptical that national leaders and central bankers would willingly give up their power to print money at will, dubbing this the “Nietzsche thesis,” questioning why leaders would want to “relinquish that ability to print at will.” Overall, the panel agreed that the weaponization and debasement of the dollar have diminished its credibility, setting the stage for other forms of currency or assets like gold to gain importance in protecting investors from this increasingly beleaguered, self-destructive, debased and less popular US currency.

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At your age, you’re supposed to be planting trees whose shade you’ll never sit in.

Soros Vows to Stop ‘MAGA-Style Republicans’ From Winning 2024 Election (Sp.)

The Soros family has waged a years-long political war against Donald Trump and his supporters, with George Soros calling Trump a “danger to the world” and characterizing his ideas as a “threat to democracy.” Trump has alleged that “district attorneys hand-picked and personally funded by” Soros are behind the ongoing effort to put him behind bars. Last month, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations soft power empire announced a dramatic scaling back of funding for operations in Europe, sparking an outcry from liberal activists, NGOs, and think tanks regarding the impact the end of the financial gravy train will have on their operations.

Alexander Soros, the 37-year-old son of the Hungarian-born US billionaire who took the reins at the OSF in June, responded with a manifesto-style appeal this week explaining the shift in focus under his leadership, assuring that the OSF isn’t really “leaving Europe,” and that the region “remains of huge strategic importance.” Rather, Soros indicated, the shift in funding is the result of a shift in focus, from Western to Eastern Europe and the United States. “The future of accountable, democratic government in Europe is now being determined not just in Paris and Berlin but also in Warsaw, Kiev and Prague,” he wrote. “This isn’t about funding levels – it’s about priorities as the focus of funding shifts back to the continent’s east,” Soros Jr. noted, recalling that, after all, his father’s soft power meddling in nations’ political affairs began in Eastern Europe in the 1980s.

Spending in Ukraine won’t be affected by the cuts, Soros assured, recalling with “pride” the $250 million in cash funneled into the country since the 2014 Euromaidan coup, and which played “such an important role in Kiev’s resilience” amid the ongoing NATO-backed proxy war against Russia. The OSF will also continue to “support” operations in Moldova and the Western Balkans, per Soros, and Central European University – the Vienna-based school booted out of Budapest in 2019 amid allegations of meddling in Hungary’s politics. The reorganization will also include a redoubling of Soros foundations’ efforts against Donald Trump and MAGA-style Republicans, Soros indicated, expressing concerns over the impact Trump’s possible return to power in 2024 would have on the OSF’s global agenda.

“As someone who spends up to half their time working on the continent and thinks former United States President Donald Trump – or at least someone with his isolationist and anti-European policies –will be the Republican nominee, I believe a MAGA-style Republican victory in next year’s US presidential election could, in the end, be worse for the EU than for the US. Such an outcome will imperil European unity and undermine the progress achieved on many fronts in response to the war in Ukraine,” Soros opined. Accordingly, he noted, the OSF is being “adapted” to “be able to respond to whatever scenarios might emerge, on both sides of the Atlantic.”

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Same here: plant trees your grandchildren will enjoy.

US Congress is Older Than Ever, But Reform is Unlikely (Sp.)

McConnell is not the only prominent member of US legislature whose health became a point of discussion. Last year, media reported US lawmakers questioning the mental fitness of long-time US senator Dianne Feinstein, who has served as a member of the US Senate since 1992, representing California. In 2023, Feinstein, now aged 90, announced that she will not run for reelection in 2024. This illustrates a trend of US political class becoming older compared with the past, with the 80-year-old incumbent president, Joe Biden, being the most prominent example as the oldest sitting US leader. His predecessor and likely opponent during the 2024 election, Donald Trump, is not that far behind, being 77 years old. According to the FiveThirtyEight polling website, both House and Senate are older than ever before, with the median age for US representatives and senators being 57.8 and 65.3, respectively.

Similar to Feinstein and McConnell, many of those people have been in Congress for decades. “The US Congress and the Presidency constitute a gerontocracy, and I see no chance that such graybeards will reform themselves on that score anytime soon,” John Seery, the George Irving Thompson memorial professor of government and professor of politics at Pomona College, summarized the situation. This development has triggered a conversation about whether it is appropriate for a senior lawmaker to stay in power well into their old age, especially since there is no mechanism to remove them similar to the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, which outlines the procedures for replacing the president or vice president in the event of death, removal, resignation, or incapacitation.

While the both chambers of Congress can expel members with a two-third majority, only 20 lawmakers have been removed this way since 1789, with a majority of those cases involving support for Confederacy during the Civil War.
There have been proposals to introduce age limits for elected officials, which is also not that out of the ordinary, considering there are already minimum age requirements for holding political office. “Now that Americans are living longer, and the consequences of having octogenarians running the country (specifically President Biden and Senator McConnell) are apparent, a conversation around age limits in needed. Public opinion polling has shown that a majority of Americans are in favor of this.

It could also be a consideration for the Supreme Court, as it tends to have the same issues around older justices becoming unwell in post and potentially leaving the bench short of a member,” Clodagh Harrington, a lecturer in US politics at University College Cork, said. When asked whether a version of the 25th Amendment for members of Congress could be passed, the expert noted that even that addition to the constitution has been controversial. “The few times in the modern era that it has been considered in relation to, for example, President [Ronald] Reagan, have caused significant unease. No-one wants to be the person informing the president that they are no longer considered fit for office,” she explained.

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You cannot have two different justice systems for long.

Biden Asserts Executive Privilege on Hunter Emails, But Waived Trump’s (GP)

On Wednesday, America First Legal (AFL) revealed they obtained “over 1,000 emails between Rosemont Seneca and the Office of the Vice (OVP) President” from the National Archives (NARA) via a lawsuit. AFL started the thread on X by saying “The sheer volume of emails exchanged between Hunter and his associates at Rosemont Seneca and the Office of the Vice President is telling in itself.” Joe Biden asserted executive privilege over 200 emails because “release would disclose confidential advice between the President and his advisors, or between such advisors.” Meanwhile, President Trump’s executive privilege was obliterated by Joe Biden. The Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to facilitate the investigation into Trump’s handling of documents, according to memos reviewed by investigative reporter John Solomon.

Joe Biden’s spokeswoman has repeatedly claimed Joe Biden had no knowledge of the raid and that he found out about it in the media. According to the memos, the Biden White House instigated the criminal investigation by eliminating Trump’s claims to executive privilege. Joe Biden paved the way for his Justice Department to arrest his political opponent after he retroactively revoked Trump’s executive privilege. Biden revoking Trump’s executive privilege opened the door for the former president to be subpoenaed – the subpoena then opened the door for the Justice Department to charge Trump with federal crimes. “By May, [White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan] Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor’s claims to executive claims, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.” – John Solomon reported last August.

On May 10, 2022, Acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall sent Trump’s lawyers a letter revealing the Biden White House’s involvement. According to John Solomon, within two weeks of Debra Steidel Wall’s letter to Trump’s lawyers, the DOJ sent a grand jury subpoena to Trump’s counsel demanding he return documents stored at Mar-a-Lago. Shortly after Trump was subpoenaed, the feds showed up to Mar-a-Lago and retrieved some documents and told the former president to put an extra lock on the storage locker. Two months later the FBI descended on Mar-a-Lago and rummaged through Trump’s belongings without allowing any of his lawyers in the area.

By November 2022, shortly after the Mar-a-Lago raid, Jack Smith was appointed special counsel to investigate the documents stored at Trump’s Florida residence. By June 2023 Trump was indicted on 37 counts related to Jack Smith’s classified documents case – 31 counts for willful retention and the other 6 counts included conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, false statements and representations. Meanwhile, Joe Biden hasn’t even been interviewed yet by the special counsel investigating his stolen SCIF-designated documents and he was able to assert executive privilege over 200 emails related to his son Hunter.

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I don’t see Fani last for much longer. What a mess.

Fani Willis Possesses Evidence Exonerating Georgia’s Alternate Electors (Fed.)

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis possesses evidence that exonerates several Republicans she’s targeting in her legal crusade against former President Donald Trump and other Republicans for their lawful contesting of Georgia’s flawed 2020 election. In her Aug. 14 indictment, Willis alleged the existence of Republican electors for Trump constituted an unlawful “conspiracy” to overturn the Peach State’s 2020 election results. Among those charged for partaking in this so-called “conspiracy” are David Shafer, one of Georgia’s 2020 Republican electors, and Ray Smith, who served as one of Trump’s lawyers at the time of the contest. Specifically, Willis claimed Shafer and the other alternate electors “unlawfully falsely held themselves out” as Georgia’s “duly elected and qualified” presidential electors.

She further insisted these electors — with Smith’s assistance — intentionally attempted to “mislead” figures such as then-Vice President Mike Pence and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger “into believing that they actually were such officers.” However, among the documents Willis obtained during her years-long investigation of Republicans was a meeting transcript refuting her allegations. A transcript of the Georgia Republican electors’ Dec. 14, 2020, meeting, obtained by The Federalist, explicitly shows the intent behind casting alternate electors was not to impersonate public officers, as Willis alleged, but to lawfully preserve Trump’s legal challenge to the state’s election results. At the meeting’s outset, Shafer specifically noted how he and his fellow Republicans were acting as “Republican nominees for Presidential Elector,” not as “duly elected and qualified” presidential electors.

“[President Trump] has filed a contest to the certified returns. That contest — is pending [and has] not been decided or even heard by any judge with the authority to hear it,” Shafer said. “And so in order to preserve his rights, it’s important that the Republican nominees for Presidential Elector meet here today and cast their votes.” For context, Shafer and Trump filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Raffensberger in Fulton County state court on Dec. 4, 2020, alleging tens of thousands of illegal votes had been cast in the state’s presidential election. The suit came after a recount, requested by Trump, deemed Biden the winner of Georgia’s 16 electoral votes by a margin of 11,779. The recount prompted Raffensberger to recertify the election on Dec. 7 while Trump’s legal challenge remained ongoing.

By the time Dec. 14, 2020, arrived — the day on which nominees for presidential electors are required by federal law to meet — Trump and Shafer’s lawsuit was still pending. As such, Georgia’s Republican nominees, including Shafer, cast their electoral votes for Trump while the state’s Democrat nominees cast theirs for Biden. During the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting, Shafer further clarified the legal rationale for filing alternate electors in a conversation with Smith, asking Trump’s then-lawyer: “And so the only way for us to have any judge consider the merits of our complaint, the thousands of people we allege voted unlawfully, is for us to have this meeting and permit the contest to continue?” “That’s correct,” Smith replied.

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Coming from a Reagan economist.

Ivermectin Is a Proven Cure for Covid (Paul Craig Roberts)

The Covid years taught me that relatively few doctors are competent, capable of independent thinking, and have the interest to find approved medicines, such as Ivermectin, that are effective against new pathogens. Those doctors saved patients lives to the great distress of the Medical Establishment, and the doctors who saved their patients’ lives are still being punished for doing so. In September 2021, the corrupt American Medical Association told doctors to stop prescribing Ivermectin for COVID-19. In a statement, AMA, along with the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), warned:

“We are alarmed by reports that outpatient prescribing for and dispensing of ivermectin have increased 24-fold since before the pandemic and increased exponentially over the past few months. As such, we are calling for an immediate end to the prescribing, dispensing, and use of ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 outside of a clinical trial.” “In addition, we are urging physicians, pharmacists, and other prescribers — trusted health care professionals in their communities — to warn patients against the use of ivermectin outside of FDA-approved indications and guidance, whether intended for use in humans or animals, as well as purchasing ivermectin from online stores.”

Dr. Joseph Mercola asks. “How many died unnecessarily as a result of these commands?” Mercola’s question is a good one. Those who died from Covid died because of a lack of treatment. For an untested vaccine to be put into use under “emergency use authorization” there must be no cures. Therefore the Medical Establishment, which serves as a marketing agent for Big Pharma, had to deny that there were any cures and to prevent doctors from curing patients with Ivermectin and HCQ before the knowledge of the cure spread. Otherwise the agendas served by the Death Shot would be blocked.

Now that the Medical Establishment has a new Covid variant with which to scare people and an updated dangerous vax, there is talk of a new round of vax, mask, and lockdown mandates. These measures are very dangerous and totally unnecessary. But they maximize profit and control, and that is their purpose. My advice is that if you have a doctor who warns you away from Ivermectin, you have a dumbshit or corrupt doctor who is very dangerous to your life and health. Quickly find another one who has the interest to know the facts and the determination to put his patients ahead of Big Pharma’s profits. And certainly do not trust any corporate hospital.

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Lambs and birds

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 192023
 
 August 19, 2023  Posted by at 8:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  22 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Belshazzar’s feast 1635-38

 

Ukraine Faces A ‘Grim Future’ – Lavrov (RT)
Think Tank Experts Pushing Ukraine Conflict Share A Common Benefactor (Marsden)
Summer of the Hawks (Seymour Hersh)
Zakharova Appeals to Ukrainian Troops: Resist Kiev Regime or Surrender (Sp.)
Biden Sends F-16s To Ukraine Despite Saying This Would Lead To World War 3 (PM)
Biden Administration Officials Doubt Usefulness of Ukrainian Strikes on Crimea (Sp.)
US Judge Dismisses Hunter Biden’s Misdemeanor Tax Charges (Manley)
Divisions Over Niger Creating New Frays in Franco-American Relationship (Sp.)
Niger’s Neighbors Set ‘D-Day’ for Intervention (RT)
Paul Craig Roberts: The End of US Dollar Hegemony (Sp.)
Beijing Bets on BRICS as Biden Ramps Up Tech and Trade War (Sp.)
US Escalates Trade Dispute With Mexico Over GMO Corn (AlJ)
Most Intensive Ivermectin Use Had 74% Reduction in Excess Deaths in Peru (ET)
Assange Be Weary: The Dangers of a US Plea Deal (Kampmark)
Wait for the ending… (Clint Russell)

 

 

Russia at the UN Security Council: “Why should the American people pay out of their own pockets for the military adventures of the Democratic Party?”

 

 

Alex Jones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..the US “does not have the best historical record when it comes to supporting its allies..”

Ukraine Faces A ‘Grim Future’ – Lavrov (RT)

The West is fighting to the last Ukrainian on a fool’s errand to “defeat” Russia, but the prospects for that plan are not looking good, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told International Affairs in an interview published on Saturday. “The future looks rather grim for the Kiev authorities and their patrons,” Lavrov said. “The longer the armed clashes last, the less appetite will the Western investors have to contribute to post-conflict recovery in Ukraine, and the weaker their faith in Ukraine’s success on the battlefield, or its ability to preserve its statehood in any form or within any borders.” That’s without even considering Kiev’s inability to repay its government debt, which will most likely end up as the burden of Western taxpayers, “causing more inflation and lower living standards,” the diplomat added.

Lavrov noted the recent analysis by the Heritage Foundation, which found that the US has already committed $113 billion to Ukraine, which works out to $900 per household, “plus $300 in interest for servicing the corresponding debt.” “These are huge amounts of money, especially considering the challenging situation in the global economy.” Western leaders have vowed to support Kiev “for as long as it takes” and seem to have chosen “fighting until the last Ukrainian,”as has President Vladimir Zelensky, but the US “does not have the best historical record when it comes to supporting its allies,” he said.

“Suffice to remember its abrupt withdrawal of military aid to South Vietnam in 1973 and to Ashraf Ghani’s regime in Afghanistan in 2021, as well as the fact that these moves immediately caused the downfall of the governments loyal to the US,” Lavrov explained, adding that Ukraine today “depends almost entirely” on Western funding and arms deliveries. Russia understands that “the West wants to do away with our country as a serious geopolitical rival,”Lavrov said, but the US and its allies must understand that Moscow “will use all means to defend its people and its vital interests.” “It would be better for our opponents to understand that confrontation with Russia is futile and switch to more civilized, i.e., political and diplomatic means for achieving a balance of interests,”the foreign minister said.

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Former military became too obvious on TV..

Think Tank Experts Pushing Ukraine Conflict Share A Common Benefactor (Marsden)

[..] while the generals of the Iraq War era had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer in representing the interests of the military-industrial complex, the new salesmen of endless armed conflict in Ukraine have overwhelmingly adopted the more subtle model. A study published in 2020 found that the top 50 think tanks received over a billion dollars from the US government and its defense contractors and manufacturers, including some of the biggest beneficiaries of weapons production today ‘for Ukraine’. The top recipients of this funding include the Atlantic Council, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, New America Foundation, RAND Corporation, Center for a New American Security, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Stimson Center.

Some of these black boxes are more ideologically-driven than others. The Heritage Foundation, for example, leans overwhelmingly neoconservative and interventionist. Others, like the Atlantic Council and German Marshall Fund, are effectively force multipliers for NATO talking points. But the RAND Corporation also houses systems analysts and scientists specializing in space and computing. The fact that not all of these entities – or even the people who work within some of them – can be tossed into the same basket and labeled mere parrots for the special interests of their organization’s benefactors helps to muddy the waters.

In an analysis published in June of media coverage related to US military involvement in Ukraine, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft found that, when a think tank is cited regarding the issue, 85% of the time it’s a think tank with “financial backing from the defense industry.” Taken at face value, this risks being interpreted by the general public as expert ‘consensus’ on the need for US taxpayers to continue flooding Ukraine with weapons, unaware that it’s really just a bunch of Pentagon-backed actors agreeing with each other about the need to pursue the most profitable course of action on behalf of their War Inc. sugar daddies. Just like when climate scientists, who have parlayed climate change into endless funding and a perpetual justification for their existence, aren’t going to kill their cash cow by arguing that the climate can’t be controlled by man and that throwing cash at the issue – or at them – is futile.

Many of the Ukraine think tank experts are quick to attack analysis and information published on platforms they don’t like – such as RT – as ‘Russian-backed’. You’d have to be living under a rock these days to not know that RT is linked to Russia. No transparency issues there. But there is far less transparency around their own organizations’ financing. Where is their insistence on being above board about the use of defense industry cash to influence not just the general public but the course of the conflict itself? Around a third of top foreign policy think tanks don’t disclose this Pentagon funding, according to the Quincy Institute. Nor is it unheard of for these experts to springboard from these establishment-friendly platforms and the public notoriety they provide, right into public office – where they can translate the same agenda that they promoted into actionable policy. Isn’t it important for voters to consider the powerful hidden hand who helped to get them there?

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“The jewel in the crown was to be Zelensky’s achievement of Putin’s unconditional surrender after the lightning spring offensive.”

Summer of the Hawks (Seymour Hersh)

It’s been weeks since we looked into the adventures of the Biden administration’s foreign policy cluster, led by Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Victoria Nuland. How has the trio of war hawks spent the summer? Sullivan, the national security adviser, recently brought an American delegation to the second international peace summit earlier this month at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The summit was led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, who in June announced a merger between his state-backed golf tour and the PGA. Four years earlier MBS was accused of ordering the assassination and dismemberment of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, for perceived disloyalty to the state. As unlikely as it sounds, there was such a peace summit and its stars did include MBS, Sullivan, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

What was missing was a representative of Russia, which was not invited to the summit. It included just a handful of heads of state from the fewer than fifty nations that sent delegates. The conference lasted two days, and attracted what could only be described as little international attention. Reuters reported that Zelensky’s goal was to get international support for “the principles” that that he will consider as a basis for the settlement of the war, including “the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the return of all Ukrainian territory.” Russia’s formal response to the non-event came not from President Vladimir Putin but from Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov. He called the summit “a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts” to mobilize the Global South behind Zelensky.

India and China both sent delegations to the session, perhaps drawn to Saudi Arabia for its immense oil reserves. One Indian academic observer dismissed the event as achieving little more than “good advertising for MBS’s convening power within the Global South; the kingdom’s positioning in the same; and perhaps more narrowly, aiding American efforts to build consensus by making sure China attends the meeting with . . . Jake Sullivan in the same room.” Meanwhile, far away on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia continued to thwart Zelensky’s ongoing counteroffensive. I asked an American intelligence official why it was Sullivan who emerged from the Biden administration’s foreign policy circle to preside over the inconsequential conference in Saudi Arabia.

“Jeddah was Sullivan’s baby,” the official said. “He planned it to be Biden’s equivalent of [President Woodrow] Wilson’s Versailles. The grand alliance of the free world meeting in a victory celebration after the humiliating defeat of the hated foe to determine the shape of nations for the next generation. Fame and Glory. Promotion and re-election. The jewel in the crown was to be Zelensky’s achievement of Putin’s unconditional surrender after the lightning spring offensive. They were even planning a Nuremberg type trial at the world court, with Jake as our representative. Just one more fuck-up, but who is counting? Forty nations showed up, all but six looking for free food after the Odessa shutdown”—a reference to Putin’s curtailing of Ukrainian wheat shipments in response to Zelensky’s renewed attacks on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland.

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Many would surrender given the chance.

Zakharova Appeals to Ukrainian Troops: Resist Kiev Regime or Surrender (Sp.)

Maria Zakharova, the official spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, has advised soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to either turn their weapons against the Kiev regime or surrender. The diplomat’s comment was published on the ministry’s official website. “We strongly recommend Ukrainian servicemen who are convinced of the criminal nature of the bandit junta that has seized their country to either turn their weapons against it or surrender to our forces,” the official noted. Zakharova also emphasized that in such cases, the humane and dignified treatment of Ukrainian military personnel will be ensured. She also stressed that the criminal Kiev regime continues to shell Russian cities and villages with NATO weapons, including with banned cluster munitions. These actions result in civilian casualties, including children.


In early July, the US government announced it would send hundreds of thousands of cluster bombs to Ukraine to aid its struggling counteroffensive. The munitions, fired from howitzers, are intended to bolster Ukrainian forces. The move came after significant losses, including more than 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers and more than 4,900 military vehicles. The US pre-positioned these weapons prior to the announcement, and their use began shortly thereafter. These cluster bombs, similar to depleted uranium shells in Ukraine’s tanks, pose the risk of widespread unexploded bomblets, leaving areas dangerous for years. The US and its allies have provided nearly $100 billion in support since February 2022 as Ukrainian forces face Russian superiority, raising concerns about waning Western interest in the ongoing conflict.

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“..just understand, don’t kid yourself, no matter what y’all say, that’s called World War III,” Biden said..”

Biden Sends F-16s To Ukraine Despite Saying This Would Lead To World War 3 (PM)

A US official announced on Thursday that the Biden administration has approved the sending of American F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands. According to Reuters, the US gave official assurances to Denmark and the Netherlands that an expedited approval of transfer requests for F-16 jets to go to Ukraine would be given as soon as pilots are trained. “We welcome Washington’s decision to pave the way for sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine,” Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said. “Now, we will further discuss the subject with our European partners.” Danish defence minister Jakob Ellemann-Jensen said on Friday, “The government has said several times that a donation is a natural next step after training. We are discussing it with close allies, and I expect we will soon be able to be more concrete about that.”

The Danish defence ministry said that a coalition of 11 countries will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly the jets in Denmark later this month. In 2022, Biden said of sending US jets into Ukraine, “that’s called World War III,” rejecting Poland’s offer at the time to transfer 28-Soviet-designed MiG-29s after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Poland had a “green light.” “The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews — just understand, don’t kid yourself, no matter what y’all say, that’s called World War III,” Biden said. In January, he was asked if he would send F-16s to Ukraine, and responded simply “no.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, has continued to insist that the planes be given, and as with almost all that Zelensky has asked for Biden relented. In March, Ukrainian fighter pilots were trained on F-16 simulators in Arizona, allowing “us to better help Ukrainian pilots become more effective pilots and better advise them on how to develop their own capabilities,” a defense official said at the time. By May, Biden had authorized sending F-16s to Ukraine from G7 allies who had their own stock of jets. Russia has warned that they saw this move as a US and allied escalation in the ongoing conflict.

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“..a distraction and waste of valuable resource..”

Biden Administration Officials Doubt Usefulness of Ukrainian Strikes on Crimea (Sp.)

The decision by the Ukrainian military to strike targets on the Crimean Peninsula is being perceived with skepticism by several officials in the US government, a American TV broadcaster reported on Friday. As the Ukrainian armed forces continuously increase their strikes on Crimea in attempts to disrupt Russian logistics and military supply chains, a number of officials from President Joe Biden’s Administration are expressing doubt about the usefulness of such initiatives, the media mentioned. Targeting Crimea is seen as a distraction and waste of valuable resources at a time when Ukraine has considerably stretched its combat axes, the official stated, adding that although the Russian military has been slightly affected, the attacks haven’t decisively changed the situation at the frontlines.


“It’s knocked the Russians off balance a bit, but it is not doing anything decisive,” a senior officer told the agency, claiming that it would be best if the focus were placed on the counteroffensive. The report added that attacking Crimea is part of Ukraine’s counteroffensive strategy, but due to the recent nature of the increased strikes, the US and its allies have a hard time assessing the impact it is having on Russia’s efforts to contain Kiev’s offensive operations. The agency said the US is not actively advising Ukraine to strike Crimea, specifying that the longer the counteroffensives stalls, the higher the chances of failure are.

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“Appointing David as a special counsel is like keeping the concept of a [Justice Department] protecting Democrats while hunting Republicans..”

US Judge Dismisses Hunter Biden’s Misdemeanor Tax Charges (Manley)

A federal judge handling Hunter Biden’s case made the decision on Thursday to dismiss misdemeanor tax charges against the president’s son, a move that came not long after his plea deal collapsed and a special counsel was assigned to his ongoing investigation. The two misdemeanor charges dropped by US District Judge Maryellen Noreika include Hunter’s failure to pay his taxes on time in 2017 and 2018. Special counsel David Weiss had asked that the charges in Delaware to be dismissed so that new charges could be brought in California or Washington, DC. The decision was agreed to by Hunter Biden’s lawyers as those charges were attached to a now-defunct plea deal.
Weiss was appointed to lead the case against Hunter last Friday by Attorney General Merrick Garland, a decision largely criticized by Republicans.


“Appointing David as a special counsel is like keeping the concept of a [Justice Department] protecting Democrats while hunting Republicans,” said Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) in an interview with US media last week. “I can’t think of a more forceful sign that nothing has changed.” While Hunter had agreed to plead guilty to his misdemeanor charges in exchange for a probation sentence, the deal fell apart during a plea hearing over a separate gun charge as well as questions the judge had about the deal. “After the hearing, the parties continued negotiating but reached an impasse. A trial is therefore in order,” said prosecutors last week, indicated they would charge Hunter in either Washington, DC or California. “The Government, in the exercise of its prosecutorial discretion, is considering what tax charges to bring in another district and may elect to bring the same charges set forth in the instant information or different ones,” the filing said.

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“..90% of the Nigerien population has zero access to electricity, and Niger gets to keep just 13% of the value of the uranium mined there…”

Divisions Over Niger Creating New Frays in Franco-American Relationship (Sp.)

The United States and France are once again at odds, this time over how best to respond to the military takeover in Niger last month. While the two allies share a common goal of restoring the ousted pro-Western government, Washington has upset Paris by charting its own path in what the French commonly regard as their own backyard. French diplomats are furious that their American counterparts are willing to speak with the Nigerien government in power, especially without preconditions, according to reports in Western media. They fear that any kind of engagement will further legitimize the Nigerien military’s actions.

[..] After the military seized power on July 26 and placed the ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, under house arrest, the new government asked French forces to leave the country – they refused. As talk grew of a military intervention, either by the US, France, or the West African bloc ECOWAS, the governments of Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea issued a joint statement declaring an attack on Niger was an attack on all four countries. That hasn’t stopped ECOWAS from pushing ahead with intervention plans, summoning its member nations’ standby forces and holding preparatory talks in Ghana on Thursday. Cote D’Ivoire, Benin, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Nigeria have all shown support for the initiative. Over the last three years, the other three nations – all former French colonies like Niger – have seen coups, uprisings, and revolutions that have deposed unpopular pro-French governments.

With the exception of Guinea, the Sahelian countries have seen years of war as French forces waged a War-on-Terror-style military campaign against Islamist rebels, many of whom have capitalized on the chaos in nearby Libya created by the NATO war that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The highly unpopular wars, which have succeeded more at killing innocent civilians than they have at quashing the rebels, have been increasingly opposed by local residents, and the new governments have severed their cooperation with French operations after coming to power. Moscow has voiced its support for the Nigerien military government and vocally opposed an intervention to restore Bazoum to power.

A poll earlier this month that mostly sampled residents of the country’s capital and largest city, Niamey, found extremely wide support for the coup: 78% support the military’s actions and 73% believe it should stay in power for an extended period, or until new elections can be held. Niger was a French colony until winning its independence in 1960. Despite the formal separation, France has retained a powerful hold on Nigerien politics and economics, with French companies owning all or part of the three largest uranium mines in Niger, which together supply fuel to nuclear power plants that keep one-third of the lights on in France. Meanwhile, 90% of the Nigerien population has zero access to electricity, and Niger gets to keep just 13% of the value of the uranium mined there.

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ECOWAS has already fallen apart..

Niger’s Neighbors Set ‘D-Day’ for Intervention (RT)

Military chiefs of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have decided on a date for sending troops into Niger, the bloc’s Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security Abdel-Fatau Musah said on Friday. “We are ready to go anytime the order is given,” Musah told reporters after the two-day meeting of the bloc’s Committee of Chiefs of Defense Staff in Accra, Ghana. “The D-day is also decided. We’ve already agreed and fine-tuned what will be required for the intervention.” “Let no one be in doubt that if everything else fails, the valiant forces of West Africa, both the military and the civilian components, are ready to answer to the call of duty,” Musah said.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the military meeting, Musah brought up previous ECOWAS deployments in Gambia and Liberia as examples of successful intervention, and vowed that “constitutional order will be restored” in Niger “by all means available.” The bloc was also preparing a “mediation mission” to Niamey, he added, in order to give diplomacy a chance. Earlier this week, the ECOWAS military chiefs announced they had “commenced the activation of the Standby Force” for intervening in Niger, where the military ousted President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26.

ECOWAS initially gave Niamey a seven-day deadline to restore Bazoum, said it had “finalized plans” for intervention on August 4, and announced the activation of the Standby Force force on August 10. According to the French broadcaster RFI, the bloc is mustering about 25,000 troops, mostly from Nigeria and Senegal. Not all members of the bloc are on board with intervention. Chad and Guinea have opposed both sanctions on Niger and military deployment. The military governments in Burkina Faso and Mali said they would regard any military move against Niamey as a declaration of war against themselves.

Niger has accused ECOWAS of acting as the proxy of France, the country’s former colonial ruler. Speaking on Friday, Musah insisted that the bloc is a “rules-based organization,” ready to intervene alone or with support of “other democracy-loving partners.” Niger’s uranium mines provide a substantial amount of fuel for France’s nuclear reactors. Paris has 1,500 soldiers based in the country, which the new government in Niamey wants gone. The US has another 1,000, likewise declared unwelcome. They were deployed to fight against a variety of terrorist and insurgent groups that arose in the Sahel in the aftermath of NATO’s 2011 “regime change” intervention in Libya. In recent years, the military governments in Mali and Burkina Faso have ordered all Western troops to leave, turning to the Russian Wagner Group for security services instead.

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“This change is not really dramatic and all at once, but it’s ongoing,” Roberts said, emphasizing the gradual nature of the process.”

Paul Craig Roberts: The End of US Dollar Hegemony (Sp.)

“The problem with the dollar has been brewing for a very long time. And I think in order to comprehend the kinds of problems the United States is very likely to face in the near future, we need to understand what is going wrong with the American economy and how the dollar has been set up for a serious loss in value,” Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, a veteran economist, author and former assistant secretary of the Treasury, told Sputnik. “That,” Roberts said, and not never-ending debates about the prospects of a recession, or even who the current occupant of the White House is, is the “pertinent problem” for the United States and the rest of the world today.

Delving into the history of the dollar’s status as a world reserve currency, from the creation of the Bretton Woods Agreement-based financial world order after World War II to President Nixon’s deal with Saudi Arabia to create the petro-dollar in the 1970s, the economist noted that reserve currency status has endowed the US with the power to basically create money and debt out of thin air, and to facilitate economic policies which no other country on Earth could afford to pursue. “All central banks held their reserves in dollars or in dollar-denominated assets, US Treasury bonds, and today, US equities. So there’s been a huge demand for dollar-denominated assets, financial assets, stocks and bonds, bills that are held as reserves by all foreign central banks. That’s how they settle their trade differences.

What this means is that there’s always financing for America’s budget deficits and America’s trade deficits because the dollars are reserves and countries use them to settle their trade differences. And of course, [as] the world economy grows slowly over time, the amounts become larger. So there’s never been a problem with financing US debt – neither the budget deficit nor the trade deficit,” Roberts explained. Despite $1 trillion+ deficits becoming “a part of American life,” and the US driving itself further into debt by offshoring its manufacturing base to Asia, most US economists, apart from a handful of fiscal conservatives, didn’t seem to mind this state of affairs, perhaps expecting it to last forever. “But what is changing? Well, we see with the American sanctions on Russia and other countries and the tendency of these sanctions to expand and just be applied anywhere now to any point. What this has done is made other countries realize, ‘hey, holding our reserves in dollars means we’re also under the Americans’ thumb.

If we don’t comply with their foreign policies, their financial policies, they can confiscate our reserves as Washington did to Russia,’” Roberts said. Combined with US efforts to use the dollar to affect adversaries’ ability to engage in international trade, these countries, and others nations, have begun turning to alternatives to American money. “So we see now a movement away from the use of the dollar as reserve currency. We see countries now focusing on keeping their reserves in gold and in the currencies of their trading partners. And we see now that international balances between countries, that trade differences are being settled in other currencies, in their own currencies, in the currencies of their trading partners. This change is not really dramatic and all at once, but it’s ongoing,” Roberts said, emphasizing the gradual nature of the process.

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“Between 2000 and 2021, Chinese exports to Africa skyrocketed from just $5 billion to over $145 billion, climbing further, to $164.5 billion, in 2022..”

Beijing Bets on BRICS as Biden Ramps Up Tech and Trade War (Sp.)

President Xi is set to touch down in South Africa next Monday for a four-day state visit. The overseas trip is Xi’s first since his visit to Moscow in March for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Along with his attendance of the BRICS Summit, the Chinese leader is set to meet with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and other regional leaders for the China-Africa Leaders Dialogue, a platform helping to facilitate Beijing’s ambitious vision for ramping up trade, investment, infrastructure, resource extraction and energy cooperation with the African continent. As a founding member of the BRICS group, China received a new impulse for policy, infrastructure, trade, finance and people-to-people contact-based coordination for its global Belt and Road infrastructure and trade initiative.

Using BRICS, Beijing has been able to ramp up infrastructure cooperation with Russia and other Eurasian Economic Union members, and to sign a memorandum of understanding with South Africa on the construction of a ‘21stCentury Maritime Silk Road’. And although China has grown into an economic superpower in its own right over the past two decades, the BRICS format provides the Asian giant with an important tool of leading developing economies to expand markets and secure crucial natural resources and food. Brazil and India, for example, are among the top five largest food producers in the world, while Russia and South Africa are among the leading global producers of resources like gold, diamonds, bauxite, lithium and chromium in the world. Combined, the BRICS bloc rivals the economic power and influence of the G7.

China was able to forge its economic rise by ramping up investment and trade cooperation with the United States and other Western countries. Even today, the US, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands and Germany remain among the top ten export destinations of Chinese goods. However, under President Xi, China has gradually and carefully moved to reorient trade policy toward other countries, including Russia, and developing nations across Asia, Africa and Latin America. This shrewd strategy, signaling a slow split from the vision of ‘Chimerica’ – the early 21st century vision of an economic super bloc in which China and the US are inexorably linked to one another economically, helped Beijing avoid economic catastrophe after the US launched a continually escalating trade and technology war against China in 2018.

[..] Modest Chinese investment in Africa began in earnest in the 1970s and 1980s, but saw a major boom beginning starting the 2000s as the Asian nation began to bear the first fruits of its drive to become the industrial “workshop of the world.” Between 2000 and 2021, Chinese exports to Africa skyrocketed from just $5 billion to over $145 billion, climbing further, to $164.5 billion, in 2022. China importing some $117.5 billion in goods and resources from the continent last year. Chinese investment in, loans to and trade with Africa have become so intensive over the past decade that it has already overtaken the United States as the continent’s largest trading partner, and is expected to top the European Union’s combined trade with Africa by the end of the current decade.


BRICS Johannesburg 2018. Xi, Ramaphosa, Putin.

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“Mexico’s approach to biotechnology is not based on science and runs counter to decades’ worth of evidence demonstrating its safety..”

US Escalates Trade Dispute With Mexico Over GMO Corn (AlJ)

The United States has escalated its objections to Mexico’s curbs on genetically modified corn imports, requesting a dispute settlement panel under the North American trade pact, the US Trade Representative (USTR) office has said. The request to send the dispute to arbitrators was announced on Thursday after formal consultations failed to resolve deep divisions between the two close trading partners over the use of genetically modified (GM) corn, widely produced by US farmers. Washington alleges that a Mexican decree banning imports of GM corn used in dough and tortillas for human consumption is not based on science and violates its commitments under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on trade launched in 2020.

If the panel rules in favour of the US and Mexico fails to comply with its directives, the USTR would ultimately win the right to impose punitive tariffs on Mexican goods, a move that could spark a rare North American trade war. US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement that Thursday’s move was aimed at enforcing Mexico’s USMCA obligations to maintain science-based regulations on agricultural biotechnology. “It is critical that Mexico eliminate its USMCA-inconsistent biotechnology measures so that American farmers can continue to access the Mexican market and use innovative tools to respond to climate and food security challenges,” Tai said. Mexico buys about $5bn worth of corn from the US each year, making its northern neighbour the country’s largest trading partner. Most of those purchases are GM yellow corn used for livestock feed.

The panel request follows 75 days of formal consultations requested by US officials in June. Mexico has sought US cooperation to jointly conduct scientific research on the health impacts of genetically modified corn, but Mexican officials told the Reuters news agency on August 3 that their US counterparts denied the request. Mexico’s government on Thursday said it will defend its regulations against the US claims. The Mexican economy ministry said in a statement that its policies are “consistent with trade obligations” under the USMCA. Mexico argues that biotech corn harms native varieties and may have adverse health effects. The country had announced plans to phase out GM corn for human consumption and eventually for livestock feed after studying its health effects.

“What is being proposed is that we also set a date for studying the contents of yellow corn to see whether it is damaging to human health, even if it is used for animal feed,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in November 2022. “Because that takes time, we are offering a space of two years [for imports] in the case of yellow feed corn.” But the US has largely dismissed Mexico’s concerns. “Mexico’s approach to biotechnology is not based on science and runs counter to decades’ worth of evidence demonstrating its safety and the rigorous, science-based regulatory review system that ensures it poses no harm to human health and the environment,” US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in the statement on Thursday. He added that innovations in agricultural biotechnology to enhance yields also help ease the challenges of global food and nutrition security, climate change and food price inflation.

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First promoted, then restricted.

First, a fourteenfold reduction in nationwide excess deaths. Then, a thirteenfold increase in excess deaths…

Most Intensive Ivermectin Use Had 74% Reduction in Excess Deaths in Peru (ET)

According to a new peer-reviewed ecological study, a natural experiment occurred when the government of Peru authorized ivermectin for use during the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in evidence of the drug’s effectiveness and ability to reduce excess deaths. The paper’s results, published August 8 in Cureus, found a 74 percent reduction in excess deaths in 10 states with the most intensive ivermectin use over a 30-day period following peak deaths during the pandemic. When analyzing data across 25 states in Peru, researchers found these reductions in excess deaths correlated closely to ivermectin use during four months in 2020. When ivermectin was available without restriction, there was a fourteenfold reduction in nationwide excess deaths. Once access to ivermectin was restricted by the government, a thirteenfold increase in excess deaths was observed in the two months following the limitation of its use.

The findings align with summary data from the World Health Organization for the same time period in Peru. Ivermectin is a widely-known and inexpensive treatment against parasitic diseases. Scientists believe the drug can also bind to the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, limiting its morbidity and infectivity. Before Peru implemented COVID-19 vaccine mandates, the country relied on mitigation strategies such as lockdowns and therapeutics to control the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, as did many other nations. The Peruvian Ministry of Health, on May 8, 2020, approved ivermectin widely for use prompting 25 states in Peru to implement inpatient and outpatient treatments with ivermectin to different extents and in different time frames.

Additionally, through the Mega-Operación Tayta (MOT)—a national program led by the Ministry of Defense—Peru’s government began distributing ivermectin on a wide scale. Through a partnership with 11 other government agencies, MOT aimed to reach every targeted region with rapid response teams to detect COVID-19 cases, administer ivermectin, and provide food to encourage people to isolate for 15 days. Shortly thereafter, MOT began distributing the therapeutic to everyone identified as high-risk, regardless of whether they tested positive or were symptomatic for COVID-19.

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Never trust an American.

Assange Be Weary: The Dangers of a US Plea Deal (Kampmark)

[..] Foreign Minister Penny Wong remarked that Australia had made its position clear to their US counterparts “that Mr Assange’s case has dragged for too long, and our desire it be brought to a conclusion, and we’ve said that publicly and you would anticipate that that reflects also the positive we articulate in private.” In his response, Secretary of State Blinken claimed to “understand” such views and admitted that the matter had been raised with himself and various offices of the US. With such polite formalities acknowledged, Blinken proceeded to tell “our friends” what, exactly, Washington wished to do. Assange had been “charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country.

The actions that he has alleged to have committed risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries, and put named sources at grave risk – grave risk – of physical harm, and grave risk of detention.” Such an assessment, lazily assumed, repeatedly rebutted, and persistently disproved, went unchallenged by all the parties present, including the Australian ministers. Nor did any members of the press deem it appropriate to challenge the account. The unstated assumption here is that Assange is already guilty for absurd charges, a man condemned. At this stage, such deals are the stuff of manipulation and fantasy. The espionage charges have been drafted to inflate, rather than diminish any sentence. Suggestions that the DOJ will somehow go soft must be treated with abundant scepticism.

The pursuit of Assange is laced by sentiments of revenge, intended to both inflict harm upon the publisher while deterring those wishing to publish US national security information. As the Australian international law academic Don Rothwell observes, the plea deal may well take into account the four years spent in UK captivity, but is unlikely to either feature a complete scrapping of the charges, or exempt Assange from travelling to the US to admit his guilt. “It’s not possible to strike a plea deal outside the relevant jurisdiction except in the most exceptional circumstances.” Should any plea deal be successfully reached and implemented, thereby making Assange admit guilt, the terms of his return to Australia, assuming he survives any stint on US soil, will be onerous. In effect, the US would merely be changing the prison warden while adjusting the terms of observation. In place of British prison wardens will be Australian overseers unlikely to ever take kindly to the publication of national security information.

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Twitter (X) thread.

Wait for the ending… (Clint Russell)


Wait for the ending…
-The President of the United States used his Son to negotiate business deals
-in industries he knew nothing about
-trading exclusively on political favors
-he ordered and bragged about (on video) getting a prosecutor fired
-the very prosecutor who his Son’s employer wanted fired
-these requests were documented in emails to his Son
-emails the FBI possessed
-from a laptop they possessed
-which the FBI covered up
-he used a pseudonym of Robert L. Peters to schedule meetings and calls with his Son’s business associates
-he also declared repeatedly that he knew nothing of his Son’s business dealings
-an FBI whistle-blower then swore that his Son’s employer (Zlochevsky of Burisma) told him that he was extorted for a bribe to get this very prosecutor fired
-an IRS whistle-blower then swore that the investigations into his Son were intentionally botched
-a plea deal was then offered to his Son that would’ve granted blanket immunity for all of this

He faces no impeachment
He faces no criminal charges
His predecessor faces 717 yrs in prison
For questioning the legitimacy of the elections which installed the man who was ushered into office, with the assistance of the
-IRS
-FBI
-corporate news and social media
who worked in tandem to hide all of this from the America voters literally days before they were set to vote. During elections that were procedurally changed in completely novel ways .Based on a pandemic which originated in a Chinese lab while doing gain of function research using US tax payer dollars. And the guy in charge of mitigating the pandemic was the one who greenlit that funding. Despite that research being illegal. All of which he lied to congress about. He also faces no investigations. Or criminal charges.

You aren’t crazy. You’re being lied to. The people who are dropping RICO charges on Trump are not upholding the law. They are the cleanup crew. Sent to bury Trump, his attorneys and ultimately any dissident political movement from this point forward. If they prevail in doing so then anyone that attempts to uncover the truth will face a similar fate. These are the stakes. This is what you’re up against. I’m not a Trump supporter I’m just a guy that cares about justice and the American people. Oh and I hate liars and corruption. Do not stop fighting for what’s right. The stakes couldn’t be higher..

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Nations whose largest trading partner is China (red) or the US (blue).

 

 

Those eyes
https://twitter.com/i/status/1692581874739085771

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 172023
 
 August 17, 2023  Posted by at 8:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  36 Responses »


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

 

Georgia DA Seeks ‘Hour of Fame’ With 4th Trump Indictment (Tweedie)
Searching for Light in the Darkness of Insanity (Pepe Escobar)
RFK Jr. Poses ‘Very Credible Threat’ to Biden’s Presidency – CIA Vet (Sp.)
US Military Could Create ‘Global Biological Crisis’ – Russian MOD (RT)
West Makes Money On Ukrainian Conflict, Does Not Need Peace – Medvedev (TASS)
Ukraine Admits F-16 Upset (RT)
West Alarmed As Putin Has Begun To Mediate Niger Coup Crisis (ZH)
African Union Rejects Military Intervention In Niger (RT)
White House Refuses To Rule Out Support For Niger Invasion (RT)
Niger and the ‘New World Order’ (Patrick Lawrence)
The Unforgivable Ivermectin Swindle (QTR)
New BRICS Currency Bad for Dollar – John Rubino (USAW)
Killing Gaddafi Was A ‘Serious Mistake’ – Italian FM (RT)

 

 

 

 

“They are willing to destroy the law to destroy Trump.”

 

 

Remember Fulton County?

 

 

Trump & Hunter

 

 

lf you want peace, you
don’t talk to your friends.
You talk to your enemies.

-Desmond Tutu

 

 

 

 

‘I’m one of those famous district attorneys that went after Trump’..”

Georgia DA Seeks ‘Hour of Fame’ With 4th Trump Indictment (Tweedie)

The fourth indictment against former US president Donald Trump has no legal basis, says a US pundit. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis announced charges against Trump and 18 others on Monday, including his lawyer and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. They include catch-all “RICO” or racketeering charges which criminalise association with others allegedly engaged in a “criminal enterprise.” Political commentator Ted Harvey said Willis was just “another district attorney trying to get her hour of fame.” “She’s going to be able to go to all of the Democrat cocktail parties around the country and say: ‘I’m one of those famous district attorneys that went after Trump’,” Harvey said.

The former president is accused of trying to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election — before it was certified — by asking state election officials to scrutinise ballots in certain counties. The pundit said Trump was justified to make such requests under the circumstances. “You have to remember that Georgia… Trump only lost Georgia by 10,000 votes, and that is a razor thin margin in a state the size of Georgia, and there certainly was a great deal of problems with the Georgia election,” Harvey said. “There was a lot of skulduggery going on, and could it have been 10,000 votes? I think there definitely could have been 10,000 votes, and I think that anybody who says otherwise is not actually looking at the facts on the ground.” The commentator argued that Trump’s actions as described in the indictment did not constitute a crime.

“Trump can talk to anybody he wants and say, have you looked here? Have you looked there? And they had the right of any citizen in the United States to have those kind of questions,” Harvey stressed. “It’s not illegal.”
The former state legislator said Trump faced hostile kangaroo courts both in Atlanta and the national capital. “It’s very similar to the January 6 indictment,” which would be “heard in front of a jury in Washington, DC, where 95 percent of the jurors probably voted for Biden. And I think in Atlanta, they’re pretty close to that number as well,” Harvey said. “You’re going to have a situation where Trump will not be getting a fair trial and he’s going to be fighting for his legal life in both of those situations.”

He linked the trials to Trump’s bid for a second term of office in the White House, saying the Republican frontrunner’s enemies were seeking “a conviction before the November election in a biased jury with a biased judge and a biased district attorney.” However, “that doesn’t mean he won’t get elected,” Harvey said. “But they want to have that one more thing to throw against the wall in a desperate effort to try to take down Trump and save Biden. But I think in the end, Biden’s legal problems are going to be far worse than Trump’s.”

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BRICS+.

Searching for Light in the Darkness of Insanity (Pepe Escobar)

We are still far away from the transition towards a new “world system” – to quote Wallerstein – but without BRICS even baby steps would be impossible. South Africa will seal the first coordinates for the BRICS+ expansion – which may go on indefinitely. After all, large swathes of the “Global Globe” already have stated, formally (23 nations) and informally (countless “expressions of interest”, according to the South African Foreign Ministry) they want in. The official list – subject to change – of those nations who want to be part of BRICS+ as soon as possible is a Global South’s who’s who: Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, the State of Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand, UAE, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Then there’s Africa: the “five fingers”, via South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, invited no less than 67 leaders from Africa and the Global South to follow the BRICS-Africa Outreach and BRICS+ Dialogues. This all spells out what would be the key BRICS rasha, to evoke Naqshbandi: total Africa and Global South inclusion – all nations engaged in profitable conversations and equally respected in affirming their sovereignty. A case can be made that Iran is in a privileged position to become one of the first BRICS+ members. It helps that Tehran already enjoys strategic partnership status with both Russia and China and also is a key partner of India in the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has already stated, on the record that, “the partnership between Iran and BRICS has in fact already started in some areas. In the field of transport, the North-South transport corridor connecting India to Russia via Iran is actually part of BRICS’ transport project.” In parallel to breakthroughs on BRICS+, the “five fingers” will be relatively cautious on the de-dollarization front. Sherpas have already confirmed, off the record, there will be no official announcement of a new currency, but of more bilateral trade and multilateral trade using the members’ own currencies: for the moment the notorious R5 (renminbi, ruble, real, rupee and rand).

Belarussian leader Lukashenko, who coined “Global Globe” as a motto as strong, if not even more seductive than Global South, was the first to evoke a crucial policy coup that may take place further on down the road, with BRICS+ in effect: the merger of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Now Lukashenko is being echoed in public by former South African ambassador Kingsley Makhubela – as well as scores of “Global Globe” diplomats and analysts off the record: “In the future, BRICS and the SCO would match to form one entity (…) Because having the BRICS and the SCO running in parallel with the same members would not make sense.”

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Larry Johnson.

RFK Jr. Poses ‘Very Credible Threat’ to Biden’s Presidency – CIA Vet (Sp.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s message and policies make him “a very credible threat” to the American establishment, Larry Johnson, a retired CIA intelligence officer, told Sputnik. Furthermore, the 2024 Democratic presidential hopeful “is not posturing,” and appears to really believe what he’s saying, according to the ex-intel-agent-turned-blogger. The politician also known by his initials RFK Jr. spoke to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a video interview posted on the X social network (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday. He hauled the Biden administration over the coals for everything from the aid being continuously funneled to the Kiev regime to fight NATO’s proxy war against Russia, to the controversial issue of the Pentagon’s biological laboratories in Ukraine.

“We have bio-labs in Ukraine because we are developing bioweapons… Those bioweapons are using all kinds of new synthetic biology and CRISPR [an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats in DNA] technology and genetic engineering techniques that were not available to a previous generation,” RFK Jr. said in the interview. About 30 biological laboratories funded by the US Defense Department have been discovered in Ukraine during Moscow’s ongoing special military operation in the country, the Russian Defense Ministry revealed last year. The Pentagon has been running these clandestine biolabs for years, researching highly dangerous pathogens and exporting biological samples in breach of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).

According to information cited by Russia’s MoD, the United States funneled over $200 million into its biolabs on Ukrainian soil, allegedly using them as an inherent part of the American military biological program. In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. noted that in 2001, the US began investing heavily in bioweapons again when “the Patriot Act reopened the biolabs arms race.” Kennedy added that the development of any biological weapon requires a vaccine, since there is a “100 percent chance” of blowback when bioweapons are used. RFK Jr. in his Tuesday interview had proceeded to castigate the Biden administration for continuously pumping financial aid to Ukraine instead of using the resources domestically to help struggling Americans.

“Ukraine aid will not exist under Bobby Kennedy,” opined Larry Johnson. “I think anybody who will take the time to listen to Tucker’s discussion with Bobby Kennedy Jr., I think what they’ll find it very appealing and hopeful. He presents a vision that is [a] complete contradiction of what is being presented by the Biden administration. And he correctly notes that the United States has severe economic problems at home: the flood of illegal immigrants, the drug use that is savaging Democrat cities in particular, like San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, – that there are real, genuine needs that should be addressed here in the United States instead of sending the money to Ukraine,” stated Larry Johnson.

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Russia warning US.

US Military Could Create ‘Global Biological Crisis’ – Russian MOD (RT)

The US military is studying pathogens that could be used as biological weapons as the nation prepares for a potential new pandemic, the commander of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, said on Wednesday. The list of diseases that have attracted the attention of US specialists includes anthrax, tularemia, and various coronaviruses, Kirillov told a media briefing. Some of these pathogens are listed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as “high-priority” threats that can be used as “bioterrorism agents.” “There is a clear trend: pathogens that fall within the Pentagon’s area of interest, such as Covid-19, avian influenza, African swine fever, subsequently become a pandemic, and American pharmaceutical companies become the beneficiaries,” the general claimed, without elaborating.

According to Kirillov, the US was extensively studying coronaviruses shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Last month, the White House announced the creation of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR), tasked with “leading, coordinating, and implementing actions related to preparedness for, and response to, known and unknown biological threats.” The Russian military believes that may be another step in Washington’s plans to gain control over the global biological and epidemical situation. “As in 2019, the US has begun preparing for a new pandemic by searching for virus mutations,” Kirillov said. Moscow does “not rule out that the United States will use so-called defensive technologies for offensive purposes, as well as for global governance by creating crisis situations of a biological nature,” the general added.

Russia has repeatedly raised the issue of global biological activities that involve the US military. Soon after the conflict between Moscow and Kiev broke out, Russia shared allegations of a sprawling network of secretive US-funded biological laboratories in Ukraine. It has since published troves of documents it claims were linked to the work of the laboratories. In April, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that the US had been constructing new laboratories in Ukraine and training their personnel. Moscow also took the issue of biolabs to the UN last October, requesting an international probe. The motion, however, was turned down by the UN Security Council, with the US, UK, and France voting against it. Earlier this week, Democrat presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that the US had outsourced some of its biological weapons research to the Ukrainian authorities after the 2014 Maidan coup. According to Kennedy, the bioweapons program operates under the guise of “life sciences” studies.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1691876341665157522

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Big money.

West Makes Money On Ukrainian Conflict, Does Not Need Peace – Medvedev (TASS)

The West is not interested in negotiations on a peace settlement in Ukraine, because it is keen to make as much money as possible for its military-industrial complex, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev told the media. “Their speculations to the effect time is ripe to come to the negotiating table and start peace talks merely show how sly they are. They don’t want this at all. They want to keep the military flywheel going in order to make money for their budgets,” Medvedev said during a visit to the Army-2023 forum.

He recalled that Russian soldiers were “very successful” in burning Western-supplied equipment and would continue to do so. Against the backdrop of losses, the West periodically resumes “speculations that it is necessary to return to the negotiating table to find some compromises,” Medvedev said. “But we need to bear in mind that this is only part of the story, while the other part is the US military-industrial complex, and the European one as well, are making money on this. And this is a way for them to make mammoth profits by supplying their equipment to Ukraine. They are making money on this war,” Medvedev explained.

During his visit to the exhibition of weapons seized by Russian forces during the special operation he took a look at many Western-made grenade launchers, anti-tank systems and small arms. He was also shown a US-made M777 artillery system, Hummer armored vehicles and Western communication equipment. At the open exposition where captured armored vehicles are on display Medvedev was shown Ukrainian T-64BV and T-72AG tanks, a Swedish CV90-40 combat vehicle, as well as a Triton armored vehicle and a US M113 APC upgraded in the Netherlands. At the same exposition, Medvedev saw a burned Australian Bushmaster armored vehicle, a French AMX-10RCR wheeled tank, as well as British combat vehicles Husky, Mastiff and AT105 Saxon.

Medvedev

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Mirage. Fata morgana.

Ukraine Admits F-16 Upset (RT)

Ukraine should not expect to receive American F-16 fighter jets until sometime in 2024, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman has said, noting that Kiev’s “high hopes” for the system were unlikely to be met anytime soon. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Air Force Command representative Yury Ignat suggested the timeline for the arms transfer was still to be decided, but said Kiev would have to make do through the end of the year. “Unfortunately, it is already clear that we will not be able to protect Ukraine with F-16s throughout the fall and this winter,” he said. “There were high hopes for these aircraft, that these could really become part of the air defense.”

Officials in Kiev have repeatedly requested the F-16 by name, and while some NATO states have agreed to instruct Ukrainian airmen on the system, it remains unclear when the first transfer could occur. To date, no country has made any concrete proposal, and US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said last month that it could take years to provide Ukraine with a meaningful capability.“Just do a quick math drill here. Ten F-16s are $2 billion,” Milley told reporters at the time, attempting to explain the delay. “The Russians have hundreds of fourth- and fifth-generation airframes, so if they’re going to try to match the Russians one for one – or even, you know, two-to-one – you’re talking about a large number of aircraft.”

According to a recent report in the Washington Post, the initial batch of Ukrainian pilots trained on the F-16 will not be ready until after the summer of 2024, with only six airmen set to complete the first round of instruction. Officials cited by the outlet said each pilot will have to take four months in English courses before they can even begin flight training. Moscow has repeatedly warned against foreign arms shipments to Kiev, arguing the military aid would only extend the conflict and do little to deter its objectives. Earlier this year, the Kremlin said Western powers would run “colossal risks” if they decided to supply the F-16, while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would consider the aircraft a nuclear threat due to its ability to carry atomic weapons. “We will regard the very fact that the Ukrainian armed forces have such systems as a threat from the West in the nuclear sphere,” the diplomat said.

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Putin closes the door (window?) for France and US.

“The countries of the Sahara-Sahel region [..] were under direct attack from numerous terrorist groups after the US and its allies unleashed aggression against Libya..”

West Alarmed As Putin Has Begun To Mediate Niger Coup Crisis (ZH)

Western nations are alarmed at the prospect of Russia deepening its presence and influence in West and Central Africa, particularly following the tumult in Niger late last month, which culminated in the July 26 coup against democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum. The West-friendly group of surrounding nations, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), has since threatened military intervention towards restoring Bazoum, and there have been persistent rumors that France is encouraging concrete action. Mali has played a key role in all of this given it stands on the other side, and is dead set against any interference in Niger, with fresh reports that Mali’s military leader Assimi Goita has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone.

Goita announced that in the Tuesday call Putin “stressed the importance of a peaceful resolution of the situation for a more stable Sahel” – and the sides confirmed it was initiated by Mali. According to a Kremlin statement, “The parties specifically focused on the current situation in the Sahara-Sahel region and emphasised, in particular, the importance of settling the situation in the Republic of Niger solely through peaceful political and diplomatic means.” Putin separately told Tuesday’s Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS) that “The countries of the Sahara-Sahel region, such as the Central African Republic and Mali, were under direct attack from numerous terrorist groups after the US and its allies unleashed aggression against Libya, which led to the collapse of the Libyan state.” The handful of regional supporters of the Niger junta have emphasized the same point of late…Niger is known for having uranium, but it is the significant gold and oil resources which likely of greater interest to the large powers of Russia, China, the US, and Europe.

The West’s concern is likely to grow given Putin’s mediation with Mali’s leadership. Russia’s Wagner Group also has an extensive presence across the African continent, having long had security and counterterrorism contracts with multiple governments. So far, there’s still not been openness to negotiations on the part of the Niger coup leaders and Bazoum remains under hose arrest. Per the latest update in Reuters, “West African army chiefs will meet on Thursday and Friday in Ghana to prepare for a possible military intervention, which the main regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has threatened to launch if diplomacy fails.” Any external military intervention could spark a broader war across the Sahel, and would also be seized upon by regional terrorist groups. In this scenario Wagner fighters would likely enter the fray.

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“..ECOWAS will find it difficult to launch a military offensive in Niamey without the approval of the African Union..”

African Union Rejects Military Intervention In Niger (RT)

The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union has come out against the deployment of armed troops in Niger to free ousted President Mohamed Bazoum and restore constitutional order, the French outlet Le Monde reported on Wednesday. This comes after the PSC met in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Monday to discuss the situation in Niamey and efforts to address it. Bazoum was toppled on July 26 by members of his own presidential guard, provoking outrage from Western nations and regional democratic governments, which called for the coup to be overturned. The West African regional bloc, ECOWAS, said the Niger’s coup leaders had rebuffed attempts at negotiation. The regional authority threatened to use force to reinstate the ousted Bazoum, whom the new military rulers have detained since July 26.

Last week, ECOWAS authorized the activation of a stand-by force for potential use against the putsch leaders, with the bloc’s army chiefs meeting on Thursday and Friday to prepare for a military intervention if negotiations fail. On Friday, African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat expressed “strong support” for the ECOWAS’ decision and called on the junta to “urgently halt the escalation with the regional organization.” However, the PSC, the body responsible for deciding on issues of conflict resolution in Africa, decided to disassociate itself from the use of force in Niamey, according to diplomatic sources cited by Le Monde. The decision, which will be formalized on Wednesday, was reached after a “tense” meeting on Monday that lasted “more than ten hours,” according to the outlet.

Paul-Simon Handy, senior policy advisor at the Institute for Security Studies, told Le Monde that ECOWAS will find it difficult to launch a military offensive in Niamey without the approval of the African Union. Without the union’s backing, such an operation “would be an unprecedented contradiction,” Handy is quoted as saying. Earlier this month, the Nigerian Senate also declined to give approval to ECOWAS Chairman Bola Tinubu to send soldiers against the coup leaders in neighboring Niger. The Senate urged Tinubu and other West African regional leaders to explore diplomatic means to resolve the crisis.

Read more …

Too late.

White House Refuses To Rule Out Support For Niger Invasion (RT)

The US will not commit to backing or opposing a potential invasion of Niger by its West African neighbors, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday. Speaking at a State Department briefing, Kirby declared that the US wants detained Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum released from captivity and brought back into power, after his pro-Western government was overthrown by senior military leaders last month. Asked whether Washington would support military intervention by the Nigeria-led Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to restore Bazoum’s government, Kirby was ambiguous.

“I’m not going to speculate about intervention one way or another from ECOWAS or anybody else,” he said. “We still believe that there’s time and space for diplomacy to get us to a resolution here which respects the will of the Nigerien people.” ECOWAS activated a standby force last week after Niger’s new military government ignored an ultimatum to free Bazoum and relinquish power. Negotiations between the coup leaders and the regional bloc are ongoing, while ECOWAS officials meet in Ghana this week to make a final decision on military action, with a decision expected on Friday. However, foreign support for an ECOWAS invasion is still lacking. France, Niger’s former colonial master, has pledged its backing to “the efforts of ECOWAS to defeat this coup attempt,” without specifying whether it supports a diplomatic or military solution, or both.

Meanwhile the 55-member African Union refused to condone military action following a meeting on Wednesday, according to French media reports. Without the African Union’s support, an ECOWAS intervention is unlikely to go ahead, policy experts told Le Monde on Wednesday. France and the US maintain military bases in Niger, with around 1,000 American and 1,500 French troops currently in the country. The coup leaders are adamant that this Western presence must end, and have suspended military and trade agreements with France. Paris has imposed sanctions on Niamey in response, while Washington has cut off foreign aid.

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“The past is another country, Nigeriens, Malians, and others seem to say: This is the 21st century, not the 19th.”

Niger and the ‘New World Order’ (Patrick Lawrence)

How shall we understand the July 26th coup in Niger, in which military officers ousted Mohamed Bazoum, the nation’s Western-tilted president? It is the sixth putsch of this kind in or next to the Sahel in the past four years. Shall we write off this band across sub–Saharan Africa as coup country and trouble no more about it? The thought is implicit in a lot of the media coverage, but how often do our media dedicate themselves to enhancing our understanding of global events and how often to cultivating our ignorance of them? Do not take this latest development in Africa as an isolated event, if I may offer a suggestion. Its significance lies in the larger context in which it has occurred—its global surround, so to say. The West is besieged by the accumulating coherence and influence of the non–West and its version of the 21st century. Our media cannot bear writing or broadcasting about this.

Niger, in my read, has just declared itself part of this historic phenomenon. And mainstream media can’t bear mentioning this, either. Those who deposed Bazoum are led by Abdourahamane Tchiani, former head of the Presidential Guard, and plainly nurse a deep resentment of the postcolonial presence of the French. There are also reports—in the media, those coming out of the think tanks—that Bazoum was about to give Tchiani the sack, and the events of late July were driven, mostly or primarily, by personal rivalries, resentments, or both. Everyone has reported, one way or another and more or less well, on the animosities toward the French abroad among Nigeriens. Such sentiments are evident in many parts of Francophone Africa. The past is another country, Nigeriens, Malians, and others seem to say: This is the 21st century, not the 19th.

But history is only part of the story, and I would say not the largest part. We ought not make too much of either history or memory in this case: Those who led the coup are facing forward, not back. And to suggest the coup deposing Bazoum was a question of palace politics, whatever these may be, amounts to serving the salad as the main course. No, we have to think larger if we are to grasp the new reality taking shape in Niger and elsewhere in its neighborhood. Tchiani and his supporters, who appear to be many in the military and on the streets of Niamey, the capital, have the West as it is now uppermost in their minds, in my read. If they are fed up with the French, they are at this point impudently clear that they equally want no more of what the U.S. has had on offer for the past two decades and some: a klutzy, ineffective military presence and neoliberal economic orthodoxies. As in Mali and elsewhere in the region, Niger now looks set to lean in a distinctly non–Western direction.

Last month’s coup, in other words, reads to me like an announcement that Niger is ready to enlist in the cause of the “new world order” the Chinese have been talking about ever more publicly over the past couple of years—since, indeed, the Biden regime alienated Beijing within months of taking office in 2021. This puts the putsch taking down Bazoum in a larger context, where I think it should be. This means the U.S. will now find itself in increasing competition with China and Russia for influence across the African continent. Unless it alters course very majorly—and the policy cliques in Washington have no gift for altering course, if you have not noticed—America is almost certain to prove the loser in this rivalry, if that is what we have to call it. The U.S., and in this case the French, are simply ill-equipped. It is a question of appropriate technologies: Americans arrive in Africa with weapons, military assistance, and geopolitical interests; the Chinese and Russians arrive with interests of their own, yes, but also with economic aid, trade flows, and industrial development projects.

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How many lives? Murder is murder.

The Unforgivable Ivermectin Swindle (QTR)

For those who haven’t followed the story, during the course of the Covid pandemic, it was revealed that ivermectin – a drug that has been administered billions of times to humans and is on the World Health Organization’s list of Essential Medicines – was found in numerous clinical trials to have efficacy in early treatment of Covid-19. If you’re looking for a primer on this, here is a website that aggregates all of the clinical trials and here is a discussion with Bret Weinstein and Dr. Pierre Kory that serves as a great introduction to the topic.

If you’ve been at least semiconscious over the last two years, you’ve noticed that early means of treating Covid outside of the vaccines (like Vitamin D, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin) were routinely shunned by “the science” and then, by proxy, the useful idiots in the mainstream media. Out of all of the early treatments, ivermectin got the shortest end of the stick. Not only was it likely the most efficacious of all the early treatments, it was also routinely subject to bastardization and a berating by the media. The disinformation campaign about ivermectin, spearheaded by mainstream media (“brought to you by Pfizer!”) reached its fever pitch when the media and government agencies alike appeared to knowingly and maliciously juxtapose the human dosage of the drug with the coincidental and mostly unrelated fact that it was also used in a veterinary dosage to deworm horses.

Rather than distinguish one ivermectin use from the other clearly, these bad actors instead willingly chose to perpetuate the brazen lie that ivermectin was only horse medicine. The media fostered this lie because their sponsorship and advertising revenue depended on it. The lie was then used as a weapon against anyone who discussed the legitimate usage of the human drug and its storied history of success. But the most noxious example of media dishonesty came from coverage of Joe Rogan, who took ivermectin after getting Covid. CNN took footage that Rogan posted on his personal Instagram, edited the color scheme to make Rogan look worse than he originally appeared, and then proclaimed that Rogan was taking “horse dewormer”.

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“..you always come down on the side of a gold-backed currency once you understand it..”

New BRICS Currency Bad for Dollar – John Rubino (USAW)

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino has a new warning about the fate of the U.S. dollar with the announcement next week (Aug 22–24) of the new BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) currency. There has been lots of speculation about it. Will it work? Is it gold backed? Will it immediately replace the U.S. dollar? 30 countries in all have signed onto the BRICS currency experiment. Rubino contends, “No matter what shape it takes, the new BRICS currency is bad for the dollar. . . . You don’t want to be an enemy of the U.S., but neither do you want to be a target just because you are doing what you think is right in the world. . . then the U.S. comes in and destroys your banking system. That is now a real possibility for a lot of countries. If you take the BRICS countries . . . and you add in all the other countries who want to join the BRICS coalition, and that includes Saudi Arabia and Mexico, you take all those countries together and, basically, you have half the world’s population and half the world’s GDP. So, this is not trivial.

This is a major potential currency block, or trading block that is a real threat to U.S. dominance in the world. The sad fact is it’s our fault. The U.S. made this bed, and now we have to lie in it. We blundered around the world starting wars, overthrowing governments and bombing anybody that gets in our way. The world is just about at the point where it’s done. Regardless of what is going to happen at the BRICS meeting next week, it’s part of a trend of countries looking for ways to avoid dependence on the dollar and the dollar centric financial system. We could be seeing the end of U.S. dominance . . . dollars will still be used for trade, but the peak of the dollar could be happening before our eyes right this minute.”

The other thing you cannot shrug off is the inflation the Fed has been trying to snuff out with interest rate increases without pushing it back down. According to Rubino, this is also bad news for the dollar, and he goes on to say, “Even if they don’t do anything (next week) and they just planted this seed, it still started a conversation where people have to learn the difference between a fiat currency and a gold-backed currency. The more people that know that, the better it is for gold because you always come down on the side of a gold-backed currency once you understand it. So, none of this is good for the dollar. Also, when people realize the reason why the BRICS are considering a gold-backed currency, and it is because we weaponized the dollar.

So, we are inflating the dollar away, and we are using it as a weapon at the same time against the rest of the world. . . . We pushed Russia into this war, and then we froze foreign exchange assets in western banks. The rest of the world is looking at this and thinking, wow, am I next? Is the U.S. going to do this to me? Maybe we should have this other currency?” Rubino was one of the first to sound the alarm on the extreme problems in the commercial real estate market. Fitch is threatening to downgrade the credit ratings of some very big U.S. banks. Rubino says, “This, too, is negative for the dollar.” Rubino also talks about the possibility of a world war, a civil war and a financial crash that is coming sooner than later.

Read more …

Obama, Hillary, Nuland.

Direct link to Niger today.

Killing Gaddafi Was A ‘Serious Mistake’ – Italian FM (RT)

Western powers committed a major blunder by helping to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a 2011 regime change operation, Italy’s top diplomat said, admitting his death unleashed years of chaos and conflict in the African country. Speaking on the sidelines of an event in Tuscany on Wednesday, Italian Foreign Minister and deputy premier Antonio Tajani described Libya’s troubles since Gaddafi was overthrown and murdered, saying he was “certainly better than those who arrived later.” “It was a very serious mistake to let Gaddafi be killed. He may not have been the champion of democracy, but once he was finished, political instability arrived in Libya and Africa,” he said. The official noted that Rome had kept an agreement with the leader which “blocked the migratory flows and the situation was much more stable.”

Gaddafi was brutally executed by rebel fighters amid a NATO bombing campaign, conducted under the pretext of imposing a “no-fly zone” during Libya’s 2011 civil war. Though Washington and its allies described the mission as a “humanitarian” effort to end government attacks on civilians, a probe by the UK House of Commons later found that the “threat to civilians was overstated,” and that Western powers had ignored a “significant Islamist element” among the anti-Gaddafi militants. In the aftermath of the regime change operation, Libya was divided between several competing governments, each claiming legitimacy to rule. The factions have continued to fight in the years since, eventually consolidating under two camps led by the UN-backed Government of National Accord, and forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar and the Libyan House of Representatives.

Terrorism also saw a resurgence across North Africa following Gaddafi’s death, with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and groups linked to al-Qaeda establishing strongholds in Libya and beyond. By July 2014, an estimated 1,600 militant factions were active in the country, a major increase from the 300 tallied in 2011, according to the US Institute of Peace. Though the two warring governments have been locked in a stalemate in recent years, Libya continues to face periodic bouts of violence, with clashes between rival armed groups leaving 27 dead and over 100 injured earlier this week. Echoing previous statements, the United Nations voiced concern over the “security incidents and developments” in Libya, while Washington called for “de-escalation” to “sustain recent Libyan gains toward stability.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Sagan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691195526077911041

 

 

Chameleon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691722851131265440

 

 

Turtle

 

 

 

 

Snow leopard

 

 

Elephant seal
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691746238843040070

 

 

Phone
https://twitter.com/i/status/1691904765007970697

 

 

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Feb 012023
 
 February 1, 2023  Posted by at 9:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  88 Responses »


Claude Monet Water lillies 1914 – 1917

 

A Panicked Empire Tries To Make Russia An ‘Offer It Can’t Refuse’ (Escobar)
Desperate Actions (Dionísio)
The War and the Future (Batiushka)
France ‘Open’ To Sending Fighter Jets To Ukraine. UK Says “Not Practical” (ZH)
House GOP Kicks Off Biden Corruption Investigations (ZH)
Gold And The Shrinking Trust Horizon (John Rubino)
Norway’s Wealth Fund Posts Heavy Losses (RT)
Buzzfeed Sacks 180 Journalists, Replaces Them With AI (RT)
The Press Versus The President, Part Two (CJR)
Twitter Makes Move That Could Take Out ‘Woke’ PayPal (TPN)
Who Will be Spared from COVID-19 Vaccine Injury? (McCullough)
Did 7.5 Million People Die From Covid Shots? (Horowitz)
Massive Mask Meta-study Undermines Remaining Covid Mandates (JTN)
How Ivermectin Kills Prostate Cancer Cells (PR)
Quantum Entanglement Just Got A Whole Lot Weirder (Siegel)

 

 

 

 

U.S. Not Prepared to take on Russia / Macgregor

 

 

 

 

Tucker Dore

 

 

Winning

 

 

Gonzalo primer

 

 

 

 

Involves the John Helmer piece we mentioned recently.

A Panicked Empire Tries To Make Russia An ‘Offer It Can’t Refuse’ (Escobar)

Realizing NATO’s war with Russia will likely end unfavorably, the US is test-driving an exit offer. But why should Moscow take indirect proposals seriously, especially on the eve of its new military advance and while it is in the winning seat? Those behind the Throne are never more dangerous than when they have their backs against the wall. Their power is slipping away, fast: Militarily, via NATO’s progressive humiliation in Ukraine; Financially, sooner rather than later, most of the Global South will want nothing to do with the currency of a bankrupt rogue giant; Politically, the global majority is taking decisive steps to stop obeying a rapacious, discredited, de facto minority. So now those behind the Throne are plotting to at least try to stall the incoming disaster on the military front.

As confirmed by a high-level US establishment source, a new directive on NATO vs. Russia in Ukraine was relayed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken, in terms of actual power, is nothing but a messenger boy for the Straussian neocons and neoliberals who actually run US foreign policy. The secretary of state was instructed to relay the new directive – a sort of message to the Kremlin – via mainstream print media, which was promptly published by the Washington Post. In the elite US mainstream media division of labor, the New York Times is very close to the State Department. and the Washington Post to the CIA. In this case though the directive was too important, and needed to be relayed by the paper of record in the imperial capital. It was published as an Op-Ed.

The novelty here is that for the first time since the start of Russia’s February 2022 Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, the Americans are actually proposing a variation of the “offer you can’t refuse” classic, including some concessions which may satisfy Russia’s security imperatives. Crucially, the US offer totally bypasses Kiev, once again certifying that this is a war against Russia conducted by Empire and its NATO minions – with the Ukrainians as mere expandable proxies. The Washington Post’s old school Moscow-based correspondent John Helmer has provided an important service, offering the full text of Blinken’s offer, of course extensively edited to include fantasist notions such as “US weapons help pulverize Putin’s invasion force” and a cringe-worthy explanation: “In other words, Russia should not be ready to rest, regroup and attack.”

The message from Washington may, at first glance, give the impression that the US would admit Russian control over Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson – “the land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia” – as a fait accompli. Ukraine would have a demilitarized status, and the deployment of HIMARS missiles and Leopard and Abrams tanks would be confined to western Ukraine, kept as a “deterrent against further Russian attacks.” What may have been offered, in quite hazy terms, is in fact a partition of Ukraine, demilitarized zone included, in exchange for the Russian General Staff cancelling its yet-unknown 2023 offensive, which may be as devastating as cutting off Kiev’s access to the Black Sea and/or cutting off the supply of NATO weapons across the Polish border.

Read more …

RAND Corp.

Desperate Actions (Dionísio)

Something is changing on Mount Olympus and it is leaving in tatters the union of tendencies connected to the U.S.-state falconry. To understand and predict the actions of the political elite that commands, through their transnational mandataries, our destinies, implies knowing what one of the most important US defense think tanks reflects and publishes. This research leads us to an entity that rarely appears in the “informative” moments of the North Atlantic press: the RAND Corporation. RAND’s best-known moment with regard to the conflict in Eastern Europe is signaled by the publication of the report “Extending Russia – Competing from Advantageous Ground”. This report contains the entire menu of malfeasance that, in the claims made public and repeated by the US power summit, would lead to a fulminating defeat of the political, economic, and military power of the Russian Federation.

The analysis expressed publicly, by the various political actors, was that the Russian Federation was nothing more than “a gasoline bomb with nuclear weapons,” a “paper tiger” with a GDP equal to that of Holland, and a people gagged by a “mad dictator” who remained in power only through “authoritarianism” and “repression”. Based on an analysis whose information seemed to substantiate such political positions, the RAND report advocated a type of intervention, some of which were well reported – others not so well reported – in the official press. This was the case with the attempted “colored” revolutions made in CIA in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Central Asian countries, which, together with Georgia and Moldova, would probably be “promoted” and “supported” to the condition of an actual Ukraine.

The Russian Federation, having to meet all the fires, some because they would become proxy armies (like Ukraine), others turned into bases of destabilizing operations launched by the CIA, would eventually “extend” itself until it broke into pieces and collapsed, putting an end to the current threat. Even without this partition, a point could always be reached where, after the destruction of the incumbent political power, a more docile “regime” would be installed, pointing to a more “advantageous position on the ground.” Given to be known only in 2019, we are forced to note that this strategy had long been in preparation, especially since the Russian president lost hope that he could count on a Western “partnership” and announce the end of the unipolar world. Fact is, the report has a logical connection with the 2018 National Defense Strategy (US national defense strategy).

At any rate, this strategy points to the “Yugoslavization” of the Russian Federation. The truth is that the constant itinerary of this work has been followed almost scrupulously by the U.S. security and defense establishment: “colored” revolutions; states transformed into proxy armies; communication and disinformation campaigns; destabilization and sabotage operations; economic sanctions and embargoes. A menu of fulminating “democratic” activities on the rise! And why is it important to talk about this today? It is important because in the last few days a new paper from the RAND corporation was published, but this time in reverse, a study entitled “Avoiding a Long War U.S. Policy and the Trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict.”

Lula

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“First of all, probably within the next fifteen months, we shall see the full liberation of the Ukraine..”

The War and the Future (Batiushka)

Since the historic Special Military Operation to liberate the peoples of the Ukraine from their US puppet tyrants in Kiev began on 24 February 2022, the post-1945 settlement has been over. In fact, it should have been over with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 or, at latest, at the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. However, the USA was blinded by its exceptionalist hubris as ‘the only Superpower’ and engaged in its latest fantasy of destroying Islam, which it mistakenly saw as a serious rival, arrogantly dismissing Russia, China and India as minor players. So, as a sectarian rogue-state, the USA began its war of terror on all who thought differently, which it so humiliatingly lost. This can be seen in the dramatic pictures of the last flights out of Kabul in 2021.

In other words, after the end of the Soviet Union, which had been born directly out of World War One and formally founded in 1922, the end of the American Union (= NATO) should have followed, and with it the end of the worldwide American Empire. Thus, today NATO is an anachronism, well past its best before date, which is why has begun meddling all over the world, from the foothills of the Himalaya to the Pacific Ocean. NATO is just like the alphabet soup of other US organisations and fronts, IMF, EU, WTO, OECD, G7, G20 and UN, with its mere five Security Council members, including minor Great Britain and France. What might await us as a result of the liberation of the Ukraine on the centenary of the 1945 settlement, in 2045?

1. After the Ukraine. First of all, probably within the next fifteen months, we shall see the full liberation of the Ukraine. With the eastern Novorossija half of the Ukraine returning to Russia, the remaining half, Central and Western Ukraine, perhaps minus Zakarpattia (returning to Hungary as an autonomous region under the Balogh brothers) and Chernivtsy (returning to Romania), will return to being Malorossija, its capital in Kiev. Thus, the way will at last be open to form the Confederation of Rus’. The at last freed East Slav lands and peoples, Eurasian Russia and the Eastern European Belarus and Malorossija, could together form such a Confederation of Rus’, with a total population of just under 200 million.

2. The Reconfiguration of Eurasia . After the Ukrainian question has been solved and the USA has lost its political, military and, above all, economic power to bully the rest of the world, all of us in Eurasia will be able to start living in our new-found Freedom and building Justice and Prosperity for all. We foresee first of all the expansion of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

Wagner

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“..given training on the Abrams M1 tank could take at minimum six months, something as sophisticated as Western-made fighter jets could take years for pilots unfamiliar with their systems to get combat ready on..”

France ‘Open’ To Sending Fighter Jets To Ukraine. UK Says “Not Practical” (ZH)

Here we go again… French President Emmanuel Macron in Monday comments signaled openness to sending Ukraine advanced fighter jets, something which Kiev has broadly asked its allies for since nearly the start of the Russian invasion. “Nothing is excluded in principle,” Macron said immediately following talks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte when pressed by reporters about the question of fighter jets for Ukraine. The Dutch premier himself had weighed in too saying, “There is no taboo but it would be a big step.” But he noted, “It is not at all a question of F-16s, there has been no demand (from Ukraine).” Macron added that the French “are not making this request at the moment for fighter jets” – in what appears a first confirmation that the Ukrainian government has not yet gone through with a formal ask.

Macron’s fresh remarks, however, are likely to be seen from Kiev as an invitation to proceed with a formal request, while will putting more pressure on Paris and the Western alliance. Ukrainian officials have long been going through Poland, it seems, to press the jet issue with NATO command in Brussels. Macron stipulated that jets for Ukraine must “not be escalatory” – meaning that they would “not be likely to hit Russian soil but purely to aid the resistance effort.” But obviously advanced fighters would be escalatory by the very nature of sending them after Moscow has reiterated its “red lines”. As for the rest of Europe, on the same day that the White House said that it would not be sending jets, Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it would not be practical.

“The UK’s … fighter jets are extremely sophisticated and take months to learn how to fly. Given that, we believe it is not practical to send those jets into Ukraine,” a spokesperson for the British prime minister told reporters. “We will continue to discuss with our allies about what we think what is the right approach.” Indeed given training on the Abrams M1 tank could take at minimum six months, something as sophisticated as Western-made fighter jets could take years for pilots unfamiliar with their systems to get combat ready on. Germany too has issued a firm “no” amid mounting pressure from Ukraine for jets. Meanwhile it’s no surprise that the European country pressing the hardest to send jets continues to be Poland. Warsaw has been pressing the rest of NATO to transfer jets since the opening months of the war. On Monday Polish officials expressed readiness to send US-made F-16s to Ukraine, but emphasized it would only do so in coordination with NATO. “We will act in full coordination here,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said.

Boris

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“..organized GOP members into “task forces” to come up with oversight and legislative priorities..”

House GOP Kicks Off Biden Corruption Investigations (ZH)

Newly empowered House Republicans are kicking off their long-planned investigations into a wide variety of issues, beginning with hearings on the US-Mexico border crisis, the origins of Covid-19, and pandemic relief programs. The House Judiciary Committee’s first meeting of the new Congress, led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), will be “The Biden Border Crisis: Part I.” Then, the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee will hold a hearing titled: “Challenges and Opportunities to Investigating the Origins of Pandemics and Other Biological Events,” as part of its probe into the origins of Covid-19. Meanwhile, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, led by James Comer (R-KY) will kick off a hearing on waste, fraud and abuse related to federal pandemic spending, The Hill reports.

“I don’t think history will be kind to the PPP loan program,” said Comer during a Monday appearance at a National Press Club event, referring to the program that provided businesses with forgivable loans. “I think it’ll be eventually viewed in the same manner that the big bank bailouts were when people find out where a lot of that money was going.” Republicans had been plotting extensive investigations into the Biden administration for more than a year before the midterm elections. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), in preparation for taking the House majority, organized GOP members into “task forces” to come up with oversight and legislative priorities. Republican members of committees started investigations last year when they were in the minority.

Republicans now have control over committee hearing topics, a better chance of getting answers from administration officials, and are armed with subpoena power to compel testimony and documents — though no committee has used it yet. Next week, the Oversight panel is set to hold a hearing on the U.S.-Mexico border and a hearing with former Twitter employees about the platform’s suppression of the New York Post’s story on the Hunter Biden hard drive in 2020. -The Hill Speaking of the Bidens, the Oversight panel is also conducting an ‘extensive probe’ into the business dealings of President Biden’s family which will focus on Hunter Biden. Republicans on the House Oversight, Judiciary and Intelligence committees have also sought information related to President Biden’s mishandling of classified information, while the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees are going to be investigating the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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“..the military industrial complex is starting (potentially nuclear) wars all over the place. Government debt is growing exponentially. Wall Street has turned the markets into one big casino. Universities have become (very expensive) insane asylums. Congress is full of insider traders who amass fortunes while “serving the public.”

Gold And The Shrinking Trust Horizon (John Rubino)

[..] believe it or not, the public health establishment losing its credibility is related to precious metals, via something called the trust horizon. It works like this: When things are good and the people in charge of big systems seem to be running them well, we’re content to trust the experts. We keep most of our money in banks, brokerage houses, and crypto wallets that exist for us only as websites. We buy produce that’s grown in a different hemisphere and shipped via boats, trains, and trucks to corporate chain grocery stores. We vaccinate ourselves and our kids according to the schedules set by the NIH or the CDC. We pop pills on our doctor’s orders without doing any research. We eat processed foods on the assumption that the FDA keeps them free of dangerous additives. And we believe what we see on cable news.

In other words, our trust horizon, defined as the distance from ourselves at which we’ll believe what we’re told, is global. We assume everything everywhere is working for our benefit and we’re thus willing to put our welfare in those distant hands. But let some big systems fail to take proper care of us and we pull back, finding people and institutions closer to home that we can see and judge first-hand. We move our money out of distant banks and brokers and into local credit unions whose managers live down the street. We start buying groceries from farmers markets or directly from local farmers. Instead of popping whatever pill is standard for our ailments we look into “food as medicine” and other lifestyle remedies like exercise, supplements, and meditation. We homeschool our kids and join gun clubs. We buy homesteads and start raising chickens.

So where are today’s Americans on the trust horizon spectrum? Well, the military industrial complex is starting (potentially nuclear) wars all over the place. Government debt is growing exponentially. Wall Street has turned the markets into one big casino. Universities have become (very expensive) insane asylums. Congress is full of insider traders who amass fortunes while “serving the public.” And our presidents, well, insert your sarcastic phrase here. It’s safe to say that for a growing number of disillusioned people, trust now extends to – maybe — the governor’s mansion, city hall, local farmers, their church and one or two community banks. And that’s about it.

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“The market was impacted by war in Europe, high inflation, and rising interest rates. This negatively impacted both the equity market and bond market at the same time, which is very unusual. All the sectors in the equity market had negative returns, with the exception of energy.”

Norway’s Wealth Fund Posts Heavy Losses (RT)

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, Government Pension Fund Global, posted a record loss of 1.64 trillion kroner ($164.4 billion) in 2022, according to data published on the fund’s website on Tuesday. The return on investment last year was negative 14.1%, according to the released figures. The fund’s equities holdings posted a 15.3% loss, while its fixed-income portfolio was down 12.1%. Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, the entity that manages the fund, commented: “The market was impacted by war in Europe, high inflation, and rising interest rates. This negatively impacted both the equity market and bond market at the same time, which is very unusual. All the sectors in the equity market had negative returns, with the exception of energy.”


Despite the record loss, the overall value of the fund increased by 89 billion kroner ($8.9 billion) year-on-year. This was largely due to a record 1.1 trillion kroner ($109 billion) inflow, a figure roughly three times larger than the previous high from 2008. Currency fluctuations also helped, adding some 642 billion kroner ($64 billion) to the fund’s value. The fund, which reportedly lost the status of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund to China Investment Corporation, had a value of 12.4 trillion kroner ($1.2 trillion) as of December 31, 2022. The fund invests the revenue from Norway’s oil and gas sales, which grew substantially last year after the country became Europe’s largest gas supplier due to the drop in Russian flows. The fund holds stakes in some 9,300 companies globally and owns the equivalent of 1.3% of all listed stocks.

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“..the use of the technology could be extended further to help “create, personalize, and animate the content itself..”

Buzzfeed Sacks 180 Journalists, Replaces Them With AI (RT)

Struggling online publisher BuzzFeed will start using artificial intelligence (AI) to help write its quizzes after laying off dozens of employees, Report informs referring to The Telegraph. The media company, known for its light-hearted articles and “listicles”, will work with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, on the initiative. The chatbot, which provides human-like written responses to prompts, has attracted praise from tech executives, academics and politicians amid hopes it could simplify and transform tasks across a range of industries. The technology will be used to create quizzes on the website that are tailored to an individual, with, for example, a pitch for a personalized rom com.


The quiz would ask prompt questions such as “Pick a trope for your rom com” and “Tell us an endearing flaw you have” before using AI to generate a write-up based on the responses, according to a memo to staff from chief executive Jonah Peretti. Peretti said he planned to increase the use of AI across BuzzFeed’s editorial output and business operations this year, according to the memo seen by the Wall Street Journal. Peretti said he expected AI to assist the creative process and enhance the content, while humans would provide “cultural currency” and “inspired prompts”. But he suggested the use of the technology could be extended further to help “create, personalize, and animate the content itself” over the next 15 years. sThe company’s push into AI comes just over a month after it sacked 12pc of its workforce – around 180 employees.

Read more …

4-part series.

The Press Versus The President, Part Two (CJR)

In a windowless conference room at Trump Tower, on January 6, 2017, Comey briefed the president-elect about the dossier about him and Russia. Trump had heard, from aides, media “rumblings” about Russia, but, in an interview, he said he was unaware of the dossier until he met with Comey. Comey’s one-on-one with Trump came after the intelligence community briefed him on a new “Intelligence Community Assessment” (ICA) on Russian activities in 2016. The ICA claimed that Russia had mounted an “influence campaign” aimed at the election but had not targeted or compromised vote-tallying systems. Its most important, and controversial, finding was that “Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump,” as opposed to Russia’s usual goal, which was generally sowing chaos in the United States.

An unclassified version of the ICA was released the same day in Washington. The dossier, actually a series of reports in 2016, was included in the assessment, but it remained secret, temporarily, because a summary of it was attached as a classified appendix. “The only thing that really resonated,” Trump said about the briefing, “was when he said four hookers,” a reference to the unsubstantiated claim of a salacious encounter in Moscow. Trump’s immediate reaction was that “this is not going to be good for the family,” he recalled. But his wife, Melania, “did not believe it at all,” telling him, “That’s not your deal with the golden shower,” Trump recalled. Trump’s marriage might have survived but his hoped for honeymoon with the press was about to end. The dossier, largely suppressed by the media in 2016, was about to surface.

But first came the ICA. It received massive, and largely uncritical coverage. Some other reporters weren’t convinced. Gessen called the ICA “flawed” because it was based on “conjecture” and incorporated “misreported or mistranslated” and “false” public statements. They criticized the major media, including the New York Times, for describing the ICA as a “strong statement.” In an interview, Gessen said that their skepticism left them isolated and they began to “lose confidence.” The dossier wound up in the ICA because the FBI pushed it, despite reservations at the CIA. Agency analysts saw it as an “internet rumor,” according to Justice Department documents. Two “senior managers in the CIA mission center responsible for Russia” also had reservations, according to a memoir by Brennan, the head of the agency at the time.

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A lot of people will like an alternative to Paypal.

Twitter Makes Move That Could Take Out ‘Woke’ PayPal (TPN)

Twitter CEO Elon Musk is not messing around. The billionaire truly does want to take over the world. Back in October, Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion and made it clear from day one that he had high ambitions. As Elon Musk strives to revive Twitter, the company has taken action by submitting applications for regulatory licenses in various parts of the US and developing the necessary software to incorporate payments within the social media platform. This would directly compete with PayPal who has been slammed by Conservatives for their ‘woke’ practices including banning and suspending payments from people who they don’t agree with. Check out what the Financial Times reported:

“Esther Crawford, a fast-rising lieutenant to Musk inside Twitter, has started to map out the architecture needed to facilitate payments on the platform with a small team, according to two people familiar with the company’s plans. The nascent moves to allow payments through the site are a critical part of Musk’s plan to open up fresh revenue streams. Twitter’s $5bn-a-year advertising business has cratered since he bought the platform for $44bn in October, with marketers citing concerns over its management and moderation. Musk has previously said he wants Twitter to offer fintech services such as peer-to-peer transactions, savings accounts and debit cards, as part of a masterplan to launch an “everything app” that incorporates messaging, payments and commerce. In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, one of the first online banks, which later became part of payments giant PayPal. [..] Twitter is also pushing forward with the regulatory checks needed before launching a payment service. In November, Twitter registered with the US Treasury as a payments processor, according to a regulatory filing. It had now also begun to apply for some of the state licences it would need in order to launch, these people said.

Shortly after he acquired the tech company, Musk hinted that a payment processor would be coming soon. “The man who reinvented the payment system back in 1999 is all set to do it again,” tweeted ‘DogeDesigner’ on Twitter. Musk responded to the tweet, agreeing that he would be reinventing the payment system again. “It’s gonna be great,” Musk said.

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“..80% of the Pfizer deaths have come from ~30% of lots, whereas 80% of the Moderna deaths have come from 20% of lots…”

Who Will be Spared from COVID-19 Vaccine Injury? (McCullough)

Americans have become numb with newsreels of sudden cardiac death, blood clots, stroke, seizures, hospitalization, and death after COVID-19 vaccination. Many have vowed to decline future boosters and get off the vaccination train. However, a common question is: will I be spared? A Zobgy survey in 2022 found that 15% of individuals who took a COVID-19 vaccine had some new medical problem for which they were seeking care.1 A concordant survey done by Dr. Mark Skidmore at Michigan State University found that 22% of Americans knew someone who was seriously damaged by the vaccines.2 The CDC V-Safe data showed that 7-8% of those who took received a COVID-19 vaccine had to seek urgent care from an emergency department or similar facility.

These data suggest that ~85% of those who have received COVID-19 vaccines have no significant problems, and ~15% have been damaged. While this number is unacceptably high, and the vaccine campaign should be stopped, many are wondering now: “why me?” There are almost certainly factors related to the vaccine product that plays a role. In general, Moderna with 100 mcg of mRNA appears to be more toxic than Pfizer with 30 mcg of mRNA.Janssen seems to be similar acutely to Pfizer, but with a better longer-term safety profile. Novavax, with 5 mcg of purified Spike protein, appears to have the most favorable safety profile with no genetic material being injected into the body.

It has been reported that 80% of the Pfizer deaths have come from ~30% of lots, whereas 80% of the Moderna deaths have come from 20% of lots. Thus, the lot number must be a proxy for mRNA content, contaminants, or some other factor related to the product. Patient susceptibility factors make a syndrome more likely to be expressed if it is going to occur. For example, a family or personal history of a genetic blood clotting disorder, use of estrogens, obesity, and immobility make a person more likely to develop severe thromboembolic syndromes after vaccination. Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease makes it more likely for the vaccines to cause a heart attack or stroke. Baseline cardiomyopathy, mutations in various ion channels, and possibly internal adrenalin during sleep or sports may trigger vaccine-induced myocarditis and sudden death.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1620546600799195136

Read more …

Starting to look that way.

Did 7.5 Million People Die From Covid Shots? (Horowitz)

There is simply no macro epidemiological evidence that the COVID jabs saved any lives from the virus. To the contrary, there are numerous data points showing negative efficacy. Moreover, over 70% of the 6.75 million recorded COVID deaths occurred precisely after the shots were unleashed. In fact, many parts of the world that barely experienced COVID deaths during the first year, such as Scandinavia, Australia, and far East Asia, incurred almost all of their deaths after the shots were in the arms of every senior. So now that we established there was no mortality benefit, what was the cost? What if I told you it was 7.5 million – even more than the recorded number of COVID deaths? A new peer-reviewed study from Michigan State University estimated that as of Dec. 18, 2021, the time of the survey, 278,000 Americans died of reactions to the jabs.

The study, published last week in BMC Infectious Diseases, used Dynata, the world’s largest first-party data platform, to create a random sample of 2,840 Americans to report their experience with the shots: 15% of those surveyed indicated they had experienced a health issue after vaccination, and 13% of those indicated that a severe adverse event had occurred, in line with many other surveys. Using extrapolations from the survey juxtaposed to state-by-state VAERS deaths, the researcher estimates that, as of Dec. 18, 2021, there were a total of 278,000 vaccine fatalities in the U.S. Further, “severe” adverse events are estimated to be about one million nationwide, and “less severe” adverse events are about 2.1 million. Estimated nationwide fatalities, “severe” injuries, and “less severe” injuries tally to 3.4 million.

This is just after the first year of the vaccine. The results should shock the conscience of the public. So how many died in the world over two years of vaccination? Using the numbers from Our World in Data, 493 million doses of the vaccine were administered in the U.S. at the time of the Michigan State survey. So, if 493 million doses were enough to kill 278 thousand Americans, how many would have died at the same rate globally from the beginning until today? At 13.24 billion doses administered globally, that would result in 7.47 million vaccine fatalities, more than the Holocaust! That would be in addition to 27 million severe injuries globally!

What is shockingly eerie about this projection is that it’s almost identical to what I estimated in terms of the global death toll two months ago based on the CDC’s V-SAFE data demonstrating an underreporting factor in VAERS of 26. Using the URF of 26, and multiplying for the global doses administered, I estimated a back-of-the-envelope total of 7.855 million COVID shot deaths globally. Using this extrapolation just for the U.S. based on the total current number of doses, it would work out to about 372,000 deaths in the U.S. Some estimate as many as 550,000 non-COVID excess deaths, which could demonstrate potentially an even higher death toll.

Insurance analyst
https://twitter.com/i/status/1620512597798977539

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“..failed to find even a modest effect on infection or illness rates from masks of all qualities..”

Massive Mask Meta-study Undermines Remaining Covid Mandates (JTN)

An international research collaboration that reviewed several dozen rigorous studies of “physical interventions” against influenza and COVID-19 through last year failed to find even a modest effect on infection or illness rates from masks of all qualities. Published in the peer-reviewed Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, run by the British evidence-based medicine charity Cochrane, the study raises new doubts about ongoing mask mandates and public health recommendations worldwide. The CDC is still recommending masking in areas with “high” transmission levels — fewer than 4% of U.S. counties — as well as indoor masking to protect high-risk contacts in “medium” counties (27%).

Masks are still required in educational institutions in Democratic strongholds such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington and California, according to the Daily Mail. Boston Public Schools denied its “temporary masking protocol” in early January was a “mandate,” following a public letter against the policy by student Enrique Abud Evereteze. South Korea is still requiring masks on public transport and in medical facilities after dropping COVID mandates in most indoor settings, including gyms, Monday, Reuters reported. The researchers for the Cochrane study are affiliated with a geographically disparate range of institutions in the U.K., Canada, Australia, Italy and Saudi Arabia. Half are affiliated with the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare at Australia’s Bond University. The corresponding author is the University of Calgary’s John Conly.

The team added 11 new randomized controlled trials and “cluster-RCTs,” which randomize groups of subjects rather than individuals, to its prior review from November 2020, for a total of 78 studies. The additions included COVID pandemic trials: two from Mexico and one each from England, Norway, Denmark and Bangladesh, the latter two well known internationally. The Danish study had trouble finding a major journal willing to publish its controversial findings that wearing surgical masks had no statistically significant effect on infection rates, even among those who claimed to wear them “exactly as instructed.” Mainstream media overlooked red flags in the Bangladeshi mask study, which found no effect for surgical masks under age 50 and a difference of only 20 infections between control and treatment groups among 342,000 adults.

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Very interesting. But there’s still no profit in IVM.

How Ivermectin Kills Prostate Cancer Cells (PR)

I spent the first semester of my course, The Biology of Cancer, reviewing all of the aspects of The Hallmarks of Cancer. This morning, firing up Pubmed to continue preparing my lecture prostate cancer, I found this gem of a study, which happens to be a collaboration between my former employer, The University of Pittsburgh, and Southern Medical University-Guangzhou. I don’t know the authors:


Title: “Integrated analysis reveals FOXA1 and Ku70/Ku80 as targets of ivermectin in prostate cancer” The authors exposed various prostate cancer cells lines to Ivermectin and found that ivermectin binds to two proteins: FOXA1 and Ku70/Ku80. This leads to the inhibition of androgen receptor (AR), E2F1 expression, and DNA damage repair activity. The cells stopped dividing (G0/G1 cell cycle arrest), experience extensive DNA damage, and die. A retrospective study of the rates of cancer and rates of death from cancer among unvaccinated people who prophylactically used Ivermectin over a long period of time vs those who did not is in order.

Study Abstract:


Ivermectin is a widely used antiparasitic drug and shows promising anticancer activity in various cancer types. Although multiple signaling pathways modulated by ivermectin have been identified in tumor cells, few studies have focused on the exact target of ivermectin. Herein, we report the pharmacological effects and targets of ivermectin in prostate cancer. Ivermectin caused G0/G1 cell cycle arrest, induced cell apoptosis and DNA damage, and decreased androgen receptor (AR) signaling in prostate cancer cells. Further in vivo analysis showed ivermectin could suppress 22RV1 xenograft progression. Using integrated omics profiling, including RNA-seq and thermal proteome profiling, the forkhead box protein A1 (FOXA1) and non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) repair executer Ku70/Ku80 were strongly suggested as direct targets of ivermectin in prostate cancer. The interaction of ivermectin and FOXA1 reduced the chromatin accessibility of AR signaling and the G0/G1 cell cycle regulator E2F1, leading to cell proliferation inhibition. The interaction of ivermectin and Ku70/Ku80 impaired the NHEJ repair ability. Cooperating with the downregulation of homologous recombination repair ability after AR signaling inhibition, ivermectin increased intracellular DNA double-strand breaks and finally triggered cell death. Our findings demonstrate the anticancer effect of ivermectin in prostate cancer, indicating that its use may be a new therapeutic approach for prostate cancer.

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“..multiple quanta have inherent properties that are both indeterminate, but the properties of each one aren’t independent of the other..”

Quantum Entanglement Just Got A Whole Lot Weirder (Siegel)

In the quantum Universe, things behave very differently than our common experience would suggest. In the macroscopic world we’re familiar with, any object we can measure appears to have intrinsic properties that are independent of whether we observe it or not. We can measure things like mass, position, motion, duration, etc., without worrying about whether that object is affected by our measurements; reality exists completely independently of the observer. But in the quantum world, that’s demonstrably not true. The act of measuring a system fundamentally changes its properties in an irrevocable way. One of the weirdest quantum properties of all is entanglement: where multiple quanta have inherent properties that are both indeterminate, but the properties of each one aren’t independent of the other.

We’ve seen this demonstrated for photons, electrons, and all sorts of identical particles before, enabling us to test and probe the fundamental and surprising nature of reality. In fact, the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded precisely for investigations into this phenomenon. But in a novel experiment, quantum entanglement has just been demonstrated between different particles for the first time, and already the technique has been used to see an atom’s nucleus like never before. In principle, quantum entanglement is a simple idea to understand, and it’s built on the idea of quantum indeterminism. Imagine you pull a ball out of a hat, and there’s a 50/50 chance that the ball has one of two properties.

• Perhaps it’s color: the ball could be black or white. • Perhaps it’s mass: either you pulled out a light ball or a heavy ball. • Perhaps it’s which direction it’s spinning: the ball could be “spin up” or “spin down.” If you only had one ball, you might wonder: upon pulling it out and examining the ball, did it always have those properties, even before you looked at it? Or did the ball have a set of indeterminate parameters, where it was a mix of: • black-and-white • light-and-heavy, • and spinning as a mix of both up-and-down, that was only determined at the instant you took the critical measurement?

Read more …

 

 

 

 


Thessaloniki 2023 Greece

 

 


The regal moth (Citheronia regalis), also called the royal walnut moth or the hickory horned devil, is one of the largest moths in North America. Its caterpillar can grow up to 15 centimetres (5.9 in) long

 

 


Jellyfish don’t have hearts, brains, or blood and have been that way for more than 650 million years. Photo: Jeff Hamilton

 

 


Charles Darwin brought back a 5 year old Tortoise named Harriet from the Galápagos Islands that would be later owned by Steve Irwin. Harriet died in 2006 at the age of 176

 

 

Up

 

 

 

 

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Dec 122022
 


Vincent van Gogh Autumn landscape 1885

 

 

We’ve done quite a few episodes of commenter TAE Summary’s “Tales of Two Narratives” through time. Let’s add this one, why don’t we. Reading through -especially- Twitter, the past 24 hours or so, it struck me how fitting this is. We’re talking narratives that are so many light years apart, never the twain shall meet. Interested in time travel? This is for you.

On the one hand, lots of people react to the following tweet by Elon Musk, by claiming Fauci saved millions of lives. On the other hand, just as many people (or so it seems) claim Fauci killed millions of people. It’s hard to get a bigger, and more consequential, chasm, than that. And apparently this Musk tweet got the most likes in Twitter history. What does that tell us? This chasm is not just on Twitter, this is the entire country plus anywhere else on the planet where people follow this. Despite the enormous 24/7 pressure to accept “The Science”, get a shot and a mask, and shut up.

 

 

Of all people, John Brennan tried. The ex-CIA director who was caught lying to the Senate in 2014, and in 2017 to the House Intelligence Committee (Steele Dossier) about Russian interference during the 2016 election, still appears to think he has some form of moral high ground. Which is remarkable in and of itself. But at least Brennan has “class”.

 

 

Elon Musk’s reaction has been loud and clear (note: this tweet is not a direct reaction to Brennan):

 

 

Elon Musk has promised us a “full” record of the decision making process behind the censoring and banning by Twitter’s former staff, of renowned doctors like Peter McCullough, Robert Malone, Pierre Kory, Robert Marik, Richard Urso, and many more. Many of these distinguished scientists have seen their careers and livelihoods hampered, even destroyed by Fauci -and Twitter- over the past -almost- 3 years. And, of course, anyone else who dared question “The Science”.

This was (is?!) a highly concerted effort. How many people died who could have been saved with ivermectin? Or just Vitamin D3, for that matter? HCQ? So many lives were lost to FDA, Fauci et al banning anything but Pfizer. Many more will perish because they now have mRNA in their bodies, and will never be able to get rid of it anymore.

The “full record” will be a spectacle. Even if some things still remain hidden. Elon Musk may not be a saint, I very much hope he’s not, saints scare me, but I’d take him over Tony Fauci any day of the week.

Here’s TAE Summary:

 

 

TAE Summary:

The Mainstream Narrative

– As a worldwide ‘public square,’ Twitter should be heavily regulated for misinformation and spamming by hostile interests. Twitter bears a responsibility to take action against disinformation and hate. Content moderation on platforms like Twitter is absolutely necessary to safeguard our democracy. As a private company Twitter is under no legal obligation to protect free speech and everything Twitter has done is within the law. Twitter and other social media platforms were instrumental in combating disinformation about Covid 19, climate change, election integrity and the war in Ukraine.

– Elon Musk is an arrogant, toxic person. He doesn’t really care about free speech. His goals in purchasing Twitter are political. His takeover of Twitter is the most terrifying development in recent history. His purchase of Twitter will destroy it by driving away advertisers and providing a platform for Neo-Nazis and other hate-speechers. Under Musk, Twitter is a scammer’s paradise. Elon Musk decimated the staff of Twitter (breaking Federal labor laws) while restoring accounts that spread disinformation. Control of Twitter involves national security risks and Musk’s takeover should be investigated by the US Government.

– The so-called “Twitter Files” are a feast for conspiracy theorists and have re-enlivened the influence of entities like QAnon. Journalists like Matt Taibbi writing about the Twitter Files are selling their souls to do PR work for the richest man in the world. The Twitter Files entries are sloppy, anecdotal and devoid of context. They are a nothing event about nothing event. The hysteria surrounding the Twitter Files is being used by Republicans for political gain.

– The Hunter Biden laptop story was difficult and the truth was not known early and so caution was justified. There is no evidence in the Twitter Files that the government was involved in the suppression of the Hunter Biden Laptop story. There is nothing on Hunter Biden’s laptop that actually implicates Joe Biden. James Baker took the careful approach and urged Twitter to weigh both sides of the Hunter Biden Laptop story before proceeding.

– Hate speech has dramatically increased since Must took over Twitter and these hateful tweets will lead to violence against the already marginalized. Right wing accounts such as those of Donald Trump, Project Veritas and the Babylon Bee should continue to be banned.

 

 

The Counter Narrative

– Twitter management was openly against free speech and used techniques such as “Visibility Filtering” to limit the reach of some posts. Twitter had secret blacklist files to limit the distribution of certain tweets specifically targeting right wing users. Twitter and other social media platforms have been instrumental in distributing disinformation and hiding the truth about Covid 19, climate change, election integrity and the war in Ukraine. Twitter censorship was used by the Democrats for political gain

– Elon Musk is a hero. He bought Twitter to restore free speech. Twitter, pre-Musk, was a major accomplice and enabler in selling-out America’s future. Twitter was bloated with excess and left wing employees.

– The Twitter Files show that the DNC and FBI were directly involved in suppressing free speech and prove that the 2020 elections were not free and fair. Twitter was clearly involved in election interference. The government interactions with Twitter were similar to Nazi propaganda methods. Twitter employees and their government contacts should be made to answer for their actions before congress. So-called journalists criticizing Matt Taibbi for his work on the Twitter Files are embarrassing in their uniformity and mindless support of a corrupt system.

– The files on Hunter Biden’s laptop prove that Joe Biden used his office to make money and Twitter’s suppression of the laptop story was done to help get Joe Biden elected. It is a bigger scandal than Watergate. James Baker was involved in RussiaGate at the FBI and the Hunter Biden Laptop suppression at Twitter. Baker deleted some of the content that should have been in the Twitter Files.

– The claims that hate speech has increased on Twitter since Musk’s takeover are utterly false. Hate speech is not tolerated on Twitter. Twitter largely ignored child trafficking issues until Musk took over. Lifting the ban on Donald Trump, Project Veritas and the Babylon Bee on Twitter are victories for free speech.

 

 

 

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Sep 192022
 


Pablo Picasso Horses and person 1939

 

Germans Could Be ‘Left Without A Country’ Soon – Trump (RT)
Sympathy For Germany (Varoufakis)
Rand Corp. “Executive Summary: Weakening Germany, Strengthening the U.S.” (RP)
Hungary PM Orban Warns Ukraine Could Lose Up To Half Of Its Territory (RT)
Hungary Can No Longer Be Considered A Full Democracy – EU Lawmakers (RMX)
EU To Deprive Hungary Of Billions In Funds (RT)
EU Launch Propaganda Board Game About Commission Tsar Ursula von der Leyen (BB)
EU Ports Signal Readiness To Let Russian Fertilizers Through – UN (RT)
Updated List of US-Based Food Manufacturing Plants Destroyed Under Biden (GP)
Covid Injections Are Dangerous, What You Can Do If You’ve Had One or Two (TE)
The Power Of Collective Grief, From the Queen to George Floyd to Covid (G.)
Biden: ‘The Pandemic Is Over’ (CNN)
850 More Unvaxxed NYC Teachers, Aides Fired Over Mandate (NYP)
US Marine Corps Quietly Changes COVID-19 Vaccine Policy (ET)
Study Takes Wrecking Ball to Myths About Apocalyptic ‘Climate Change’ (BN)
Secret Documents Have Exposed the CIA’s Julian Assange Obsession (Jacobin)

 

 

 

 

Biden Taiwan

 

 

 

 

Biden inflation

 

 

 

 

Biden pandemic is over

 

 

McCullough

 

 

 

 

“If you are getting 72% of your energy from Russia, here’s the white flag, because you will be surrendering very quickly..”

Germans Could Be ‘Left Without A Country’ Soon – Trump (RT)

Germany could soon cease to exist as a country amid the escalating energy crisis, former US president Donald Trump has suggested. During a rally in Youngstown, Ohio on Saturday, Trump tore into his successor in the White House, taking aim at Biden’s energy policy and the so-called Green New Deal in particular. The Republican firebrand claimed that, although under his rule the US had become independent in terms of energy and on track to become “totally dominant in energy, bigger than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined,” Joe Biden has since reduced the US to “begging for energy.” Trump then went on to cite Germany’s sorry state of affairs in this area.

According to the ex-president, he warned then-Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was supposed to pump Russian gas to Germany, would make Berlin even more dependent on Russian energy exports. Trump said he had sent the “white flag of surrender” to Angela Merkel when she refused to ditch the project. “If you are getting 72% of your energy from Russia, here’s the white flag, because you will be surrendering very quickly,” the former US head of state recounted his own warning to Merkel. He proceeded to cite the “bad things” which have happened between Berlin and Moscow in the past as proof that Germany should not have relied so heavily on Russia. The former US president concluded by saying that “Germany now is going back to the old-fashioned stuff, including coal,” despite its previous pledges to go green.

“But they have no choice, they won’t have a country, they won’t have a country left,” Trump warned cryptically, before returning to the topic of domestic politics again. Gas prices in Europe soared dramatically soon after Russia launched its military offensive against Ukraine in late February, and have remained consistently higher than last year’s ever since. With both the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines now inoperative, either due to Berlin’s own or to Moscow’s decision, the German government has put in place emergency measures to stock up on gas. Multiple senior officials in Germany have warned that the coming winter is likely to be tough.

Read more …

Yanis claims that Germany should have invested more in “clean energy”. First, there’s no such thing. And second, Germany invested more in what that is supposed to be than anyone else. And look where it is today.

Sympathy For Germany (Varoufakis)

Today, it is the Germans who are facing a wall of condescension, antipathy, and even mockery. Ironic as it may seem, no Europeans are better placed than the Greeks to understand that the Germans deserve better; that their current predicament is the result of our collective, European failure; and that no one – least of all the long-suffering Greeks, southern Italians, Spaniards, and Portuguese (the PIGS as we were once called) – benefits from schadenfreude. The tables have been turned on Germany because its economic model relied on repressed wages, cheap Russian gas, and excellence in mid-tech mechanical engineering – particularly manufacturing cars with internal combustion engines.

This resulted in massive trade surpluses during four distinct post-World War II phases: under the US-led Bretton Woods system, which provided fixed exchange rates and market access to Europe, Asia, and the Americas; then, after the collapse of Bretton Woods, when the single European market proved highly lucrative for German exports; again following the introduction of the euro, when vendor financing opened the floodgates for both goods and capital flowing from Germany to Europe’s periphery; and, finally, when China’s hunger for intermediate and final manufacturing products took up the slack after the euro crisis dampened demand for German goods in southern Europe.

Germans are now slowly coming to terms with the demise of their economic model and are beginning to see through the multifaceted Big Lie their elites were repeating for three decades: Fiscal surpluses were not prudence in action, but rather a monumental failure, during the long years of ultra-low interest rates, to invest in clean energy, critical infrastructure, and the two crucial technologies of the future: batteries and artificial intelligence. Germany’s dependence on Russian gas and Chinese demand was never sustainable in the long term; and they are not mere bugs that can be ironed out. The claim that the German model was compatible with Europe’s monetary union is also being exposed as false. Lacking a fiscal and a political union, the EU was always going to saddle Club Med governments, banks, and corporations with unpayable debts, which eventually would force the European Central Bank to choose between letting the euro die and embarking upon a permanent bankruptcy-concealment project.

The myth of “green growth”

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“The impeachment of the President cannot be ruled out under these circumstances, which must be avoided at all costs.”

Rand Corp. “Executive Summary: Weakening Germany, Strengthening the U.S.” (RP)

In a recently revealed research report written by RAND, dated Jan. 25, 2022 and labeled CONFIDENTIAL, John Mark Dougan has released what may be one of most important motivations the United States may have in encouraging the conflict in Ukraine: maintaining power. The 6 page report published prior to any conflict beginning, but after the State Department’s ominous warning of “Russian sponsored false flag attacks”, appears to be a photocopy of an official RAND research product, meant for the White House and National Security community here in America. The distribution channels listed on the cover page include: WHCS, ANSA, Dept. of State, CIA, NSA & DNC.

That’s right, the Democratic National Committee is copied on a research report that’s been directed at the national security community and perhaps members of the Biden White House. WHCS and ANSA are mysteries to me, but I thought perhaps they led to the Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know in the comments. The second page includes the standard copyright attributions and language about the mission of Rand. On the third page is where we get to the good stuff! It’s unknown if the report extends beyond the 4 pages included in the Executive Summary, but the headings and text included in those 4 pages are damning. It appears that RAND has predicted that the United States economy is on the brink of collapse.

Rising debt and uncontrolled printing of cash as a result of the economic downturn brought on by the plandemic, has brought the United States to a precarious position. They predict the continued deterioration of the economy will likely lead to the defeat of the Democrat party in both Congress and the Senate, opening the door to an impeachment of Joe Biden in the next session of Congress. “The impeachment of the President cannot be ruled out under these circumstances, which must be avoided at all costs.” This passage alone demonstrates the partisan work being done by RAND and the coordinated tactics in use between the Democrat party and the National Security State, THE DEEP STATE. But what’s most shocking is the lengths they suggest going to in order to maintain control of the nation by both groups in order to protect Joe Biden and whoever is pulling his strings from behind the scenes.

The Executive Summary begins with the title: “Weakening Germany, strengthening the US”, with the ultimate goal being the infusion of cash into the banking system by European and NATO aligned nations. Hopefully being able to avoid significant military and political cost in the process. As RAND sees it, the greatest obstacle to achieving this goal is the ever growing independence of Germany. That problem seems to have been addressed with the war in Ukraine and the sanction on Russia, resulting in the killing of the Nordstream pipeline and the cutoff of natural gas from Russia into Germany. That alone will undoubtedly lead to Germany requiring assistance from other European nations if they hope to save their citizens when the heat turns off. Control of Germany and their governmental decision making process seems to be of chief concern to RAND, which predicts that the destabilization of the US would lead to a quickening of the independence of Germany and the inevitable end of US influence. Once that happens, RAND believes that France and Germany will align, along with other old European nations, creating an economic and political competitor to the United States. As long as these things can be staved off, the global dominance of America can be assured.

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Germany no country, Ukraine half a country. Good times for mapmakers ahead.

Hungary PM Orban Warns Ukraine Could Lose Up To Half Of Its Territory (RT)

The Ukraine conflict could last until 2030 and the West is to blame for making it global rather than local in nature, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said, according to Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL). Orban was reportedly speaking at a closed-door event involving his ruling Fidesz party a week ago, with the details of his speech now being leaked to the media. The Hungarian leader allegedly told his supporters in the village of Kotcse on September 10 that he believed Ukraine may end up losing between one third and one half of its territory due to the conflict with Russia, RFE/RL reported on Friday, citing participants of the meeting. The fighting between Moscow and Kiev – which is being helped by the US, EU and some other countries – could continue all the way until 2030, Orban reportedly warned.

The crisis in Ukraine started as a local conflict but the involvement of the West has turned it into a global affair, the prime minister said. According to the report, Orban again lashed out at EU sanctions imposed on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, saying the bloc had shot itself in the foot with those curbs. The energy crisis, which occurred as a result of those restrictions, could force 40% of European industry to shut down this winter, he reportedly added. In his speech, the Hungarian leader also allegedly revealed that European leaders are expected to decide on prolonging the sanctions for another six months later in autumn, insisting that an attempt should be made to prevent that extension.

The way things are going now, the eurozone and the EU itself could cease to exist by 2030, Orban was quoted as saying. Hungary has remained relatively neutral since the outbreak of fighting in Ukraine in late February. It has refused to send arms to Kiev and consistently criticized EU sanctions on Moscow. Budapest, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy, was also able to negotiate an exemption for itself from the bloc-wide ban on Russian oil. Earlier this month, Mikulas Bek, the European affairs minister of the Czech Republic, which now presides over the EU Council, warned that Hungary’s stance on Russia could theoretically end up with it exiting the bloc.

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Orban got elected with “a landslide election victory with a two-thirds majority in April of this year”. That is far more than all the people who say it’s not a democracy.

Hungary Can No Longer Be Considered A Full Democracy – EU Lawmakers (RMX)

Hungary can no longer be considered a fully-functioning democracy and should be regarded as a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy,” a report adopted by the European Parliament on Thursday stated. European lawmakers adopted a non-binding but significant resolution on Thursday by 433 votes to 123, which criticized democratic principles in Hungary. This resolution comes despite Hungary’s government securing a landslide election victory with a two-thirds majority in April of this year, representing one of the strongest democratic mandates in all of Europe. The election was also certified as free and fair by a range of independent election observers.

Nevertheless, in a press release following the vote, the European Parliament condemned the “deliberate and systematic efforts of the Hungarian government” to undermine European values and demands. Furthermore, it claimed the situation in Hungary has deteriorated to such an extent that it can only now be considered an “electoral autocracy.” It blames what it regards as a democratic “backslide” on both Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz administration, and the European Commission which it claims has exacerbated the situation through its omission to intervene. MEPs further called for EU recovery funds to continue being withheld from the Hungarian treasury “until the country complies with EU recommendations and court rulings.”

The continuous criticism of Hungary has been ongoing since 2018 when MEPs first triggered the Article 7 procedure, what some consider to be a nuclear option which can ultimately deprive a member state of its voting rights. The only other country to be subject to the Article 7 procedure is Poland, which also conveniently continues to elect a conservative national government, much to the dismay of federalist, pro-globalism officials in Brussels, many who occupy their positions with no democratic mandate.

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Because Orban is right-wing, and independent, and won’t join the anti-Russia craze.

EU To Deprive Hungary Of Billions In Funds (RT)

The European Commission on Sunday proposed withholding $7.5 billion of funds allocated to Hungary, due to corruption concerns. The suspension is aimed at protecting the bloc’s budget, according to Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn. “Today’s decision is a clear demonstration of the Commission’s resolve to protect the EU budget, and use all tools at our disposal to ensure this important objective,” the commissioner told reporters. The money would come from thee “cohesion funds” granted to Hungary, which are intended to help EU countries bring their economies up to the bloc’s standards. If approved, the funding cut will be the first punitive measure of its kind under the EU’s rule of law mechanism, which gives Brussels the right to impose financial penalties on member states if their actions are seen as violating EU values.

Brussels triggered the unprecedented procedure against Hungary in April this year. According to Hahn, Budapest has since then announced a number of measures aimed at fixing the issues. For instance, the Hungarian government recently said it plans to create an anti-corruption authority to oversee the spending of EU funds by the end of September. However, Hahn said the timeline for Hungary to “accordingly” implement the necessary measures is “very tight.” “A risk for the budget at this stage remains, therefore we cannot conclude that the EU budget is sufficiently protected,” he stated.

The EU Council now has one month to decide whether to adopt the Commission’s proposal. Hungary will then be given one month to reply or request an extension, meaning the Commission could freeze the funds on November 19 at the earliest. Meanwhile, Hungary has said it will be ready to roll out most of its “remedial” measures by that deadline, with the government expected to propose a package of anti-corruption laws next week. Earlier this week, in a symbolic vote against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, members of the European Parliament said the country can no longer be considered a democracy, calling it instead a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” due to the alleged failure to uphold fundamental rights and the rule of law in the country.

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“..the EU has opted to instead release a physical board game rather than a digital app or web game which, while antiquated, will at least ensure EU citizens are able to play the Commission’s latest release during a winter set to be plagued by rolling blackouts.”

EU Launch Propaganda Board Game About Commission Tsar Ursula von der Leyen (BB)

Organised fun has once again come to the European Union, with the transnational bloc releasing a new propaganda board game centring around the rule of its Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen. The game — which was released ahead of von der Leyen’s state of the union address this week — is perhaps the latest of a long line of propaganda games released the world over, with North Korea and Communist China in particular being known for wacky authoritarian apps and video games pushing state ideals and ideology. However, unlike its propaganda publishing counterparts in East Asia, the EU has opted to instead release a physical board game rather than a digital app or web game which, while antiquated, will at least ensure EU citizens are able to play the Commission’s latest release during a winter set to be plagued by rolling blackouts.

Imaginatively titled “Von der Leyen Commission 101: Test your knowledge” the game centres around answering questions to do with Ursula von der Leyen’s over three years in office, the aim of the game is to answer as many questions correctly as possible to reach the finish line. A simple core concept, the game features rolling dice, using so-called “jolly” counters, as well as monitoring how many questions each individual player has gotten correct in a row. Despite that simplicity — and perhaps in a classic reflection of how the European Commission works — with padding, the rulebook for this basic game runs to over 100 pages in its English edition.


Although needlessly convoluted, the board game’s constant reference to EU achievements and talking points put it squarely in the realm of propaganda, the likes of which are well known in more authoritarian regimes throughout the world. The specific focus on von der Leyen recalls games published in China built around the cult of personality of Xi Jinping. One of these apps even involves the player trying to applaud the socialist leader as much as possible within 14 seconds, with users encouraged to rapidly tap their phone screens in praise of the head of state.

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Because this can no longer be blamed on Putin.

EU Ports Signal Readiness To Let Russian Fertilizers Through – UN (RT)

Major European ports have signaled their readiness to facilitate the export of Russian fertilizers, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with RIA Novosti, published on Saturday. “We are… in contact with the ports. We have received positive signals from Rotterdam, from the Finnish port of Kotka. We are also in discussions with Antwerp and Hamburg. So we are very attentive to this problem and very committed to solving it,” the official said in response to a question on the export of Russian fertilizers. In July, a multilateral agreement was signed in Istanbul freeing up Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea and lifting restrictions on Russian grain and fertilizer exports.


While Western sanctions do not technically restrict the sale of Russian agricultural produce, the measures still affect shipping, posing problems to payments and insurance of Russian cargo, among other things. According to Russia, however, the promised lifting of restrictions on Russian exports has not come about yet, with tons of fertilizers currently amassed at EU ports. Guterres said he spoke with EU leaders this week and is certain that the situation will improve soon. “First of all, we are engaged in trying to convince those who put certain obstacles to remove them. This week I had an intensive series of contacts with the leaders of the EU. And I hope there will be a positive change with regard to the possibility of distributing Russian grain and fertilizers without obstacles through Europe to other markets,” Guterres stated.

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Go to GP for the interactive map.

Updated List of US-Based Food Manufacturing Plants Destroyed Under Biden (GP)

Another reader of Gateway Pundit who wanted to stay anonymous has been doing extensive research regarding what is going on with the food supply. “I have created an interactive map that will let you click on (or hover over) an icon and it will provide all of the details of what happened at that location, including a link to the article,” she said. Below is the excerpt of the email she sent to Gateway Pundit: “If I had any doubts about this being on purpose, that is completely gone at this point. It’s almost terrifying seeing what is going on and the majority of people have no idea. Every day something else happens to add to this list. Things are happening so quickly now, that it is mind boggling. Big Tech is covering most of these up or burying them so far down the feed that most people never see them. I have investigative skills that I have used my entire career so I know how to get around all of that or I would never have found what I have.”

I had not heard of anyone looking up actual grocery store fires so that is what started me down this path. Once I saw how bad it was and the patterns that are happening it was clear what they are doing, and I am now convinced they are getting people to help with this just like they did with the election. I realize that not all of these are on purpose but once you see how big this is, it cannot be denied that something evil is going on and we are about to have our legs kicked out from under us…

I wanted to see if you could send out an update for the map? When you first posted my map, there were so many people going to it that they told me it was going to cost several thousand dollars for a certain amount of views. I told them I didn’t have money like that so I would make it private for myself only or try to find another company. Apparently word got around so fast from your article that people bombarded the map company and wanted it back up. They contacted me and told me they decided to leave it up so they could get some good publicity because at that point I think it had almost 200,000 (from people around the world!) views within a week or two.

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Now we’re talking.

Covid Injections Are Dangerous, What You Can Do If You’ve Had One or Two (TE)

Dr. Shoemaker: [Ivermectin is] the only medicine that helps you fight if you’ve got a vaccine injury. It’s the key to a vaccine injury protocol. It’s time. It’s time. This is over because the science is strong. The science is huge, that ivermectin is the thing that should always be available. But now that we’ve created this crisis, we need it even more. We need it even more in Canada, in everywhere. Dr. Shoemaker: I want ivermectin available for everybody. I don’t want you to have to go to the veterinary clinic or the veterinary store to get some of this medicine. It has to be made perfectly and ethically legal in all of your pharmacies.


Dr. Trozzi: For the treatment protocols, if like [Dr. Shoemaker], if you’ve had a couple of those injections or one of those injections and you got these spike proteins being produced by yourselves, go to the World Council for Health, go to the Spike Protein Detox Guide. Dr. Shoemaker is aware of that. The FLCCC do a great job [and] Canada Covid Care Alliance. These are very similar protocols. There’s a variety of things you can do, both natural and medicinal, including one of the safest, most effective medications in the history of mankind – ivermectin.

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On the day of her funeral, the Guardian puts her on par with a violent junkie.

The Power Of Collective Grief, From the Queen to George Floyd to Covid (G.)

As many have noted, this period of national mourning has a peculiarly British tinge, with the rain, the queueing, the marmalade sandwiches. People stood through the night, in a miles-long line that ran through central London, to pay their last respects to the Queen, lying in state. The TV coverage was almost soothing in its bland repetition, and its sombre reverence unavoidable.

For those of us of a republican leaning, the whole thing can feel bizarre and alienating, but for many others, the depth of their feeling may have caught them by surprise. “We have a relationship with these public figures,” says Julia Samuel, a psychotherapist who specialises in bereavement. The Queen, in particular, has “been the backdrop of our lives and this connecting thread. She’s the symbol of the mother of the nation and symbol of this idea of predictability, in such a changing, turbulent world. So we have a feeling of loss.” Precisely because of the Queen’s unknowability, we project our emotions on to her. “There’s a feeling of security in having a relationship with someone, particularly if you don’t actually know them, because you can put on to them what you need,” says Samuel.

We have come to know this outpouring of public emotion as collective grief. “The thing about collective grief is that it can put you in touch with your own losses,” says Samuel. “It can be loss of a parent and it reminds you of your mum or dad dying, or it puts you in touch with your mortality. If you have unresolved losses, it can bring lots of other feelings that aren’t necessarily to do with the Queen, that can feel quite overwhelming because it goes to the same place.”

Grief can be comforting, she says, when we are “feeling it at the same time. People feel bonded and have this sense of social safety, and of it reinforcing social ties. I think that’s why in queueing for the vigil or going to the different palaces, people find that calming. What research shows is that having great experiences of loss, you do worse alone than when you have the love and connection to others.” In a close bereavement, you would want this to be with friends and family, says Samuel. “But I also think there is something about strangers feeling like they know each other when they’re coming to put flowers at Buckingham Palace.”

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That must mean all mandates are also over.

Biden: ‘The Pandemic Is Over’ (CNN)

President Joe Biden said he believes the Covid-19 pandemic is “over” in an appearance on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” but acknowledged the US still has a “problem” with the virus that has killed more than 1 million Americans. “The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with Covid. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. It’s — but the pandemic is over,” Biden said. The US government still designates Covid-19 a Public Health Emergency and the World Health Organization says it remains a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. But the President’s comments follow other hopeful comments from global health leaders.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said in a news briefing last week that the end of the Covid-19 pandemic was “in sight,” and that the world has never been in a better position to end the Covid-19 pandemic. “Last week, the number of weekly reported deaths from Covid-19 was the lowest since March 2020,” Ghebreyesus said. “We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic. We’re not there yet, but the end is in sight.” Last month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adjusted its Covid-19 guidance to urge the nation away from measures such as quarantines and social distancing and instead focus on reducing severe disease from Covid-19. But the agency says some people, including those who are older, immunocompromised, have certain disabilities or underlying health conditions, are at higher risk for serious illness, and may need to take more precautions.

There were about 65,000 new Covid-19 cases reported each day over the past two weeks, data from Johns Hopkins University shows, and reported cases are dropping in almost every state. Across the United States, about 400 people are dying every day from Covid-19. Although official case counts are far from representative of true levels of transmission, forecasts published by the CDC say that new hospitalizations and deaths will hold steady for the next month. For people hospitalized for Covid-19, the risk of dying fell to the lowest it’s ever been during the Omicron wave, according to a study published last week by the CDC.

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Oh wait…

850 More Unvaxxed NYC Teachers, Aides Fired Over Mandate (NYP)

The city Department of Education has axed another 850 teachers and classroom aides — bringing the total to nearly 2,000 school employees fired for failure to comply with a vaccine mandate increasingly struck down in court. About 1,300 DOE employees who took a year’s unpaid leave — with benefits — agreed to show proof of COVID vaccination by Sept. 5 or be “deemed to have voluntarily resigned.” Of those staffers, 450 got a shot by the deadline and “are returning to their prior schools or work locations,” DOE officials told The Post. They include some 225 teachers and 135 paraprofessionals. The 850 let go makes roughly 1,950 DOE staffers terminated since the vaccine mandate took effect on Oct. 29, 2021.

Rachelle Garcia, an elementary school teacher in Brooklyn for 15 years and mother of two, worked fully in person during the pandemic and never got sick, she said. But she refused to get vaccinated, finally taking leave after the DOE denied her requests for a religious exemption. “I really put my eggs in one basket, hoping and praying that at the last minute our mayor would turn everything around in time for me to go back to work,” she said. Mayor Adams never lifted the vaccine mandate, while other cities and states are dropping such requirements due to relaxed CDC guidelines. “I’m angry, I’m hurt, to be cast aside like I was nothing. Because I couldn’t give a proper goodbye to my students, other teachers told me they kept asking, ‘When is Ms. Garcia coming back?’ That made me cry so much.”

She is now applying for jobs on Long Island. In all, NYC has fired more than 2,600 municipal workers not fully vaccinated, according to City Hall tallies. But last week, a Manhattan judge ruled that an unvaccinated NYPD officer, one of the dozens terminated, can’t be fired because the city gave no explanation of why it rejected his religious exemption request.

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They can’t any recruits.

US Marine Corps Quietly Changes COVID-19 Vaccine Policy (ET)

The U.S. Marine Corps issued guidance to roll back its strict punishments for service members who are seeking COVID-19 vaccine exemptions. In guidance posted online on Sept. 14, the “Marine Corps will not enforce any order to accept COVID-19 vaccination, administratively separate, or retaliate against Marines in the class for asserting statutory rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.” That guidance was changed following a recent Florida federal court order that temporarily blocked the Marines from taking action against individuals who seek a religious exemption. The latest guidance posted by the Marines made reference to that order, which was handed down in August.

“Involuntary administrative separation processing of class members for refusing COVID-19 vaccination is suspended,” the memo also said, while it directs commanders to “pause all administrative actions related to the involuntary separation of a class member, regardless of the current status of the separation process.” Listing several examples, the Marine guidance added that “no orders will be given to receive the vaccine, no counselings will be issued for refusing the vaccine, no administrative separation boards will be conducted,” and no discharges will be issued. If the Florida judge’s order is vacated or expires, the Marines may still enforce punishment against those who don’t meet the COVID-19 vaccine requirement, a spokesperson told Fox News.

Last year, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin issued an order that mandated vaccinations for all members of the armed service. “The Marine Corps is aware of the class-wide preliminary injunction issued by a District Court judge for the Middle District of Florida preventing the Marine Corps from enforcing any order to accept the COVID-19 vaccine or administratively separating Marines who refused to receive the COVID vaccine after their religious accommodation appeal was denied,” Marine Corps spokesperson Maj. Jay Hernandez told the outlet. In recent months, reports have indicated that every branch of the U.S. military is struggling to find new recruits, triggering warnings from some members of Congress.

Some have flagged the Pentagon’s strict vaccine requirement while others have said it is because of the slow creep of “woke” diversity trainings and mandates into the military. And others say that high U.S. obesity rates may be a contributing factor, and others note that the pay is not adequate. “We are on the cusp of a military recruiting crisis,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) told Politico in July. “When Republicans take control of Congress in a few months,” he added, “averting the recruiting crisis will be a top priority of the Military Personnel Subcommittee.”

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This discussion has become far too one-sided.

Study Takes Wrecking Ball to Myths About Apocalyptic ‘Climate Change’ (BN)

Climate experts have published peer-reviewed research in the journal European Physical Journal Plus that takes a wrecking ball to numerous unsubstantiated claims about ‘apocalyptic’ climate change that have flourished in the mainstream press. One such article comes from the New York Times in March 2022, which claimed that: “Scientists have been able to draw links between a warming planet and hurricanes, heat waves and droughts, but the same can’t be said for tornadoes yet.” But such presumptions are utterly demolished with data and fact-based analysis in the 2022 study, “A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming.” It disabuses readers of the fallacious argument that climate change poses an existential threat to human life and to the planet.

The first point of contention that the researchers analyze is whether the marginal increase in global temperatures has been accompanied by an increase in major hurricanes. “Historically, around 60% of all economic damages caused by disasters worldwide is the consequence of hurricanes in the USA, and more than 80% of this damage comes from major hurricanes,” the authors state. “It is therefore not surprising that hurricanes grab interest and attention. Due to their frightening destructive potential, it is also not surprising that hurricanes are a central element in the debate on climate change mitigation and adaptation policies.” “To date, global observations do not show any significant trends in both the number and the energy accumulated by hurricanes, as shown in Fig. 1 and as claimed in several specific papers for the USA, which report the trend dating back to over 160 years ago, or for other regions of the globe,” the authors note.

“Therefore, after adjusting the time series to take into account the smaller observational capacities of the past, there remains only a small nominally positive upward trend of the tropical storms from 1878 to 2006,” the authors observe. “Statistical tests indicate that this trend is not significantly distinguishable from zero.”

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“a major breach of international law” that constituted “a violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty, of the human rights of dozens of individuals, including the human rights of Ecuadorian citizens, and of all the rules regarding the sanctity and inviolability of diplomatic missions.”

Secret Documents Have Exposed the CIA’s Julian Assange Obsession (Jacobin)

In 2021, over a year and half after the UC Global employees shared their experiences, Yahoo! News released a bombshell story based on former US government sources about the CIA’s “secret war plans against WikiLeaks.” The CIA received direct footage from within the embassy, plotted to kidnap Assange, and toyed with the idea of assassinating him. That US government sources have detailed CIA plots that mirror those of the UC Global witnesses presents fairly powerful corroboration of the most serious allegations. Yahoo’s investigation also stated the CIA covert operations escalated dramatically as Trump’s CIA chief, Pompeo, was incensed by the so-called Vault 7 disclosures, detailing highly classified CIA spying techniques.

This also lines up with the testimony of the UC Global employees who say the company’s actions ramped up considerably after Trump’s election. The pivotal moment, per Yahoo, in the CIA’s decision to consider kidnapping Assange came after they caught wind that Ecuador might make Assange a diplomat to another country. Assange’s legal team was willing to consider countries that struck a defiant posture against the United States, including Venezuela, Bolivia, or Cuba. The Ecuadorian government instead suggested Russia, which had granted Edward Snowden asylum. Assange rejected the idea, fearing it would fuel further conspiracy theories. UC Global captured footage and audio of the meeting where this was discussed, meaning it likely played a pivotal role in the CIA escalation of its covert campaign against Assange.

Faced with the claims of his former employees, UC Global owner Morales has denied working for US intelligence. Initially, he denied any surveillance took place at all. After that position became impossible to maintain, Morales switched his story, claiming it was authorized by Ecuador’s then ambassador to the UK, Carlos Abad. Abad passed away in November 2019, but Jacobin spoke to former Ecuadorian foreign minister Guillaume Long. Long has also testified before the Spanish criminal probe into Morales. Long explained how documents from Morales purporting to show Ecuador authorized the surveillance are forgeries, and crude ones at that. For example, they used the wrong email endings for Ecuadorian diplomatic officials. In addition to fake email addresses, the documents themselves also bore fake serial numbers.

“They [UC Global] were clearly intercepted by the CIA to spy on all of us, especially Assange,” Long told Jacobin. Long called the US-directed surveillance “a major breach of international law” that constituted “a violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty, of the human rights of dozens of individuals, including the human rights of Ecuadorian citizens, and of all the rules regarding the sanctity and inviolability of diplomatic missions.”

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Putin full press conference at SCO

 

 

 

 

Unexpected

 

 

 

Fish fingers
https://twitter.com/i/status/1571400981190959104

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Sep 042022
 


Odilon Redon Breton harbor 1879

 

France Says Imposing Price Cap On Russian Oil Will Be Difficult (CNBC)
Mass Anti-Government Protest Hits Prague (RT)
One In Six Italians Faces Energy Poverty (RT)
The West Wants To Disarm The ‘Powder Keg’ Of Europe, Risks Igniting It (Norin)
Gazprom Discloses Major Challenge For Nord Stream (RT)
Sweden, Austria Bail Out Energy Companies, Trigger Europe’s Minsky Moment (ZH)
Russia Wants UN To Pressure US On Visas (RT)
Bill Barr Slams Trump’s Special Master Request As ‘Red Herring’ (Fox)
Prosecuting Trump In The Shadow Of Hillary’s Emails (Turley)
Biden Admin Held Weekly Censorship Meetings With Social Media Giants (PM)
The Terrifying Vacuity of Klaus Schwab (Eugyp)
Fauci’s Red Guards (Michael P. Senger)
1st Peer-Reviewed Study on Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines Confirms ‘Excess Risk’ (BN)
Vaccine Vultures (Todd Hayen)
Ivermectin Reduces Covid Death Risk By 92% (Blaze)

 

 


MAGA kids

 

 

Putin dollar

 

 

 

 

Biden day after

 

 

Rallies

 

 

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.
– Mark Twain

 

 

 

 

Ha ha ha! That’s one big gaping barn door he’s opening here:

“It should not be a Western measure against Russia, it should be a global measure against war..”

France Says Imposing Price Cap On Russian Oil Will Be Difficult (CNBC)

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Saturday that efforts by G-7 nations to introduce a price cap on Russian oil would require commitment from the wider international community to be successful. The G-7 economic powers announced Friday that they had agreed on a plan to impose a set price on Russian oil. The initiative is the latest attempt to apply economic pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. But aside from cutting Russia’s oil revenues — a key source of funding for President Vladimir Putin’s war chest — Le Maire said the policy should be implemented as a “global measure against war.” “You need an outreach because we don’t want this measure to be only a Western measure,” Le Maire told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy.

“It should not be a Western measure against Russia, it should be a global measure against war,” he added. The G-7 — which consists of the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., Italy and Japan — is yet to finalize how the price cap will be implemented, a process that Le Maire acknowledged will be “quite difficult.” However, it is expected to be ready before early December when EU sanctions on seaborne imports of Russian crude kick in. “We know that we need the unity from all the 27 member states if you want to get the green light for introducing that cap,” he said, referring to the EU bloc of nations, a non-enumerated member of the G-7. More than that, however, Le Maire said the policy would require participation by other major global economies.


It follows comments from Kadri Simson, the EU’s energy chief, who urged involvement from China and India, both of which have increased their purchases of Russian oil this year, benefiting from discounted rates. “If we want to be efficient in these sanctions, we need to reduce the revenues that Russia is gaining from oil and gas selling,” Le Maire said.

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First step. “The protesters demanded the Czech Republic to take a neutral military stance, as well as to secure direct contracts with gas suppliers, including Russia.”

“They require direct gas supplies from Russia and food and energy guarantees for the Czech Republic. They hold the EU solely responsible for the European economic disaster and the rise in energy bills.”

Mass Anti-Government Protest Hits Prague (RT)

Tens of thousands hit central Prague on Saturday, taking part in a protest dubbed ‘Czech Republic First.’ The protesters urged the government to resign over soaring energy prices, inflation and the international policies they believe have brought the country to that state. According to police estimates, some 70,000 took part in the rally, with the organizers putting the mark even higher at 100,000. The event brought together people of polar political views, with the Communist party and right-wing Freedom and Direct Democracy Party alike taking part in the protest. “The aim of our demonstration is to demand change, mainly in solving the issue of energy prices, especially electricity and gas, which will destroy our economy this autumn,” one of the event’s co-organizers, social democrat Jiri Havel, told local media.

The protesters demanded the Czech Republic to take a neutral military stance, as well as to secure direct contracts with gas suppliers, including Russia. They have also condemned the government for supporting the EU’s sanctions against Moscow, adopted in multiple waves in wake of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “The best for the Ukrainians and two sweaters for us,” one of the banners displayed at the event read, referring to the rising heating costs and potential energy cuts in winter. The protest came a day after the government survived a no-confidence vote over the same issues, with the opposition blaming it for inaction in wake of the soaring energy prices and inflation.


Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, leading the ruling five-party, center-right coalition, was quick to accuse the protesters of acting against the country’s best interests, implying the Kremlin might have had a hand in staging the protest. “The protest on Wenceslas Square was called by forces that are pro-Russian, are close to extreme positions and are against the interests of the Czech Republic,” he told CTK broadcaster. “It is clear that Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns are present on our territory and some people simply listen to them.”

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The protests won’t be long now.

One In Six Italians Faces Energy Poverty (RT)

One in six Italians, or up to nine million people, could sink into energy poverty due to soaring bills across the EU, Italy’s ANSA news agency reported on Saturday, citing the Italian General Confederation of Crafts. Households are considered to be in energy poverty if they cannot afford to regularly heat their homes in winter or use air conditioning in summer, and are forced to stop using high-energy household appliances, or severely limit their use. Southern regions of the country are reportedly the worst-hit. In Campania, between 519,000 and 779,000 households are using electricity or gas on an irregular basis. In Sicily the figure is between 481,000 and 722,000, and in Calabria there are 287,000 such households.


Earlier this week, local media reported that Italy’s Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani planned to ask the entire population to turn the heating down, starting from October. Italy has already introduced some limits on the use of central heating in public buildings and apartment blocks, and these are expected to be tightened under the new measures. On Friday, Italy’s Serie A football league announced plans to put a four-hour limit on the use of floodlights in stadiums on match days, as part of energy-saving measures. The new rule is expected to cut floodlight electricity consumption by about 25%.

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Evgeny Norin is a Russian historian focused on conflicts and international politics.

“The US diplomat offered Serbs a brighter future in exchange for giving up their historic lands.”

The West Wants To Disarm The ‘Powder Keg’ Of Europe, Risks Igniting It (Norin)

Just a day before the agreement was struck between Serbia and Kosovo, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Gabriel Escobar made an infuriating statement, “It’s time to forget the narrative ‘Kosovo is Serbia’ and move to the one that says ‘Kosovo and Serbia are actually Europe.’” The US diplomat offered Serbs a brighter future in exchange for giving up their historic lands. His words, however, sparked protest among the Serbian public and politicians. “The line between terrorists and freedom fighters is very thin for them. This is US policy. What can you expect from Mr. Escobar? Why do we keep pretending we don’t know what it is about?” said an outraged Serbian president, Alexandar Vucic, in an address to the nation.


Escobar’s rhetoric didn’t go unnoticed in Russia either. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reminded her American colleague that “UN Security Council Resolution 1244 <…> is still the legal framework for the Kosovo settlement, clearly reaffirming the territorial integrity of Serbia.” There are two sides to this story, but history definitely favors the Serbian and Russian perspectives. Kosovo is located in the south-west of Serbia, near the Albanian border. In the 12th century, it became part of the nascent Serbian state, gaining prominence during the Middle Ages. The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church resided in Kosovo’s Peja. Kosovo also played an important role in the building of the Serbian nation. The Battle of Kosovo, when the Turkish army fought the Serbs and won, became one of the bloodiest battles in Serbia’s history and a symbol of heroic defeat. A large portion of Serbian poetry is dedicated to those events.

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Siemens denies.

Gazprom Discloses Major Challenge For Nord Stream (RT)

Germany’s Siemens Energy is ready to correct a turbine fault in the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline, but there is currently nowhere to service the failed equipment, Russian energy major Gazprom said on Saturday. “Siemens is taking part in the repair works under the terms of the current contract [with Gazprom], has detected faults and signed an act on diagnosing of oil leaks, and is ready to fix them,” the Russian company said via its Telegram channel. “There is just no place to carry out the repair works,” Gazprom added, providing no further details. Earlier this week, the company [said] an engine oil leak was found in the turbine during a joint inspection with manufacturer Siemens Energy at the Portovaya compressor station near St.Petersburg. Natural gas supplies via Nord Stream, a major gas route from Russia to Europe, have been terminated for an indefinite period due to the leakage. The pipeline had been due to restart early on Saturday after a three-day maintenance break.

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Add this to the war tab. All EU countries must follow.

Sweden, Austria Bail Out Energy Companies, Trigger Europe’s Minsky Moment (ZH)

Last weekend, Credit Suisse repo guru Zoltan published what may have been the most insightful snippet of the entire European energy crisis (to date) when he extended the infamous “Minsky Moment” framework to Europe, and specifically Germany, which he said “can’t cover its payments without Russian gas and the government is asking citizens to conserve energy to leave more for industry.” He then elaborated that “Minsky moments are triggered by excessive financial leverage, and in the context of supply chains, leverage means excessive operating leverage: in Germany, $2 trillion of value added depends on $20 billion of gas from Russia… …that’s 100-times leverage – much more than Lehman’s.”

But while Germany still pretends it can somehow avoid a devastating crisis this winter besides bailing out Uniper, one of the country’s biggest utilities (after all, admission would make Trump’s 2018 warning accurate and prescient, and everyone knows that according to Western intellectual snobs Trump can’t possibly ever be correct), other European nations are succumbing to what Zoltan dubbed a “supply-chain Minsky moment.” On Wednesday it was Austria, which announced it would bail out the country’s main energy supplier with a two-billion-euro ($2 billion) loan, the AFP reported. Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the loan to Wien Energie was an “extraordinary rescue measure” to ensure its two million customers – mainly Vienna households – continue to receive electricity. It will run until next April.

Wien Energie asked for a bailout this weekend after suffering financial trouble amid soaring energy prices and speculation the company mismanaged their funds. Nehammer said Wien Energie, which is owned by Vienna, would have to answer questions as to how they got into trouble. “The goal was to help people quickly… It has now been agreed that all of these questions, which are rightly raised, must be answered promptly by Vienna (and) the energy supplier,” he told reporters. The company – almost entirely dependent on Russian gas – said earlier this week that it had been hit by the “price explosion” which it has not yet passed on to customers, assuring it remained solvent. As part of its rescue, the company is expected to pass through soaring costs, which means a historic price shock is coming to Austria next… and soon Sweden.

Following in Austria’s footsteps, on Saturday morning Sweden announced it will give emergency liquidity support to electricity producers after the government said it feared Russia’s decision to halt gas deliveries to Europe could place its financial system under severe strain. Prime minister Magdalena Andersson said the government would offer hundreds of billions of kroner in support to electricity producers, the FT reported. The PM warned that, left unchecked, rising collateral demands for electricity producers could ripple through the main Nasdaq Clearing market in Stockholm and, in the worst case, spark a financial crisis…. just as Zoltan warned almost half a year ago. Her remarks came after Russia said on Friday evening that it would no longer supply gas via the Nordstream 1 pipeline. That announcement came after energy markets had closed for the weekend. s

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Visas for UN diplomats.

1947: “visas shall be granted without charge and as promptly as possible… irrespective of the relations existing between the governments of the persons referred to… and the government of the US.”

Russia Wants UN To Pressure US On Visas (RT)

Russia’s permanent representative at the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, has asked the organization to persuade the US to grant visas for members of Moscow’s delegation to the UN General Assembly. They are heading to New York to attend the high-level general debate that will be held between September 20 and 26. The request was made in a letter that Nebenzia forwarded to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday. The document has been seen by both Russian and the Western media. In his message, the envoy pointed out that, with less than three weeks remaining before the General Assembly, not a single member of Russia’s delegation has received entry visas from the US.

The Russian side, headed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, had submitted the relevant applications to attend the event to the American embassy in Moscow, the diplomat reportedly added. “This is even more alarming since, for the last several months, the authorities of the US have been constantly refusing to grant entry visas to a number of Russian delegates assigned to take part in the official United Nations events,” the letter read, as quoted by the media. Earlier this week, Nebenzia pointed out that Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and his delegation could not attend a meeting of UN police chiefs because the US refused to grant them visas.


The Russian envoy cited the 1947 agreement between the UN and the US, which states that “visas shall be granted without charge and as promptly as possible… irrespective of the relations existing between the governments of the persons referred to… and the government of the US.” The already strained relations between Moscow and Washington have deteriorated even further since the launch of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. The US has slapped harsh economic sanctions on Russia while backing Kiev and providing it with billions of dollars in military aid, as well as with intelligence. Nebenzia urged Guterres “to once again emphasize to the authorities of the US that they must promptly issue requested visas for all Russian delegates and accompanying persons,”including the Russian journalists covering Lavrov’s trip to the General Assembly.

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They even searched Barron’s bedroom.

Bill Barr Slams Trump’s Special Master Request As ‘Red Herring’ (Fox)

The legal fight between former President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice escalated Friday morning when the DOJ released a detailed inventory of the documents seized in last month’s Mar-a-Lago raid. The inventory list comes following an order from Florida Federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is deciding whether to appoint a “special master” to the case. On “America Reports” on Friday, former Attorney General Bill Barr criticized Trump’s push for a “special master” as a distraction from the details of the case and argued it is not likely to be granted. “I think the whole idea of a special master is a bit of a red herring,” Barr told hosts Sandra Smith and John Roberts. “I think it’s a waste of time.”


Since the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, the former president has slammed the DOJ for what he argues was a politically motivated witch hunt. Trump recently called for a special master to hold an independent review of the documents. According to details revealed in the warrant, affidavit and the inventory list, dozens of the documents seized from Trump’s property were classified materials. A portion of the items taken were not classified, with several entries labeled “Article of Clothing/Gift Item.” Trump has claimed the documents at his Florida home were documents he had “declassified” prior to leaving office and were protected under executive privilege.

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“With Hillary Clinton selling “But Her Emails” hats at $30 a pop, Merrick Garland will have to explain the prospect of one politician going to jail while the other goes retail.”

Prosecuting Trump In The Shadow Of Hillary’s Emails (Turley)

A criminal charge of obstruction against Trump would offer certain political benefits for Garland. As previously discussed, the government has routinely elected not to prosecute high-ranking officials for improperly removing classified material or has sought mere misdemeanor charges in the most egregious cases. Prosecuting Trump for a misdemeanor for possessing or removing classified documents would seem gratuitous, while prosecuting him for a felony would raise questions of biased or selective prosecution. After all, in 2016, Hillary Clinton had not just 113 documents containing classified material but some documents “classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level” on her private email servers. (In Trump’s case, the government allegedly found roughly 100 documents in the Mar-a-Lago raid in addition to roughly 150 handled over by the Trump team under an earlier subpoena.)

Clinton’s documents were even more vulnerable to being compromised via her unclassified email account and, according to the FBI, “hostile actors gained access” to some of the information. Yet she was never subjected to a raid, let alone a charge. Yet, while less glaring as a contradiction than the charges on the possession or handling of classified information, an obstruction charge would allow up to a 20-year sentence and could be brought with misdemeanor charges on the mishandling or retention of classified information. Thus, an obstruction charge against Trump would be prosecuted in the shadow of Hillary Clinton’s case. In addition to the transfer of top-secret and other classified documents to her private server, Clinton and her staff did not fully cooperate with investigators.


During the investigations of her conduct, some of us marveled at the temerity of the Clinton staff in refusing to turn over her laptop and other evidence to State Department and DOJ investigators. The FBI had to cut deals with her aides to secure their cooperation. Later, more classified material was found on the laptop of former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who was married to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin — 49,000 emails potentially relevant to the Clinton investigation. After Congress sought these emails, Clinton’s staff unilaterally destroyed thousands of emails with BleachBit. Clinton was aware that Congress and the State Department were seeking the emails in 2014. Her lawyers turned over about 30,000 work-related emails to the State Department and deleted 33,000 others while insisting they unilaterally deemed them “personal.”

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Democracy is something else.

Biden Admin Held Weekly Censorship Meetings With Social Media Giants (PM)

Federal officials in the Biden administration secretly conspired and communicated with social media companies to censor and suppress Americans’ private speech. This is revealed in a new lawsuit brought in a joint effort by The New Civil Liberties Alliance, the Attorney General of Missouri, and the Attorney General of Louisiana against the President of the United States. The suit is brought under the first amendment right to freedom of speech. The lawsuit seeks to identify among other things “all meetings with any Social-Media Platform relating to Content Modulation and/or Misinformation.” The discovery shows that there was “A recurring meeting usually entitled USG – Industry meeting, which has generally had a monthly cadence, and is between government agencies and private industry.

Government participants have included CISA’s Election Security and Resilience team, DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the FBI’s foreign influence task force, the Justice Department’s national security division, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Industry participants have included Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Microsoft, Verizon Media, Pinterest, LinkedIn and the Wikimedia Foundation. The topics discussed include, but are not limited to: information sharing around elections risk, briefs from industry, threat updates, and highlights and upcoming watch outs.” Communications across 11 federal agencies reveal that the federal government, under the Biden administration, “has exerted tremendous pressure on social-media companies—pressure to which companies have repeatedly bowed,” the New Civil Liberties Alliance details in a new release.


The social media companies that were part of this Partner Support Portal include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. The CDC invited “all tech platforms” in to their meeting to discuss how to suppress free speech about Covid online. Those agencies involved include the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, the Office of the Surgeon General, the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The NCLA notes further that, during the discovery process of this lawsuit, “the government has been uncooperative and has resisted complying with the discovery order every step of the way—especially with regard to Anthony Fauci’s communications.”

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Eugyppius has read The Great Reset, so you don’t have to.

The Terrifying Vacuity of Klaus Schwab (Eugyp)

Like many bad books, The Great Reset lapses into occasional inadvertent autobiography. In the final pages especially, where Klaus Schwab writes of his hopes for a “Personal Reset” through state repression, we catch a glimpse of the man during the first-wave lockdown at his house in Cologny. At first he enjoyed the break with routine and the opportunity to commune with nature, but before long he began to feel a nagging unease. He’d spent most of his years prior to 2020 flogging “stakeholder capitalism”, his umbrella term for various schemes to disarm criticism of the globalist corporate borg and co-opt leftist opposition.

Schwab succeeded in parlaying his simplistic ideas into an international conference circuit, known today as the World Economic Forum, where he could hobnob with corporate and political celebrities and burnish his Bond-villain reputation among political dissidents. But the pandemic had thrown Schwab off balance. For once his reprocessed nostrums about environmental, social and corporate governance issues were no longer in demand; virologists and epidemiologists and exponential growth curves filled the news instead. His powerful celebrity clients were suddenly listening to other people. Obscurity loomed.


Thus Schwab enlisted his sidekick research-assistant Thierry Malleret, booted up his laptop, and spent a few months decanting the cloud of buzzwords, talking points and half-remembered powerpoint presentations plaguing his brain into a meandering and thoroughly pointless document. When he had finished, he sent the whole thing to Malleret’s wife for a proof-read, and then he ordered his own Forum Press to print off a few thousand copies. Thus did yet another lamentable exercise in self-publishing come to pass.

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“..forced preference falsification..”

Fauci’s Red Guards (Michael P. Senger)

One aspect of dictatorships that citizens of democratic nations often find puzzling is how the population can be convinced to support such dystopian policies. How do they get people to run those concentration camps? How do they find people to take food from starving villagers? How can they get so many people to support policies that, to any outsider, are so needlessly destructive, cruel, and dumb? The answer lies in forced preference falsification. When those who speak up in principled opposition to a dictator’s policies are punished and forced into silence, those with similar opinions are forced into silence as well, or even forced to pretend they support policies in which they do not actually believe. Emboldened by this facade of unanimity, supporters of the regime’s policies, or even those who did not previously have strong opinions, become convinced that the regime’s policies are just and good – regardless of what those policies actually are—and that those critical of them are even more deserving of punishment.

One of history’s great masters of forced preference falsification was Chairman Mao Zedong. As László Ladány recalled, Mao’s decades-long campaign to remould the people of China in his own image began as soon as he took power after the Chinese Civil War. By the fall of 1951, 80 percent of all Chinese had had to take part in mass accusation meetings, or to watch organised lynchings and public executions. [..] This decades-long campaign of forced preference falsification reached its apex during the Cultural Revolution, in which Mao deputized radical youths across China, called Red Guards, to purge all vestiges of capitalism and traditional society and impose Mao Zedong Thought as China’s dominant ideology. Red Guards attacked anyone they perceived as Mao’s enemies, burned books, persecuted intellectuals, and engaged in the systematic destruction of their country’s own history, demolishing China’s relics en masse.

Through this method of forced preference falsification, any mass of people can be made to support virtually any policy, no matter how destructive or inimical to the interests of the people. Avoiding this spiral of preference falsification is therefore why freedom of speech is such a central tenet of the Enlightenment, and why it is given such primacy in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. No regime in American history has ever previously had the power to force preference falsification by systematically and clandestinely silencing those critical of its policies. Until now. As it turns out, an astonishing new release of discovery documents in Missouri v. Biden – in which NCLA Legal (New Civil Liberties Alliance) is representing plaintiffs including Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Aaron Kheriaty against the Biden administration for violations of free speech during Covid – reveal a vast federal censorship army, with more than 50 federal officials across at least 11 federal agencies having secretly coordinated with social media companies to censor private speech.

“Secretary Mayorkas of DHS commented that the federal Government’s efforts to police private speech on social media are occurring “across the federal enterprise.” It turns out that this statement is true, on a scale beyond what Plaintiffs could ever have anticipated. The limited discovery produced so far provides a tantalising snapshot into a massive, sprawling federal “Censorship Enterprise,” which includes dozens of federal officials across at least eleven federal agencies and components identified so far, who communicate with social-media platforms about misinformation, disinformation, and the suppression of private speech on social media—all with the intent and effect of pressuring social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech that federal officials disfavour.” The scale of this federal censorship enterprise appears to be far beyond what anyone imagined, involving even senior White House officials. The government is protecting Anthony Fauci and other high level officials by refusing to reveal documents related to their involvement.

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8 mice.

1st Peer-Reviewed Study on Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines Confirms ‘Excess Risk’ (BN)

A landmark peer-reviewed study appears to be the first of its kind to provide hard data on the “excess risk” of adverse side effects of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines in an independent “randomized clinical trial.” The results of the accepted scientific study confirm that the concerns that many patients had about the mRNA vaccines were well-founded. “In the Moderna trial, the excess risk of serious AESIs (15.1 per 10,000 participants) was higher than the risk reduction for COVID-19 hospitalization relative to the placebo group (6.4 per 10,000 participants),” the study found. “In the Pfizer trial, the excess risk of serious AESIs (10.1 per 10,000) was higher than the risk reduction for COVID-19 hospitalization relative to the placebo group (2.3 per 10,000 participants),” the study added.

The study was published on ScienceDirect on August 31, 2022. The authors include researchers from Stanford University, the University of Maryland, and UCLA. The study provides the following list of confirmed adverse events (or side effects) of the respective mRNA vaccines. It also provides the risk ratios versus Covid-19 (over 1 is a factor increase, under 1 is a factor decrease). The study also provided known complications for Covid-19. “Although the randomized trials offer high level evidence for evaluating causal effects, the sparsity of their data necessitates that harm-benefit analyses also consider observational studies,” the authors state. “Since their emergency authorization in December 2020, hundreds of millions of doses of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines have been administered and post-authorization observational data offer a complementary opportunity to study AESIs. Post-authorization observational safety studies include cohort studies (which make use of medical claims or electronic health records) and disproportionality analyses (which use spontaneous adverse event reporting systems).”

“In July 2021, the FDA reported detecting four potential adverse events of interest: pulmonary embolism, acute myocardial infarction, immune thrombocytopenia, and disseminated intravascular coagulation following Pfizer’s vaccine based on medical claims data in older Americans.” the researchers add. “Three of these four serious adverse event types would be categorized as coagulation disorders, which is the Brighton AESI category that exhibited the largest excess risk in the vaccine group in both the Pfizer and Moderna trials. FDA stated it would further investigate the findings but at the time of our writing has not issued an update.”

Joseph Fraiman announced the study results on Twitter: “Our study examining mRNA vaccine serious adverse events study is now peer-reviewed in the Journal Vaccine,” Fraiman wrote. “Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in randomized trials in adults.” Thus, the objection to Americans’ concerns that the mRNA vaccines may have adverse side effects has come to a close, despite the initial advertisements that the vaccines were “100% safe and effective,” prevented infection and transmission, and had no known serious side effects.

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“We have been brainwashed to believe anything other than the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, or other puppets of the system, is pure hogwash. It is now the other way around.”

Vaccine Vultures (Todd Hayen)

Vultures are birds that seek out wounded animals about to die and then swoop down on them when they are dead (or close to death) and devour them—apocryphally starting with gouging out the eyes. Vultures are typically not classed in the “warm and fuzzy” anthropomorphic grouping, although they accomplish a great service to the ecology of the planet, such as other animals thrown in the “yuck” bucket of human perception such as flies, spiders, laughing hyenas, and carrion beetles (who knows what a carrion beetle is?—they ARE pretty, so before you know what they do for a living, you might like them). So are we human vultures when we swoop down on dead or dying people we have heard about to see if they are vaxxed or not and if what they are suffering or dying from is due to the jab? Two? Three, god forbid four?

At the beginning of the vaccine madness, I was quite brazen and would unashamedly blurt out when hearing of someone’s misfortune, “were they vaccinated???!!!” I never got brazen enough to ask this to the person suffering (obviously if dead), but did to their friends, or whoever was explaining what was happening. I eventually backed off of the personal incidents I was experiencing as it did seem a bit too vulture-like, but I still would ask sheep in my company what they thought of dozens of athletes dropping in the fields, now extended out to just average Joe’s not waking up or doctors way too young to be experiencing such severe cardiac issues. Now I don’t even do that. I just listen. It seems this particular vulture just enjoys the shock of seeing no one (sheep) realizing the secret. “You’ll see,” I say to myself, in my evil vulture voice. “You’ll see.”

Now, isn’t that sick? Maybe. But what else is this experience going to drive us to if not un-empathetic lunacy. Think of Lord of the Rings’ Gollum. Isn’t that what did him in? We have been put into this untenable position of finding “joy” or at least “satisfaction” in the trauma of another. At its worse it is a form of schadenfreude, pleasure derived from another’s misfortune. But I would argue this is not really the case. I do not think what we are feeling (assuming others are fellow vaccine vultures) is “pleasure” and whatever it is that we are feeling is not due to someone else’s health misfortune. Of course the definition does include “self satisfaction from another’s failures”—maybe that is the closest schadenfreude comes to defining vaccine vultures.

[..] I have recently decided that the number one culprit for keeping sheep asleep is the media. The media has always played the role of the unbiased family member that will let you in on any corruption it saw in our leaders or other groups trying to get our attention. I think that is still true (that people rely on media for that reason) but the corruption is now in the media, at least the mainstream media. We have been brainwashed to believe anything other than the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, or other puppets of the system, is pure hogwash. It is now the other way around. I do believe that if any of these “gods of media” ran a story like we see day in and day out in the alternate media, many sheep heads would turn regardless what the venerated talking heads of government and power had to say.

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“An observational study with the size and level of analysis as ours is hardly achieved and infeasible to be conducted as a randomised clinical trial. Conclusions are hard to be refuted. Data is data, regardless of your beliefs.”

Ivermectin Reduces Covid Death Risk By 92% (Blaze)

A new peer-reviewed study found that regular use of ivermectin reduced the risk of dying from COVID-19 by 92%. The large study was conducted by Flávio A. Cadegiani, MD, MSc, PhD. Cadegiani is a board-certified endocrinologist with a master’s degree and doctorate degree in clinical endocrinology. The peer-reviewed study was published on Wednesday by the online medical journal Cureus. The study was conducted on a strictly controlled population of 88,012 people from the city of Itajaí in Brazil. Individuals who used ivermectin as prophylaxis or took the medication before being infected by COVID experienced significant reductions in death and hospitalization.

According to the study, those who took ivermectin regularly had a 92% reduction in their COVID death risk compared to non-users and 84% less than irregular users. “The hospitalization rate was reduced by 100% in regular users compared to both irregular users and non-users,” the study stated. The impressive reduction for regular ivermectin users was evident despite the regular users being at a higher risk for COVID deaths. The regular users were older and had a higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes and hypertension than irregular and non-users. Irregular users of ivermectin had a 37% lower mortality rate reduction than non-users. The study defined regular users as those who used more than 30 tablets of ivermectin over five months.


The dosage of ivermectin was determined by body weight, but “most of the population used between two and three tablets daily for two days, every 15 days.” “Non-use of ivermectin was associated with a 12.5-fold increase in mortality rate and a seven-fold increased risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to the regular use of ivermectin,” the study read. “This dose-response efficacy reinforces the prophylactic effects of ivermectin against COVID-19.” Cadegiani believes the study showed a “dose-response effect” – which means that increasing levels of ivermectin decreased the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. Cadegiani wrote on Twitter, “An observational study with the size and level of analysis as ours is hardly achieved and infeasible to be conducted as a randomised clinical trial. Conclusions are hard to be refuted. Data is data, regardless of your beliefs.”

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Sanctions make Russia rich

 

 

 

 

Buttigieg
https://twitter.com/i/status/1565941643869577217

 

 

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Sep 022022
 
 September 2, 2022  Posted by at 5:41 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  56 Responses »


El Greco Dormition of the Mother of God 1565-1566

 

 

Not the kind of thing I would do often, making a video the protagonist of an article, but here’s an exception. Now, I know that -thank God- most of my readers are familiar with the ivermectin topic, but you too, watch the 13:38 min of this. Take that time.

You see, I think we owe it to the doctors who have lost their jobs, their reputations, to this, and who nevertheless have kept on pushing. G-d knows how many people died because these doctors were banned and censored, maybe they would have a better estimate than me. We’re talking millions of human lives.

Personally, I have had ivermectin at my disposal since April 2020, ordered from India, and still use it now. But when I offer it to others, they are not sure. Because they don’t read what I do, they read the MSM, and wherever you are in the world, Pfizer et al have the MSM covered. It’s horse paste.

I’ve always written here that if you up your vit. D level enough, that is about 50% of the game (boost your immune system) . Zinc (+quercetin) is the next 25% (virus can’t enter cells) . And ivermectin will fill in the rest. There’s no guarantee that if you’re severely obese, or you’re 90 years old, or both, ivermectin will keep you from getting infected. But if you’re either -or all- of those, you have bigger issues.

Mike Yeadon, Paul Marik, Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, Robert Urso, Pierre Kory, Simone Gold, Tess Lawrie, and dozens of others (thank God), sorry for leaving many of you out. These doctors are very brave people, they have lost their jobs, their reputations, their pensions, everything, after mostly stellar careers, because Tony Fauci and his Big Pharma backers wanted it that way, because they wanted to make billions of off untested “vaccines”, for which there was never any need -let alone evidence-. And we owe the doctors a huge thank you. You guys deserve medals. And tons of recognition.

As we move into fall and winter, Big Pharma has already got their pills lined up, of course. They claim to have an “Omicron Special”. Don’t fall for that nonsense. Take Vit. D and zinc, and ivermectin if you can get it. In the US, the NIH just sneakily added ivermectin to its list of covid cures very recently, would you believe it.

At the same time, there are ever more reports of more people dying from the vaccines than from covid. You take your pick. As booster number 8(26) comes.

 

 

 

 

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May 162022
 


Pablo Picasso Maison 1931

 

Sweden Joins Finland In NATO bid, Ending 200 Years Of Non-Alignment (Week)
Why Russia’s Oil Ban Is Impossible (Vilches)
European Natural Gas Prices To Triple In “Perfect Storm” (ZH)
McConnell Urges Biden To Name Russia A State Sponsor Of Terrorism (Hill)
Russian Lawmaker Says Poland Next In Line for ‘De-Nazification’ (ET)
Is Diplomacy Between Russia and the West Still Possible? (Haass)
Unmasking – Part 1 (Jotwani)
Can We Find Our Way Back to Freedom? (Ruechel)
Fraudulent Trial On Ivermectin Published By World’s Top Medical Journal (Kory)
Elon Musk: The Next Joe Rogan (Hill)
Elon Musk Issues Warning on Twitter Algorithm (ET)
Leaked Emails Expose Secret Intelligence Coup To Install Boris Johnson (GZ)

 

 

 

 

THE PLAN

 

 

 

 

Fauci trying to get Trump re-elected

 

 

WHO total control

 

 

200 years, 2 world wars, always neutral. Makes me wonder: Is Switzerland next?

Sweden Joins Finland In NATO bid, Ending 200 Years Of Non-Alignment (Week)

Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats on Sunday said they now support joining NATO, hours after Finland’s leaders affirmed their intention to get parliamentary approval for membership as early as Monday. “For us Social Democrats, it is clear that the military non-alignment has served Sweden well, but our conclusion is that it won’t serve us as well in the future,” Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said. “We’re now facing a fundamentally changed security environment in Europe.” Public opinion in Sweden and Finland swung sharply toward NATO membership after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Andersson said Sweden would be left in a “vulnerable position” if it were the only country in the Baltic region that was not part of the military alliance. She also said the Social Democrats oppose Sweden hosting NATO bases or nuclear weapons.

Sweden has steered clear of military alliances for 200 years, since the Napoleonic Wars, and Finland has remained neutral since battling Soviet Russia — and losing 10 percent of its territory — in World War II. “This is a historic day,” Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said Sunday. “A new era begins.” NATO foreign ministers, meeting in Berlin, reiterated that both Nordic countries would be welcomed if they apply and suggested security guarantees could be provided for the period between application and accession. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Sweden and Finland’s applications would be fast-tracked, but it could still take up to a year.

Every NATO member state would have to ratify the memberships, and only Turkey so far has voiced reservations. But in Berlin, the Turkish Foreign Minister said the issue is not NATO expansion but rather what he called Sweden and Finland’s support for Kurdish rebels in the PKK, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization, and also “unacceptable” restrictions both countries have placed on weapons sales to Ankara. Turkey is not issuing any threats or seeking leverage, he added. “Turkey has made it clear that their intention is not to block membership,” Stoltenberg said.

Read more …

Quantity AND Quality.

Why Russia’s Oil Ban Is Impossible (Vilches)

Beware: the reliable provision of Russian oil to the EU is essential because of its quality, quantities, price, service and delivery enlargement that Europe needs to constantly grow. Banning Russian oil means finding many different oils – from many new unproven vendors – that would have to render the same homogenized profile of delivery, quality, quantity, price, service and enlargeability that Russia reliably provides today. Nothing less, of course. Think about it. Otherwise we cannot have the Europe we now know and the future Europe we need. All 6 factors are required. Not enough quantity adequately delivered means degraded European lives and failing economy, with shut down plants and refineries affecting transportation, heating, hospitals & schools, highly limited military, unemployment, etc., etc.

A different or lower oil quality means poor performance and operational risks with serious breakdown troubles and injuries plus down-time probably beyond repair. Not low enough price — Russian fuels are good & cheap — means disrupting the EU and the world with inflation beyond imagination. And as Procurement Depts. know well, an utmost reliable vendor service is paramount also to allow for mutual growth. Russia is a vetted, close-by, one-stop, well “oiled” 6-criteria compliant vendor. Instead, the EU´s losing proposition is a far away beach-front bazaar with seaborne delivery only, shipped by a fleet too small for purpose. A single non-compliant vendor is simply unacceptable, period. Furthermore, Russia´s oil sales to Europe provide a stabilizing critical mass to compensate for world market variations

The huge problem is that there are 3 and only 3 ways out of this terribly EU mis-managed fuel sourcing hellish-crazy messy mess. For all 3 options in order to comply with the 6 oil criteria briefly explained before (more on that later) the EU would be required to import variable quantities from several different yet unknown vendors having (1) fully compliant export-ready oil grades to be produced beyond and incremental to current production and/or… (2) fully compliant oil grades found deep underground somewhere yet unknown per definition 0% available today (3) modify every single piece of machinery in the EU to fuel them with different non-compliant non-Russian oils… and with no possible “toggle switch” to convert from one type of oil to another… We’d have a forcefull life-long linkage between one vendor and his supposedly constant oil deliveries, which would be different from other vendors and their supposedly constant deliveries made to other EU consumers. NO interchangeability here.

Read more …

Your leaders are conspiring to make you have nothing and be happy.

European Natural Gas Prices To Triple In “Perfect Storm” (ZH)

A top commodity research firm in Norway warns a “perfect storm” is brewing as European energy security worsens following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which could result in the tripling of natural gas prices. “There simply is not enough LNG around to meet demand. In the short term, this will make for a hard winter in Europe. “For producers, it suggests the next LNG boom is here, but it will arrive too late to meet the sharp spike in demand. The stage is set for a sustained supply deficit, high prices, extreme volatility, bullish markets, and heightened LNG geopolitics,” Kaushal Ramesh, a senior analyst for Gas and LNG at Rystad Energy, wrote.

Rystad Energy said the EU has an “ambitious target to reduce dependence on Russian gas by 66% within this year – an aim that will clash with the EU’s goal of replenishing gas storage to 80% of capacity by 1 November.” The firm said shunning Russian natgas from the continent destabilizes the entire global natgas market, which had a turbulent 2021 year-end with prices skyrocketing across Europe because of the lack of supplies. EU is currently reducing reliance on Russian natgas and has unveiled the possibility of banning Russian fossil fuels. This will only lead to more trouble for the EU, where prices could rise even higher. According to the report, 155 billion cubic meters of Russian natgas flowed into Europe in 2021, representing about 31% of the continent’s natgas supply.

“Replacing a significant portion of this will be exceedingly difficult, with far-reaching consequences for Europe’s population, economy, and for the role of gas in the region’s energy transition,” Rystad Energy noted. In one apocalyptic scenario, the energy firm cautioned about the severe economic implications if Russian natgas flows were immediately halted. They said it would come at a time when natgas stocks (only 35% full) would be depleted by the end of the year, resulting in a tripling of natgas prices from current levels to $100 per million British thermal units (MMBtu). Such a dramatic price move in natgas would have tremendous implications on the economy, such as “industrial curtailments,” Rystad Energy said, adding, “in an extreme scenario of a severely cold winter, not even the residential sector would be safe.”

Read more …

“My definition of victory is whatever Zelensky and the Ukrainians conclude is a satisfactory end..”

McConnell Urges Biden To Name Russia A State Sponsor Of Terrorism (Hill)

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday urged President Biden to name Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, which would lift sovereign immunity protections shielding the country from being sued for civil damages. “I think it’s a good idea, and I would support that,” he told reporters during a press call from Stockholm. “The president could do it on his own, and I would urge him to do it.” McConnell made his recommendation to designate Russia a sponsor of terrorism after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday. Three other Republican senators, Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Susan Collins (Maine), also attended the meeting.

McConnell said he assured Zelensky that “support for Ukraine in this war against the Russians is bipartisan” and that the “overwhelming majority” of national security-minded Republicans support the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion, despite recent criticism of a $40 billion Ukrainian aid package by prominent Republicans such as former President Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.). “This naked aggression must not stand,” McConnell said. “I wanted to assure them that within the Congress there was very, very broad support for continuing the fight.” The GOP leader made his comments after Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introduced a resolution last week calling for the designation of the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The bipartisan measure would call on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to put Russia on the list, where it would join Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria. Recently departed White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters last week that the U.S. had already imposed crippling “economic sanctions” and “sanctions on individuals,” rendering Russia “a global pariah” but added that “we’ll see what happens in Congress.” [..] McConnell on Sunday reiterated his view that U.S. military assistance of Ukraine should continue for as long as Ukrainians want to fight off the Russian invasion. “The question always is, how does it end? And my view remains that that’s a decision for the Ukrainians to make. My definition of victory is whatever Zelensky and the Ukrainians conclude is a satisfactory end,” he said.

Read more …

Sounds bad, but only until you read what those Polish dudes have said… Yikes.

Russian Lawmaker Says Poland Next In Line for ‘De-Nazification’ (ET)

A Russian lawmaker has issued a fiery warning that Warsaw is next in line for “de-nazification” after Poland’s Prime Minister penned an op-ed calling Russia’s imperialist “Russkiy Mir” ideology a “cancer” consuming Russian society and a “deadly threat” to other countries. Oleg Morozov, chairman of Russia’s State Duma Committee on Control, wrote in a message on Telegram on Friday that the Polish leader’s comments have essentially made Poland a target. In his remarks, Morozov resorted to the Kremlin’s rhetoric in its military operation in Ukraine of so-called “de-Nazification,” a label Moscow has used to vilify its geopolitical adversaries and justify the war.

“With its statements about Russia as a ‘cancer’ and about the ‘indemnity’ that we must pay to Ukraine, Poland encourages us to put it in first place in the queue for de-Nazification after Ukraine,” Morozov wrote, according to a translation of his statement. Morozov’s remarks were prompted by statements made by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Polish President Andrzej Duda, who have both been highly critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Duda has said Russia should be forced to pay compensation to Ukraine for war damages while Morawiecki said Russian President Vladimir Putin is “more dangerous” than both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin because he has nuclear weapons and a massive propaganda machine at his disposal.

Morawiecki wrote in a column in the British newspaper The Telegraph that “the cursed phantoms of the 20th century have risen again over Ukraine,” alleging that Russia’s invasion of its neighbor bears the hallmarks of fascism, “has already opened the gates to genocide,” and is driven by a “monstrous new ideology” that he called “Russkiy Mir.” Morawiecki alleged that in the name of this ideology, Putin and his military entourage have ordered Russian forces into war, “convinced them of their superiority, and encouraged them to commit inhuman war crimes—the murder, rape, and torture of innocent civilians.”

“Putin’s ‘Russkiy Mir’ ideology is the equivalent of 20th-century communism and Nazism,” Morawiecki wrote, calling it a “cancer which is consuming not only the majority of Russian society, but also poses a deadly threat to the whole of Europe.” It’s not enough to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s attack, Morawiecki argued, “we must root out this monstrous new ideology entirely.”

Read more …

Yes, where are the peace talks?

Is Diplomacy Between Russia and the West Still Possible? (Haass)

Amid more than two months of intense media focus on the war in Ukraine, one story was largely overlooked. In late April, the United States and Russia carried out an exchange of prisoners. Russia released an American (a former marine) whom it detained some three years ago, while the US released a Russian pilot imprisoned over a decade ago on drug smuggling charges. What makes the exchange noteworthy is that it took place at a time when Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has brought relations with the US to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War. The US has opted to avoid direct military involvement in the war, but it is doing a great deal to affect its trajectory, including providing Ukraine with large quantities of increasingly advanced arms, intelligence, and training so that it can successfully resist and potentially defeat the Russian forces. The US has also taken steps to strengthen NATO and impose severe economic sanctions on Russia.


The war is likely to stretch on for some time. Although Ukraine’s fundamental interest is to end the war and prevent more death and destruction, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s desire for peace is conditional. He seeks to regain territory that Russia occupies and ensure the country’s sovereignty is respected so that, among other things, Ukraine can join the European Union. He also wants those responsible for war crimes to be held accountable. Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, needs to achieve an outcome that justifies his costly invasion lest he appear weak and be challenged at home. There is little chance that a peace could be negotiated that would bridge the gap between these two seemingly irreconcilable positions. It is far more likely that the conflict will continue not just for months, but for years to come. This will be the backdrop for US and Western relations with Russia.

Read more …

“If Russia and China had played along with these well-established globalized “liberal” frameworks of looting, they would not be seen as adversaries.”

Unmasking – Part 1 (Jotwani)

A thinking person must be on guard against any false doctrines, including of course those of “liberals”. Why? Because we all must cherish and conserve the much good there is in life; it would be foolish not to do so. Succumbing to false doctrines is a sure way to lose all the good that one has in one’s life. Many false doctrines arise from obsessive/compulsive quantification. Modern scholars in the “liberal” mould have invented the dangerously tragi-comic game of quantifying all that is deemed by them to be “good”. But true goodness is known only deep in the heart. How can one quantify what is felt deep in the heart? How can one quantify the immeasurable goodness in life which comes in the form of love, empathy, care?

A quantifying economist, for example, would reckon that a greedy doctor who charges a thousand dollars for treatment adds more to GDP than a kind doctor who charges a hundred dollars for it. The former’s treatment is deemed to be ten times better – and thus overcharging becomes an economic virtue! Inevitably, such views of life are blind to love, empathy, care. Absent these life-giving virtues, a “liberal” is liberal only with what belongs to others. But, in true Jekyll-Hyde mode, the “liberal” remains jealously and fiercely protective of what been salted away by him or her under the cover of darkness.

As we will see in the sequel, “liberal” causes need a copious supply of other people’s money. Therefore greedy, cunning, heartless money-monsters are needed to support such “liberal” causes – towards selfish ends of their own, needless to say. In an earlier era, these money-monsters raked in copious amounts of colonial loot from the world over. Today financial and corporate loot is replacing colonial loot, but the dirty game is still on. If Russia and China had played along with these well-established globalized “liberal” frameworks of looting, they would not be seen as adversaries. But they are not playing along. They have their own vision, and therefore they will be painted by “liberal democracies” as the most “illiberal” of societies!

Read more …

Fourth turning.

Can We Find Our Way Back to Freedom? (Ruechel)

We were already a society experiencing an identity crisis, casting about for meaning, searching for a sense of belonging, and desperate for a new unifying “grand narrative” to bind us together. The “emergency” created by Covid and the public demand for “safety at any cost” provided institutions with an excuse to abandon their constitutional restraints, giving the people inside these institutions free rein to act out the philosophical impulses that have been growing throughout society for a long time. Covid was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. It opened the door to a new “fourth turning”. The system is now in flux. In retrospect, it is easy to recognize society’s growing loss of confidence in classical liberal principles like individual liberty, bodily autonomy, personal responsibility, freedom of speech, tolerance, meritocracy, private property, sound money, inalienable rights, and so on.

The postmodernists (neoliberals) have been busily eroding the philosophical foundations of classical liberalism for a long time, robbing society of the words, ideas, and historical awareness with which to defend ourselves against illiberal postmodernist beliefs. And we have been complacent. We surrendered the landscape of the imagination to the deconstructionists, the activists, and the cynics. How can a constitution provide a philosophical anchor for a society in which nothing is sacred? What we are witnessing now is the attempted institutionalization of society’s embrace of learned helplessness, safety culture, cancel culture, redistribution, and all the other “gems” of postmodern philosophy. Our uprooted institutions are trying to “re-invent” themselves by attempting to put down fresh roots around postmodern neoliberal philosophy.

The institutionalized forms of these destructive cultural trends are unlikely to turn out anything like society’s utopian postmodern fantasies, but at least we know the shape of the mirage they are chasing. Society wanted an all-powerful feelgood shepherd, and there are plenty of grifters willing to cater to that illusion. But we’re still early in the chaotic transition period. What is being institutionalized now isn’t necessarily going to stick, especially as the yoke of dictatorial government begins to chafe. Brace for the unexpected as other competing visions of the future emerge and are drawn into a zero-sum struggle for dominance. The battle of the grand narratives has begun.

Read more …

“..the most brazenly fraudulent conduct of any trial I have studied..”

Fraudulent Trial On Ivermectin Published By World’s Top Medical Journal (Kory)

In part I of my post on the TOGETHER trial of ivermectin, I presented the context of this trial within Big Pharma’s decades-long Disinformation campaign against “science inconvenient to their interests.” I argued that no science has ever been a greater threat to Pharma than the massive efficacy data of the generic drug ivermectin in COVID-19. I detailed how they have long deployed “studies designed or conducted to fail” and/or “studies manipulated to show positive results.” They do both. Repeatedly. They then publish these studies in a small number of captured high-impact scientific journals which influence the captured media and then are recommended for or against by captured health agencies.

Note that the importance of the wording of the conclusion in a trial’s abstract, published in high-impact journal, cannot be overstated. Only a small minority of physicians read and think critically about the full study manuscript. Even less read the full study abstract. Sadly, the overwhelming majority simply read the abstract’s conclusion. In this manner, and particularly in the case of the TOGETHER trial, they can baselessly and erroneously convince the vast majority of doctors and citizens that ivermectin is ineffective. In the case of ivermectin, they did this via less than a handful of severely flawed “Big RCT’s” despite the overwhelming mountain of valid OCT’s and RCT’s and health ministry program successes in COVID. The TOGETHER trial on ivermectin was never going to be a positive trial. Ever. That was a foregone conclusion.

So what I want to do here is break down exactly how they accomplished this feat, using the most brazenly fraudulent conduct of any trial I have studied. This is NOT to say that I have never witnessed fraudulent studies, but this trial displays an unprecedented amount of targeted tactics designed to deny, suppress, and distort the evidence of efficacy.

Read more …

“Elon Musk, who has taken the baton from Rogan on the whole this-powerful-person-needs-to-be-stopped-because-he’s-a-real-threat-to-democracy front..”

Elon Musk: The Next Joe Rogan (Hill)

After two-thirds of cable news ran endless segments explaining what a threat Rogan is to America, the news cycle moved on. And when the dust cleared, Rogan wasn’t just left standing but, thanks to all the ridiculous media coverage, he was propelled into a different stratosphere of popularity, adding 2 million subscribers to the 10 million he already had. “The problem that I have with misinformation, especially today, is that many of the things that we thought of as misinformation just a short while ago are now accepted as fact,” Rogan explained at the time. “Like, for instance, eight months ago if you said, ‘If you get vaccinated, you could still catch Covid, and you could still spread Covid.’ You would be removed from social media.”

He was correct — and those removals were largely happening on Twitter, which soon may be owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who has taken the baton from Rogan on the whole this-powerful-person-needs-to-be-stopped-because-he’s-a-real-threat-to-democracyfront. Musk, a self-described free-speech absolutist, has offered to buy the social media giant. This greatly upset many on the left since Twitter has conducted itself in such an exemplary fashion in recent years. (Yes, that’s more sarcasm.) This is a company whose former CEO, Jack Dorsey, admits it wrongly censored accounts and suppressed information it deemed as misinformation. Conservative accounts were locked simply for sharing the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, or for questioning whether COVID-19 may have come from a lab in Wuhan, China, that studies coronaviruses.

[..] Over on cable news, as it dealt with the Musk deal, the hyperbole was so crazy it became the best unintentional comedy to be found. “When a petulant and not so bright billionaire casually bought one of the world’s most influential messaging machines and just handed it to the far-right,” one MSNBC host declared last month. Yep. The world’s richest man – the CEO of Tesla, and the guy who made available his Space-X’s Starlink satellite system to provide a besieged Ukraine with internet access amid Russia’s invasion of that country – is “not so bright” and a pawn of “the far-right.” “I think we can look to the western countries in Europe for how they are trying to limit it but you need — you need controls on this. You need regulation,” CNN contributor David Zurawik told “Reliable Sources.”“You cannot let these guys control discourse in this country or we are headed to hell. We are there. Trump opened the gates of hell and now they’re chasing us down,” he added.

Read more …

“..there is some chance it might be over 90 percent of daily active users…”

Elon Musk Issues Warning on Twitter Algorithm (ET)

Elon Musk warned Twitter users that they are “being manipulated” and told them to turn off the platform’s algorithmic newsfeed, coming as the firm’s legal department apparently said he committed a violation of a non-disclosure agreement. “You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you do not realize … Easy to switch back and forth to see the difference,” Musk wrote on Twitter. The Tesla CEO advised other users to switch to seeing the latest Twitter posts immediately by tapping the Twitter home button, tapping the stars button on the upper right of the screen, and selecting “latest tweets.” “I am not suggesting malice in the algorithm, but rather that it is trying to guess what you might want to read and, in doing so, inadvertently manipulate/ amplify your viewpoints without you realizing this is happening,” Musk continued in another post.

Musk announced his intentions to purchase Twitter on April 25 as he criticized the firm’s content moderation policies. Both he and Twitter said that Musk would attempt to purchase the firm for $44 billion, allowing him to take the platform private after the purchase. But on May 13, the deal appeared to be on thin ice after Musk posted that the agreement was “on hold” after reports said that bots and automated accounts make up fewer than 5 percent of the overall users. Hours later, Musk confirmed that he is still committed to the purchase. “Twitter (TWTR) legal just called to complain that I violated their NDA by revealing the bot check sample size is 100!” the billionaire wrote on Saturday, referring to a study on bots.

Musk posted early Sunday that he’s not seen any analysis that suggests that bots comprise fewer than 5 percent of Twitter accounts. He later said that “there is some chance it might be over 90 percent of daily active users.”

Read more …

MI6 and Brexit.

Leaked Emails Expose Secret Intelligence Coup To Install Boris Johnson (GZ)

Leaked emails and documents reviewed by The Grayzone have exposed the dimensions of a wide-ranging conspiracy managed by a shadowy cabal of hardcore Leavers to sabotage former Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, remove her from office, replace her with Boris Johnson, and secure a ‘hard’ withdrawal from the EU. The emails demonstrate that a group of operatives linked to the intelligence services and wealthy, reclusive pro-Brexit financiers spied on campaign groups, infiltrated the civil service, and targeted high-profile Remainers with reputational destruction. While the majority of British voters elected to assert their independence from the EU, this clique of mostly unknown influence agents sought to subvert the process and manage it according to their own elite interests.

Among their key objectives was to strengthen the security relationship between London and Washington, thus supplanting EU authority with more substantial US oversight. The cabal, which continues to exert insidious, undue influence on British politics, politicians and policy to this day, is composed of wealthy financiers, representatives of the military and defense establishment, and intelligence officials. The origin of the tranche of emails, which were shared with The Grayzone anonymously, is unknown. However, this reporter has verified the authenticity of the emails and documents contained therein through their metadata, among with other evidentiary sources. Much of the content would be impossible to counterfeit or doctor. The public interest in these private communications is abundantly clear, as the actions exposed in the tranche are so flagrantly anti-democratic they could lead to criminal investigations of at least some of the actors involved.

The cabal appears to be led by Gwythian Prins, a member of the Chief of Defence Staff’s Strategy Advisory Panel, former NATO and Ministry of Defence advisor, and board member of pro-Brexit group Veterans for Britain. Prins’ bio on his speakers’ bureau advertises him as a “leading thinker on strategy” who has “worked with leading decision makers around the globe from business leaders all the way up to heads of state, helping them to improve their decision making by educating them on the complex psychological processes underpinning theses[sic] decisions.” He is joined by former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove, who is frequently dubbed “C” in the leaked emails, a reference to the operational initial granted to all heads of Britain’s foreign intelligence service. At one point, Dearlove and Prins sought to recruit their apparent friend, Henry Kissinger, and his consulting firm as trans-Atlantic lobbyists for their version of Brexit.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHO Neil Oliver
https://twitter.com/i/status/1525527462196793345

 

 

 

 

 

 

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May 032022
 


Andy Warhol Judy Garland 1978

 

Supreme Court Has Voted To Overturn Abortion Rights, Draft Opinion Shows (Pol.)
SCOTUS Draft To Overturn Roe v. Wade Leaked (TCS)
Upon Reread, It Looks Like FAKE NEWS (CTH)
This Is Why Nancy Pelosi And Adam Schiff Were In Kyiv Yesterday (CTH)
New Pure-bred ‘Schrödinger-seizable’ Euros (Vilches)
“Disinformation” is Just a Boot in Your Face (Kunstler)
The Clinton Campaign Is About To Lose Its Privilege Fight (Techno Fog)
Ghosting Propaganda (Dodsworth)
Fraudulent Trial On Ivermectin Published By World’s Top Medical Journal (Kory)
Your Face Is Now a Weapon of War (NI)
The Vacuum Effect of the US Dollar (Lacalle)

 

 

 

 

SBU

 

 

Cernovich:
Hack of the Supreme Court’s email must be presumed, even if that turns out to be inaccurate after a full investigation. This is far too important an issue to speculate that it was a leak. Immediate Special Counsel appointment, unlimited budget.

 

 

 

 

Not acceptable. How can the judges work this way? Was this leaked, or is the court’s email system compromised?

Supreme Court Has Voted To Overturn Abortion Rights, Draft Opinion Shows (Pol.)

The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court and obtained by POLITICO. The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

Deliberations on controversial cases have in the past been fluid. Justices can and sometimes do change their votes as draft opinions circulate and major decisions can be subject to multiple drafts and vote-trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled. The court’s holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months. The immediate impact of the ruling as drafted in February would be to end a half-century guarantee of federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and allow each state to decide whether to restrict or ban abortion. It’s unclear if there have been subsequent changes to the draft.

No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending. The unprecedented revelation is bound to intensify the debate over what was already the most controversial case on the docket this term. The draft opinion offers an extraordinary window into the justices’ deliberations in one of the most consequential cases before the court in the last five decades. Some court-watchers predicted that the conservative majority would slice away at abortion rights without flatly overturning a 49-year-old precedent. The draft shows that the court is looking to reject Roe’s logic and legal protections.

A person familiar with the court’s deliberations said that four of the other Republican-appointed justices – Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week. The three Democratic-appointed justices – Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – are working on one or more dissents, according to the person. How Chief Justice John Roberts will ultimately vote, and whether he will join an already written opinion or draft his own, is unclear.

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“The court’s holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months.”

SCOTUS Draft To Overturn Roe v. Wade Leaked (TCS)

In an unprecedented turn of events, someone leaked a SCOTUS initial draft majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade to Politico. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” writes Justice Samuel Alito in the leaked document. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” “…. Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

The justices that support striking down Roe v. Wade and making abortion a state issue are Justice Alito, Justice Thomas, Justice Barrett, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Gorsuch, with Justice Roberts being a flip vote and the three Democrat Justices opposing the overruling. As many have pointed out, leaking a draft of a SCOTUS vote is unprecedented and appears to be a clear attempt to instigate left-wing riots across the country to pressure justices not to overturn Roe v. Wade. There are many potential reasons for doing this. As Politico notes, “Justices can and sometimes do change their votes as draft opinions circulate and major decisions can be subject to multiple drafts and vote-trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled.


“The court’s holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months.” Moreover, the leak will have huge ramifications regarding the upcoming midterms and even the 2024 general election, as both sides will indefinitely utilize the decision (and even the draft vote if it’s dropped) as the ultimate wedge issue to argue that if Americans don’t vote for a particular candidate, then Roe v. Wade will or won’t be overturned. As it stands, many on Twitter are already calling for the Biden administration to pack the courts, and the Supreme Court has been barricaded as they await the impending riots likely to pop off tomorrow afternoon.

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Twitter thread by Sundance. “The leak is real, the news is fake. Alito opinion is real. The justice’s concurrances or formal alignments are not. How does the court respond to an accurate Alito opinion, and a non factual alignment?

Why would Politico want to participate in a strategically explosive political effort to manufacture a fear of a not real SCOTUS opinion based on fabricated claims?”

Upon Reread, It Looks Like FAKE NEWS (CTH)

Having read the Politico article carefully, my original suspicions have shifted a bit. “Exclusive: Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Justice Alito writes in an initial majority draft circulated inside the court.” First, Politico is in the Domestic DOJ/FBI pipeline with the New York Times. CNN = State Dept. WaPo = CIA/Intel. NYT/Politico = FBI/DOJ. So the outlet sourcing leans toward DOJ and Justice Branch coverage. Which makes sense given the leaker is inside SCOTUS giving stolen documents to Politico. However, there’s no citation in the article for the actual alignment of the other justices with the Alito opinion. Factually there’s nothing other than Politico author supposition for judicial alignment with Alito opinion.

There’s nothing cited in the politico report that would indicate this is anything more than just Alito telling his peers what his position on the oral arguments was/is. Essentially, here’s my draft of what I believe. There’s nothing more than that present. Reread it. With no factual citation for the claim that Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are in concurrence, the article framework could likely be much ado about absolutely nothing. It’s one justice’s opinion, which is not surprising as Alito has already outlined this opinion before. Nothing else. Every reaction is complete projection based on unsubstantiated claims (of concurrences) by the Politico journalist. The “majority” is the part that matters…. and there is zero evidence to substantiate a claim that a majority decision exists.

Upon reread, it looks like FAKE NEWS. Then you switch to motive. Why would Politico want to participate in a strategically explosive political effort to manufacture a fear of a not real SCOTUS opinion based on fabricated claims? The answer to that question is found in the immediate reaction from the political left. Just the accusation alone is enough to trigger the most extreme of leftist base political demands. From that perspective, everyone is reacting to a carefully coordinated con job…. that carries the odor of Ron Klain, the DNC, and a desperately needed political reset for 2022 all over it.

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“U.S. taxpayers are also going to subsidize farming in Europe and fund the climate change initiatives by paying for the development of alternate energy sources.”

This Is Why Nancy Pelosi And Adam Schiff Were In Kyiv Yesterday (CTH)

The details of the Joe Biden $33 billion supplemental budget allocation have been released. I would strongly urge everyone to read the proposal which now heads to congress for passage. The spending request outlines a massive amount of money for various ideological foreign policy initiatives under the guise of Ukraine relief (it isn’t). The proposal outlines a kickback and bribery scheme. Some of the spending includes an allocation of funds to the State Dept including funds to USAID to “provide $8.8 billion to the Department of State for economic support and assistance to the people of Ukraine and other affected countries, including direct budgetary support, as well as support for food security, democracy, anticorruption, cybersecurity, counter-disinformation, human rights, atrocity documentation, energy, and emergency infrastructure needs.” The request specifically authorizes the transfer of these funds globally, outside of Ukraine.

Apparently, the State Dept is going to set up an international version of DHS “disinformation governance board.” But wait, it gets worse… U.S. taxpayers are also going to subsidize farming in Europe and fund the climate change initiatives by paying for the development of alternate energy sources. “This would include [$500 million] support for small- and medium- sized agrobusinesses during the fall harvest and for natural gas purchases by the Ukrainian state energy company.” Mechanisms to legalize defense contractor kick-backs: “This request would authorize Ukraine to utilize Foreign Military Financing Program funds appropriated in this Act and prior Acts to the Department of State to contract directly with U.S. companies to procure defense related materials which would facilitate the delivery of military assistance and security sector support.”


Mechanisms to spread the money all over government institutions without prior approval: …”This request would provide the authority to reprogram funds appropriated in this Act and prior Acts making appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs for assistance to Ukraine without regard to any minimum amounts specifically designated in such Acts. This authority would provide the needed flexibility to match resources with evolving needs and decrease reliance on new appropriations.” The last segment is a massive change in the U.S. government power to seize Russian private property and assets, sell them to whoever Biden chooses, and then give the proceeds of the sales to U.S. politicians, friends, family members, or perhaps Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

 

 

Pelosi Ze -again-

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“This will necessarily impact beyond belief a still clueless population which continues to play the role of vassal puppets to Anglo-Saxon malignant dictates..”

New Pure-bred ‘Schrödinger-seizable’ Euros (Vilches)

The EU had already promoted and achieved all-around chaos regarding very simple yet absolutely essential trading terms urgently to be agreed with the Russian Federation. As if that were not enough, now adding fuel to the fire EU member countries continue to dangerously play their traditional fiddles while declaring that “ some contracts are holier than others, didn´t you know ? ” This daring criterion also means getting back to square one with an ever larger and riskier conflict while everybody´s patience is running thin. If Europe does not reverse course within a very limited time frame it will needlessly smash itself head-on against a very harsh reality. Once triggered, the subsequent uncontrolled demolition cannot rewind no matter how many desperate “emergency meetings” EU officials call for.

The EU has now come up with a ground-breaking legal criterion that international jurisprudence should rapidly adhere to and possibly improve. Thus it could include it in Treaties and other important legislation and, in view of its apparent virtues, even apply it ex-post-facto such as in this case. By the way, with this new international flat-Earth public policy, the EU would be the only party entitled to unilaterally uphold some contracts and not others per its own wishes and convenience as if it were a God-given right. Not anybody else, no way. So Europe, supposedly the cradle of Western civilization, is now trying hard to earn “The Joker” award disregarding the livelihood of at least 800 million human beings plus serious negative impact upon the rest of the world. Granted, history will not be kind with EU leaders.

Obviously, in view of the above, the interruption of Russian imports – including very specific, exclusive, and unreplaceable grades of Russian natural gas, oil, and coal – is now definetly in the cards for some or all European countries. This will necessarily impact beyond belief a still clueless population which continues to play the role of vassal puppets to Anglo-Saxon malignant dictates without actually following how they are being had. Four weeks ago, in view of the massive seizure of its legitimate funds, Russia was left with the only option of requiring Rubles as payment for its exports as such currency is exclusively under Russia´s purview and thus cannot be freezed and/or seized by any stakeholder, EU included. And negotiations were making very definite progress along such lines up until the past week.

A month ago, the only real problem was for EU countries to find Rubles other than by selling their “theoretical” gold bullion vaulted in the UK and the US which many claim is either non-existent or highly encumbered with many dozens of claimees standing in line. So the alternative viable solution wisely found up until last week was to convert euros into Rubles at Russia´s Gazprombank as it had not been sanctioned – at least not yet – as possibly the EU had foreseen its role for the proposed solution at hand. So Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, took the trouble to personally explain the exact simple two-step payment procedure by phone conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. By the way, the procedure is so simple and so straight-forward that even tie-wearing boomers can understand it.

But now European governments and energy companies are proudly rejecting the idea of paying in Rubles on the basis that gas import contracts clearly specify that the allowed currencies to be used for payment are only euros or dollars, not Rubles. Accordingly, they argue that one side of the deal – in this case the Russian Federation – cannot change such contractual obligation by its own decision (!). The EU now says “This is an absolutely clear circumvention of the EU sanctions.” “Opening a Ruble account at Gazprombank in and by itself may breach the EU sanctions…”

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“If Mr. Biden is still on-the-scene in January next year, he’ll be the first president not only impeached but convicted and removed by the Senate..”

“Disinformation” is Just a Boot in Your Face (Kunstler)

Now we have the Disinformation Governance Board to be run by a TikTok musical comedy star, Nina Jankowicz, an instant laughingstock, since retailing disinformation has been her main occupation in the scant years she’s been on the Deep State scene. Ms. Jankowicz is a notorious RussiaGate hoaxer and psy-op agent in the October 2020 emergence of Hunter Biden’s laptop. She has zero credibility as anything but a professional falsifier. Her Disinfo Governance Board has no authority to regulate anything. It’s just a lame charade that can only draw more attention to the Left’s hatred of truth and reality. The Left pretends that free speech is a threat to civilization because, as usual, they are projecting psychologically. Their world is a mirror. In fact, the Left is a threat to civilization.

Behind all this is the growing panic in the Left that they are culpable for an enormous raft of crimes committed against their own country, and will eventually end up in court, in prison, or worse. Mr. Durham is just the leading edge of what will eventually be a heavy blade of judgment falling down on their necks. He’s busy sorting out the “Russia collusion” flimflam that turned into a coup to oust Mr. Trump, but that is only the beginning. In November, the Democrats will lose control of Congress and its oversight powers of agency operations, and in 2023 there will be inquiries galore into the neo-Jacobin craziness imposed on our country by the folks behind “Joe Biden.”

That includes such dicey matters as the several years of malevolent mismanagement of Covid-19, which looks more and more like a deliberate effort to kill a large number of citizens, and then moving along to the behind-the-scenes official support for those 2020BLM /Antifa riots, the ballot shenanigans around the last presidential election, the colossal failure to enforce border security (featuring Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkis), the Biden Regime’s conduct in provoking and prolonging the war between Russia and Ukraine, and (not least) the overseas moneygrubbing of President Biden’s family, as documented in Hunter’s laptop. I’m sure I left a few things out.

If Mr. Biden is still on-the-scene in January next year, he’ll be the first president not only impeached but convicted and removed by the Senate. And if for some reason he avoids criminal prosecution for treason out of some pitiful need for the government to maintain official decorum before the rest of the world, his brothers and his degenerate son may not be so lucky.

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“..the DNC and Hillary for America violated the law by hiding the real purpose of payments meant for Fusion GPS as “legal and compliance consulting.”

The Clinton Campaign Is About To Lose Its Privilege Fight (Techno Fog)

As part of the prosecution of former Clinton Campaign/DNC lawyer Michael Sussmann: Special Counsel Durham is seeking the following e-mails/communications that have been either redacted or hidden from his review: Documents involving Fusion GPS’s provision of opposition research and media-related strategies to Hillary for America, the DNC, and Perkins Coie. This includes the Fusion GPS/Perkins Coie contract and 38 e-mails and attachments between and among Fusion GPS, Rodney Joffe, and Perkins Coie. Communications between Fusion GPS and Rodney Joffe relating to the Alfa Bank allegations, and “other emails that precede, and appear to relate to, those communications.” This include emails between Joffe and Laura Seago, whom Durham has subpoenaed as a trial witness.

The Clinton Campaign (including Robby Mook and John Podesta), Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, Rodney Joffe, and the DNC are fighting to keep these e-mails and records secret, reasoning Fusion’s “role was to provide consulting services in support of the legal advice attorneys at Perkins Coie were providing to” the Clinton Campaign. That argument – that Fusion GPS was helping with “legal advice” – is hopefully the last conspiracy theory they’ll provide to the public, after Fusion GPS has already poisoned the America, through the FBI, DOJ, and the press, with baseless allegations of secret back-channels between Trump Organization and Russian marketing servers, piss tapes, and broader allegations of Trump/Russia collusion.

Today, Special Counsel Durham addressed those arguments by providing to the court the FEC findings where the agency found “probable cause to believe” the DNC and Hillary for America violated the law by hiding the real purpose of payments meant for Fusion GPS as “legal and compliance consulting.” In support, he provided the First (link) and Second (link) General Counsel Reports, which recommend that the Federal Election Commission find the DNC and Hillary for America violated election laws (52 USC 30104(b)(5)(A)) “by misreporting the payee of the funds paid to Fusion GPS through Perkins Coie LLP.” While much of the information in these now-public reports has been known for years (Glenn Simpson’s testimony to Congress, for example), they provide additional context – and newly uncovered details – on how the FEC dismantled the bogus Hillary for America/DNC Billing.

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“He emblemised wartime courage as Father Christmas does the spirit of giving.”

Ghosting Propaganda (Dodsworth)

He was not written into existence by “Ukrainians” but by the Ukrainian authorities. The Ukraine Security Service originally showed a fighter pilot on Telegram, with a caption calling the Ghost of Kyiv an “angel” for downing 10 Russian planes. The Ukrainian military released a photograph on Facebook of the Ghost of Kyiv in March 2022 with the caption, “Hello, occupier, I’m coming for your soul!” His name evoked the dark hero of a fairy tale. His feats were exaggerated, gathering mythic status. Whereas an ‘ace’ might eliminate 5 enemy aircraft, the Ghost was reputed to have downed about 40 Russian pilots. He didn’t seem real. And now we know that he was a purposeful piece of propaganda. He emblemised wartime courage as Father Christmas does the spirit of giving.

[..] This has not been the only Ukrainian propaganda. (Of course there has been Russian propaganda too, but it’s not for this article.) BBC Breakfast used old footage of a Russian parade to show the invasion of Ukraine. It’s hard to see how it was used in error, but that’s the claim. An early, blurry video claiming to show a Ukrainian girl confronting a Russian soldier actually showed a Palestinian girl confronting an Israeli soldier. Billboards declaring “Be brave like Ukraine” were displayed in London, Rome, New York, Amsterdam, Washington and Stockholm. A powerful campaign entitled “Stop Bloody Energy” – again in English, for us and the international audience – linked buying Russian fuel directly with funding the Russian war campaign and calls on us to stop financing terror and genocide.

The masterfully produced but gruesome video includes real life footage of dead bodies. (Not necessarily verified.) The video is produced by Ukrainian energy companies. The irony is that every modern machine of war uses oil. (We’ve also never seen anything like this to persuade us of the immorality of buying goods from China which is arguably ethnically cleansing the Uyghurs.) Ukrainian propaganda has been enthusiastically received. Social media avatars switched from masked faces to Ukraine flag colours overnight. Beyond the support which is natural and due to a country which has been invaded, I wonder if the enthusiasm also signalled the relief of having a good old-fashioned baddie. During Covid, we were all vectors of disease and potential ‘enemy agents’. Once more, the enemy is located in a distant snowy country with a red button at his fingertips. We can follow a war which pits us against Russkies, not our neighbours, families and co-workers, and sink into a fear which is familiar. It’s close, but not too close.

Azov

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BMGF = Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Fraudulent Trial On Ivermectin Published By World’s Top Medical Journal (Kory)

Big Pharma (Pfizer and BMGF from what it looks to me) dropped another nuclear bomb on ivermectin 3 weeks ago with their successful publication of the fraudulent Brazilian TOGETHER trial. They did it in one of the world’s top read and rated medical journals, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), a journal born in the year 1812, but captured by Pharma for who knows how long now. This is an open secret as per former Editor Marcia Angell in the book Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption: “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” -Dr. Marcia Angell.

First off, the saddest part of this fraud is that the TOGETHER trial’s published conclusion brazenly contradicted the data within the manuscript as it actually showed an 81% “Bayesian” probability of the superiority of ivermectin. But media and science reporters no longer critically analyze the data or questions the abstract’s conclusion, instead they all trumpet headlines in unison that “ivermectin doesn’t work in COVID.” Further contributing to the catastrophic toll of human life due to yet another deployment of “the Diversion,” a Disinformation tactic that Big Pharma employs when “science inconvenient to their interests” emerges.

Their first successful Disinformation campaign was against hydroxychloroquine in 2020, and despite Robert Kennedy’s in-depth, highly referenced and detailed exposing of the numerous sinister actions against HCQ in his best-selling book called “The Real Anthony Fauci,” they are again having success against ivermectin (just not as much – I would credit the work of the physician leaders and science experts of numerous non-profit, non-conflict-of-interest groups such as the US’s FLCCC, American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, Truth For Health, Covid Early Treatment Fund, South Africa’s Transformative Health Justice, UK’s World Council for Health, the Canadian COVID Care Alliance, and the anonymous C19early.com group among others).

Yet real people, real families, across the world destroyed each day by a lack of access to or support for safe, effective, early treatments with repurposed, generic medicines such as ivermectin, fluvoxamine, or hydroxychloroquine. All a direct result of Big Pharma and BMGF tactics like this one. Time to remind ourselves that BMGF is not a philanthropic organization but rather a corporation with massive investments in vaccines (and many other problematic industries) that has been corrupting public health the world over in service of the vaccine industry for decades now, none more so than in the last two years. By the way, what kind of philanthropist organization.. increases its wealth in a global pandemic?

MEP
https://twitter.com/i/status/1521326246076219392

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“it plans to have scraped 100 billion facial images from the internet.”

Your Face Is Now a Weapon of War (NI)

Who owns your face? You might think that you do, but consider that Clearview AI, an American company that sells facial recognition technology, has amassed a database of ten billion images since 2020. By the end of the year, it plans to have scraped 100 billion facial images from the internet. It is difficult to assess the company’s claims, but if we take Clearview AI at face value, it has enough data to identify almost everyone on earth and end privacy and anonymity everywhere. As you read these words, your face is making money for people whom you’ve never met and who never sought your consent when they took your faceprint from your social media profiles and online photo albums. Today, Clearview AI’s technology is used by over 3,100 U.S. law enforcement agencies, as well as the U.S. Postal Service.

In Ukraine, it is being used as a weapon of war. The company has offered its tools free of charge to the Ukrainian government, which is using them to identify dead and living Russian soldiers and then contact their mothers. It would be easy to shrug this off. After all, we voluntarily surrendered our privacy the moment we began sharing photos online, and millions of us continue to use websites and apps that fail to protect our data, despite warnings from privacy campaigners and Western security services. As so many of us sympathize with Ukraine and are appalled by Russia’s brutality, it is tempting to overlook the fact that Ukraine is not using Clearview AI to identify dead Ukrainians, which suggests that we are witnessing the use of facial recognition technology for psychological warfare, not identification. Some people will be fine with the implications of this: if Russian mothers have to receive disturbing photos of their dead sons, so be it.

To understand why we might want to rethink the use of facial recognition technology in conflict, consider the following thought experiments. First, imagine that it was Russia that had scraped Ukrainian biometric data from the internet to build a facial recognition technology tool which it was using to identify dead Ukrainians and contact their mothers. Liberal democracies would likely condemn these actions and add them to its growing list of Russia’s barbaric actions. Second, imagine a conflict in which the United States was fighting against an opponent who had taken American faceprints to train its facial recognition technology and was using it to identify dead American soldiers and contact their mothers. This would almost certainly cause howls of protest across the United States. Technology executives would be vilified in the press and hauled before Congress, where lawmakers might finally pass a law to protect Americans’ biometric data.

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“..the US dollar has created the conditions to be the most demanded currency simply because other central banks have been much more reckless.”

The Vacuum Effect of the US Dollar (Lacalle)

April 2022 will go down in history as a milestone that has only been seen on three previous occasions since 1973. A month in which the S&P500 Index and US Treasuries have fallen at the same time, 5% and 2% respectively. Additionally, the US dollar has appreciated against the main currencies with which it trades and reaches a new year high. Years of monetary laughing gas have not diminished the strength of the US dollar as world reserve currency, rather the opposite. Now we witness the vacuum effect. Inflows into the US dollar in a period of risk aversion. The PBOC, the Central Bank of China has had to give in and allow an aggressive devaluation of the yuan, although it tried to keep the currency stable via capital controls and a daily fixing.

The government-programmed weakness of the yuan is probably designed to provide a boost to the Chinese economy in a slowdown and dissolve part of the yuan-denominated debt. However, it reduces the Chinese yuan’s appeal as an alternative to the US dollar as global investors may fear both the central bank fixing as well as the tight capital controls imposed in China. It is not surprising, for example, that many commodity-exporting countries’ currencies have weakened against the US dollar despite rising exports and foreign exchange inflows. From the Norwegian krone to the currencies of major exporters, it seems only the Brazilian real appears to be holding strong… and that’s because it’s had several atrocious years, so it is more a bounce than an appreciation.

[..] It is very worrying that the European Central Bank is allowing the euro to get dangerously close to parity with the US dollar because of its obsession with staying far away from the normalization process of other central banks. The global demand for euros is falling, and the trade surplus that supported the European currency is diminishing. All those who defend a weak euro should look at reality. Empirical evidence shows that the eurozone does not export more due to a weak euro, but with products of higher added value. With a weak euro, imports skyrocket and become more expensive. Thus, the US dollar has created the conditions to be the most demanded currency simply because other central banks have been much more reckless.

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Ron Johnson

 

 

 

 

Seneff

 

 

Musk and mum

 

 

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