Jun 172025
 
 June 17, 2025  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  76 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Small self portrait 1627-28

 

Trump Warns ‘Everyone’ To Flee Tehran (RT)
How Iran Turned Israel’s Iron Dome Against Itself Using Clever Jamming (Sp.)
US Aerial Tankers Headed To Middle East – Media (RT)
Russia Should Be In G8 – Trump (RT)
The Crux of the Problem is NATO on Russia’s Borders (Paul Craig Roberts)
Kiev and London Plotting ‘Bloody Provocations’ – Russian Spy Agency (RT)
US Postpones Talks With Russia – Moscow (RT)
Russia Has Fulfilled Istanbul Promises – Medinsky (RT)
Russian Diplomats Facing ‘Nerve-wracking’ Situation In Israel – Envoy (RT)
Zelenskyy and Sheinbaum Travel to G7 Canada to Influence and Intercept (CTH)
Martin Kulldorff Named To CDC Vaccine Panel (ZH)
King-Less? (James Howard Kunstler)
Islam Growing Three Times As Fast As Christianity – Study (RT)
Happy Birthday Donald, Happy US Army and Flag Day (Helmer)
10 YEARS AGO: Donald Trump Announces Presidential Candidacy (DS)

 

 

 

 

Mossad

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day. the news is focused on one topic: Iran/Israel. The next, it’s all over again.

We wait: will Persia act next?

Note: Metro Tehran has 17 million people. It’s like evacuating New York City. No can do.

Trump Warns ‘Everyone’ To Flee Tehran (RT)

US President Donald Trump has issued a cryptic warning on Truth Social, urging “everyone” to leave Tehran as soon as possible, without confirming whether Washington will intervene in the ongoing tit-for-tat hostilities between Israel and Iran. The two states have been exchanging strikes since West Jerusalem bombed Iranian nuclear and military facilities last Friday, describing the move as a preemptive effort to halt the Islamic Republic’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran, which denies these claims, said the airstrikes amounted to a declaration of war and has retaliated with multiple volleys of ballistic missiles. “Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign. Such a shame and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CANNOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again!” Trump wrote on Monday evening, as the conflict entered its fifth day.

“Everyone needs to evacuate Tehran immediately!” the US leader added, without elaborating on where the city’s roughly 10 million residents should go. Trump earlier insisted that the US “had nothing to do with the attack on Iran” but warned Tehran of retaliation “at levels never seen before” if it targets American assets in the region. He declined to clarify what might trigger US military involvement, telling reporters on Monday: “I don’t want to talk about that.” Earlier in the day, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the deployment of additional “defensive capabilities” to the Middle East, without disclosing which military assets were sent over the weekend. “Protecting US forces is our top priority, and these deployments are intended to enhance our defensive posture in the region,” Hegseth posted on X.

According to Military Watch Magazine, the US has reportedly sent more than 30 aerial refueling tankers across the Atlantic toward the Middle East. The outlet described the buildup as “unprecedented,” suggesting it could signal broader US involvement in the Israeli-Iranian conflict. bIsrael has reportedly asked the US to participate directly in strikes on Iran. The IDF lacks the bunker-buster bombs required to destroy the Islamic Republic’s heavily fortified underground nuclear sites, but Washington could supply them, Axios reported Saturday, citing West Jerusalem officials.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to rule out an attempt to assassinate Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, telling ABC News on Monday: “It’s going to end the conflict.” Tehran has repeatedly stated that its nuclear program is peaceful and has accused Israel of undermining diplomatic efforts with the US. “Iran did NOT begin this war and has no interest in perpetuating bloodshed. But we will proudly fight to the last drop of blood to protect our land,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X on Monday. He warned that “getting the US mired in the Mother of Forever Wars” would destroy any chance of a diplomatic solution.

Read more …

The reports are very one-sided on US/Israel power. But Iran is not some backwater anymore.

How Iran Turned Israel’s Iron Dome Against Itself Using Clever Jamming (Sp.)

New evidence suggests that Iran successfully compromised Israel’s vaunted air defense systems during recent attacks — forcing Tel Aviv to fire on its own positions. How? Iran overwhelmed Israeli defenses by breaching the data transmission and correction system early in flight, explains military expert and historian of the Air Defense Forces Yuri Knutov. “Based on the footage that was released, it seems that the Iranians were able to breach the data transmission and correction signal system at the early stage when the missiles were flying, using an inertial guidance system. As a result, the system misdirected the missiles, not toward their intended target, but toward Israel’s own surface-to-air missile batteries, leading to a strike on them.”

The attack included:
100+ Shahed drones (swarming tactics)
Decoy ballistic missiles (old models to waste interceptors)
Fattah hypersonic missiles (unstoppable by Israeli Arrow/PAC-3)
As a result, the Iron Dome’s interception rate dropped drastically to just 10-15%.

“The use of jamming against surface-to-air missiles and missile defense systems is actually a fairly old tactic. During the Vietnam War, the Americans used jamming to mislead missiles by range, angle, and many other active interference methods. Special transmitters were deployed to create the illusion of aircraft presence on the radar screens of Vietnamese missile guidance stations,” Knutov says. “During the Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1970 and 1973, similar jamming techniques were used by both Israeli and Egyptian pilots, as well as Soviet pilots who assisted the Egyptians,” he adds.

Iran’s hypersonic Fattah missiles and Haj Qassems guided ballistics hit critical Israeli targets, including the Defense Ministry HQ and a major airbase housing F-35 and F-16 fighters. Despite Israel’s marketing of its advanced defense systems, the Arrow and Patriot systems failed to stop them. Iran also deployed decoys so effectively that Israeli strikes repeatedly hit fake targets. The Iron Dome, which covers only 144 sq km and is good for single rockets, but seemingly couldn’t handle mass attacks or the hypersonic gap — Fattah missiles reach Israel in 7 minutes, while the Iron Dome needs 11 minutes to reload. Iran has learned from past Israeli strikes and improved tactics, establishing backup command centers and more efficient maneuvering to increase its chances of success.

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US bombers? Stay home.

US Aerial Tankers Headed To Middle East – Media (RT)

The US has reportedly deployed more than 30 aerial refueling tankers across the Atlantic toward the Middle East, Military Watch Magazine reported on Monday. The outlet has described the buildup as “unprecedented,” claiming it could suggest broader US involvement in the ongoing Israeli-Iranian war. West Jerusalem and Tehran have entered the fourth day of open hostilities. Last Thursday, Israeli forces launched airstrikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets, killing senior military officials and scientists and prompting retaliatory missile barrages on Israeli cities such as Tel Aviv and Haifa. The US has expressed support for the Israeli strikes, with President Donald Trump calling them “excellent.”

He has also warned that Washington could become directly involved in the conflict if American interests are threatened but has yet to announce any plans to involve US forces. However, according to flight tracking data, the US has already started deploying KC-135 and KC-46 aerial refueling tankers to the Middle East. Military Watch Magazine has suggested that the aircraft may be intended to support Israeli Air Force operations or refuel US fighters and bombers if Washington expands its role in the conflict. The report also claims that tankers from other Western countries have participated in Israeli aerial refueling efforts, while the US is believed to have provided intelligence, satellite targeting data, and missile defense support. On Sunday, Axios reported that Israeli officials had asked the US to directly take part in the military operation, specifically requesting assistance in striking Iran’s Fordow enrichment facility.

However, US officials cited by the outlet said the request was declined, with one stating that the Trump administration is not considering any such involvement. Nevertheless, Tehran has claimed that Washington’s support for West Jerusalem has made the US complicit in Israel’s aggression against Iran. Sources within the Iranian military have also reportedly indicated that Tehran’s response to Israeli strikes would “spread to all areas occupied by this [Israeli] regime and related US bases in the region in the coming days. In response, Trump has warned that any Iranian attack on US forces would trigger a military response, writing on his Truth Social platform that “if we are attacked in any way, shape, or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the US Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before.” He also insisted that the US “had nothing to do with the attack on Iran” and called on Tehran to return to negotiations.

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“..Obama and a person named [..] Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in.”

Russia Should Be In G8 – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has called Russia’s removal from the group of major Western economies (G8) a mistake, arguing that the country’s presence could have helped prevent the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. Russia joined the group originally known as the G7 in 1997. It includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US, and also the EU as a “non-enumerated member.” Moscow’s membership was suspended in 2014 following Crimea’s reunification with Russia, upon which the G8 reverted to the G7. Crimea voted to leave Ukraine and become part of Russia via a referendum in the aftermath of a Western-backed Maidan coup in Kiev. Trump made the remarks on Monday at the opening of the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Canada, recalling that Russia had been part of the group before.

“The G7 used to be the G8,” he said at his first meeting of the summit with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. “[Former US President] Barack Obama and a person named [former Canadian Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in.” “And I would say that that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in, and you wouldn’t have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago,” he argued. Trump repeatedly criticized Russia’s exclusion and floated the idea of bringing Moscow back during his first term, though the proposal was rejected by other members. In February, Trump once again said he would “love” to see Russia back in the group.

The Kremlin responded by saying the G7 has “lost its relevance” as it no longer reflects current global economic dynamics. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed to the G20 as a more representative format, noting it includes fast-growing economies like China, India, and Brazil. “The G20 better reflects the economic locomotives of the world,” he said. Trump, who has been calling for a settlement to the Ukraine conflict, said at the G7 summit: “You spend so much time talking about Russia, and [Russian President Vladimir Putin is] no longer at the table,” which he said “makes life more complicated.”

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“..How did three countries that are not hostile toward the West get turned into enemies whose subjugation is worth the risk of nuclear war?”

The Crux of the Problem is NATO on Russia’s Borders (Paul Craig Roberts)

Have you noticed how many wars there are without being declared? Israel launches a military attack on Iran and Iran retaliates, but there is no declaration of war. Israel will attack again, and Iran will again respond by retaliating. But neither country is at war. Russia has been in conflict with Ukraine since February, 2023, but it is a Special Military Operation, not a war. Russia’s strategic triad was attacked, but it was merely a terrorist action, not an act of war. After a couple of years of being bombed, Gaza’s population is now being starved to death, but it is just a matter of clearing the area so a resort can be built. Libya and its leadership were destroyed; Iraq and its leadership were destroyed; Syria and its leadership were destroyed. But it wasn’t wars, just the imposition of democracy. Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen, but war was not declared. Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Hezbollah are merely anti-terrorist operations, not war.

War is everywhere but the reality cannot be acknowledged. The most serious event of all is not even acknowledged. Someone in the West gave a green light for an attack on Russia’s nuclear triad despite the fact that Russia’s war doctrine requires a “strategic response” to such an attack. Putin sidestepped the issue by declaring the attack to be a terrorist action, not an act of war. But whoever gave the green light for an attack that could have initiated nuclear war between Russia and the West has not been identified and held accountable for the risk to which he subjected life on earth. Indeed, there is zero interest in discovering how the West green lighted an attack that under Russian war doctrine should have initiated nuclear war. Putin pretends it didn’t happen, and Washington is uninterested in who and how the US could have found itself in nuclear war.

President Trump says he did not know of the planned attack on Russia’s strategic triad. This should scare Trump to death. But he seems uninterested in who it was that would have initiated nuclear war with Russia had Putin not flinched. How is it that the American people, the people of Europe, the Russians, Chinese and the rest of the world can be content that it is not in the hands of President Trump whether a strike on Russia that could result in nuclear war can be initiated? How is it that an outside third party has the initiative? Left unexamined, what will the next reckless provocation be? At what point will Putin be forced to recognize reality and be forced to respond? The entire media, governments, and security agencies of the world should be focused on identifying, and preventing, a third party from initiating nuclear conflict between the two major nuclear powers.

Instead, there is no interest in the question. False narratives are in place, and they are running their course. Despite his boasts, Trump has done nothing to achieve peace. Trump could easily forestall Israeli attacks on Iran by agreeing to an inspection to certify the extent of Iran’s enrichment of uranium. Instead, Trump read Iran an ultimatum–which Trump regards as a negotiation–to stop enriching uranium for any purpose or risk being bombed out of existence. In other words, for Trump negotiation means complying with Trump’s demands. Imposing hegemony is not negotiation.

Putin says the Ukraine negotiations must address the central issue. Does anyone in Washington understand that the central issue is NATO on Russia’s borders? There are US missile bases in Poland and Romania. The missiles can be loaded with conventional or nuclear warheads. This is an existential problem for Russia, as were Soviet missile bases in Cuba for the US. President Trump can diffuse the entire issue by removing the US missile bases on Russia’s borders and by rolling NATO back to the 1997 borders.

Trump could diffuse the situation in the Middle East by announcing publicly that the US will not support any more Israeli aggression, and Trump could cease picking a fight with China. Ask yourself, what is Russia doing to us? Nothing. What is Iran doing to US? Nothing, What is China doing to US? Nothing, How did three countries that are not hostile toward the West get turned into enemies whose subjugation is worth the risk of nuclear war? This is a massive failure of Western foreign policy. Where there is no vision the people are lost.

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“The “Anglo-Ukrainian terrorist tandem”..

Kiev and London Plotting ‘Bloody Provocations’ – Russian Spy Agency (RT)

Kiev and London have been plotting a series of “bloody provocations” to escalate the Ukraine conflict and disrupt dialogue between Moscow and Washington, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has warned. In a statement issued on Monday, the agency described growing coordination between Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and its military intelligence (GUR) with British intelligence, which it said is due to Kiev’s “mounting battlefield setbacks and deepening moral exhaustion.” Such sabotage operations typically follow a set pattern, the SVR said, with Britain planning and coordinating, and Ukrainian operatives carrying out the attacks. The report suggested that the same approach was used in recent railway sabotage in Russia’s Bryansk and Kursk Regions, which Moscow denounced as Ukrainian “terrorist attacks.”

The incidents killed seven and injured over 120, including children. The agency also cited the June 1 Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian airbases as part of the same playbook. The “Anglo-Ukrainian terrorist tandem” is now preparing more attacks, the SVR claimed, aiming to escalate the conflict, derail Moscow-Washington dialogue, and convince the White House to maintain large-scale military support for Kiev. According to the agency, one such scenario involves a false flag Russian torpedo attack on a US Navy ship in the Baltic Sea. Ukraine has already supplied Soviet-made torpedoes to the UK, the SVR said. Some are meant to detonate at a “safe distance,” while one will be left unexploded “as evidence of Moscow’s malicious activity.” Ukrainian operatives, it added, are prepared to carry out the plan.

Another alleged scheme involves British, Ukrainian, and Northern European partners “accidentally” recovering Russian-made naval mines in the Baltic, supposedly placed to sabotage international maritime shipping routes. “Kiev has become the perfect executor of vile provocations and terrorist acts for perfidious Albion [England],” the SVR concluded. The agency’s chief, Sergey Naryshkin, has repeatedly warned of possible British provocations, saying the SVR is well aware of London’s covert hostile activities against Russia.

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“..Moscow hopes that “the pause they have taken will not last too long.”

US Postpones Talks With Russia – Moscow (RT)

The US has postponed bilateral consultations with Moscow aimed at easing tensions and restoring diplomatic missions, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced on Monday. Earlier this year, Russia and the US held two rounds of high-level talks, the first on February 18 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the second on February 27 in Istanbul, Türkiye. The discussions marked the first major direct talks since the deterioration of relations following the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine. The agenda included mutual restoration of embassy operations, easing visa issuance, addressing the Ukraine conflict, and exploring potential post-conflict economic cooperation. The next round of talks was to take place in Moscow. However, according to Zakharova, this meeting was canceled at the initiative of the American negotiators.

In a statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Telegram channel, she stated, “As of today, the next meeting within the framework of bilateral consultations on eliminating ‘irritants’ to normalize the operation of diplomatic missions of both countries has been canceled at the initiative of the American negotiators.” She did not disclose the reason Washington’s gave for postponing the meetings, adding only that Moscow hopes that “the pause they have taken will not last too long.” Since taking office earlier this year, US President Donald Trump has made efforts to reestablish contact with Moscow, which had been largely severed under his predecessor, Joe Biden. Russian officials have welcomed the shift, also expressing readiness to normalize bilateral relations.

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“The bodies of over 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been handed over to Kiev as agreed, Vladimir Medinsky has announced..Kiev returned the bodies of 78 slain Russian soldiers, he added..”

Russia Has Fulfilled Istanbul Promises – Medinsky (RT)

Russia has returned the bodies of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, Moscow’s chief negotiator for the Ukraine conflict, Vladimir Medinsky, has said. Moscow repatriated a total of 6,060 sets of military remains, the presidential aide said in an update posted on Telegram on Monday. Kiev returned the bodies of 78 slain Russian soldiers, he added. The exchange was agreed upon during the latest round of direct talks between Moscow and Kiev, hosted by Türkiye, in June. Medinsky’s Ukrainian counterpart, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, suggested at the time that Kiev would hand over an equal number of killed Russian troops.

In April, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky stated in the interview that Ukraine had lost up to 100,000 troops since the escalation of the conflict in 2022. Russian Defense Ministry estimates suggest that Kiev’s losses are an order of magnitude higher than that, as of the end of 2024, with more than half of the total casualties suffered that year. The handover of military remains to Ukraine was jeopardized after Kiev reportedly refused to accept the first batch, on June 7. Ukrainian officials blamed Russia for being too hasty, though the exchange started the following day and and continued over the past week.

Kiev presently relies on mandatory conscription of men aged at least 25 years to refill the ranks of its armed forces and is currently considering making men over 60 years old eligible for the army. The mobilization campaign has been undermined by mass draft avoidance and alleged corruption among military officials responsible for recruitment.

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Odd news.

Russian Diplomats Facing ‘Nerve-wracking’ Situation In Israel – Envoy (RT)

Russian nationals in Israel, including diplomatic staff, are facing significant danger due to the country’s ongoing hostilities with Iran, Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov said Monday. In an interview with the television news channel Russia 24, Viktorov outlined the mounting difficulties confronting the embassy since tensions escalated following Israel’s attacks on Iranian nuclear sites last week. “The situation is nerve-wracking, I must admit. The threat to the lives and well-being of both diplomats and Russian citizens in Israel is not ephemeral,” Viktorov said from Tel Aviv. He noted that shockwaves from nearby explosions had shattered windows in several embassy residences. “Thankfully, there were no direct hits, but the incidents were unfortunate,” he said.

Viktorov added that the US consular office in Tel Aviv had also recently sustained minor damage from flying debris. Embassy staff have also seen their workloads increase significantly during the crisis. Viktorov said he had only managed three hours of sleep the previous night. Still, he urged employees to take their annual leave. “This is a good moment to take families and rest back home,” he said. The embassy has encouraged Russian nationals to exit Israel via Egypt, citing safety concerns. According to Viktorov, dozens have already done so and “rightfully so.”

Israel has said its strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, scientists, and senior officials were “pre-emptive,” claiming Tehran posed an existential threat. Iran denies the allegations, maintaining its nuclear program is peaceful. It has responded with missile attacks, calling them legitimate acts of self-defense. Exchanges of fire between the two nations have occurred daily since the hostilities erupted last Friday.

Moscow has placed responsibility for the escalation on Israel, accusing it of seeking to derail the indirect US-Iran negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program. Russian officials have also warned that strikes on nuclear sites pose a potential global risk of radioactive contamination. The broader regional conflict traces back to October 2023, when a deadly incursion by the Palestinian militant group Hamas led to a sustained Israeli military operation in Gaza. West Jerusalem has also carried out air strikes in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

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G7 came ad went.

Zelenskyy and Sheinbaum Travel to G7 Canada to Influence and Intercept (CTH)

I’ll break out a different analytical discussion on other foreign interest matters in a separate post; however, as the G7 kicks off it is very interesting to notice who shows up on President Trump’s G7 schedule in Canada – that has absolutely no bearing on the G7 meeting in Canada. According to the schedule, President Trump has meetings with both Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Neither Mexico or Ukraine are in the G7 (Italy, Germany, France, USA, Canada, Japan, U.K). Obviously Zelenskyy is traveling to Canada at the behest of the global intelligence network because they are afraid President Trump may no longer keep Zelenskyy at the center of the foreign policy universe. The distraction of Iran/Israel might take away the focus of President Trump – Zelenskyy cannot bear the thought of that.

For President Sheinbaum, the first Jewish leader in Mexican history, the issues are even more dramatic, consequential and serious. President Trump’s rapid deportation program is making it very difficult for Mexicans in the USA to send money back to Mexico. This is quickly becoming an urgent matter for Mexican officials who will be forced to intervene in support of the local Mexican economy if President Trump keeps impeding the accumulation of illegal wages in the USA. These two meetings are on top of all the other G7 priority meetings that are traditionally scheduled. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is intent on leveraging all the effort she put into gaining close proximity to President Trump’s inner circle for influence. Unfortunately, Meloni used Elon Musk as the entry point and, well, now her sense of desperation to retain relevance gets context.

French President Emmanuel Macron is currently battling British Prime Minister Kier Starmer in the quest to see who has more influence over President Trump. Starmer has a state visit and praise from King Charles to bolster his agenda, but Macron has a longer tenure of proximity to Trump. Zelenskyy showing up in Canada is intended to make Europe the focus of the assembly, with Macron and Starmer representing the ‘coalition of the -mostly- willing’. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, is unfortunately not getting as much attention despite hosting the G7. The reasoning is simple, Carney doesn’t represent anything of value to the USA agenda until President Trump decides to take apart the USMCA trade agreement. Until that process begins, the shouting of Canada about tariffs is akin to an annoying buzzing sound in the background; irrelevant white noise from the snow Mexicans.

Ursula von der Leyen will be in Canada because the insufferable European Union always consider themselves as part of the G7 despite not being a nation. The stupid parliamentarians of the EU always demand representation for their Brussels nonsense and often the NATO knuckleheads tag along. In many ways we can look at the appearance of Mexico and Ukraine through the prism that the G7 doesn’t have any other issues more important to them than (1) trade/tariffs, and (2) war against Russia. PM Carney willing to inject any ally of his that might assist the trade war and Ukraine war advocacy.

Read more …

World-renowned infectious-disease epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff — who was fired from Harvard Medical School last year after refusing the COVID vaccine — just got a new gig.

Martin Kulldorff Named To CDC Vaccine Panel (ZH)

Kulldorff has been named a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. Kulldorff, who had refused the COVID vaccine because of his infection-acquired immunity, lost his appointment at a Harvard-affiliated hospital in the early days of the COVID era, and in March of 2024 was officially terminated as a med school faculty member. Since the COVID lockdowns began five years ago this month, Kulldorff argued that tactics such as social distancing, masking children, vaccines after infections, and other extreme measures were not the best course of action to fight the virus. He co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for sensible tactics that would allow the globe to reach “herd immunity” and has been signed by nearly 1 million scientists worldwide.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in announcing the new members of the panel last week on X, wrote that his selections signify a “major step towards restoring public trust in vaccines.” Kennedy wrote he retired the 17 current members of the committee and is repopulating ACIP with eight new members “committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense.” “They have each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations. The committee will review safety and efficacy data for the current schedule as well,” Kennedy stated. MassLive reported that in 2021, “Kulldorff posted on X that ‘thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should.’”

“COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people and their care-takers,” he wrote. “Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.” According to the New York Times, after Kennedy’s announcement, some infectious disease and vaccine experts accused the health secretary of going back on his pledge not to pick so-called anti-vaxxers. “When Mr. Kennedy fired the entire committee, known as the A.C.I.P., he cited financial conflicts of interest and said a clean sweep was necessary to restore public trust in vaccination,” the Times reported. As for Harvard’s role in the controversy, writing in City Journal last year, Kulldorff argued that Harvard turned its back on him, open debate, and medical freedom.

“The beauty of our immune system is that those who recover from an infection are protected if and when they are re-exposed. This has been known since the Athenian Plague of 430 BC—but it is no longer known at Harvard,” he wrote. “Three prominent Harvard faculty coauthored the now infamous ‘consensus’ memorandum in The Lancet, questioning the existence of Covid-acquired immunity. By continuing to mandate the vaccine for students with a prior Covid infection, Harvard is de facto denying 2,500 years of science.”Kennedy, in announcing Kulldorff, noted he is a biostatistician and “a leading expert in vaccine safety and infectious disease surveillance.”“… Dr. Kulldorff developed widely used tools such as SaTScan and TreeScan for detecting disease outbreaks and vaccine adverse events. His expertise includes statistical methods for public health surveillance, immunization safety, and infectious disease epidemiology. He has also been an influential voice in public health policy, advocating for evidence-based approaches to pandemic response.”

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The Clinton-Soros machine.

King-Less? (James Howard Kunstler)

Saturday morning, we toodled over to the next town, Salem, New York, (pop. 2,612, per capita income $19,499) fifty miles northeast of Albany, to catch one of the hundreds of “No Kings” demos across the nation sponsored by Shanghai-based software billionaire Neville Roy Singham, Walmart heiress Christy Walton, Paypal partner (and Linked-in founder) Reid Hoffman, and father-and son team, George and Alex Soros. Speaking of A;ex Soros, Saturday also happened to be his wedding day, to Huma Abedin, former Hillary Clinton sidekick and BFF (and ex-wife of disgraced congressman and convicted sex offender Anthony Weiner.) The nuptials happened at the Soros’s Hamptons estate. Cable news covered the fabulous cavalcade of black Escalade limousines conveying the super-elite of Progressive-Wokery to the glorious event. The New York Times, with its habitual lack of self-awareness, styled the event thusly:

“Liberal royalty?” Say, what. . . ? There is such a thing? In the party of No Kings? What’s the deal, then? Just princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, earls, viscounts, baronets, lairds, marquis, knights and dames, and so on. Yet, no king? Well, if you asked the fortunate wedding guests, they might aver to Hillary Clinton as a sort-of Queen of the party, or maybe just Queen Bee. As for former president Bill, he appears to be undergoing slow-motion mummification, so he currently occupies an ambiguous zone between this world and the next, with no mojo left for kingly duties. Anyway, it rained that day down on the South Fork. Meanwhile, back upstate, cloudy and cool but no rain, some two-hundred wrathful plebeian souls gathered at the one-stoplight-intersection in little Salem, these days mainly a farm community, the old railroad engine repair shop defunct, and many good non-farm jobs with it, the usual story in this corner of the country. The hopped-up crowd was well-supplied with signs and placards, many avouching Down with Oligarchs! — which, oddly, seemed a sort of backhanded reference to billionaires of the very type underwriting the day’s festivities, not to mention the super-rich “liberal royalty” gang gathered for the Soros-Abedin royal wedding.

But that was only one of the many incongruities haunting the mass protest against the abhorred president, Mr. Trump. For instance, one poor fellow on the southeast corner of South Main and East Broadway inveighed mournfully against the suppression of free speech, apparently unaware of the epic efforts 2021 to 2025 by “Joe Biden’s” underlings to censor the Internet and de-platform the regime’s critics (including yours truly, whose website was mysteriously destroyed in October 2024).

The moiling mob was overwhelmingly geriatric, perhaps reflecting the backwater demographics of a region with few job opportunities for young folk. A spirit of revival bubbled among them as they reenacted old rituals of the hippie halcyon, the grand old days of the Vietnam War protests, when thousands gathered to levitate the Pentagon. Only now, their sentiments and beliefs exhibit a striking and peculiar inversion of the ancient 1960s credos that drove the beloved Movement.

I know because I was there, on campus, between 1966 and 1971. Back then, the Left opposed the wicked “establishment” and all its nefarious operations, from the war in Vietnam to the FBI’s underhanded suppression of political dissent. These days, strange to relate, the Left stands in staunch defense of the Deep State, big government (and its prodigious corruption), and the politicization of the FBI and CIA.

Their placards lament the withering of “our democracy,” yet they were just fine with “Joe Biden” selecting a 2024 presidential candidate for them — with no customary vote by party delegates, or anything approaching an open democratic process. They shout for the “rule-of-law,” except when it concerns special persons such as the former president’s crackhead, bag-man son. They’re all for the colossal grift around the war in Ukraine. And don’t forget they supported vaccine mandates, the closing and ruination of small businesses (while Walmart and Taco Bell were allowed to thrive), and all the other hypocritical, fraudulent, lethal actions of Covid-19 policy.

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“..a Muslim woman was estimated to have 2.9 children during her lifetime, compared to 2.2 for non-Muslim women..”

“Islam is set to grow to become the world’s largest religion in years ahead, unless trend lines shift..”

Islam Growing Three Times As Fast As Christianity – Study (RT)

Islam grew approximately three times as fast as Christianity between 2010 and 2020, spurred by higher birth rates and lower rates of deconversion, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. The global population of Muslims rose by nearly 21% over the ten-year span, while the number of Christians only grew by around 6%, according to data from the study, which was released last week. The number of Muslims grew twice as fast as the rest of the world’s population, which expanded by 10% during the same decade. Islam also gained more individual followers than all non-Muslim religions combined during the decade, the research indicated. The study cited higher birth rates and a younger average age among adherents of Islam as key reasons for the growth.

On average, a Muslim woman was estimated to have 2.9 children during her lifetime, compared to 2.2 for non-Muslim women, the research suggested, citing 2015-2020 data. New converts and those leaving the faith had little impact on the growth, as both averaged about 1% during the 2010s, according to the study. Despite growing more slowly, Christianity had remained the world’s largest religion, with 2.3 billion followers in 2020, while Islam held second place with 2 billion, the research indicated. While the number of Christians grew within the ten-year period, the religion’s overall share of the global population shrank by nearly 2%, according to the data. Christian population growth has tapered due to high rates of people leaving to become religiously unaffiliated, according to the study. Despite relatively high fertility rates among adherents, the faith witnessed a net loss of 11.6 adults for every 100 adults who were raised as Christian.

“Islam is set to grow to become the world’s largest religion in years ahead, unless trend lines shift,” said Conrad Hackett, the lead researcher at the Pew Research Center and the main author of the study, according to The Washington Post. He added that it was “striking” to see such a dramatic shift in just a decade, pointing out that the Muslim and Christian populations had grown closer in size as Islam expanded more rapidly than any other major faith. The research covered thousands of censuses and surveys in 201 countries and focused on seven groups: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, other religions, and individuals who do not identify with any particular religion.

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“..state media platform RIA Novosti editorialized on June 14 that the Israeli operations are a rehearsal for what the US and its allies are planning to do to Russia, and that this is well understood in Moscow.”

Happy Birthday Donald, Happy US Army and Flag Day (Helmer)

There are no flies on President Vladimir Putin. That’s an expression which originated in the fly-blown goldrush mines of Australia in 1840 and then moved with the flies to the goldrush mines of California a few years later. Literally, it means a man who is too quick for a fly to settle on him. Metaphorically, it means a man who is much too clever to be fooled by a fraudster or deceived by an enemy. Putin is much too quick not to recognize that President Donald Trump is both a fraudster and an enemy. Putin doesn’t have to be told by the General Staff that Trump’s war plans are an existential threat to Russia’s security on the western front (Ukraine, Romania, Poland); northern front (Norway, Sweden, Finland), eastern front (Japan, South Korea); and southern front (Iran).

Last Thursday night, as the US and Israel began their war against Russia’s strategic ally Iran, starting with decapitation strikes against the Islamic Republic’s leadership, the Russian General Staff didn’t have to send Putin their “we told you so” message. But the Kremlin’s communication system broke down, nonetheless. Officially, the war didn’t begin for the Russians until they detected US and Israeli fuelling, arming, and deception preparations on Thursday ahead of the first Israeli weapons launches after midnight into Friday. Earlier in the day, Putin had been telling his arms chiefs “we know the enemy’s modus operandi. However, I do not think we are falling behind in any way.” The combination of drone and missile attack tactics of the enemy requires, he said, “the new state armament programme [to] ensure creation of a universal air defence system capable of operating under any conditions and effectively hitting air assault weapons regardless of their type.”

What about defence against ultra close range, ultra low-altitude drone attacks of the kind which the US, the UK and Ukraine had successfully executed, evading detection and interception, on June 1 against Russia’s nuclear bomber bases across the country? Putin’s scripted phrase “air assault weapons” left that unmentioned in the Kremlin communiqué, but not in the closed-door session after Putin announced: “Let’s get to work”.* What then was the similar coordination by the US and Israel of long-range air assault operations with ground-level attacks targeted fatally on five, possibly eight Iranian generals and five Iranian nuclear scientists. The US and Israeli media reports have termed these decapitation strikes acts of war, not acts of terrorism. The Russian media reports have followed suit.

The state media platform RIA Novosti editorialized on June 14 that the Israeli operations are a rehearsal for what the US and its allies are planning to do to Russia, and that this is well understood in Moscow. “Many respected analysts of different calibres believe that the purpose of the attack on Iran is to eliminate the country’s nuclear program (necessarily) and regime change (extremely desirable). In fact, the main goal of the operation is to work out a mass preventive disarming strike against the enemy with serious military capabilities – that enemy is called not Iran, but Russia.”

This strategic plan, writes Boris Rozhin, a leading military blogger reflecting the views of senior Russian military officers, is President Donald Trump’s first of all, and aimed at Russia next. “Current events in the Middle East region demonstrate a dramatic change in the geopolitical situation. The Western powers, throwing away their purported enmity, have united in a general offensive against an independent Iran, a key ally of Russia…The previous ‘disagreements’ have turned out to be only a spectacle for the public. Iran’s defeat will be a strategic catastrophe for Russia, surpassing even the loss of Syria. Iran plays a key role in maintaining a balance of power in the Middle East and is Russia’s most important ally in confronting Western domination…The war against Iran, initiated by the Western world, could have disastrous consequences for the entire world order. This is not a local conflict, but an attempt to finally break the last pockets of resistance to the unipolar world…For Russia, this means the need to make drastic decisions to protect its strategic interests and allies.” — June 14, 21:19.

“In summing up this story,” Rozhin wrote yesterday, — June 14, 14:31, “we can conclude – if there is anyone who has not yet understood – that the ‘Trump peace attempts’ are worthless and will lead to nothing – neither in the Middle East nor in Ukraine. Therefore, agreements with Trump are not worth it. It is necessary to strengthen the army and the military-industrial complex and achieve the goals of the SVO [Special Military Operation] by military means. In order not to say again, ‘we wanted peace, and the Americans deceived us again’, as the Iranians do now.”

In the policy discussion currently under way, a Moscow source reports the intelligence assessment that Iran’s military capabilities are not as effective as they have been publicly portrayed or as the generals have threatened; that the clerical leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei knows this; and that he and his clerical allies believe their best chance of survival in power is to limit the counterattack on Israel, ask for a ceasefire, bargain with their threat to close the Hormuz Strait, and abandon their negotiating positions on nuclear enrichment and missile development.

“If the nuclear bomb was a bluff, and we believe it was,” the source says, “then they should have learned the lessons of Saddam [Hussein]. They should have expected Netanyahu and Trump to call their bluff. Now that’s happened, Iran’s internal weakness is also stark. I believe SVR [foreign intelligence], GRU [military intelligence] and MiD [foreign ministry] have concluded the conflict is the Iranians to lose – and this is what is happening. What can Putin do if the clerics have no nerve to fight?”

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At least it was not quiet.

10 YEARS AGO: Donald Trump Announces Presidential Candidacy (DS)

Ten years ago today, now-President Donald Trump came down the Trump Tower escalator in Manhattan to announce his run to be president of the United States. “We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing, can bring back our military, can take care of our vets. …. We need somebody that literally will take this country and make it great again,” said the Queens-born real estate mogul and reality television star. The 69-year-old made a number of promises, reshaping American politics to this day. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall, mark my words,” Trump told the Manhattan crowd. Trump’s claims were met with general ridicule from most media coverage.

“Donald J. Trump, the garrulous real estate developer whose name has adorned apartment buildings, hotels, Trump-brand neckties and Trump-brand steaks, announced on Tuesday his entry into the 2016 presidential race, brandishing his wealth and fame as chief qualifications in an improbable quest for the Republican nomination,” wrote the New York Times in its mocking coverage of the candidate who would defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton little over a year later. Ten years later, Trump is pushing for the speedy passage of the “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill, which would secure funding to complete construction of the Southern border wall. In his Trump Tower speech, the billionaire also vowed to bring stability to the Middle East.

“Islamic terrorism is eating up large portions of the Middle East. They’ve become rich. I’m in competition with them. They [ISIS] just built a hotel, can you believe this? … Nobody will be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump,” he said, also promising to “stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.” In June 2025, Israel and Iran are currently at war after Israel struck the Islamic regime in an attempt to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The future-president also spoke at length on a topic that is still top-of-mind today—China. ““I like China. I love China,” he said. “[But] it’s like take the New England Patriots and Tom Brady and have them play your high school football team. That’s the difference between China’s leaders and our leaders. … We have all the cards, but we don’t know how to use them.” In June 2025, Trump’s White House has said they have reached a consensus on a trade agreement with China. Now at the age of 79, Trump is half of a year into his second term as president after winning every swing, as well as the popular vote. The journey he began in 2015 is far from over.

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Anthony

 

 

Moose

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

May 062024
 


Pablo Picasso La lecture 1932

 

Americans See Civil War Within 5 Years, Upcoming Election as Flashpoint (Sp.)
Ukrainians are God’s Chosen People – Zelensky (RT)
Zelensky Can’t ‘Mobilize God’ – Russian Church (RT)
Moscow Ridicules Zelensky’s Claim About God and Ukraine (RT)
Trump Develops ‘Detailed’ Plan On Achieving Ukraine Peace: Telegraph (ZH)
Corruption Sped Up Ukraine’s Retreat More Than Weapons Shortage
New US Antisemitism Law Turns Israeli Genocide Critics Into Criminals (GR)
French Foreign Legion Dispatched to Ukraine, Ex-DoD Official (Sp.)
Ukraine Could Request Western Military Intervention – MP (RT)
Israel’s Not So Little War Against Russia (Helmer)
Xi jinping to Visit Three Key Countries During Trip to Europe (Sp.)
You Need 2 Years of Food – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

 

 

 

 

May 5
https://twitter.com/i/status/1787107339939860718

 

 

Falcon heavy

 

 

Optimus


https://twitter.com/i/status/1787082089315139886

 

 

Poso
https://twitter.com/i/status/1787151253509706036

 

 

Putin Steele

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m not stupid. If you don’t vote for Trump, this great big empire is gonna crumble.”

Americans See Civil War Within 5 Years, Upcoming Election as Flashpoint (Sp.)

Surveys show many believe Americans will take up arms against each other in the coming years as political polarization in the country remains at an all-time high. A new poll reveals a startlingly large percentage of Americans anticipate a second civil war within the next few years, with many citing this year’s presidential election as a potential flashpoint for a conflict. The survey by US pollster Rasmussen Reports found that 41% of likely voters think the country is likely to see a civil war by 2029, including 16% who think a civil war in that timeframe is “very likely.” Researchers discovered a significant partisan component to the issue, with 37% of respondents saying civil war is more likely if current US President Joe Biden is reelected in November. Some 25% said the outcome would be more likely under a second Donald Trump presidency, while 30% said the outcome of this fall’s election would make little difference.

Surprisingly, more than half of Republican voters anticipate a civil war within the next five years, with 54% of them saying the outcome is likely. Women, young adults, and non-white voters were found to be most likely to predict an imminent conflagration in the survey of 1,105 US voters. “The possibility that America could face another civil war soon is not too far-fetched for a lot of voters,” said the polling firm. “Such discussions got a boost after the new movie ‘Civil War’ made its debut as number one at the box office last month.” The Alex Garland film is not the only recent Western movie or television show predicting a dystopian near-future. British director Adam Curtis’ film HyperNormalization recognized the trend nearly a decade ago.

“Halfway through Adam Curtis’s mind-blowing documentary on the current socio-political turmoil in the world… there is a montage from Hollywood apocalypse movies,” noted critic J.J. McDermott. “The montage segues from one dramatic scene to another with prolonged gasping effect… the White House is destroyed in Independence Day, a giant dino-creature chucks cars about the streets of New York in Godzilla and a giant comet looms over North America in Deep Impact.” “The fascination with 9/11 as a witnessed spectacle has persisted in movie studios and in the minds of their ‘disaster’ directors ever since and the summer blockbuster season is never without at least one example every year now.” Curtis’s provocative film posits that society has increasingly retreated inward in recent years, with the rise of the Internet serving as a substitute for an increasingly unpredictable and chaotic Western world. Brexit and the election of Trump are offered as two key events signifying a descent into political turmoil.

But the existential angst has apparently found its way online as well, with entire Internet communities dedicated to discussing the likelihood of imminent war or apocalypse. The r/Collapse forum on the website Reddit devotes itself to “discussion regarding the potential collapse of global civilization, defined as a significant decrease in human population and/or political/economic/social complexity.” Other surveys in recent years have revealed similar results, with one by YouGov in 2022 finding 43% of Americans think a civil war is likely in the next decade and another poll conducted that year finding 50.1% think it is a possibility.“No matter what happens here – the verdict – Trump’s gonna win or there will be a civil war,” said one supporter of the former president protesting outside his current trial in New York City. “I’m not stupid. If you don’t vote for Trump, this great big empire is gonna crumble.”

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Orthodox Easter is a big one.

Ukrainians are God’s Chosen People – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has proclaimed that God is an “ally” of Ukraine in the conflict with Russia. Despite his invoking of the Almighty, Zelensky has led a crackdown on the Orthodox Church for the last two years. As Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter on Sunday, Zelensky released a video address from Kiev’s Saint Sophia Cathedral, in which he accused Russia of “breaking all the commandments.” “The world sees it, God knows it,” he said. “And we believe God has a chevron with the Ukrainian flag on his shoulder. So, with such an ally, life will definitely win over death.” Zelensky’s appeal to Christians came as Ukraine’s parliament examines legislation that would close down the country’s largest Christian church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). While the law has sat in parliament for months, Zelensky’s government has moved to restrict the Church’s activity since the conflict began in 2022.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has opened dozens of criminal cases against UOC priests, has sanctioned clerics, and stripped at least 19 bishops of their Ukrainian citizenship, according to TASS news agency. Church property has been seized, and monks evicted from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, an ancient monastery and the most prominent Orthodox site in Ukraine. The UOC has deep historical ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which it renounced after Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Despite declaring autonomy from the ROC, Zelensky has accused the UOC of functioning as an “agent of Moscow,” and promoted the government-created Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) as its replacement.

A non-canonical organization, the OCU was established by the government of President Pyotr Poroshenko after the US-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014. Earlier this year, a group of lawyers wrote to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, warning him that banning the UOC could cause “serious harm to Orthodox Ukrainians” and have “dire ramifications for Ukraine’s entry into the European Union and its place in the Western world.”

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“The Lord is not a resident of the Kiev region for Zelensky to mobilize him and put him in the Ukrainian army..”

Zelensky Can’t ‘Mobilize God’ – Russian Church (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has no way to enlist God in his fight against Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church has said, rebuking a statement Zelensky made during his Easter Sunday speech. In a video address, Zelensky described God as “an ally” of Ukraine who “has a chevron with the Ukrainian flag on his shoulder.” “The Lord is not a resident of the Kiev region for Zelensky to mobilize him and put him in the Ukrainian army. His statements don’t merit any attention,” Vakhtang Kipshidze, the head of the Russian church’s public relations department, told news outlet news.ru. Kipshidze further blasted the Ukrainian leader as “a non-believer” who “claims that he can decide for God whose ally he is.”

Kiev has stepped up the crackdown on its largest Christian church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), accusing its clergy of being “agents of Moscow.” The UOC renounced its historical ties with Moscow after Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring state in February 2022. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian authorities have since launched criminal cases against more than 60 priests and seized a number of monasteries and other assets in favor of the state-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Last year, the Ukrainian government introduced a bill that would pave a way for an eventual ban of the UOC. The legislation, however, has since been stalled. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has repeatedly condemned the campaign against the UOC, denouncing it as a violation of religious rights.

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“..Zakharova ridiculed the statement, suggesting it was the result of a “drug overdose.”

Moscow Ridicules Zelensky’s Claim About God and Ukraine (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has apparently lost touch with reality, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested after the Ukrainian President described God as Kiev’s “ally” in the conflict with Moscow. On Sunday, as Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter, Zelensky issued a video address in which he accused Moscow of “violating all the commandments,” claiming that “God knows it.” “We believe [that] God … wears a chevron with a Ukrainian flag on his shoulder,” the president stated, referring to the higher power as Kiev’s “ally,” who would guarantee Ukraine victory in the ongoing standoff. Zakharova ridiculed the statement, suggesting it was the result of a “drug overdose.” “A chevron on God’s [sleeve] is the same story as the rituals of ancient Ukrainians [performed] by them somewhere in Mesopotamia at a time when they discovered America,” the spokeswoman said, apparently referring to some internet memes mocking Kiev’s narratives about the nation’s origins.

Zelensky’s statements came amid the continued retreat of the Ukrainian military in Donbass, amid an ongoing Russian offensive. Earlier on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that Moscow’s forces had taken control over the village of Ocheretino in the north of the Donetsk People’s Republic – a major logistics hub for Kiev’s troops. In February, Moscow’s forces liberated the strategic Donbass town of Avdeevka and have been steadily pushing westward ever since, taking control of several smaller settlements in the area. In April, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that Moscow’s troops were firmly in control of the initiative in the conflict, and steadily pushing Kiev’s forces back. Earlier this week, he estimated that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had lost 111,000 this year alone. Ukraine’s top military commander, General Aleksandr Syrsky, told Kiev’s backers the same month that his nation’s armed forces face a “difficult operational and strategic situation, which has a tendency to get worse.”

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“..Mr Trump will style himself as the only candidate who can end the war, with a simple “bumper-sticker” slogan..”

Trump Develops ‘Detailed’ Plan On Achieving Ukraine Peace: Telegraph (ZH)

Trump has long touted on the campaign trail that he can stop the Ukraine war in 24 hours while taking shots a Biden’s inability to oversee a negotiation that would ultimately end the war. The Daily Telegraph is now reporting, citing an unnamed source who is said to be close to the former president and current GOP frontrunner going into the November election, that Trump has developed a detailed plan for achieving Ukraine peace. “There is a plan, but he’s not going to debate it with cable news networks because then you lose all leverage,” the source said. Below is the section of the Friday Telegraph report which previews the plan: A source close to the Trump campaign has told The Telegraph that a detailed Ukraine-Russia peace plan has been drawn up but will not yet be disclosed in any detail before his in an effort to maintain leverage. Mr Trump will style himself as the only candidate who can end the war, with a simple “bumper-sticker” slogan, they said.

“He wants to stop the killing,” said the source. “That’s the bumper sticker: Trump will stop the killing.” Last month a Washington Post report claimed that key to Trump’s plan would be pressuring Kiev to permanently give up Crimea and part of the Donbas to the Russians. The Post had cited aides who said the plan is to push for “Ukraine to cede Crimea and Donbas border region to Russia” in return for an end the Russian occupation and invasion. But the truth is that at the very least Kiev would have to forever relinquish claims of sovereignty over Crimea. Moscow is also never going to let go to the four annexed territories in the east. But Trump had slammed the apparently premature report as “fake news”. At the time a statement from the Trump campaign said “The whole thing is fake news from the Washington Post. They’re just making it up.” Spokesman Jason Miller did emphasize, however, that “President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing. Joe Biden is talking about more killing.”

Meanwhile, things on the battlefield are making it increasingly clear that Ukraine may soon have no other option. The country’s military and intelligence leadership also appears to be coming around to the hard reality that it will have to surrender territory, or else continue suffering massive losses and ceded ground. The Telegraph writes in its fresh report: Ukraine is preparing for peace talks with Russia as there is “no way to win on the battlefield alone”, Kyiv’s deputy spy chief has said. Maj Gen Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency, said both sides were currently vying for “the most favorable position” ahead of possible negotiations in 2025. As with virtually all wars, negotiations will likely be the final stage of the conflict, he told the Economist. Yet President Zelensky himself has yet to echo this perspective.

Instead he’s currently urging the West for more and more advanced weapons, and talking about “ten year defense” plans ensured by the US and Kiev’s backers. He has further recently said that if Ukraine ever hopes to formally join NATO, it must ‘win’ against Russia – which at this point seems in the realm of fantasy. The White House has so far done nothing to dispel this fantasy, but has instead encouraged it. Russian state media had captured and translated key lines of Zelensky’s address. “I believe that we will be in NATO only if we win. I don’t think that we will be admitted […] during the war,” Zelensky had said during a meeting with officers. Ukrainian sources also confirmed the remarks.

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“..they are laying the groundwork for departure. While preparing to escape Ukraine, they create some kind of financial safety net for themselves..”

Corruption Sped Up Ukraine’s Retreat More Than Weapons Shortage

The rapid crumbling of Ukrainian defenses, leading to military retreat, prompts questions about the Kiev regime’s failure to maintain the front line. Russian troops continue to advance along the entire 1000-kilometer-long front line and squeeze the Ukrainian military from the Donetsk People’s Republic after the liberation of Avdeyevka. After taking control of Chasov Yar and Ocheretino, the Russian Armed Forces will get access to the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration and destroy the Kiev regime’s defense line west of Avdeyevka. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has consistently criticized the West for hesitating to provide air defense systems, weapons, and ammunition, citing it as the primary reason for his military’s failures. However, it has been revealed that the shortage of ammunition has not been the Ukrainian Army’s main issue Kiev previously allocated almost 38 billion hryvnia ($960 million) to build a multi-layered network of fortifications; however, Ukrainian troops testify that the lines of defense barely exist, as quoted by the Associated Press.

The Ukrainian military contends that these works should have been completed last year during a temporary operational pause, rather than amid a retreat. “One can assume that a year ago, when the budget was planned, Ukrainians didn’t believe that the counteroffensive would fail. In general, the strategy was to attack and establish defensive positions on newly acquired territories. That is, fortifications were meant for offense, not defense,” Vadim Kozyulin, head of the Institute of Contemporary International Studies Under Diplomatic Academy of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Sputnik. “But the situation has changed. Moreover, we see that this happened rapidly, and, most likely, unexpectedly. The Ukrainians probably saw what it was leading to, but they could not openly admit it, because they feared it could impact financing. They had to maintain some kind of optimism among Western partners. This let them down, catching them off guard,” he explained. “The second issue is corruption. It’s an old Ukrainian problem and we don’t know its extent, given that everything is classified amid the hostilities,” the expert continued.

Where is the Money? Funds allocated to strengthen Ukrainian defenses were stolen with the tacit approval of the nation’s government officials, presumed Vadim Mingalev, a military expert and political analyst. He likewise drew attention to the fact that Andriy Yermak, a Ukrainian film producer who was appointed by Zelensky as the head of his office, supervised the project. The Ukrainian president also played a role in this farce by visiting the sites that were nothing short of Potemkin villages, i.e. an impressive facade designed to hide an inconvenient truth, the expert noted. According to Mingalev, the fuss surrounding the US $61 billion tranche arose from the Kiev regime’s desire to allocate a portion of these funds towards its delayed fortification construction projects. “As in any construction business, a certain estimate is first prepared,” the military expert said, explaining how the money might have vanished. “The estimate is then increased by one and a half or two times. Then, as construction progresses, it can go up three times, and so on.

Accordingly, a certain amount of concrete, cement, and other building materials are not supplied for creating the defensive lines. What’s on paper often differs significantly from what is actually delivered. There is a rather sophisticated scheme [to steal funds].” Military purchases and tenders are currently classified and do not go through Ukraine’s public procurement platform ProZorro, allowing corrupt politicians and their business partners to steal quietly, according to Kozyulin. Moreover, he added, the same individuals who seize these funds are responsible for overseeing their expenditure. One might ask why Ukrainian authorities and business sectors are shooting themselves in the foot by undermining the country’s defensive capabilities. “Ukrainian oligarchs who support Zelensky and work with him understand perfectly well that their fate is sealed, and they are laying the groundwork for departure. While preparing to escape Ukraine, they create some kind of financial safety net for themselves,” Mingalev explained.

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“..Policing speech, religion, and assembly is not the role of the federal government. In fact, it’s expressly prohibited by the U.S. Constitution…”

New US Antisemitism Law Turns Israeli Genocide Critics Into Criminals (GR)

On Wednesday May 1st, the House overwhelmingly passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act by a 320-91 vote, with only 21 Republicans joined by 70 Democrats against it. Expanding the scope of what is legally considered antisemitism, this is another bipartisan uniparty trap to ensnare the thousands of protesters exercising their free speech against the apartheid Israel’s extermination of Palestinians, in effect criminalizing those that are critical of the genocide. This is piece of legislation is a betrayal of our First Amendment rights and a betrayal of the American people, and a testimonial how AIPAC Israel through bribery and blackmail have turned our constitutional republic into a totalitarian technocratic police state. Foreign national influence is outlawed in the United States except with one exception, the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) that allows Zionist Israel money and bribery control to essentially own the treasonous US Congress.

Through intelligence agencies Mossad, CIA and MI6 in addition to AIPAC, US politicians are systemically coerced, bribed and blackmailed into unconditional support for Israel. As Tucker Carlson admitted recently to Joe Rogan, politicians are afraid to not vote in line with these intimidation tactics imposed by foreign agent operatives, that threaten kiddie porn on their computers or truth exposing pedo-blackmail activity, to ensure that Zionist Israel always gets what it wants with total impunity. With this kind of captured control over politicians, and now with this latest antisemitism law, dare criticize Israel or Zionism or Jewish power, it can now get us locked up under antisemitic hate speech. Zionist bloodline moneychangers like the Rothschilds and Rockefellers would not want it any other way.

A Thursday May 2nd Truthout article states: House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve legislation directing the U.S. Department of Education to consider a dubious definition of antisemitism, despite warnings from Jewish-led groups that the measure speciously conflates legitimate criticism of the Israeli government with bigotry against Jewish people. Uniparty Republicans and Democrats passing this new antisemitism bill destroying US Constitution’s First Amendment that guarantees our citizens’ free speech rights, confirms that US Congress panders and grovels in submission to their master Zionist Jewish State and its bloodline master founding owner, the Rothschild banking cartel. America’s uniparty is owned and operated by foreign agent AIPAC Israel.

Again, look at what inexhaustible lengths our Congress goes to, to protect the rights, security and safety of Jews, while Palestinian Arabs are brutally massacred daily and American citizens’ disappearing constitutional rights, our safety and national security are blatantly trampled upon. Only the apparent “chosen ones” receive preferential legal protection under bipartisan US law, while all the rest of us members of the human race, to Israel and US Congress, are all Palestinians in the genocidal crosshairs of our common Zionist Darkside enemy.

My article on Global Research last week is titled “In Defense of Genocide and War on ‘Antisemitism’, There Go Our Constitutional Liberties.” I cite the increasing number anti-hate speech laws grossly conflating criticism of Israeli genocide with antisemitism conveniently misused to falsely justify criminalizing and silencing our fundamental First Amendment rights of free speech, including the right to assemble for peaceful protest. On Saturday April 27th, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) called out his colleagues over this very same issue: Some of my colleagues are introducing legislation to create federally sanctioned ‘antisemitism monitors’ at colleges. I’ll vote No. Policing speech, religion, and assembly is not the role of the federal government. In fact, it’s expressly prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.

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To do what?

French Foreign Legion Dispatched to Ukraine, Ex-DoD Official (Sp.)

Media reports earlier stated that NATO currently does not have any operational plans for sending a military contingent to Ukraine even though the alliance has allegedly established “the two red lines” for its direct intervention in the conflict. “France has sent its first troops officially to Ukraine,” former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, Stephen Bryen, has claimed in an article published by the Asia Times. Bryen went on to write that the forces have been deployed “in support of the Ukrainian 54th Independent Mechanized Brigade in the city of Slavyansk.” The French soldiers have reportedly been drawn from the 3rd Infantry Regiment, one of the main components of France’s Foreign Legion. French authorities have not commented on the matter yet. “These troops are being posted directly in a hot combat area and are intended to help the Ukrainians resist Russian advances in Donbass. The first 100 are artillery and surveillance specialists,” Bryen argued.

According to him, about 1,500 French Foreign Legion soldiers are scheduled to arrive in Ukraine in the foreseeable future. The ex-US deputy undersecretary of defense wondered in this regard “whether this crosses the Russian red line on NATO involvement in Ukraine” and if “the Russians will see this as initiating a wider war beyond Ukraine’s borders?” Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reported earlier on Sunday that NATO – “in a very confidential manner and without official communique – has established at least two red lines, beyond which there could be the alliance’s direct intervention in the conflict in Ukraine.” At the same time, NATO does not plan to immediately send its military contingent to Ukraine, according to the newspaper. Earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron once again did not rule out the possibility of NATO sending troops from Europe to Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced Macron’s statement as “very dangerous”, with the statement also slammed by groups in Britain, France, Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia.

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“..NATO has no justification to send troops to Ukraine, because Kiev is not a member of the bloc..”

Ukraine Could Request Western Military Intervention – MP (RT)

Kiev could request that Western troops be deployed on its soil if it deems the situation on the battlefield to have become bad enough, a senior Ukrainian lawmaker has said. In an interview with French broadcaster LCI on Saturday, Aleksey Goncharenko, who represents Odessa in the Ukrainian parliament, thanked French President Emmanuel Macron for not ruling out sending Western military to his country. The French leader earlier suggested that this issue could be put up for consideration on two conditions, first, “if the Russians were to break through the front lines [and, second,] if there were a Ukrainian request.” Describing Macron’s remarks as a “very good signal” to Russia, Goncharenko noted that foreign troops in Ukraine could be tasked with training Kiev’s military and performing other missions without engaging Moscow’s forces head-on.

When asked whether Ukraine would ask the West for direct assistance if Russian troops were to approach Kharkov or Kiev, the MP said he did not rule out any scenarios. “Yes, I think it is possible… If the frontline situation shows us that Ukraine cannot stop [Russian President Vladimir] Putin alone without European military support and troops, this is absolutely possible,” he said, voicing the hope that such a drastic measure wouldn’t be necessary. He also stressed that it would be in the EU’s interest to heed the appeal for assistance that he described, as it would be easier to stop Moscow with Ukraine than without it. On Saturday, Emmanuel Macron said that he supported “strategic ambiguity” towards Russia, which, he said, is aimed at deterring Moscow. According to the French president, his stance on potential Western military action in Ukraine was in line with this approach.

However, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has voiced skepticism about the idea, warning that NATO troops in Ukraine “could be a dangerous escalation.” This sentiment was echoed by Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto and by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, while Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico recalled that NATO has no justification to send troops to Ukraine, because Kiev is not a member of the bloc. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Macron’s statement “very important and very dangerous,” describing it as further testament to Paris’ direct involvement in the conflict. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has also warned that “nothing will remain” of NATO forces if they are deployed in Ukraine. In recent weeks, the Russian military has reported a steady advance, capturing numerous settlements in Donbass, with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu recently declaring that Moscow is in full control of the situation on the battlefield.

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Jamming.

Israel’s Not So Little War Against Russia (Helmer)

Since last November the regime of Vladimir Zelensky in Kiev has been advertising the products of a company called Piranha-Tech for newly developed electronic warfare (EW) technologies which the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu (right) is now supplying the Ukraine for operations against Russia. According to a Russian military blogger report published on May 4, Israeli companies specializing in electronic jamming and drone technologies are behind a Ukrainian government, US, and UK-funded drone production line and deployment of the weapons on the Ukrainian battlefield. Piranha-Tech, according to this source, is 49% owned by Israeli shareholders, who developed the technology, and 51% owned by Ukrainians who are managing the battlefield supplies. Piranha-Tech anti-drone guns and jammers are based on Israeli military technologies, the report claims.

The first official disclosure came from Kiev on November 2, 2023. According to a tweet published by Mikhail Fedorov, a cyber technology specialist with government rank in Kiev, “efficient protection from Russian UAVs for armored vehicles & personnel. Quite unique electronic warfare system — Piranha AVD 360. It creates protective dome up to 600 meters around & jams satellite navigation systems, such as RuGLONASS. New tech supported by @BRAVE1ua”. BRAVE1 stands for “Ukrainian Defense Innovations”, a Ukrainian government coordinating agency for “stakeholders of the defense tech industry by providing them with organizational, informational, and financial support for defense tech projects.” Source: https://twitter.com/fedorovmykhailo?lang=en

A US and Ukraine-based defence technology blog picked up the story immediately. The report called the Piranha-Tech system “a cutting-edge electronic warfare system designed to safeguard armored vehicles from Russian drones, has successfully completed field trials and is now poised for mass production.” It added: “the Piranha system disrupts satellite navigation systems, including Russia’s GLONASS.” According to the American outlet, Piranha Tech was an “achievement in Ukrainian defense technology.” There was no mention of the Israeli military base for the Ukrainian operation. The Israeli links behind Piranha Tech were first published in Paris on May 3, 2024.

The Paris-based website called Intelligence Online reported that the Ukrainian Piranha-Tech technology is in fact Israeli. “Behind the Ukrainian company supplying anti-drone equipment to the Ukrainian armed forces and the government of Myanmar is a network of Israeli electronic warfare companies.” Intelligence Online is a product of Indigo, a media group owned by Maurice Botbol, who is of Moroccan Jewish extraction. In the competitive London corporate investigations market, Botbol’s Intelligence Online has a controversial reputation. In the past, it was favourable to the press operations of a Russian metals oligarch now under US sanctions.

In Moscow, The Militarist, a widely read military news and analysis blog, followed with an extensive report of the Israeli operation of Piranha-Tech on May 4. The Russian report says: “While Ukraine continues to develop its EW [electronic warfare] technologies as much as possible, incubators working in this field, such as Brave1 attract foreign specialists. Brave1 provides substantial support and subsidies to Piranha Tech, in particular, for its UAV [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles] Piranha AVD 360 anti-UAV system, which is used by the APU [Armed Forces of Ukraine]. The Ukrainian company, whose Ukrainian anti-UAV systems are praised on social media by the talkative Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Mikhail Fedorov, seems to have close ties with Israel.”

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“..Xi’s diplomatic visit to Europe – his first in five years..”

Xi jinping to Visit Three Key Countries During Trip to Europe (Sp.)

An article in The New York Times suggests China shares skepticism towards US hegemony with some European countries, but the Asian power maintains positive cultural, economic, and historical ties as well. “Xi Visits Europe, Seeking Strategic Opportunity,” declared the headline of a New York Times piece Sunday on the Chinese leader’s trip to the continent. “The Chinese president… appears intent on seizing opportunities to loosen the continent’s bonds with the United States and forge a world freed of American dominance,” its authors continued, following in the controversial newspaper’s tradition of staunch advocacy for US hegemony. Xi’s diplomatic visit to Europe – his first in five years – certainly comes during a period when the United States’ global leadership is in doubt.

The US’ leveraging of coercive unilateral economic sanctions against nearly one-third of the world’s population has endangered the dollar’s position as the de facto global reserve currency, leading various world powers to seek alternatives. Countries throughout the Global South have chafed under the United States’ insistence they must follow its lead in isolating Russia after the launching of its special military operation in the Donbass. This phenomenon is observed vividly in North Africa, with a slew of nations ending military cooperation with the US and ejecting American troops. Even within Western Europe the United States’ image has taken a beating. NATO officials are scrambling to prepare for a possible future without the guiding role of Washington, fearing a second Donald Trump presidency could see the US cut funding or even pull out of the military alliance.

Historical allies’ perception of the country seems permanently altered after the controversial real estate magnate’s chaotic time at the helm; one-third of Europeans now say the United States cannot be trusted while more than two-thirds say it is not a model democracy. The New York Times documents various reasons for shared skepticism towards the United States among China and the three countries Xi plans to visit during his trip. France has long sought to resist US influence over its affairs, with revered statesman Charles de Gaulle famously refusing to place French troops under NATO command. Current President Emmanuel Macron has advocated for “strategic autonomy” in European affairs, positioning the EU as a third major power independent of China and America. Hungary, too, has challenged US influence over its internal affairs, rejecting criticism of its self-declared “illiberal Christian democratic” Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Opposition towards the United States is perhaps strongest in Serbia, where the lasting impact of NATO’s 1999 bombing of Belgrade is still felt. Increased rates of cancer and birth defects persist decades after the alliance’s use of depleted uranium in its assault on the capital city. The US’ bombing of Beijing’s embassy in Belgrade during the attack is still commemorated regularly by both China and Serbia. But beyond these countries’ shared objection to US dominance, there are also strong cultural, economic and historical links. Beijing’s relations with Serbia extend back to the days of the former Yugoslavia, when both countries shared an egalitarian socialist vision. Hungary became the largest recipient of Chinese direct investment in 2015, with Orban enthusiastically participating in Belt and Road infrastructure projects. French-Sino relations, meanwhile, go back to the Middle Ages; the Chinese monk Rabban Bar Sauma was hosted by France’s King Philip IV during a diplomatic trip by the Uyghur emissary throughout Europe. Today, both countries are joined together by their shared status as G20 economies, members of the UN Security Council, and major regional powers.

“Looking to the future, peace and development remain the trend of history and the aspiration of the people,” proclaimed Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in 2023. “China’s experience shows that the path of peaceful development has worked and worked well. There is no reason for us to discontinue but every reason to stay the course, and come together with more countries in the pursuit of peaceful development.” “When all countries pursue peaceful development, the future of humanity will be full of promise,” he concluded. As China continues to grow in economic power and influence the country insists it is committed to peaceful development and concern for humanity’s common advancement. Xi’s visit to Europe suggests the country is willing to search for allies in its cause wherever they may be found, even as broader trends threaten to drive world powers apart.

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“..a big turn on or about May 7th of next week. Armstrong predicts a recession will start then and go on until 2028..”

You Need 2 Years of Food – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong has new data on how well the Biden economy is doing. Spoiler alert: It’s not doing well, and the financial system is about to tank. I asked Armstrong if the US government could default on its debt if countries around the world continue to stop buying it? Armstrong explained, “I think the US could default on its debt as early as 2025, but probably in 2027. We have kicked the can down the road as far as we can go. It’s not just in the United States. Europe is in the same boat. So is Japan. This is why they need war. They think by going into war, that’s the excuse to default on the debt. They simply will not pay China. If they try to sell their debt–good luck. We are not redeeming it. The same thing is happening in Europe. So, once that happens, you go into war, and that is their excuse on this whole debt thing to collapse, which wipes out pensions etc. Then they can blame Putin. This is the same thing Biden was doing before saying this was Putin’s inflation. Then, with the whole CBDC thing (central bank digital currency) . . . . the IMF has already completed its digital coin, and they want that to replace the dollar as the reserve currency for the world. . . . These people are desperately just trying to hang on to power. Nobody wants to give it up, and nobody wants to reform.”

I asked Armstrong what should the common person be doing now? Armstrong surprisingly said, “I think you need, safely, two years’ worth of food supply. . . .This is what I have. It’s not just prices will go up, but mainly because there will be shortages. Then, you do not know what they are going to do with the currency. . . . They will do whatever they have to do to survive. That’s what governments always do.”

Armstrong says his most recent data suggests that government approval ratings in the USA are worse that Biden’s 8% approval rating. Congress, according to Armstrong, is dragging the bottom with a 7% approval rating. Armstrong has long said that people will buy gold and silver when faith in government crashes. That is exactly what Armstrong is seeing around the world today. Gold is bouncing around the $2,300 level, and Armstrong sees “a new gold and silver rally coming soon.” War is also coming sooner than later with the announcement that Ukraine will be joining NATO as early as July. When the next war starts, Armstrong warns, “You are going to have to watch the bank because long term interest rates are going to go up. Nobody wants to buy government debt, and you are going to have to hunker down at that stage in the game.”

Armstrong is also predicting a big turn on or about May 7th of next week. Armstrong predicts a recession will start then and go on until 2028. GDP will continue to fall, and inflation will continue to rise. Armstrong says it is the perfect storm for a dreaded “stagflation economy.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Buster hat

 

 

Tubs

 

 

Fren
https://twitter.com/i/status/1786932827084427491

 

 

Smile
https://twitter.com/i/status/1787111053538820414

 

 

Be kind to dogs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1787123323748704526

 

 

 

 

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Apr 112018
 


Jan van Eyck The Last Judgement (detail) 1430

 

Hussman’s Script For A 60% Tumble In The Stock Market (MW)
World Trade System In Danger Of Being Torn Apart – Lagarde (G.)
Eurocontrol Warns Airlines Of Possible Missile Strikes Into Syria (R.)
Russian Envoy: Any US Missiles Fired At Syria Will Be Shot Down (R.)
We All Need To Unite Against War In Syria (CJ)
Zuckerberg Deflects Senators’ Questions, Gets $3 Billion For The Effort (MW)
Ban Targeted Advertising (Dayen)
EU Top Court Backs France Ban Of Uber (AFP)
Barclays Says Bitcoin Behaves Like An Infectious Disease (BBG)
The Failures of Anti-Trumpism (NYT)
Save the Children Faces Formal Investigation Over Staff Misconduct (G.)
Greece at Bottom of Eurozone Growth Rate (GR)
More Than Half Your Body Is Not Human (BBC)

 

 

“Investment is about valuation. Speculation is about psychology,” Hussman said. “Both factors are unfavorable here.”

Hussman’s Script For A 60% Tumble In The Stock Market (MW)

Enjoy days like this while they last, warns longtime bear John Hussman, because the volatility we’re seeing on the Dow and the S&P 500 only serves to reinforce his pessimistic view that the stock market is careening toward a painful drop of at least 60% and a decade or more of zero to negative returns. “We’re observing the very early effects of risk-aversion in a hypervalued market,” the Hussman Trust president wrote in his latest missive. “To some extent, the actual news events are irrelevant. I certainly wouldn’t gauge market risk by monitoring the day-to-day news on potential tariffs or even prospects for rate changes by the Fed.”

For those of you feeling a bit queasy because of what Hussman describes as the “rather minimal level of volatility” we’ve seen lately, it’s time to make some changes and rebalance your portfolio with some hedges, or at least lighten up by adding cash. “But do so knowing one thing in advance: you will experience regret,” he says. “If the market advances after you rebalance, you’ll regret having sold anything. If the market declines after you rebalance, you’ll regret not having sold more.”

The driving factor he frequently cites for the top-heavy market is that the Fed’s quantitative easing has inflated valuations to unsustainable levels, and as the free money goes away, the bottom will fall out, leaving a trail of blown-up investors in its wake. “Investment is about valuation. Speculation is about psychology,” Hussman said. “Both factors are unfavorable here.” He used this chart or the median price/revenue ratio of S&P components to show just how overvalued stocks are at this point, even after the recent tumble:

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Because the trade system benefits everyone, right?

World Trade System In Danger Of Being Torn Apart – Lagarde (G.)

The head of the IMF has warned of “darker clouds looming” for the global economy amid simmering trade tensions between the US and China, urging governments around the world to steer clear of protectionism or face negative consequences. Christine Lagarde said the current system for world trade was “in danger of being torn apart”, with the potential to upset the present global economic upswing and make consumers poorer. Speaking in Hong Kong amid signs the standoff could be abating, Lagarde said it would be an “inexcusable, collective policy failure” for world trade to break down with nations erecting punitive tariff systems against their rivals. “Let us redouble our efforts to reduce trade barriers and resolve disagreements without using exceptional measures,” she said.

[..] Using language that could be interpreted as a veiled attack on Trump in the speech ahead of the meeting, Lagarde said nations could make domestic policy changes to address trade imbalances and use international forums to settle disputes. “We can all do more – but we cannot do it alone,” she said. “Unfair trade practices have little impact on a country’s overall trade deficit with the rest of the world. That imbalance is driven by the fact that a country spends above its income.” Identifying the US as an example of a nation that could benefit from reforms, she said Washington could help tackle its trade imbalances by gradually curbing public spending and by increasing revenue, which she said would help reduce future fiscal deficits.

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Jamming.

Eurocontrol Warns Airlines Of Possible Missile Strikes Into Syria (R.)

Pan-European air traffic control agency Eurocontrol on Tuesday warned airlines to exercise caution in the eastern Mediterranean due to the possible launch of air strikes into Syria in next 72 hours. Eurocontrol said that air-to-ground and/or cruise missiles could be used within that period and there was a possibility of intermittent disruption of radio navigation equipment. U.S. President Donald Trump and Western allies are discussing possible military action to punish Syria’s President Bashar Assad for a suspected poison gas attack on Saturday on a rebel-held town that long had held out against government forces.

Trump on Tuesday canceled a planned trip to Latin America later this week to focus instead on responding to the Syria incident, the White House said. Trump had on Monday warned of a quick, forceful response once responsibility for the Syria attack was established. The Eurocontrol warning on its website did not specify the origin of any potential missile threat. “Due to the possible launch of air strikes into Syria with air-to-ground and/or cruise missiles within the next 72 hours, and the possibility of intermittent disruption of radio navigation equipment, due consideration needs to be taken when planning flight operations in the Eastern Mediterranean/Nicosia FIR area,” it said, referring to the designated airspace.

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Clear as that.

Russian Envoy: Any US Missiles Fired At Syria Will Be Shot Down (R.)

Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon said any U.S. missiles fired at Syria would be shot down and the launch sites targeted, a step that could trigger a major escalation in the Syrian war. Russian Ambassador Alexander Zasypkin, in comments broadcast on Tuesday evening, said he was referring to a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian armed forces chief of staff. The Russian military said on March 13 that it would respond to any U.S. strike on Syria, targeting any missiles and launchers involved in such an attack. Russia is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s most powerful ally.

The United States and its allies are considering whether to hit Syria over a suspected poison gas attack that medical relief organizations say killed dozens of people in the rebel-held town of Douma near Damascus on Saturday. “If there is a strike by the Americans, then…the missiles will be downed and even the sources from which the missiles were fired,” Zasypkin told Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV, speaking in Arabic. He also said a clash “should be ruled out and therefore we are ready to hold negotiations”.

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Yes, we do. But it’s very late in the game.

We All Need To Unite Against War In Syria (CJ)

Last night Fox’s Tucker Carlson did what may have been the most amazing thing that has ever happened on American television. As the drums of war beat louder than they have in years, Carlson stared right into the camera and did the exact opposite of what every mainstream US pundit is doing right now: he told the truth. He told the truth about Syria. He told the truth about Yemen. He told the truth about the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma. He told the truth about the bipartisan war machine which drops all pretense of opposition the instant it’s time for bloodshed. He told the truth about what war is, what it costs, and what it does to our world.

He stood in stark, unequivocal opposition to the trajectory the Trump administration appears to be moving along. And he did it on Fox News. I have a deep and abiding hatred in my heart for Fox News and all things Murdoch. I will never forget nor forgive the key role the Murdoch press played in deceiving our world into the unimaginable evil that was the Iraq invasion. But if I’d held a reflexive rejection of anything with the Fox News logo in the corner, I never would have seen Carlson’s epic monologue, never would have shared it with my social media following, never would have embedded it in this article, and this bright flash of truth would have been diminished by that much in the impact it was able to have on public consciousness.

And I know that there are many leftists who declined to help spread awareness of that Carlson monologue based solely on the fact that he’s a conservative pundit on a conservative network who has said things they disagree with in the past. This is stupid. We should be able to throw any weapon at all at the war machine, not fight with one hand tied behind our backs just because we don’t like conservatives.

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It was even worse than imagined.

Zuckerberg Deflects Senators’ Questions, Gets $3 Billion For The Effort (MW)

Mark Zuckerberg has come far since the early days of Facebook, and that growth was extremely apparent in how deftly the chief executive dealt with several hours of inscrutable questioning by U.S. senators Tuesday over the social network’s role in presidential election-meddling and the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Wearing a conservative suit and light blue tie, an outfit he would rarely wear in Silicon Valley, Zuckerberg sat ramrod straight in his witness chair for most of the many hours of questions. He responded to each questioner by first addressing them as senator or chair. He looked earnest and serious for almost every question, even during some of the laughable questions from some of the less tech-savvy members of the Senate, such as the one by Sen. Orrin Hatch, who asked how Facebook makes money if it doesn’t charge users anything.

“Senator, we run ads,” Zuckerberg said with a smile. That calm response was in marked contrast to when Zuckerberg faced another type of grilling, at the All Things D conference in 2010, when he gave vague and rambling answers about Facebook’s changes to its privacy controls at the time, and had to take off his famous hoodie while wiping sweat from his face under the lights on stage. Part of his preparedness for the Senate hearing, where he managed to repeat several core phrases that the company has been perpetuating in the media, came as a result of Facebook’s information bombardment over the past month.

Some of the company’s obvious talking points have been repeated throughout the past weeks, such as how sorry Zuckerberg is, how much control Facebook users actually do have over their own data, how Facebook is trying to build a positive community and constant reminders of how the company started in a Harvard University dorm when he was 19. According to the New York Times, Facebook hired a team of experts to give Zuckerberg — who can be combative and defensive — a crash course in humility and charm ahead of the hearing in sessions that included mock hearings with its communications team and outside advisers. That preparation paid off: After the first two hours of questions were nearing an end and there was a call for a potential break, Zuckerberg took a sip of water and said he could keep going for a bit longer.

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Exactly. Stop that and all the Facebok nonsense stops. But those in power don’t want it to stop.

Ban Targeted Advertising (Dayen)

For the first 35 years of my life, like most Americans, I was exposed to lots of advertising. I absorbed billboards and print ads and direct mailers and television commercials and radio jingles. I learned about available products and services, and chose which ones I wanted. Some businesses I patronized survived and others didn’t. The economy mostly proceeded apace. Then, over the last decade, this form of marketing became seen as insufficient—or rather, the rise of digital media made a more invasive form of marketing too irresistible. Instead of having to cast a wide net in searching for potential customers, advertisers now could know every intimate detail about those customers beforehand.

They began targeting people geographically and behaviorally, based on common interests or things they liked in social media or what they wrote in emails to friends. The surveillance economy was born. The surveillance economy should die. This manner of advertising doesn’t serve the public and it’s not even clear it serves advertisers. It facilitates monopoly, as those with the biggest data troves receive all the ad dollars. That centralizes the potential for and magnitude of abuse, with Big Data used to discriminate against groups, steer vulnerable people to financial scams, and meddle in U.S. elections.

Cambridge Analytica’s scraping of 87 million user profiles through a simple personality quiz, and then weaponizing that information on behalf of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, revealed how information on social media is inherently insecure. Now Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is appearing before Congress on Tuesday to explain how this won’t happen again. But instead of leaving regulation to Facebook, or devising one Rube Goldberg scenario after another to try to protect consumer data, the U.S. can take one simple, legal step to roll back this dystopian nightmare: ban targeted advertising.

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App or transport?

EU Top Court Backs France Ban Of Uber (AFP)

The EU’s top court on Tuesday backed the right of member states like France to ban a service by ridesharing firm Uber without notifying Brussels, in a fresh setback to the US giant. The European Court of Justice ruled in favour of France’s ban of the UberPop service, which links amateur drivers with customers, comparing it to a December decision backing traditional taxi firms in the Spanish city of Barcelona. “Member States may prohibit and punish, as a matter of criminal law, the illegal exercise of transport activities in the context of the UberPop service, without notifying the Commission in advance,” the European Court of Justice ruled. [..]

Uber France is facing criminal proceedings in a court in the northern French city of Lille for its UberPop service. It argues that member states like France were required to notify the European Commission about the criminal legislation under which the case was brought because it concerned a technical regulation of an information society service. But the court of justice said the French case resembled one it ruled on in December when it classified Uber as an ordinary transportation company instead of an app and should be regulated as such. “In the Court’s view, the UberPop service offered in France is essentially identical to the service provided in Spain,” the court of justice statement said.

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True or not, a nice angle.

Barclays Says Bitcoin Behaves Like An Infectious Disease (BBG)

Is the rise of Bitcoin analogous to the spread of an infectious disease? Analysts at Barclays saw enough similarities to develop a pricing model for the cryptocurrency that takes its cues from the world of epidemiology. Their diagnosis: Bitcoin has probably peaked. The Barclays model divides the pool of potential Bitcoin investors into three groups: susceptible, infected and immune. It assumes that as prices rise, “infections” spread by word-of-mouth (nobody likes missing out when their friends and colleagues are getting rich). Barclays analysts led by Joseph Abate in New York explained the rest in a note to clients on Tuesday:

“As more of the population become asset holders, the share of the population available to become new buyers – the potential ‘host’ population – falls, while the share of the population that are potential sellers (‘recoveries’) increases. Eventually, this leads to a plateauing of prices, and progressively, as random shocks to the larger supply population push up the ratio of sellers to buyers, prices begin to fall. That induces speculative selling pressure as price declines are projected forward exponentially.” A similar dynamic plays out with infectious diseases when the so-called immunity threshold is reached, “the point at which a sufficient portion of the population becomes immune such that there are no more secondary infections,” the analysts wrote.

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Does David Brooks realize that anti-Trumpism, of which he’s a proud supporter, is what won Da Doland da election?

The Failures of Anti-Trumpism (NYT)

Over the past year, those of us in the anti-Trump camp have churned out billions of words critiquing the president. The point of this work is to expose the harm President Trump is doing, weaken his support and prevent him from doing worse. And by that standard, the anti-Trump movement is a failure. We have persuaded no one. Trump’s approval rating is around 40%, which is basically unchanged from where it’s been all along. We have not hindered him. Trump has more power than he did a year ago, not less. With more mainstream figures like H. R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn gone, the administration is growing more nationalist, not less. We have not dislodged him.

For all the hype, the Mueller investigation looks less and less likely to fundamentally alter the course of the administration. We have not contained him. Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party is complete. 89% of Republicans now have a positive impression of the man. According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 59% of Republicans consider themselves more a supporter of Trump than of the Republican Party. On trade, immigration, entitlement reform, spending, foreign policy, race relations and personal morality, this is Trump’s party, not Reagan’s or anyone else’s. A lot of us never-Trumpers assumed momentum would be on our side as his scandals and incompetences mounted. It hasn’t turned out that way.

I almost never meet a Trump supporter who has become disillusioned. I often meet Republicans who were once ambivalent but who have now joined the Trump train. National Review was once staunchly anti-Trump, and many of its writers remain so, but, tellingly, N.R. editor Rich Lowry just had a column in Politico called “The Never Trump Delusion” arguing that Trump is not that big a departure from the Republican mainstream. The surest evidence of Trump’s dominance is on the campaign trail. As The Times’s Jonathan Martin reported, many Republicans, including Ted Cruz, are making the argument that if Democrats take over Congress, they will impeach the president. In other words, far from ignoring Trump, these Republicans are making defending him the center of their campaigns.

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Et tu, Brute?

Save the Children Faces Formal Investigation Over Staff Misconduct (G.)

Save the Children, the global charity mired in allegations that it failed to investigate sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour by staff, is to be formally investigated by the Charity Commission. In a statement announcing a statutory inquiry, the commission said it had been prompted by “concerns about the charity’s handling, reporting and response to serious allegations of misconduct and harassment against senior staff members in 2012 and 2015”. The commission describes a statutory inquiry as its “most serious form of engagement” with a charity.

The news, announced on Tuesday night, will be another blow for the charity two months after it emerged that both Justin Forsyth, its former chief executive, and Brendan Cox, the former policy director and widower of the MP Jo Cox, left the charity in 2015 following allegations of misconduct. The two men knew each other from their years working for Gordon Brown and the Labour party. After he left Save the Children, Forsyth went on to a senior role at Unicef. He resigned in February after the reports of inappropriate behaviour emerged. Cox also resigned from the charities More in Common and the Jo Cox Foundation, set up in the aftermath of his wife’s murder.

The commission, which itself has been criticised for failing to follow up allegations involving the charities it polices, has been working with Save the Children since the facts about Forsyth and Cox emerged in the wake of the scandal involving Oxfam workers in Haiti. Save the Children is already reviewing its workplace culture and the implementation of recommendations made by a previous review. But the Charity Commission said its recent work with it, and new information from other sources that has recently come into the regulator’s possession, meant that the commission wanted to make further inquiries.

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It’s crazy to think the Greek economy is growing.

Greece at Bottom of Eurozone Growth Rate (GR)

Greece’s growth was the lowest among eurozone countries for 2017, with a GDP rise of just 1.4% while the eurozone average was 2.3%, according to European Central Bank figures. The ECB annual report released on Monday showed Ireland at the top of the growth chart among eurozone member states with a 5% GDP increase. Overall, 2017 was a year of growth for the whole of the single-currency bloc. According to the report, the main reason Greece fared so low in 2017 was that it showed only 0.1% growth in private consumption, compared to an average 1.6% increase in the rest of eurozone states.

At the same time, Greece showed a 1.1% decline in government spending, while the average in the euro area was a 1.2% increase. In terms of per capita GDP at current prices and adjusted for the cost of living, Greeks have an average annual income of €19,900 ($24,527) compared to €54,600 for each Irish citizen. In Portugal, average income amounted to €23,100, compared to €18,100 before the economic crisis. In Cyprus, the average income was €24,600 compared to €29,900 before the crisis. The “before the economic crisis” figures refer to the 1999-2008 period. On average in the euro area, per capita GDP stood at €31,700 according to the latest figures (2016), compared to €24,400 before the crisis.

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Bugs as drugs. “Originally it was thought our cells were outnumbered 10 to one.”

Well, our genes are outnumbered 1000 to 1.

More Than Half Your Body Is Not Human (BBC)

More than half of your body is not human, say scientists. Human cells make up only 43% of the body’s total cell count. The rest are microscopic colonists. Understanding this hidden half of ourselves – our microbiome – is rapidly transforming understanding of diseases from allergy to Parkinson’s. The field is even asking questions of what it means to be “human” and is leading to new innovative treatments as a result. “They are essential to your health,” says Prof Ruth Ley, the director of the department of microbiome science at the Max Planck Institute, “your body isn’t just you”. No matter how well you wash, nearly every nook and cranny of your body is covered in microscopic creatures.

This includes bacteria, viruses, fungi and archaea (organisms originally misclassified as bacteria). The greatest concentration of this microscopic life is in the dark murky depths of our oxygen-deprived bowels. Prof Rob Knight, from University of California San Diego, told the BBC: “You’re more microbe than you are human.” Originally it was thought our cells were outnumbered 10 to one. “That’s been refined much closer to one-to-one, so the current estimate is you’re about 43% human if you’re counting up all the cells,” he says. But genetically we’re even more outgunned. The human genome – the full set of genetic instructions for a human being – is made up of 20,000 instructions called genes. But add all the genes in our microbiome together and the figure comes out between two and 20 million microbial genes.

[..] Antibiotics and vaccines have been the weapons unleashed against the likes of smallpox, Mycobacterium tuberculosis or MRSA. That’s been a good thing and has saved large numbers of lives. But some researchers are concerned that our assault on the bad guys has done untold damage to our “good bacteria”. Prof Ley told me: “We have over the past 50 years done a terrific job of eliminating infectious disease. “But we have seen an enormous and terrifying increase in autoimmune disease and in allergy. “Where work on the microbiome comes in is seeing how changes in the microbiome, that happened as a result of the success we’ve had fighting pathogens, have now contributed to a whole new set of diseases that we have to deal with.”

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