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Debt Rattle April 15 2025

Apr 152025
 
 April 15, 2025  Posted by at 9:32 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  28 Responses »


Mathew Brady Abe Lincoln 1864

 

• Lincoln Was a ‘Threat to Democracy’ (Al Perrotta)
• Trump’s Life’s Work Culminates in Confronting Communist China (Josh Hammer)
• Living on the Edge (Martin Armstrong)
• Temporary Tariff Terror Examined (Steve McKee)
• Zelensky Started The War Then Begged For Missiles – Trump (RT)
• Trump Slams Biden, Zelensky & Putin For Ukraine War: ‘Everybody Is To Blame’ (ZH)
• West Seeks To Partition Ukraine – Senior Russian Diplomat (RT)
• Zelensky Urges Trump To Visit Ukraine Before Pressing Negotiations (ZH)
• Trump Slams ‘Dishonest’ CBS After Zelensky Interview (RT)
• We Have Proof Sumy Strike Targeted Ukrainian Troops and Foreign Mercs – Lavrov (Sp.)
• The Sumy Missile Strike: War, Propaganda, and Hypocrisy (Amar)
• Medvedev Brands Incoming German Chancellor ‘Nazi’ (RT)
• Meta’s Monopoly Trial Kicks Off (ET)
• Now We Know Why Democrats Are Losing the Messaging War (Margolis)
• El Salvador’s Bukele Won’t Return MS-13 Gang Member Mistakenly Deported (JTN)
• Why the Beatified MS-13 ‘Father’ Was ‘Mistakenly’ Deported (Victoria Taft)
• Systemic Considerations (James Howard Kunstler)

 

 


Holy Week at the White House

 

 

Tea

5,000 years
https://twitter.com/Zlatti_71/status/1911706962795831524

Speaker

Left

Homeless

Titan

Tariffs
https://twitter.com/ImMeme0/status/1911513456249127332

Cop

 

 

 

 

Exactly 160 years ago, the US lost a major part of its innocence. That reveberates to this day, and the attempts at Trump’s life.

• Lincoln Was a ‘Threat to Democracy’ (Al Perrotta)

One hundred sixty years ago tonight, at Ford’s Theater, John Wilkes Booth put a bullet in the head of President Abraham Lincoln. What motivated the 26-year-old actor? Fame? No, he had plenty of that. His photos were outsold only by Honest Abe himself. Acclaim? No, contrary to tales told in school that he was jealous of the critical raves afforded his father Junius and brother Edwin, Booth earned reviews any young actor would die for. He even refused to perform under his real name until he earned reviews worthy of the name. To avenge the Confederacy’s defeat? You’re getting closer. Booth raged and despaired over the suffering incurred by the South. Actually, John Wilkes Booth told us his motivation. After shooting Lincoln and making his dramatic leap to the stage, Booth shouted “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” (“Thus always to tyrants.”) Or to put it another way, “Lincoln was a threat to democracy.”

Twice last summer, amid a daily drumbeat from former President Joe Biden, Democrats, and the media that Donald Trump was a “threat to democracy,” a budding tyrant, two would-be assassins came very close to killing him. Ryan Routh was charged Thursday in Florida for his attempt. A recent study indicates 55% of self-described leftists think the assassination of Trump would be “justifiable.” Given the rhetoric, given the vast numbers with a similar heart, it’s no wonder Routh thought he was doing the world a favor. “Everyone across the globe from the youngest to the oldest know [sic] that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less a U.S. president,” Routh wrote in a letter found after his arrest. “U.S. presidents must at bare minimum embody the moral fabric that is America and be kind, caring and selfless and always stand for humanity.”

So did Booth, who wrote while on the run: “Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment. A country that groaned beneath this tyranny, and prayed for this end, and yet now behold the cold hands they extend to me. ” Booth grew increasingly dismayed at being vilified and rejected. “I am here in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for. What made Tell a hero? And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew, am looked upon as a common cutthroat.” In a letter attempting to justify his actions, Booth wrote: “When Caesar had conquered the enemies of Rome and the power that was his menaced the liberties of the people, Brutus arose and slew him. The stroke of his dagger was guided by his love of Rome. It was the spirit and ambition of Caesar that Brutus struck at.”
“Oh, that we could come by Caesar’s spirit,
And not dismember Caesar.
But, alas!
Ceasar must bleed for it.”

Booth, a man steeped since birth in Shakespearean drama, sought the death of Lincoln as Shakespeare’s Brutus did Caesar’s. This fear stemmed not from what the president had done, but from the belief that with his enemies conquered, Lincoln would keep his war powers and reign as a tyrant. This gets to one of the most tragic elements of Lincoln’s assassination, positively Shakespearean in its awfulness. John Wilkes Booth failed to realize that with the war over, Lincoln was the best friend the South had. And Booth had a role to play. The greatest of his life. Lincoln wanted a gentle reconciliation between North and South, “with malice toward none, and charity for all.” Many powerful forces around him had plenty of malice toward the Confederacy, and no mood for charity. Those in the South whose towns had been laid waste and their sons laid to rest by the hundreds of thousands, would also have trouble with reconciliation.

Lincoln’s mission of unifying the country in peace looked to be as difficult as winning the war. He would need all the help he could get. Author Michael Kauffman discovered an intriguing tidbit when researching his book “American Brutus.” A worker at Ford’s Theater saw Booth hand an attendant a card, and the attendant bring the card into the Presidential Box. What happened next is not known. But is it not possible that Lincoln received Booth’s card, and knowing Booth’s fame, his oratory gifts and his sympathies, realized the actor could prove very valuable in helping “bind the nation’s wounds”? Who better than America’s First Family of Theater to help bring the nation together? Perhaps the theater-loving president even knew the three acting Booth brothers would be sharing the stage at a benefit the following week.

With the war over and the comedy romp “Our American Cousin” playing out beneath him, did Lincoln see in Booth’s card a golden opportunity? Is it not likely an excited Lincoln told the attendant, “Yes, send Mr. Booth in”? Rather than summon a potential partner, Lincoln summoned his own executioner. Booth killed not only the president, but all hope for a gentle reconciliation. How much better for his beloved South had Booth pulled up a chair instead of a pistol? How much better for our nation and their own dreams if liberals sought Trump’s cooperation rather than destruction? The future is in their hands. The 55% who believe Trump’s assassination would be justified would heed well the lesson of John Wilkes Booth. After being cornered in a barn in Port Royal, Virginia and shot, Booth looked down at his hands and uttered his final words: “Useless. Useless.”

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Much of what happens with regards to the tariffs surprises people, and they think it’s -largely- new. Donald Trump has been preoccupied with the issues for 40 years. In this 1988 video he says he doesn’t want to be president. But he would probably have been a strong candidate even then. Reagan at that point had just slapped a 100% tariff on a lot of Japanese imports.

• Trump’s Life’s Work Culminates in Confronting Communist China (Josh Hammer)

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump abruptly announced a 90-day pause on most of his planned country-specific “reciprocal” tariffs—with the notable exception of China. In so strikingly singling out China as the focus of America’s economic and geopolitical ire, Trump was not merely clarifying that the United States views China and its regnant Communist Party as our leading 21st-century threat—he was also taking yet another notable step toward fulfilling his own lifelong goal of fundamentally resetting the terms of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. As an “outer-borough” native New Yorker from Queens, Trump has long seen things differently than most of his white-shoe brethren and fellow one-percenters living across the (literal and proverbial) river in Manhattan.

Throughout virtually his entire career, Trump has served as a “class traitor” archetype—someone who, as I wrote in an essay last year, “may hold ‘elite’ ruling class credentials, but whose hearts, minds, concerns, and general sensibilities are decidedly with the country class.” That is the essence of Trump’s nationalist-populist MAGA political coalition. But it’s also who Trump has been since his earliest interviews with the New York City tabloids and TV hosts all those decades ago. There is no better example than trade, Trump’s most consistently held political position. In the 1980s, he was alarmed at the rise of Japan as an economic superpower, arguing that America’s trade deficit with Japan was problematic and that the U.S. should respond with crippling tariffs. (It seems that Ronald Reagan, who in 1987 slapped a 100% tariff on many Japanese goods, was listening.)

In recent decades, Trump has applied the same logic to the newer threat of China. In 2011, for instance, four years before he launched his successful presidential run, Trump railed against widely practiced Chinese currency manipulation: “They have manipulated their currency so violently towards this country, it is almost impossible for our companies to compete with Chinese companies.” During the first year of his first presidential term, Trump directed his Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to investigate Chinese trade practices. The subsequent report was damning, and Trump implemented numerous tariffs on Chinese goods—tariffs that, to his rare credit, former President Joe Biden largely kept in place and even built upon. In addition to his first-term tariffs, Trump also filed a formal World Trade Organization case against China, alleging deceptive trade practices and intellectual property theft.

As Trump put it at the time in a tweet: “Today I directed the U.S. Trade Representative to take action so that countries stop CHEATING the system at the expense of the USA!” Trump’s tariff escalation this week against Communist China—even as he paused many other tariffs to allow for bilateral trade negotiations and give jittery bond markets some relief—is a natural culmination of the work to reset the U.S.-China economic relationship that he commenced during his first term. For that matter, it is also the natural culmination of his short-lived third-party presidential run in 2000 with the trade protectionist Reform Party, as well as his 1988 “Oprah Winfrey Show” interview, where he teased a future presidential run that would focus on trade. Immigration may be the issue most readily associated with Trump’s MAGA movement, but there is no issue that has been nearer and dearer to Trump’s heart over the decades than trade—first with Japan and then with China. Most important, Trump has not just been outspoken on the issue of trade with China—he has been proven correct.

https://twitter.com/benfergusonshow/status/1909047756183785829

Ever since Richard Nixon’s fateful trip to visit Mao Zedong in Beijing in 1972, American elites of all political stripes promised that welcoming China into the global economy would be good for all parties involved. American consumers, we were reliably informed, would get cheaper and more abundant goods; American exporters would get a massive and exciting new market to peddle their wares; and the Chinese people themselves would soon reap the rewards of the “political liberalization” that could only come about through “economic liberalization.” This was the dominant thinking when Nixon visited China over a half-century ago, when the George W. Bush administration welcomed China into the World Trade Organization in 2001, and when Barack Obama hosted and toasted Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the White House in 2015.

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Martin Armstrong highlights the “lose face” angle, “don’t do it in public”. But China has done very little since Trump’s first term, when he’s certain to have brought it up, though not in public, so why would Trump wait now?

• Living on the Edge (Martin Armstrong)

The U.S.-China trade war is an ongoing economic conflict that began in January 2018, characterized by the imposition of tariffs and trade barriers by both countries. Recently, tensions escalated as the U.S. raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%, prompting China to retaliate with tariffs of 125% on U.S. imports, affecting global supply chains and market stability. Trump’s decision not to grant China the same reprieve as other nations explained: “China wants to make a deal, they just don’t know how quite to go about it.” I disagree. If I were China, I would do a full embargo, and the Achilles’ heel in this trade war is more than just the manufacture of values for municipalities – the big ones, steel and aluminum, but also medicines. Personally, I would put a full embargo on everything, and without the medicines, people would be screaming, and their lives would be put in danger. I have dealt with Asia for some 40 years. You do not do this sort of thing publicly. It is an insult and a loss of face that forces China not to yield.

The developing U.S.-China trade war keeps ratcheting up. China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals. Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Lutnick said that the electronics the Trump administration exempted from reciprocal tariffs could be subject to different levies in the future. This is not good. You do not air your dirty laundry in public.

Beijing’s perspective is dramatically different. Xi Jinping has taken the view that his country would lose face if it simply capitulated to what it calls America’s “unilateral bullying.” The danger with this trade war is that publicly, it only supports fervent nationalism, and that feeds into what will become World War III. China has been quietly preparing for a trade war for quite some time. Trump’s actions may spark negotiation in Western circles, but in Asian circles, they create the image that the US doesn’t want to negotiate. My concern is that Xi is brilliant. This trade war is playing into his domestic approval of anti-Americanism. Like the Russian sanctions that boosted Putin’s approval rating calculation, sources say, China is also seeing a rise in popular support to strengthen its position by preparing not just to fight back. Trump’s trade war with China is definitely strengthening Xi’s own position.

All of my sources have said that Xi fully understands that China has entered a period of protracted struggle in both trade and geopolitics with the United States and Europe. This became painfully obvious, and Europe and the Biden Administration confronted Russia. Xi has taken the position that China needs to prepare for these confrontations ever since the Biden Administration put sanctions on Russia and then threatened China if it dared to help Russia. The Neocon Antony Blinken expressed “serious concern” about China’s support for Russia’s defense industry. He went as far as to threaten Xi that he would impose sanctions if China helped Russia.

The Neocon Antony Blinken threw down the gauntlet and views the world only in his desire for imperial power. He never understood the economy, and this insanity of threatening China and removing Russia from Swift undermined the economy and split it in half, with the formation of BRICS for geopolitical security. I don’t believe Trump understands the damage that the Biden Administration inflicted upon the entire world. Now, go after China with a trade war to bring back manufacturing to America; this is pushing China over the edge.

China previously owned 10% of the US national debt. This is what Trump has not considered. Before this trade war began, in January, foreigners sold a net $13.3 billion of U.S. notes and bonds that had more than one year to maturity. As we approach sovereign debt defaults, I have warned that it may start with Japan and be followed by Europe. We saw almost $50 billion was sold in December 2024 in anticipation of a Trump trade war. Last November saw almost $35 billion dumped following the election.

Canada was the largest net seller in January. The UK needed the cash and was the biggest seller last December. I know some have made the outrageous claim that Japan sold US debt, and that made Trump pause the tariffs for 90 days. These people have ZERO understanding of the markets and even less about Trump. The tariffs over 10% are political, and it is part of his art of the deal. Japan is in economic trouble with its own debt crisis, and selling US debt had nothing to do with the tariffs – this is about creating a real debt crisis. That said, China has the capacity to dump US debt in a big way, and that would send US rates higher on the long-end. U.S. stocks rallied with Trump pausing the tariffs, yet this was cyclically on point, which our computer had forecast months in advance. People just try to come up with some fundamentals to explain each move in a market, whether true or false. Our computer is projecting that 2025 will be the low in Chinese interest rates both on the 2-year and 30-year.

While stocks rallied, Treasury yields rose so much that lower rates benefited stocks. China has been quietly selling U.S. debt, which began over a year ago. This was not something new out of the blue in response to new tariffs. Bond markets were flashing warning signs based on the hidden risks behind the entire dynamics of trade and geopolitics. Behind the scenes, U.S. Treasury yields have been rising during the overnight sessions, indicating foreign market selling. Nevertheless, the prospects of war in Europe are reflected in our models, for they do not support a collapse in the bond markets, implying that war will bring still capital inflows. When we look at the Baltic Freight Index, 2025 was a Double Directional Change, indicating that we would have this trade war. We have a Directional Change in 2026 and a Panic Cycle in 2027, with the culmination of this war extending into 2028. This might also be influenced by the war starting in Europe.

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“No one knows the extent to which he will succeed. But if conventional thinking could solve our existential issues, it would have by now.”

• Temporary Tariff Terror Examined (Steve McKee)

When President Donald Trump made his Liberation Day announcements, his harshest critics immediately declared him an economic arsonist playing with fire he didn’t understand, while his strongest acolytes insisted he was 10 moves ahead, playing 4D chess with geopolitical mastery. Both camps jumped the gun. His was the opening salvo in a high-stakes game. Sometimes, the most effective strategy isn’t conventional. Sometimes it breaks the mold. Trump’s tariff gambit had the same disruptive effect. He was never under the illusion that his first offer would be the last word. That’s not how negotiation works. It’s not even how business works.

Trump’s not playing chess. It’s more akin to Go His announcement was surprising, yes. But that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong. In fact, it was reminiscent of a similarly shocking moment in another high-stakes arena: the legendary 2016 Go match between world champion Lee Sedol and DeepMind’s AlphaGo computer program. In move 37 of Game Two of the board game, AlphaGo played an unexpected, unconventional move. At first, it looked like a mistake. But as the game unfolded, it became clear that move 37 wasn’t just valid; it was, literally, game changing. It altered the way top players—and AI developers—understood the game and, to some extent, AI itself. That’s why chess is the wrong analogy in this tariff situation. No president can be expected to know the implications of every move like chess masters do. But they can know there will be implications from their move and as those implications unfold they will have a window to adjust their next move.

Trump understands negotiation This president, in particular, understands the rhyme and rhythm of negotiation. He knew this negotiation, being played out in full public view, would draw out the critics and opportunists and have real world impacts. That was baked into the cake, and it’s why, I surmise, he waited until just hours after the special House elections were decided to do it. This isn’t a private boardroom deal behind closed doors. It’s an unfolding negotiation taking place on the world stage, with millions of spectators and infinite scrutiny. That complicates things. But Trump, being Trump, accounted for that. He knew pushback would be inevitable. He couldn’t know the exact shape or timing, but he knew the opportunity to respond would come. And when it did, he took it.

Whether you agree with his tactics or not, he’s not capitulating or backtracking, he’s managing an unfolding negotiation. What makes Trump different—and maddening to many—is that he’s not cut from traditional presidential cloth. He’s a developer, a dealmaker, someone for whom negotiation is second nature. His presidency brought that skill set into a realm where every feint and pivot is broadcast and critiqued in real time. It’s a high-wire act, sure. But not one he has entered blindly.

The dynamics of the game needed to change The real takeaway here isn’t about trade policy. It’s about process. About resisting the impulse to rush to judgment based on ideology or tribal loyalty. These are dynamic, complex negotiations with layers most commentators either don’t understand or refuse to acknowledge. Yes, last week was a terrifying ride, but so is our future if something doesn’t change. Lest we forget, we’re going bankrupt. Something needs to happen. The U.S.—and by extension, much of the global economy—is hurtling down an unsustainable path. Somebody had to start changing the dynamics of a game which everybody is about to lose. Trump has done so. You don’t have to like him to see that he understands the stakes.

So sure, scratch your head. Raise your eyebrows. Ask hard questions. That’s part of the process. But don’t assume you’re watching 4D chess, and don’t call the man a fool. Instead, hold back the full ire of your fire. Accept that you may not be seeing the whole game board—none of us are. Call balls and strikes as you see them, but don’t call it “game over” when it has only just begun. There are many moves yet to come, and I don’t pretend to know how it’s all going to turn out. But as events continue to unfold, it’s unhelpful—and frankly unfair—to reduce Trump to either a genius or a fool. He is a man with a unique set of skills, forged in a different fire than most politicians, who is doing his best to deploy them in service of long-term trends in dire need of fixing. And he’s doing it none too soon. No one knows the extent to which he will succeed. But if conventional thinking could solve our existential issues, it would have by now.

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CBS turns on Trump again.

• Zelensky Started The War Then Begged For Missiles – Trump (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky should never have started a war with Russia, US President Donald Trump has said. In a press conference alongside El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump commented on Zelensky’s recent offer to finance $15 billion worth of Patriot air defense batteries with the aid of Kiev’s European backers. “He’s always looking to purchase missiles,” the US presided noted. “When you start a war, you got to know that you can win the war,” he said of Zelensky. “You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.” Trump added that he gave Kiev American-made Javelin man-portable anti-tank missiles during his first presidency.

In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Zelensky called on the US to supply Ukraine with more air defenses. Kiev is ready to buy or lease up to ten Patriot air defense systems, and some European backers have offered to help with the money, he claimed. During the interview, the network suggested that Trump tried to cut Kiev out of peace talks with Russia, and that he lied in his statements about the conflict. Trump allegedly “rewrote history, saying, falsely, that Ukraine had started the war and calling… Zelensky ‘a dictator without elections’,” according to CBS. The US president lashed out at the news network on Truth Social on Monday, calling the interview inaccurate and fraudulent.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Ukraine conflict would never have escalated had he been in the White House, rather than his predecessor Joe Biden. According to the US president, the previous administration invested more than $300 billion into supporting Kiev. Trump has promised to “get back” the money, entering talks with Ukraine about jointly exploiting its mineral resources. He also suggested taking over Ukrainian nuclear power plants. The Kremlin has hailed the Trump administration’s peace efforts, but cautioned that resolving long-standing issues will take time and “painstaking work.”

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Keeping Zelensky around is counterproductive.

• Trump Slams Biden, Zelensky & Putin For Ukraine War: ‘Everybody Is To Blame’ (ZH)

President Donald Trump while speaking with the press in the Oval Office on Monday once again blasted President Biden for the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, a war which Trump has repeatedly stressed should have never happened. “That’s a war that should have never been allowed to start and Biden could have stopped it and Zelensky could have stopped it and Putin should have never started it,” Trump said. “Everybody is to blame.” Trump added: “If Biden were competent and if Zelenskyy were competent, and I don’t know that he is, we had a rough session with this guy — he just kept asking for more and more.” But he seemed to reserve his most aggressive criticisms for Zelensky, once again blasting him for asking for more and more weapons and money, while knowing full well Ukraine can’t defeat Russia, which is “twenty times your size” – as Trump said. Watch:

Clearly last month’s Oval Office showdown involving J.D. Vance and Zelensky going at it still looms large in Trump’s mind. Trump had separately in a Monday Truth Social post also lamented that Biden and Zelensky “did an absolutely horrible job in allowing this travesty to begin.” Here’s what he said in the post: “The war between Russia and Ukraine is Biden’s war, not mine. I just got here, and for four years during my term, had no problem in preventing it from happening,” Trump wrote, adding that he “had nothing to do with this war” but is working “diligently to get the death and destruction to stop.” “If the 2020 presidential election was not rigged, and it was, in so many ways, that horrible war would never have happened,” he continued. “President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and Crooked Joe Biden did an absolutely horrible job in allowing this travesty to begin. There were so many ways of preventing it from ever starting. But that is the past. Now we have to get it to stop, and fast. So sad!”

Much of this seems in reaction to the Zelensky “60 Minutes” interview from Sunday, wherein the Ukrainian leader claimed that “Russian narratives are prevailing” in the US, while singling out Vance in particular. Zelensky had said, “It’s a shift in tone, a shift in reality, really yes, a shift in reality, and I don’t want to engage in the altered reality that is being presented to me,” And on Vance, he described: “First and foremost, we did not launch an attack [to start the war]. It seems to me that the Vice President is somehow justifying Putin’s actions. I tried to explain, ‘You can’t look for something in the middle. There is an aggressor and there is a victim. The Russians are the aggressor, and we are the victim’.”

Despite Trump’s newest attack on Zelensky, it remains that the United States is still supplying weaponry to Kiev, though reportedly in lesser quantities that previously, and is still providing limited intelligence. Zelensky has likely had to restrain some of the criticisms he wishes to hurl back, give Kiev is deeply fearful the US could once again cut off the flow of arms and ammo, as it did briefly soon after Trump took office.

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“We intended to partition Russia. Since we couldn’t pull that off, let’s divide Ukraine instead.”

• West Seeks To Partition Ukraine – Senior Russian Diplomat (RT)

European nations hostile towards Moscow are advocating for the partitioning of Ukraine, according to Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s ambassador-at-large overseeing war crime investigations. Last week, The Times of London reported an alleged US proposal to divide the country, reminiscent of Germany’s division following World War II. Keith Kellogg, the US presidential envoy for Ukraine cited by the newspaper, later stated that his remarks had been misinterpreted by the British outlet. Miroshnik criticized the approach on Saturday as an embodiment of what he called the UK’s colonial mindset. “Europe has a habit of slicing up other continents and nations and parceling them out,” he stated in an interview.

He read the underlying message as the West saying: “We intended to partition Russia. Since we couldn’t pull that off, let’s divide Ukraine instead.” The diplomat drew parallels between the proposal in The Times and the aftermath of World War I, noting that turning Arab regions of the former Ottoman Empire into mandate territories governed by the UK and France did not ultimately bode well for the Middle East. Moscow opposes the presence of any NATO member states’ troops in Ukraine, including the post-ceasefire security force suggested by the UK and France. Miroshnik insisted that an “occupation” by those nations would merely confirm Ukraine’s status as a de facto “mandate territory” with a puppet government, primarily handled by the British. He added that Russia would not accept such a “toxic” neighbor.

“The time Kiev needs to lick its wounds may be alarmingly brief,” he cautioned. “It needs to reflect on its experiences, prepare, and train tens of thousands more militants via Britain before going to war again.” Certain European NATO members have advocated for a “resilience force” to be stationed in Ukraine, presenting them as a deterrent. Kellogg said he did not propose dividing the country but rather discussed with the Times the idea of “zones of responsibility,” controlled by Russia, a British-French contingent, and Kiev itself, respectively. Moscow views the Ukraine conflict as a NATO proxy war. Russian officials have argued that a lasting peace can only be achieved by addressing the fundamental issues, including the expansion of the US-led military bloc in Europe since the 1990s and the “neo-Nazi” character of the current Ukrainian government, which discriminates against ethnic Russians.

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Not a word about peace.

• Zelensky Urges Trump To Visit Ukraine Before Pressing Negotiations (ZH)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is urging for President Donald Trump to visit Ukraine and see the war’s devastation first-hand before pressing for peace negotiations with Russia. “We want you to come,” the Ukrainian president pleaded in reference to Trump while speaking with CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday. Zelensky hit out at what he strongly hinted was Trump’s lack of understanding of the conflict and Russian brutality. “You think you understand what’s going on here. Okay, we respect your position. You understand. But, please, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, “Come, look, and then let’s — let’s move with a plan how to finish the war,” he added. He further suggested that with such a trip, Trump will finally grasp Putin’s true nature.

“You will understand with whom you have a deal. You will understand what Putin did,” the Ukrainian leader said. This comes as the US and Russia are seeking diplomatic normalization through a series of bilateral meetings which have cut out any Ukrainian or EU representation. “We will not prepare anything. It will not be theater, with preparing actors in the streets and the [city] center. We don’t do this. We don’t need it,” he continued. “You can go exactly where you want, in any city which been under attacks, just to come and to understand.” The CBS interview aired the same day that Russian ballistic missiles pummeled the Ukrainian city of Sumy, resulting in a mass casualty event which was quickly condemned by the United States and European Union. Ukrainian emergency authorities said the Sumy attack killed at least 34 people and wounded more than a hundred.

Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, retired lieutenant general Keith Kellogg, reacted by saying it “crosses any line of decency”. He suggested the strikes intentionally targeted civilians. “As a former military leader, I understand targeting and this is wrong,” Kellogg posted on X. He said there are “scores of civilian dead and wounded.” However, Trump’s reaction was one in which the Russians were less singled out and condemned, instead the US president highlighted that this “horrible war” shows the urgency of ending the war before more people die… But the White House has strongly complained over the past months that Zelensky has appeared unwilling to genuinely engage in peace talks with Moscow, also at a moment more hawkish European allies are seeking to fill the gap of waning Washington support. Zelensky knows he’ll have to make serious concessions for peace.

It is especially the tense February meeting in the Oval Office which still stings and looms large. Zelensky in the CBS interview took the opportunity to once again slam Vice President J.D. Vance. “It’s a shift in tone, a shift in reality, really yes, a shift in reality, and I don’t want to engage in the altered reality that is being presented to me,” Zelensky said. “First and foremost, we did not launch an attack [to start the war]. It seems to me that the Vice President is somehow justifying Putin’s actions. I tried to explain, ‘You can’t look for something in the middle. There is an aggressor and there is a victim. The Russians are the aggressor, and we are the victim’.” Below: RT’s Editor-in-Chief responded sarcastically to Zelensky once again complaining that Russian ‘propaganda’ is winning in America…

Meanwhile, Trump has since made clear where he stands concerning 60 Minutes’ repeat efforts to make him look bad.”Almost every week, 60 Minutes … mentions the name ‘TRUMP’ in a derogatory and defamatory way, but this Weekend’s ‘BROADCAST’ tops them all,” the president complained on Truth Social, in apparent reference to both the Ukraine report and another on Greenland. “CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

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“..that he “rewrote history, saying, falsely, that Ukraine had started the war and calling… Zelensky ‘a dictator without elections.’”

• Trump Slams ‘Dishonest’ CBS After Zelensky Interview (RT)

CBS News must have its broadcasting license revoked, US President Donald Trump has said. He has accused the network of spreading politically biased misinformation in its coverage of the Ukraine conflict and Washington’s push to acquire Greenland. In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump lashed out at the broadcaster after it aired an interview with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and a segment revisiting the US president’s controversial idea to purchase Greenland. In the Zelensky interview, the network suggested that Trump had sought to exclude Kiev from peace talks with Russia and that he “rewrote history, saying, falsely, that Ukraine had started the war and calling… Zelensky ‘a dictator without elections.’”

The US president’s “dictator” comment in February was referring to the fact that Zelensky’s presidential term expired last year and that he has refused to call a new vote, citing martial law. Trump has since softened his rhetoric about the Ukrainian leader. The CBS report on Greenland focused on the island’s residents’ purported reluctance to become part of the US. “Almost every week, 60 Minutes… mentions the name ‘TRUMP’ in a derogatory and defamatory way, but this Weekend’s ‘BROADCAST’ tops them all,” Trump wrote. “They did not one, but TWO, major stories on ‘TRUMP,’ one having to do with Ukraine, which I say is a War that would never have happened if the 2020 Election had not been RIGGED… and, the other story was having to do with Greenland, casting our Country, as led by me, falsely, inaccurately, and fraudulently,” he added.

“They are not a ‘News Show,’ but a dishonest Political Operative simply disguised as ‘News,’ and must be responsible for what they have done, and are doing,” Trump suggested. “They should lose their license!” The US leader stressed that CBS “should pay a big price” for being “out of control,” recalling his previous stand-off with the network over a heavily edited interview with Kamala Harris, his main Democratic rival prior to the November election. The controversy over the Harris interview erupted in October when CBS aired two versions of an interview with the then-vice president. In one, she gave a long and convoluted answer about the Middle East conflict, but in the other, she gave a much clearer and more concise answer. Trump subsequently lodged a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS, calling the interview “word salad” and accusing the network of “deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news” and favoritism to the Democratic Party. CBS has admitted to editing the interview but rejected allegations that it attempted to doctor it.

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The Sumy narrative (Russia targets civilians!) carried the international airwaves for a whole weekend.

• We Have Proof Sumy Strike Targeted Ukrainian Troops and Foreign Mercs – Lavrov (Sp.)

Russia possesses information that Ukrainian troops met with their foreign counterparts at the facility targeted by Russian forces in the strike on Sumy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday. On Sunday, Russian forces carried out a missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy, targeting a site of a meeting of the Seversk tactical and operational command’s leadership. Earlier on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the strike killed over 60 Ukrainian servicepeople. “International humanitarian law categorically prohibits the placement of military facilities and weapons around civilian objects. Since the first days of the [Ukraine] crisis, and earlier, even during the Minsk agreements … there have been a million cases of artillery and air defense systems being placed in city blocks near kindergartens.

How many videos are posted online of Ukrainian women shouting for the military to get away from stores and playgrounds? But this practice continues. We have facts about who was at the facility that was hit in Sumy. There was another ‘gathering’ of Ukrainian military commanders with their Western colleagues, who were disguised either as mercenaries or I do not know who,” Lavrov told Russian newspaper Kommersant. It is widely known that NATO forces are present in Ukraine, the minister added. “The New York Times recently reported that Americans have been playing a leading role in strikes on Russia. Without this part, the majority of [Ukrainian] long-range missiles would never have taken off at their deployment sites,” he said.

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“Macron, Merz, Starmer, Kellogg, the New York Times, The Telegraph – to name only a few examples – all follow Zelensky’s and Kiev’s lie that this was a deliberate attack on civilians..”

• The Sumy Missile Strike: War, Propaganda, and Hypocrisy (Amar)

On April 13, Russia launched an attack on a target in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy. All reports –Western, Ukrainian, and Russian – agree on some basic facts: The attack consisted of two ballistic missiles; substantial numbers of people were killed (over 60, according to the Russian Defense Ministry; over 20 in Western and Ukrainian reports) and injured (over 80, per Ukrainian reports). Beyond that, however, a thick fog of war has descended. Or rather, a fog of propaganda. Western media and politicians have denounced the Russian strike as, in essence, an atrocity or war crime. The New York Times, for instance, presented it as slamming “into a bustling city center […] on Sunday morning, […] killing at least 34 people in what appeared to be the deadliest attack against civilians this year.” Incoming German chancellor Friedrich Merz (to be sworn in at the beginning of May), speaking on one of his country’s most popular TV shows, condemned what he called a “perfidious act” and “serious war crime.”

In the US, President Donald Trump’s special – if largely sidelined – envoy for Russia and Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has invoked his experience as a “former military leader” who “understand[s] targeting” to denounce the Russian strike as “wrong,” adding that the attack “on civilian targets in Sumy crosses any line of decency.” Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, is “appalled at Russia’s horrific attacks on civilians in Sumy.” Both Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron saw an opportunity to call for “imposing” a ceasefire on Russia. Merz, for his part, felt the need to talk, once more, about providing Kiev with German Taurus missiles. The fact that Ukraine has made a point of not complying with the partial ceasefire officially already in place seems to make no difference. Neither, clearly, does the fact that neither France nor Britain has the means to compel Moscow. That the use of the German Taurus to strike at, for instance, the Kerch Bridge may well invite – perfectly justifiable – Russian retaliation against German targets, whether in Germany or elsewhere, seems to appear equally irrelevant to Merz.

More examples could be added, but the trend should be clear: In the West, almost everyone agrees that the Russian attack on Sumy was an atrocity and in the EU there is talk – if we are lucky, it will remain just that – of exploiting it as a pretext to escalate further the proxy war in which Ukraine is being used up against Russia. Yet there are two major problems with this escalatory approach: Most importantly, it is not based on facts but on disinformation originating with the Kiev regime, taken over uncritically and spread enthusiastically by Western mainstream media and many political leaders. Though not, actually, all of them. That is the second, as it were, practical problem for the escalation brigade: The single most powerful Western figure is not playing along. Trump has not condemned Russia. He did call the attack “terrible” and “horrible” and claimed that he was told that “they [presumably meaning Russia] made a mistake.”

Whatever basis (US signal intelligence? Hearsay?) he has – or not – for this statement, politically, the key point of Trump’s first reaction was that he demonstratively refrained from joining the rest of the West in escalating, while stressing that the war as such is the issue and ending it the solution. A similar approach in a statement on X by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirms that this is not a fluke but Trump’s and therefore Washington’s policy, at least for now. America’s president has clearly – and unsurprisingly – decided that his halting and open-ended yet still at least ongoing attempt to achieve a normalization with Moscow is more important than joining the latest propaganda campaign against Russia. Trump – so criminally wrong in the Middle East – is right on this one, even if he is pursuing extremely pragmatic purposes. He is also, as it happens, right here in a more fundamental sense, which brings us back to problem number one with the Western mainstream treatment of the Sumy attack:

Despite Kiev’s endless record of deception, the Western claim that the Russian attack was a crime is once again based on that very murky source alone. Ukraine’s past-due-date president Vladmir Zelensky, for instance, has decried a “horrific” attack hitting “an ordinary city street, ordinary life.” Macron, Merz, Starmer, Kellogg the New York Times, The Telegraph – to name only a few examples – all follow Zelensky’s and Kiev’s lie that this was a deliberate attack on civilians. Yet, in reality, Russia struck at a gathering of Ukrainian soldiers. Soldiers, yes, even on Sunday and also on Palm Sunday, are legitimate targets in armed conflict. It is not criminal to attack them. That is an elementary legal reality, rooted in the Law of Armed Conflict. And, when the boot is on the other foot, the West knows this well: No one there decried a Ukrainian “war crime,” when Kiev’s Western-supplied artillery wiped out almost 100 Russian troops sleeping in their quarters behind the front line in January 2023.

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“..after he allegedly suggested that Kiev should destroy the Crimean Bridge..”

• Medvedev Brands Incoming German Chancellor ‘Nazi’ (RT)

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has branded incoming German chancellor Friedrich Merz a Nazi after he allegedly suggested that Kiev should destroy the Crimean Bridge. In an interview with state broadcaster ARD, Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and the likely future leader of Germany, stated that Berlin could supply long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, but only if it is done in coordination with other EU nations. Kiev should in the future use Western-supplied missiles to go on the offensive and destroy, for example, “the most important land connection between Russia and Crimea,” Merz said. Merz did not clarify if he meant the Crimean bridge, which stretches from Russia’s Krasnodar Region to Crimea, or the ‘land bridge’ that Russian forces established with the peninsula when the former Ukrainian region off Kherson joined Russia.

However, many critics have interpreted Merz’s words to mean the Crimean bridge, especially given that Kiev has already conducted a number of attacks on it since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. In a post on X on Monday, Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, suggested that Merz was following in the footsteps of his Nazi father. “Chancellor candidate Fritz Merz is haunted by the memory of his father, who served in Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Now Merz has suggested a strike on the Crimean Bridge. Think twice, Nazi,” Medvedev wrote. According to media reports, Merz’s father Joachim was conscripted into the Wehrmacht – the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany – around 1941. His grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, had also been a member of the Nazi party since 1933.

Russia’s ambassador to Germany, Sergey Nechaev, warned that delivering Taurus missiles to Ukraine would not alter the battlefield situation but could escalate the conflict, as the missiles would be guided by German specialists. He suggested this might provoke Moscow to take retaliatory measures. Germany is Kiev’s second-largest military donor, after the US. Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock announced that Berlin would provide the country with an additional $12 billion worth of military aid over the next four years and would continue to support it regardless of the upcoming change of government in Germany. Russia has repeatedly slammed continued foreign assistance to Ukraine, arguing that it only serves to prolong hostilities and cause more bloodshed without affecting the ultimate outcome of the conflict.

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Guess who the judge is? Boasberg.

• Meta’s Monopoly Trial Kicks Off (ET)

The fate of social media giant Meta, billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s primary company, is on the line as a trial begins in Washington on Monday to determine whether the tech giant is violating antitrust laws. The Federal Trade Commission, which has spent the past six years investigating Meta, is expected to argue before U.S. District Judge James Boasberg that Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp created an illegal monopoly over social networking. In the worst-case scenario for Meta, the company could be forced to divest both subsidiaries in a breakup on a scale not seen since the dismantling of AT&T’s telephone empire more than 40 years ago. Here’s what to know about the most important trial in Meta’s history.

Trial The case is being held at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse, just a few hundred yards from the U.S. Capitol. It’s a bench trial, meaning Boasberg alone will decide the outcome, not a jury. That gives the judge extraordinary influence over the future of one of the most powerful companies in the world.

FTC Claims The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation into the company began during President Donald Trump’s first term and was aggressively pursued under President Joe Biden . The FTC has taken issue with the company’s 2012 purchase of the image-based app Instagram and 2014 purchase of WhatsApp, a messaging platform that’s particularly popular outside of the United States. During the trial, the FTC is expected to argue that Meta’s purchase of the two platforms was part of a calculated effort to “buy or bury” any potential rivals to Facebook. In a 2008 email presented by the FTC in a past federal court filing, Zuckerberg wrote, “It is better to buy than compete.” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has said that his agency is “raring to go” against Meta but also that he’ll follow lawful orders from the president to close the case.

Meta’s Response Meta has consistently denied the allegations of operating an illegal monopoly and has argued that the FTC’s case is both outdated and out of step with current market realities. A spokesperson for Meta said in a statement to The Epoch Times that the acquisitions were approved by regulators at the time and that the company has always operated competitively. He cited the presence of competitors such as TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage, and others. The spokesperson said the lawsuit “defies reality” and that it would send a message that “no deal is ever truly final” if Boasberg sides with the FTC. The company has also suggested that dismantling its integrated platforms would harm users, who’ve come to rely on interconnected services and shared back-end systems. Since Trump was elected to a second term, Zuckerberg has visited Mar-a-Lago, ended the company’s controversial fact-checking efforts, rolled back diversity and inclusion programs, and staffed the company with GOP-friendly executives.

‘Creaking Antitrust Precedents ’Boasberg has heard years of pretrial motions in this case and has made clear he isn’t fully sold on the government’s argument He threw out the FTC’s original filing in 2021, citing a lack of clear market definitions. While he allowed the revised case to proceed, he’s continued to express skepticism, warning in recent months that the FTC’s claims “strain this country’s creaking antitrust precedents.” Antitrust statutory law and litigation are among the most labyrinthine areas of the federal code. Boasberg has given both sides a chance to make their case in court. Witness lists include Zuckerberg himself, former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, and executives from rival platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat. The trial is expected to last through the summer, with a decision potentially arriving by July.

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A curious contortion.

• Now We Know Why Democrats Are Losing the Messaging War (Margolis)

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) just reminded everyone why Democrats are losing the messaging war. In what might be the most awkward attempt at political wit this year, Jeffries recorded himself delivering what he apparently thought was a clever takedown of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t. Picture a middle schooler trying to land an insult at the lunch table—that’s basically what happened when Jeffries attempted to rebrand “DEI” as “dumb effing individuals” in his attack on Hegseth. That’s right, the House Minority Leader, one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress, thought his comment was the kind of zinger that would go viral. Instead, it went cringey. “The DEI hires in the Trump administration, like Pete Hegseth, the so-called secretary of Defense, dumb effing individuals, continue to try to test our resolve and cancel our history,” Jeffries said in a video shared to X.

The irony is rich. Here we have the leader of a party that lives and dies by the DEI religion suddenly using “DEI hires” as a slur. The same Democrats who spent years insisting that DEI is the highest moral good are now tossing around the term like it’s a smear when it suits their narrative. So which is it? Is DEI a noble pursuit, or is it code for incompetence when someone like Hegseth is in the crosshairs? If you needed more proof that the left’s commitment to its pet causes is purely performative, Jeffries just handed it to you. Making matters worse, Jeffries built his entire rant on a foundation of misinformation about the Naval Academy’s book relocation policy. He breathlessly claimed the Academy was banning books about slavery, civil rights, and the Holocaust while keeping Hitler’s works. That’s cute, but it’s also completely false.

The reality? The books were simply moved to a different location in response to President Trump’s executive orders on DEI policies. They weren’t banned, burned, or whatever other dramatic scenario Jeffries conjured up for his social media performance. Hegseth’s response on “Sunday Morning Futures” was the coup de grâce. “It’s astonishing, not surprising,” he said. “Of course, they don’t like the fact that we’re ripping DEI out of the military and making it colorblind and merit-based. If their whole strategy is, I don’t even know how long the video was, didn’t see it, minute-long videos on TikTok to call us names while we secure the southern border, kick out Chinese influence, provide the warrior culture inside our military, that’s why they lost in a historic fashion to President Trump last time, and their future looks bleak as well.”

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It’s easy to feel sorry for the guy. Maybe don’t.

• El Salvador’s Bukele Won’t Return MS-13 Gang Member Mistakenly Deported (JTN)

President Donald Trump on Monday declined to ask El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to return an El Salvadoran citizen whom authorities mistakenly deported. Bukele, for his part, suggested that to return the man to the U.S. would be to smuggle a terrorist into the United States and that he would not do so. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a citizen of El Salvador, was deported by the Trump administration by mistake, though the Supreme Court ruled that the administration must facilitate his return. During an Oval Office meeting between Trump and Bukele, neither leader committed to returning the man. “Well, I’m supposed to have suggested that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States, right?” Buekele retorted when pressed on returning the man to the U.S. “Return him to the United States. I smuggle him into the United States. I’m not going to do it.”

“How can I smuggle a terror[ist] to the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” Buekele said. Trump also asked White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to weigh in. “So it’s very arrogant, even for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens. As a starting point, as two immigration courts found that he was a member of MS-13,” Miller said. “When President Trump declared MS-13 to be a foreign terrorist organization, that meant that he was no longer eligible under federal law… for any form of immigration relief in the United States.”

“So he had a deportation order that was valid, which meant that, under our law, he’s not even allowed to be present in the United States and had to be returned because of the foreign terrorist designation,” he added. “This issue was then by a district court judge completely inverted, and a district court judge tried to tell the administration that they had to kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and flying back here. That issue was raised to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said the district court order was unlawful and its main components were reversed.”

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“..in 2019, two judges refused to grant him bond because he was a verified member of the MS-13 gang..”

• Why the Beatified MS-13 ‘Father’ Was ‘Mistakenly’ Deported (Victoria Taft)

It’s worth reminding readers of the reasons the man being described as the innocent “Maryland father” was “mistakenly” deported from Los Estados Unidos. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is now cooling his heels in the most famous El Salvadoran prison in the world. He’s gotten more love from America’s left than, say, the 14-year-old girl MS-13 hacked up with machetes in 2019 in Maryland. It’s strange, isn’t it? Ariana Funes-Diaz was hacked with a machete and hit with a baseball bat, and her lifeless and bloodied body was left in a ditch, but nobody seems to remember or care. Now, I’m not suggesting that Abrego Garcia had anything to do with the gang murdering that girl; no one has ever suggested or proven any connection whatsoever. It’s just that MS-13 is tied, if you will, with Tren de Aragua for brutality. They intentionally shock the conscience to stay in power like the Third World knuckle draggers they are.

Rachel Morin was murdered by a man illegally in the country from El Salvador. He was found guilty of her murder by a Maryland jury after one hour of deliberation on Monday evening, after a two-week-long trial. We contend that the United States stop importing violent criminals from other countries. But the left would have us believe that Señor Abrego Garcia is just a normal family man who’s done nothing wrong and has never put a toe out of line and that he’s sorta kinda quasi-legally here. In 2019, his Holiness, St. Abrego, was rolled up by the feds while hanging around in a Home Depot parking lot, allegedly looking for work. Sounds normal. Lots of illegal aliens do this. But don’t ask him why he hadn’t found more than day jobs since he’d illegally come into the country years before because that’s racist. His attorney says he had a job in construction.

Anyway, the truth is, the local Maryland cops didn’t actually believe he was just looking for a day gig. Indeed, he showed up to work in his Chicago Bulls gear. MS-13 shares its affinity with the Bulls’ colors and gear with the Bloods and the Latin Kings. MS-13 also likes to use devil horn symbology in hand signals, and some members carry their tell-tale machetes. And of course, there are always the MS-13 tattoos. There are reports that he has one, but authorities have offered no photos of the granddaddy of all symbols proving unmistakably that he’s an MS-13 gang member. But in 2019, two judges refused to grant him bond because he was a verified member of the MS-13 gang and a “danger to the community.” The conundrum for most is that a guy who came into the U.S. illegally in 2011 and was identified by Maryland police and U.S. immigration officials as an MS-13 member by 2019 isn’t a benign presence in Los Estados Unidos. Capice?

And now in 2025, President Trump has issued a directive that all members of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua are members of designated terrorist organizations. El Salvador President Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez was asked by reporters in the White House Oval Office today if he would bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” was his reply. So here’s the issue. St. Abrego was put on a deportation list as an alternate without anyone noticing that he should not be sent back to El Salvador. He was bumped up the list of deportees and was indeed sent to the El Salvadoran prison by mistake.

The “mistake” the feds made in sending this guy out of the country was that they sent him back to El Salvador, where a rival gang threatened him and his family years back. His parents moved to other Central American countries, but he moved to the U.S. at the age of 16. If DOJ officials had sent him to another country, such as Guatemala with which we have a third-party agreement, we likely wouldn’t be having this issue right now, and St. Abrego would have disappeared into the ether — maybe even with his family in tow. Issues involving due process are serious. We should demand that people receive theirs. Attorney General Pam Bondi in the above video said Abrego received two court hearings when he was designated an MS-13 member. Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left’s lies, new legislation wasn’t needed to secure our border, just a new president.

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“The vast bottom of humanity already has plenty of nothing, and their abundance will abide…”

• Systemic Considerations (James Howard Kunstler)

Whatever else you think is happening in our world, contraction is the reality-based order-of-the-day, and everything else is downstream of that. The world has to get by with less. Nothing is going to fix this for everybody, though any number of schemes for redistributing what’s left will preoccupy the political mojo. Right now, it’s tariffs, which are an attempt to restore industry ceded to the formerly left-behind people elsewhere in the world — taking back what we used to do. You are correct to wonder if this is even possible. The wish is surely understandable, if a bit fuzzy and over-simplified: to be again a nation of people occupied purposefully in the service of a bright future. Redemption stories are deeply appealing.

Many of us are aware that the hour for this is late. We’ve already lived through our decades of pumping cheap oil out of American ground, extracting the ores, fashioning the metal into I-beams and rails, raising the skyscrapers, laying the asphalt ribbons of highway, and strewing the landscape with split-level houses and strip-malls. Let’s not try a re-run of that. What have we got to work with? An overly-complex matrix of systems and subsidiary systems operating on the verge of failure at excessive scale. For example, our cities and their asteroid belts of suburbs. The rot is already well-advanced in many of them from their centers outward, and we can see the process underway of strip-mining the remaining assets on-the-ground. Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore. . . all occupy important geographically strategic sites. All are populated by dwindling societies of the cope-less, floundering their way out of existence. The geographies will abide without them. Others will come along and make something of these places’ virtues.

Agri-business is a method for strip-mining the value from what remains of our fruited plains. Everything about it is on an arc of failure, mortgaged to a futureless giantism. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and now that time has passed. The remaining soil itself can probably be rescued with heroic ant-like peasant labor over generations, which is to say a long and rather desperate project with no quick resolution. Even if Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., hadn’t come along to read America the riot act on food, anyone can see that the age of Froot Loops is drawing to a close. Town and country, what human society at its best was composed of, has got to be rearranged. This is something that MAGA is not talking about. MAGA looks like it is seeking a reenactment of the years 1950 to 1964. That isn’t going to happen. What then? The tech broz propose something that looks like an A-I printed robotic future. They are drunk on their own Stanford University brand Kool-Aid, hallucinating a future that is little more than math dressed in spandex.

It is nearly impossible to grok the size of their vast fortunes, their billions. Thousands upon thousands of millions. From what? From marshaling squadrons of lawyers to draw up ownership documents for this and that venture enabling idiots with nose-rings to lecture each other about sexual etiquette on cell-phone screens? Warning: don’t become infatuated with singularities, journeys beyond biology and the ecology of planet earth. That’s a story for saps, cargo-cultists, the mentally ill. Speaking of all that money, one thing you can surely depend on is a violent unwinding of global finance. The vast bottom of humanity already has plenty of nothing, and their abundance will abide. The hedge fund broz and related broz in the shared hallucinations of capital can make some provision for wealth preservation if they have half-a-brain. It’s the great wad in the middle that has the worst problem: they get wiped out and then they discover they have no Plan B. That’s when the fun really kicks off in America (and other sovereign lands, of course.)

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Hep B
https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1911479588535882235

 

 

Vax

 

 

Bhattacharya
https://twitter.com/sophiadahl1/status/1911580633035334115
https://twitter.com/Humanspective/status/1911680285772849217

 

 

https://twitter.com/mamboitaliano__/status/1911367206371275242
https://twitter.com/mamboitaliano__/status/1911512270149919189

 

 

AI Jesus
https://twitter.com/mamboitaliano__/status/1911292594669425151

 

 

Amur
https://twitter.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1911392004862263730

 

 

Orangutan

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle April 9 2025

Apr 092025
 
 April 9, 2025  Posted by at 10:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  54 Responses »


Salvador Dali Christ of Saint John of the Cross 1951

 

• Trump Assassination ‘Justified’ For Half of Left-Leaning Americans (RT)
• Trump Slaps ‘Proud’ China With 104% Tariffs (RT)
• White House Lacks Financial Literacy – ‘Tariffs’ Show (MoA)
• Don’t Like Trump’s Plan for the Economy? Let’s Hear Yours (Victor Davis Hanson)
• US Chamber of Commerce Considers Block on Trump’s New Import Tariffs (Sp.)
• EU Commission Eyeing 25% Tariffs on US Goods (Sp.)
• Von der Leyen Endorses Meloni As Main Tariff Negotiator (Sp.)
• The Tariff Issue (Paul Craig Roberts)
• President Trump Bestows Great Honor on Nation of Japan (CTH)
• Musk Wants Trump To Cancel Tariffs – WaPo (RT)
• Billionaires Slam Trump Tariffs (RT)
• Officials Quietly Drafting Plan To Cushion Trump Tariff Fallout – Bloomberg (RT)
• Apple Staged Emergency iPhone Airlift From India (RT)
• More Than 900k “Biden-App”Migrants Told to ‘Self-Deport’ (NYP)
• USAID Operations Rebooted in Several Crisis Zones (Sp.)
• Judge Boasberg Scraps Trump Hearing On Deportations After Scotus Ruling (JTN)
• Legal Experts Sound Alarm On Judge Blocking Trump’s Deportations (DC)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/itscarterhughes/status/1909334208536846529

MAGA
https://twitter.com/gaborgurbacs/status/1909348105675211192

Bessent

GOAT
https://twitter.com/iam_smx/status/1909347460960653353

Rubio

Bondi

 

 

 

 

Won’t surprise too many people. And that’s not good at all.

• Trump Assassination ‘Justified’ For Half of Left-Leaning Americans (RT)

More than half of all left-leaning Americans believe there would be some justification for the assassination of US President Donald Trump, according to a new survey. The alarming finding was reported on Monday by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI). The organization monitors radical ideologies and examines what it refers to as “assassination culture” in America. The nonprofit conducted an opinion poll to assess whether American citizens would condone lethal attacks on Trump and his government efficiency tsar, Elon Musk. Among the 1,264 individuals surveyed, 31% and 38% expressed at least some justification for murdering Musk and Trump, respectively. The figures increased to 48% and 55% among respondents identifying as center or left-leaning. In the latter group, 9.1% would deem the assassination of Musk to be “completely justified,” while 13.2% said the same about Trump.

A majority of 57.6% indicated that attacking Tesla dealerships to protest Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration was at least somewhat acceptable. Commenting on the poll’s findings and claims that Democratic leaders have “incited” the situation, Musk branded the political organization “the party of violence.” He previously characterized arson attacks on Tesla-affiliated businesses in the US and abroad as “terrorism.” Last weekend, thousands of Americans marched in various cities to protest Trump’s policies and his support for Musk’s approach to reducing government spending. Critics have labeled the activities of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Musk, as an “illegal power grab” orchestrated by the president.

Trump barely escaped death during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last July, when a shooter opened fire at him, killing and injuring several supporters of the Republican candidate. The NCRI said its survey confirms broader “troubling trends” within US political culture, suggesting that the endorsement of violence is rooted in a particular far-left ideology. The institute also posits that this ideology fuels the online “memeification” of Luigi Mangione, the alleged murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Some Americans view Mangione, against whom the Trump administration is seeking the death penalty, as a folk hero, arguing that his actions could be seen as justifiable vigilantism against a predatory corporate healthcare system.

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Went into effect at midnight.

• Trump Slaps ‘Proud’ China With 104% Tariffs (RT)

The US has hiked tariffs on all Chinese imports to a staggering 104%, escalating the ongoing trade conflict and wiping out another $1.5 trillion from US stock markets on Tuesday. China was originally set to face a 34% tariff increase on Wednesday, as part of President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” measures targeting virtually all US trade partners. However, after Beijing responded with a proportional 34% duty of its own, the US president raised the blanket tariff to a total of 104%. “After all of the abuses they’ve perpetrated, China is attempting to impose additional unjustified tariffs,” Trump said at a National Republican Congressional Committee dinner in Washington on Tuesday. That’s why additional tariffs on Chinese goods are in place, effective midnight tonight at 104 percent. Until they make a deal with us, that’s what it’s going to be.

The White House published an amendment to the April 2 executive order in which Trump declared a national emergency over the US trade deficit and imposed a baseline tariff on all imports to the US. The administration said that nearly 70 countries had sought negotiations to mitigate the impact of the tariffs, as Trump pursues “tailored deals” with individual nations. The president went on to say that Beijing will have to “make a deal at some point,” claiming that “they just don’t know how to get it sorted because they’re proud people.” Until then, he added, China “will now pay a big number to our Treasury.” “Right now, China is paying a 104 percent tariff, think of it… Now, it sounds ridiculous, but they charged us for many items 100 percent, 125 percent,” Trump said. “They’ve ripped us off left and right. But now it’s our turn to do the ripping.”

Beijing previously condemned the escalating trade war as a form of “blackmail” and “economic bullying.” A spokesperson for the Commerce Ministry said on Tuesday that “China will fight till the end if the US side is bent on going down the wrong path.” The latest escalation has had a significant impact on US and global stock markets. Major indices such as the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq suffered further declines after a brief surge earlier this week, wiping out an estimated $1.5 trillion from US markets on Tuesday. Trump acknowledged that the fallout from his move was “somewhat explosive,” but defended his strategy, claiming that “sometimes you have to mix it up a little bit.” He insisted that the tariffs are necessary to address trade “abuses” and to promote domestic manufacturing, adding that the US is already generating $2 billion a day from the tariffs.


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A good fried pointed to this Moon of Alabama piece from a few days ago. It gives the impression that the Trump team is being sloppy with the tariffs. The only thing is, they say their numbers come “including Currency Manipulation and Trade barriers”. And those are not very clearly defined. But the impression of sloppy is still not a good thing.

• White House Lacks Financial Literacy – ‘Tariffs’ Show (MoA)

‘The foundation of American economic prosperity is a society empowered with the knowledge and tools to make informed financial decisions to achieve the American Dream. … ‘ I welcome that message. Teaching financial literacy must start at the top. The members of the Trump administration obviously lack the knowledge and tools to make informed financial decisions. It is the only possible explanation for how they came up with these numbers:

China does not have a 67% tariff on U.S. goods (it’s 7.3%). The EU does not have a 39% tariff on U.S. goods (it’s 5.2%). The numbers are bollocks. So where do they come from? The official explanation from the U.S. Trade Representative is here. Its baloney:

“James Surowiecki @JamesSurowiecki – 0:22 UTC · Apr 3, 2025 “Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn’t actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s exports to us. So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is.
…
Even given that it’s Trump, I cannot believe they said “We’ll just divide the trade deficit by imports and tell people that’s the tariff rate.” And then they decided to set our tariffs by just cutting that totally made-up rate in half! This is so dumb and deceptive. .. it’s actually worse than I thought: in calculating the tariff rate, Trump’s people only used the trade deficit in goods. So even though we run a trade surplus in services with the world, those exports don’t count as far as Trump is concerned.”

The last point is a major one, for China, but especially for the EU :

“EU-US trade in goods and services reached an impressive €1.6 trillion in 2023. This means that every day, €4.4 billion worth of goods and services cross the Atlantic between the EU and the US. … The total bilateral trade in goods reached €851 billion in 2023. The EU exported €503 billion of goods to the US market, while importing €347 billion; this resulted in a goods trade surplus of €157 billion for the EU. Total bilateral trade in services between the EU and the US was worth €746 billion in 2023. The EU exported €319 billion of services to the US, while importing €427 billion from the US; this resulted in a services trade deficit of €109 billion for the EU. …EU-US goods and services trade is balanced: the difference between EU exports to the US and US exports to the EU stood at €48 billion in 2023; the equivalent of just 3% of the total trade between the EU and the US.”

Despite that Trump has decreed a 20% on all goods from the EU. The natural countermeasure from the EU will be to put a 20+% tariff on all import of U.S. services. Trump also decreed a minimum 10% tariff on imports from every country. Products made by the penguins of the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic will now come with a 10% surcharge.”

There is really no economic reasoning behind these numbers. “Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand – 4:16 AM · Apr 3, 2025 “To illustrate just how nonsensically these tariffs were calculated, take the example of Lesotho, one of the poorest countries in Africa with just $2.4 billion in annual GDP, which is being struck with a 50% tariff rate under the Trump plan, the highest rate among all countries on the list…. As a matter of fact Lesotho, as a member of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), applies the common external tariff structure established by this regional trade bloc. … So since the tariffs charged by these 5 countries on U.S. products are exactly the same, they must all be struck with a 50% tariff rate by the U.S., right? Not at all: South Africa is getting 30%, Namibia 21%, Botswana 37% and Eswatini just 10%, the lowest rate possible among all countries.

Looking at Lesotho specifically, every year the U.S. imports approximately $236 million in goods from Lesotho (primarily diamonds, textiles and apparel) while exporting only about $7 million worth of goods to Lesotho (https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/LSO/Year/2022/TradeFlow/EXPIMP/Partner/by-country). Why do they export so little? Again this is an extremely poor country where 56.2% of the population lives with less than $3.65 a day (https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/public/…), i.e. $1,300 a year. They simply can’t afford U.S. products, no-one is going to buy an iPhone or a Tesla on that sort of income… The way the tariffs are ACTUALLY calculated appears to be based on a simplistic and economically senseless formula: you take the trade deficit the U.S. has with a country, divide it by that country’s exports to the U.S and declare this – falsely – “the tariff they charge on the U.S.”

And then as Trump did in his speech last night, you magnanimously declare that you’ll only “reciprocate” by charging half that “tariff” on them. As such, for Lesotho, the calculation goes like this: ($236M – $7M)/$235M = 97%. That’s the “tariff” Lesotho is deemed to charge this U.S. and half of that, i.e. roughly 50% is what the U.S. “reciprocates” with. It’s extremely easy to see why this makes no sense at all. ”

Lesotho has a comparative advantage over the U.S. as it can dig up and sell diamonds. But it lacks the purchasing power to buy U.S. goods and services. The calculations by the Trump administration ignore those basic facts. No tariffs were by the way introduced against Belarus, Russia and North Korea. This because of sanction, the U.S. has allegedly no trade relation with them. (Other than buying enriched Uranium for its nuclear power stations?) Did the Trump administration anticipate how this nonsense will explode in its face? It is Smoot-Hawley writ large.

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“If you don’t believe that what Donald Trump is trying to do on debt, budget, workforce, trade, then come up with a better agenda. And show why it will work and why his will fail..”

• Don’t Like Trump’s Plan for the Economy? Let’s Hear Yours (Victor Davis Hanson)

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’d like to talk about the economy and politics very quickly. Whether you like it or I like it or whether the administration likes it or whether the Congress or the American people like it, the success or failure of President Donald Trump will hinge on the status of the economy. It will overshadow the miraculous achievement on the border, where he went from a rate of about 2 million people a year to almost zero illegal immigration. It will even outrank the question of peace and stability in Ukraine or the Middle East. It’ll outrank everything. So, here’s my question. There is now outrage, hysteria over the last 24 hours to 48 hours that Donald Trump has outlined his tariff program to bring down the nearly $1 trillion trade deficit, and the stock market has taken hits.

So, here’s my question, though, when Sen. Cory Booker stands up for 25 hours, does he give an alternate agenda on the economy? Does Rep. Nancy Pelosi talk about the economy? She used to. Does The Wall Street Journal, when they criticize Donald Trump, why don’t they get a columnist and say, “These are the 10 points that are preferable in addressing our economic challenges”? Now, what are our economic challenges? Well, the first is debt. We owe $37 trillion. We’re paying $3 billion a day in interest. We’re running a $1.7 trillion deficit. So, if you were on the left and you were part of the machine that borrowed $7 trillion under President Joe Biden, created these huge new programs, why don’t you make an argument? Just say, “I believe in modern monetary theory. I believe, if we can just get down to 1% or 2% interest, you can service any debt because the bondholders, they’re wealthy anyway. So, that’s what we’ve been doing. And I don’t—I believe money’s a construct. It’s just an idea. So, there is no such thing as, you know, red or blue ink—any of that. So, just keep spending. There’s no problem—$37, $40 trillion.” Say that.

Or, if you’re on the right, say, “I prefer to look at the debt in a different way. If you’re going to cut, why select particular fraud, waste, and abuse areas? Why not just go across the board and treat everybody the same with a 4% or 5% or 10% cut?” Or, if you don’t believe in cutting government to reduce the debt, then say, “Let’s just go completely laissez-faire and let’s grow the economy so it’s growing at 4% or 5% gross domestic product. And it will solve the problem.” Or, if you’re in the middle and you’re an independent, why don’t you just say, “We had three balanced budgets. We were reducing the debt because former House Speaker Newt Gingrich controlled taxes and former President Bill Clinton controlled spending. And he was able to find an incentive plan to increase revenue and Bill Clinton decreased spending. OK? Why not we go back and follow their model?”

But the problem is none of these areas—right, center, and left—nobody in these disciplines is offering any alternative agenda. It’s just attack Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. Let’s go to trades. So, we have, again, about a trillion-dollar trade deficit. We haven’t had balanced trade for 50 years. Our opponents, challengers, allies, whatever you want to call them, feel that protected tariffs in China, in India, in Europe, in South Korea, in Japan have been very conducive to their economic miracle—postwar miracles. And they feel that there must be some wisdom in them because they continue to perpetuate them. They have not run deficits for a half-century. They’re not, in terms of GDP, debt, quite like we are. So, maybe you can argue that tariffs are just an American problem. An obsession. And they don’t really matter. Or you can say that we should have reciprocal tariffs based on each one. But tell us what you want to do.

Why don’t you just say that if you—and I have read this from scholars as diverse as the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute. This is just a construct, trade deficits, they don’t matter. Because the people, if they run up a surplus, they buy our bonds or they invest, and it’s a circular process—just say that. Or, if you believe that trade deficits matter, then you say, “Well, the answer is not through tariffs. It’s through greater productivity. And here’s how I want to do it.” But again, there’s nothing. And then we get, finally, into foreign investment. Donald Trump is bragging, I think justifiably so, that he may have $3 to $5 trillion in foreign investment. Nobody says a word about it. Nobody says this many trillion dollars will result in this many new jobs created. No, they just kind of ignore it. So, give us a reason why. Just say, “You know, the new massive amounts of foreign aid will have no effect on either our trade deficit or our budget deficit. It’s just a construct that Trump says.”

Or say that it will but it won’t nullify the pernicious effects of tariffs. But what I’m getting at, in conclusion, is what if Cory Booker had said, “I’m going to speak for 25 hours on why Donald Trump’s trade, debt, and federal workforce investment are all wrong. And here’s da, da, da, da”? Or what if House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “Here is our contract for America on the economy. The economy”? No one is giving any alternatives. No one is talking in any way that they have an antithetical and a better plan than Donald Trump. So, what we’re left with is just naysaying, nihilism, criticism. And the American people are confused. If you don’t believe that what Donald Trump is trying to do on debt, budget, workforce, trade, then come up with a better agenda. And show why it will work and why his will fail. But don’t just scream and yell and cause all hysteria and go to street theater because that’s no answer. It only amplifies the problem.

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Guess they can try.. But so could anyone.

• US Chamber of Commerce Considers Block on Trump’s New Import Tariffs (Sp.)

The US Chamber of Commerce, the country’s most powerful corporate lobby, is considering filing a lawsuit against the administration of US President Donald Trump to block the entry of new import tariffs into force, the Fortune magazine reported, citing sources familiar with the discussions of the lawsuit. The Chamber of Commerce may claim that Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs was illegal. According to the publication, some of the organization’s largest members are calling for the lawsuit. Sources also say that other organizations might join the lawsuit. The head of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk personally asked US President Donald Trump to reconsider new US tariffs on imports from a number of countries, the Washington Post reported, citing two sources.

According to the publication, over the weekend, when Elon Musk unleashed a stream of messages on social media criticizing one of the White House’s top advisers, trade aide Peter Navarro, for Trump’s aggressive tariff plan, he personally approached the president. The attempt, however, has not yet been successful: Trump on Monday threatened to add new 50% tariffs on imports from China on top of those already announced if Beijing did not abandon its retaliatory measures, the newspaper said. On Sunday, Musk announced his support for the creation of a free trade area with the EU, despite President Trump’s previously imposed trade tariffs against the union. The US President signed an executive order on April 2 introducing “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from other countries, calling it a “liberation.” The basic minimum rate will be 10%, and 20% for goods from the European Union. The US President promised budget revenue from tariffs of $6-$7 trillion.

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They have no idea what to do, zero consensus.. And all 27 of them will have to agree.

• EU Commission Eyeing 25% Tariffs on US Goods (Sp.)

The European Commission is proposing to impose reciprocal tariffs of up to 25% on a number of goods from the United States, in particular on clothing, yachts, fruit juices, nuts and diamonds, the RMF FM radio reported. Bourbon was excluded from the preliminary list after protests from France and Italy, which feared that the United States would impose 200% duties on wine, prosecco and champagne, the report said on Monday. EU countries are expected to vote on this proposal on Wednesday, the report added. However, the commission is still counting on negotiations with Washington, and it has proposed reciprocal zero tariffs on industrial products, including cars, the report read.

At the same time, French Minister Delegate for Europe Benjamin Haddad said that Paris is in favor of a tough response to the US tariffs and will support the European Commission’s decision to impose 25% tariffs on some US imports. On April 2, US President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on imports from other countries. For the UK the baseline rate of 10% was set. However for each country the tariff will be calibrated and will be half of what they charge companies importing US goods. Trump said this will be a “declaration of economic independence” for the United States. The EU is subject to 20% tariffs.

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Ursula von der Leyen is afraid of the White House.

• Von der Leyen Endorses Meloni As Main Tariff Negotiator (Sp.)

As the White House prepares to receive the Italian PM on April 17, Ursula von der Leyen believes Giorgia Meloni is the only EU leader who can facilitate dialogue with Trump, the WP reports, citing Italian officials. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen supports the upcoming visit of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to Washington and believes that she is the one who is capable of facilitating dialogue between the European Union and US President Donald Trump, The Washington Post newspaper reported, citing an Italian official. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump would receive Meloni in Washington on April 17.

“Von der Leyen is telling [Meloni] that if there’s one leader more in contact with the US, who’s capable of facilitating the conversation between the EU – not just Italy – and Trump, that’s her,” the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper on Tuesday. Von der Leyen was in favor of Meloni’s trip to Washington, the report added.

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“..returning to tariffs as the source of government revenues and abandoning the income tax. This is consistent with correct economics and with freedom. Such a change would be possibly the most important reform in American history.”

• The Tariff Issue (Paul Craig Roberts)

The tariff controversy is being colored in the most scary ways possible, because the Democrats, media, and ruling establishment want rid of Trump. It is also important to understand that tariffs are not the only way to limit imports. There are other means, such as quotas. Quotas on imports into the US of Japanese cars were part of the US auto producers bailout negotiated in the final year of the Carter administration. I will attempt to put the issue in a correct perspective. It is not Trump’s intention, at least at the present time, to institutionalize a tariff regime. Trump is using tariffs as a threat to secure agreements that he thinks are in America’s interests. So far 50 countries have, according to reports, agreed to remove their tariffs on US goods. The countries responding aggressively seem to be China and our European allies.

I explained yesterday how Trump could better have gone about his task. Nevertheless, as the Commerce Secretary said, Trump’s tariffs are not expected to extend beyond a few weeks or a few months of negotiation. During this time there could be supply disruptions. Apparently, Trump is aware and has released an 11-page appendix that exempts all sorts of imported items that US producers require to continue their operations. Whatever disruption does occur, should be small compared to the Covid lockdown supply disruption, the basic cause of the current inflation. The Covid disruption was pointless and counterproductive. The tariff disruption, if there is one, is the cost of establishing a fair and uniform trading system. So, Trump is not being arbitrary or on a rampage to destroy international trade. Tariff negotiations, especially with so many countries and products can go on for years.

Trump might think that he only has two years to get anything done before the Democrats steal the midterm elections and bring his renewal of America to a halt. President Trump has spoken of tariffs in a wider and much more important context. Over most of American history until the First World War, tariff revenues were the source of government revenues. An income tax was unconstitutional and a violation of freedom. The definition of a free person is a person who owns his own labor. A slave does not own his own labor, and a serf only owns part of his labor. A person required to pay an income tax does not own that part of his labor that he must provide to government in order to avoid imprisonment. The difference between a medieval serf and an American taxpayer is the serf paid the tax in kind as hours worked, and the American pays the tax in money as a percentage of his income.

Classical economists, real economists unlike the faux ones of today, understood that factors of production–labor and capital–should not be taxed, because the supply of both to the economy is reduced by taxation. Supply-side economics is based on this principle. Thus, its emphasis on lowering the marginal rates of taxation. Reducing the supply of factors of production, reduces the economic growth rate and the national income. The century that the US economy has labored under income tax has costs us substantially in lost income. The classical economists said that taxation should fall on consumption not on factors of production. Traditionally, imported items are finished goods–German cars, French wines and perfumes. High priced goods are for the wealthy, so tariffs fall on the rich. The working class does not indulge in Porsche cars and Clicquot champagne. However, for about 30 years much of our imports have consisted of the offshored production of US firms.

When Apple, for example, brings its products made in China to the US to be marketed, they come in as imports and worsen the US trade deficit. Instead of beating up on China, Trump should call the US corporations that offshore their production for US markets to a White House conference and point out to them the consequences of their policy: the shrinkage of the American middle class, the loss of tax base, decaying infrastructure, and loss population of America’s former manufacturing cities, the pressure on city and state pension systems, the pressure of lower ratings on municipal bonds. Trump should ask the executives if they went too far in maximizing profits that benefitted a relatively few at the expense of the many, and what they think they should do about it. Capitalism ceases to serve the general interest when it separates Americans from the incomes associated with the production of the goods and services that they consume.

Trump has spoken of returning to tariffs as the source of government revenues and abandoning the income tax. This is consistent with correct economics and with freedom. Such a change would be possibly the most important reform in American history. It would be a difficult reform to achieve, because ideological, not economic, considerations intervene. Taxing the rich became the agenda of mass democracy. Taxing the rich was not seen as punishing a person for being successful. A successful person was portrayed as having become rich by exploiting labor. As fortunes were “stolen” by exploiting labor or resulted from government preference or legal privilege, income taxation was perceived as an instrument of justice. It is certainly perceived that way today by the liberal/left and the Democrat Party.

As an income tax is emotionally satisfying to the liberal/left, we are stuck with slower economic growth and less national income. It is disturbing that the liberal/left agenda has made American politics so highly partisan. What we see today is literal hatred of Trump, Republicans, conservatives, and white heterosexuals by the liberal/left. Hatred makes democracy dysfunctional. Politics cannot function as each side is intent on destroying any achievement by the other side. As democracy ceases to function, dictatorship becomes the means of governance. The liberal/left’s agenda to remake America by destroying its roots and recasting it into a different kind of society means the death of democracy and the rise of dictatorship. This is our real problem.

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“Prime Minister Abe knew what President Trump was trying to achieve. In turn, President Trump knew Abe would remain a fierce Japan-first trade competitor to the America-first program..”

• President Trump Bestows Great Honor on Nation of Japan (CTH)

The decades long relationship between former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Donald Trump permeates through a recent announcement that Japan will be the first nation to enter the new era of trade negotiations with the United States. Shinzo Abe was assassinated in July 2022, as he traveled throughout Japan gaining support for increased national military development. As businessmen and later politicians Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe (RIP) had a decades long friendship grounded in mutual respect and competition. To understand the dynamic of President Trump giving the nation of Japan the position as the first nation to enter new trade negotiations, a high honor, is to understand the business relationship between the U.S and Japan in the post-World War II (40 yr) period between 1950 and 1990. The formative years for both Japanese industry and President Trump’s business empire.

For Europe the U.S. gave them money through the Marshall Plan, a process of one-way tariffs which helped them rebuild their nations. For Japan we gave them W Edwards Demming, an industrial engineer and extraordinarily brilliant mind in the processes of efficiency and industrial production. In essence, to generate the reindustrialization of both economies, we gave the EU a fish (money), but we taught Japan how to fish; how to be create and build exceptional industry. In the decades that followed, the EU rebuilt their capitalistic industrial base from the trade and tariff money we permitted them to exploit. The EU rebuilt from their historic systems, upgrading to newer industrial technology. Japan, however, learned deeper more technical skills from the Demming process of industrial capacity building, a critically strong excellence in quality manufacturing and attention to specific details in all processes.

It did not take long before the results of quality in design and Japanese manufacturing surfaced in the sector of automobiles, and later consumer electronics. The U.S. auto industry was slow to adapt to the Japanese quality focus and began losing market share to Toyota, Datsun, Nissan and Honda. Throughout this period, President Trump and Shinzo Abe were on opposite sides of the industrial competition. Trump railing about Japan, and later aggregate Asia exploiting our generosity; Abe smiling and joking with his friend that despite Trump’s grievances, tomorrow Eric will be purchasing 1,500 Sony televisions for his next Hotel. And so it went…. The friendship grew, the competition was intense but incredibly respectful, and both Shinzo Abe and Donald Trump became men of great influence whose partnership in competition was always visible.

Prime Minister Abe knew what President Trump was trying to achieve. In turn, President Trump knew Abe would remain a fierce Japan-first trade competitor to the America-first program. Tremendous respect and mutual admiration underpinned their geopolitical efforts. No single picture better exemplified the nature of Trump and Abe as the G7 summit picture taken in Canada as the ripple effects of Trump’s first-term trade and tariff program against China (mostly) started to hit the global economy. As China started to feel the pressure from President Trump forming new ASEAN partnerships, China started pulling back from ordering heavy industrial goods from Europe. The EU, specifically the German economy, felt the lessening of Chinese manufacturing via diminished orders. However, a respectful Japan positioned their trade agreements for benefit, but also for benefit of American workers.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe knew there was nothing to fear from President Trump’s global trade reset. Unless, that is, you were a nation taking unfair advantage of the generosity provided by America. It makes total sense in the big picture for President Trump to honor the legacy of Shinzo Abe, and the respectful connections to Japan by granting them the first position in the schedule of the global trade reset. Total sense.

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Musk’s private war with Navarro doesn’t define his relationship with Trump.

• Musk Wants Trump To Cancel Tariffs – WaPo (RT)

Elon Musk has made direct appeals to US President Donald Trump, urging him to reconsider his decision to impose steep tariffs on American trade partners, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. According to the outlet, many business and tech leaders who supported Trump’s candidacy have also criticized the move, calling it overly aggressive. Trump unveiled sweeping new tariffs on global imports last week, including a 34% duty on Chinese goods. In response, Beijing pledged to retaliate with a matching 34% tariff on American exports – prompting Trump to threaten an additional new 50% tariff. Over the weekend, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk – who serves as Trump’s government efficiency czar – fired off a series of social media posts criticizing White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, a central architect of the president’s aggressive tariff strategy.

“A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,” Musk wrote. Musk also reportedly reached out to Trump personally. The attempted intervention has so far failed to yield results, two people familiar with the matter told the Washington Post. As the head of Tesla, Musk has long viewed tariffs as harmful to the company’s goals, given that both the US and China serve as major manufacturing bases and key markets. Many business leaders who supported Trump’s candidacy were also frustrated by their inability to influence the policy and suggested that a basic 10% rate combined with negotiations with other countries would have been sufficient, according to the Post.

People close to Musk reportedly made direct appeals to allies within the Trump administration, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Musk himself, advocating for what they saw as more rational, pro-free-trade policies. One of Musk’s associates, investor Joe Lonsdale, posted on X that he had recently urged “friends in the administration” to reconsider, warning that tariffs would harm American companies more than Chinese ones. Over the weekend, a group of business leaders began organizing an informal coalition to lobby members of the Trump administration for more moderate trade policies, one person familiar with the effort told the Post. Trump has defended his actions, stating that “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” and promised that jobs and investment would return to the United States, making it “wealthy like never before.”

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They’re the big losers.

• Billionaires Slam Trump Tariffs (RT)

A host of American financiers and billionaire investors have criticized President Donald Trump over the sweeping tariffs he announced last week, calling the measures “poorly advised” and warning of serious consequences for the US economy. On April 2, Trump imposed a minimum 10% tariff on all imports and introduced “reciprocal” duties ranging from 11% to 50% on dozens of countries he accused of maintaining unfair trade imbalances. China responded with a reciprocal tariff of 34% on US imports, while a number of other nations signaled willingness to negotiate with Washington but threatened countermeasures if talks fail. Global markets have reacted sharply, with major indexes in the US, Europe, and Asia falling for three straight days.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon slammed the tariffs in his annual letter to shareholders, warning they “will probably increase inflation” and the risk of recession, with the negative effects difficult to reverse. Ken Langone, billionaire co-founder of retailer Home Depot, criticized the tariffs as too high and rushed. In an interview with the Financial Times published on Monday, he described the additional 34% tariff on China – on top of the existing 20% – as “too aggressive, too soon,” and called the 46% levy on Vietnam “bullshit.” “I don’t understand the goddamn formula,” Langone said, urging a more measured approach, such as a 10% across-the-board tariff with waivers negotiated on a case-by-case basis. He added that he expects Trump to eventually pursue talks with trade partners because “right now, what everybody’s terrified of is a tariff war.”

Hedge fund investor Stanley Druckenmiller, a close mentor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, posted a brief statement on X on Sunday: “I do not support tariffs exceeding 10%.” Billionaire investor Bill Ackman called the tariffs an “economic nuclear war” in a post on X. He called for a 10% flat tariff for “the privilege” of access to the US market but suggested pausing the reciprocal duties for 90 days to allow private negotiations. He lambasted Trump for relying on advisers for economic calculations, which he labeled incompetent. “The global economy is being taken down because of bad math,” he wrote.

Even tech mogul Elon Musk, Trump’s government efficiency czar, joined the criticism. He posted a series of comments on social media targeting White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, a key architect of the tariff plan, saying he “ain’t built sh*t” with the policy. Musk’s brother, Tesla board member Kimbal Musk, also condemned the tariffs, calling them a “structural, permanent tax on the American consumer.” Treasury Secretary Bessent said on Monday that Washington is open to “meaningful negotiations” in the coming weeks with trade partners, but only those who have responded “positively” to Trump’s tariffs. He criticized China for its response levies, accusing Beijing of “choosing to isolate itself by retaliating and doubling down on previous negative behavior.” China, in turn, described the new US tariffs as “economic bullying” and warned they could destabilize the entire global trade system.

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“..any tax proposals or initiatives Bessent may pursue would be aligned with “his full support for President Trump’s America First Economic Agenda.”

• Officials Quietly Drafting Plan To Cushion Trump Tariff Fallout – Bloomberg (RT)

US officials are exploring ways to mitigate the potentially harmful effects of the sweeping tariffs announced by President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing sources in Washington. The talks are reportedly being held without Trump’s knowledge and reflect internal unease over his shift in trade policy. Last week, Trump imposed a minimum 10% tariff on all imports and introduced “reciprocal” duties ranging from 11% to 50% on dozens of countries he accused of maintaining unfair trade imbalances. The new measures included an additional 34% duty on imports from China, on top of an existing 20% rate implemented earlier, and a 20% levy on goods from the EU, among others.

On Monday, Trump threatened to slap a further 50% tariff on all Chinese imports unless Beijing reverses the 34% hike it announced in response to the new US levies. A number of other countries have slammed Trump’s tariffs over the past few days and vowed to implement countermeasures. According to Bloomberg, Trump administration officials fear that retaliatory tariffs will damage US exports, hurting American firms trying to sell goods abroad. Sources said discussions are underway about a potential exporter tax credit, which would serve as a subsidy for US firms selling products and services overseas. The credit, which would require congressional approval, could be issued at the end of the year.

Officials are also reportedly weighing a credit for importers to shield US companies from rising costs when sourcing goods from countries affected by Trump’s tariffs. These measures would aim to soften the economic blow to both exporters and importers once the tariffs take full effect. Sources told Bloomberg that neither Trump nor Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been formally briefed on the deliberations, and the proposals have yet to receive full backing from the administration’s economic team. A Treasury spokesperson confirmed the discussions but stressed that any talk of “specific provisions” are “still early.” The spokesperson added that any tax proposals or initiatives Bessent may pursue would be aligned with “his full support for President Trump’s America First Economic Agenda.” The White House declined to comment on the report.

Trump’s tariffs and the threat of retaliation have raised fears of a global trade war. Several investment banks have raised their recession risk forecasts for both the US and global economies over the past week. Stock markets have been rattled, with major indexes in the US, Europe, and Asia all trading lower the past three days. Despite the criticism, Trump has defended the tariffs as essential to correcting trade imbalances. On Monday, he claimed on social media that the measures were working and delivering significant economic benefits to the US.

Read more …

$3,000 for an iPhone? Make a deal with India.

• Apple Staged Emergency iPhone Airlift From India (RT)

Apple transported five planeloads of iPhones and other devices from India to the US within a three-day period in late March, according to a report by the Times of India, quoting unnamed senior officials. The move was reportedly made to evade a new 10% reciprocal tariff introduced by US President Donald Trump, which came into effect on April 5. The company’s factories in India, China, and other key locations have shipped their products to the US in anticipation of higher tariffs, a source was quoted as saying in the report. The existing stock, which was imported at lower rates, will protect the company from higher costs for a while, until new shipments are made under the new tariffs, a source told the paper.

Although production has been partly shifted to Vietnam and India, the majority of iPhones are still manufactured in China. However, these countries are now facing tariffs as well, with Vietnam and India being hit with tariffs of 46% and 26%, respectively. Chinese products currently face a 34% import tax in the US. Apple is analyzing how different tariff structures across manufacturing locations will affect its supply chain, according to market watchers. Apple sells more than 220 million iPhones a year; its biggest markets include the US, China, and Europe, according to market data.

The cheapest iPhone 16 model was launched in the US at $799. This could now rise by 43% to $1,142. if Apple passes on the burden to consumers, Reuters said, citing calculations based on projections from analysts at Rosenblatt Securities. Apple currently does not plan to increase retail prices anywhere in the world, the Times of India added. Earlier today, a Wall Street Journal report said Apple is ramping up efforts to export more iPhones from India to the US in an attempt to mitigate the effects of the high tariffs on Chinese products imposed by Trump.

Read more …

The welcoming app to facilitate the entry of illegals.

• More Than 900k “Biden-App”Migrants Told to ‘Self-Deport’ (NYP)

The Department of Homeland Security is urging nearly 1 million asylum seekers who entered the US through the CBP One app to “immediately” begin to “self-deport.” “Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security,” a DHS spokesperson said, following anecdotal reports from migrants that they had been told to return to their countries of origin. The CBP One smartphone app launched in January 2023 and through December 2024 was used to admit more than 936,500 people claiming persecution in their homelands, according to DHS data. Users were granted permission to live and work for two years in the US as they awaited the outcome of often backlogged local immigration proceedings. “Formal termination notices have been issued, and affected aliens are urged to voluntarily self-deport using the CBP Home App. Those who refuse will be found, removed, and permanently barred from reentry,” the DHS spokesperson said.

President Joe Biden’s administration launched the app to tamp down record-high illegal border crossings, but congressional Republicans accused Biden of illegally exceeding the traditional “parole” authority, which they said could not be granted categorically. The Trump DHS spokesperson said: “The Biden Administration abused the parole authority to allow millions of illegal aliens into the US which further fueled the worst border crisis in US history.” Precise data about the number of people impacted by the move are unclear for a variety of reasons — including the fact that some may have already been granted asylum, while others may be shielded by additional legal protections. The CBP One app was launched with a goal of facilitating the orderly movement of would-be illegal border crossers into the US from northern Mexico. Although geared to nationalities such as Haitians and Venezuelans flocking to the southwest border, Mexicans and citizens of other countries could participate.

Migrants who entered the US as part of programs for Afghan and Ukrainian citizens are not impacted by the latest announcement, according to DHS. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem also is revoking parole for 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who flew to the US at their own expense with a financial sponsor — effective April 24. Additionally, the Trump administration is moving to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 600,000 Venezuelans and about 500,000 Haitians — though that effort is paused by litigation. TPS grants 18-month reprieves for residents of designated countries and can apply to all residents of a particular nationality living within the US at the time of the protection’s declaration.

Illegal US-Mexico border crossings have plummeted since Trump took office in January with pledges to launch the largest mass deportation campaign in American history. That drive initially has focused on migrants accused of committing crimes — with Trump coercing their home countries to accept deportation flights, while sending some to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and others to a mega-prison in El Salvador.

Read more …

If you can keep out the politics, their infrastructure may be useful…

• USAID Operations Rebooted in Several Crisis Zones (Sp.)

US President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk have repeatedly accused USAID of fraud, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agency had long “strayed from its original mission.” At least 6 previously terminated USAID programs are being revived for emergency food assistance funding in Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Jordan, Iraq, and Ecuador, Reuters reported. The move reportedly followed pressure from inside the administration and from Congress. US president Donald had previously frozen foreign aid and dismissed hundreds of USAID employees as part of DOGE-led efforts to slash federal programs and departments with little oversight, with Elon Musk calling labelling the agency a “criminal organization.” By bankrolling so-called civil society groups, USAID has long functioned as a covert enabler of American influence, sowing unrest and paving the way for regime change while packaging it all as “promoting democracy.”

Read more …

Turns out, he’s not (more powerful than) the president after all…

• Judge Boasberg Scraps Trump Hearing On Deportations After Scotus Ruling (JTN)

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Tuesday canceled a deportation hearing for the Trump administration after the Supreme Court ruled the U.S. could continue to carry out deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. The hearing was to determine whether Boasberg would change the temporary restraining order he issued last month to block those deportations into a longer preliminary injunction, according to ABC News. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Trump administration could use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected gang members of Tren de Aragua. The ruling overturns Boasberg’s March 15 order that temporarily blocked deportations under the wartime act, by granting the Trump administration’s request to vacate temporary restraining orders Boasberg placed on the order.

Miller

Read more …

“..his job isn’t to create policy—that duty belongs to the Executive Branch and Congress,” he said. “Instead, Judge Boasberg was charged with applying the relevant law to the facts of the case..”

• Legal Experts Sound Alarm On Judge Blocking Trump’s Deportations (DC)

As U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg continues to be a thorn in the side of the Trump administration’s effort to deport gangbangers, legal experts have begun to raise questions about his handling of the case. The Barack Obama-appointed judge in March blocked President Donald Trump from using wartime authorities to send suspected Tren de Aragua gangbangers to a mega-prison in El Salvador, prompting incredible pushback from the president himself. As the challenge to the deportations play out in court, some legal experts have argued Boasberg should recuse himself from the case entirely, while others say he appears to be “making policy from the bench.” Critics have pointed to the fact that Boasberg’s daughter, Katharine Boasberg, works for an organization whose founder openly celebrated her father’s decision to halt the deportations.

“Under Canon 3 (C) (1) of the ‘Code of Conduct for United States Judges’ it states that judges must disqualify themselves from a case ‘in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned,’” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Given that his daughter works directly for an organization that supports illegal aliens, opposes deportation of aliens, and has voiced its support for Boasberg’s action in this very case, the impartiality of his judgment is obviously open to be reasonably questioned.” “He should have recused himself given his immediate family’s involvement in advocacy for illegal immigration,” Spakovsky continued.

The debate began on March 15, when Trump officially invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a seldom-used wartime authority, to expeditiously arrest and deport Tren de Aragua gang members. Boasberg quickly issued a temporary block on the flights and ordered any deportation flights in the air to turn around. However, three planes carrying 238 suspected and confirmed Tren de Aragua gangbangers and 23 MS-13 gang members managed to land at the El Salvador International airport. The Trump administration immediately ripped Boasberg for the decision. “Tonight, a DC trial judge supported Tren de Aragua terrorists over the safety of Americans,” Attorney General Pam Bondi stated after Boasberg’s order. “This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk.”

In a court filing the following Monday, the Justice Department appealed the order and called for Boasberg to be reassigned. The administration further ripped the judge for “highly unusual and improper procedures” and accused the court of a “hasty public inquiry” into sensitive national security matters involving a criminal syndicate. “If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!” Trump posted on Truth Social. Questions over possible conflicts of interest arose after Boasberg’s family connections to a liberal organization surfaced. His daughter, Katharine, works for Partners in Justice, a nonprofit group based in New York City that provides client advocates to public defenders.

The group removed her biography from its website after Boasberg was assigned to the Alien Enemies Act case, according to the New York Post, but an archive of the page was saved. Before landing at Partners for Justice, Katharine worked at the Center for Justice Innovation, a left-wing organization that advocates for “racial justice” in the court system. Emily Galvin-Almanza, the founder and executive director of Partners in Justice, said Boasberg’s decision to block the wartime deportations was done “rightly” and she previously took to social media to rip the Laken Riley Act, a law mandating federal immigration authorities detain illegal migrants who commit theft-related crimes. The Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges makes clear that judges must recuse themselves from a case “in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” including instances when a child of a judge is “known by the judge to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”

However, there is debate over whether Boasberg fits this description. “Generally the employment of an adult child of a judge does not mandate recusal, even if the adult child is employed by a law firm representing a party in the case,” Richard Painter, a law professor for the University of Minnesota, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “However, if the adult child is at all involved in the representation of a party, recusal of the judge is generally required.” “Although nonprofits that don’t provide legal representation do not represent parties, I would apply the same rule,” Painter continued. “The involvement of an adult child’s employee in a matter is not sufficient grounds for recusal, but the involvement of the adult child herself is.”

Appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, Boasberg has since presided over a number of high-profile court cases over the years, including those involving the Trump administration. In addition to the Alien Enemies Act case, the 62-year-old judge is also ruling over a lawsuit challenging top government officials’ use of Signal to discuss sensitive military operations in Yemen. Boasberg ripped the administration for allowing the deportation flights on March 15 to continue on to their destination in El Salvador, ostensibly in defiance of his order, and has demanded the DOJ answer a litany of questions regarding the flights. The administration has pointed out the judge’s written order didn’t get released until after the flights were already over international waters. While hesitant to declare whether Boasberg has any conflicts of interest in the deportation case, Matt O’Brien, a former immigration judge, questioned the immense scope of his ruling.

“The real problem with Judge Boasberg’s ruling isn’t any kind of bias. Rather, it is that, in this particular case, he rendered a decision which appears to have been intended to effectuate a specific policy outcome,” O’Brien, who now serves as Director of Investigations for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “However, his job isn’t to create policy—that duty belongs to the Executive Branch and Congress,” he said. “Instead, Judge Boasberg was charged with applying the relevant law to the facts of the case. Rather than doing his job he engaged in judicial activism (making policy from the bench).” Similar to O’Brien, the administration and other Republicans have voiced consternation over the level of authority a single district court judge is able to wield over an entire administrative branch of government.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a top ally of the president, introduced legislation in March that calls for limiting federal court orders to parties directly before the court. If passed and signed into law, such a move would essentially squash universal injunctions and rein in the scope of judicial activism. The desire to see such reforms in the judiciary appears to be quite high within the GOP. Grassley’s bill, which was very recently introduced, already touts more than 20 co-sponsors in the upper chamber. “And by engaging in such behavior, Judge Boasberg intruded upon powers that the Constitution and the Immigration and Nationality Act very clearly assigned to the Executive Branch,” O’Brien said. “That upends our system of checks and balances and throws the whole machinery of government off kilter.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Jesus

85 million

Cancer
https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1909374230585635102

DMSO

Pasta

3D cube
https://twitter.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1909527032414757129

Capy

Ripley

Puddle

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle July 23 2023

Jul 232023
 
 July 23, 2023  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  79 Responses »


Andy Warhol Ingrid Bergman 1983

 

• Zelensky Carries Out ‘Polonization’ Of Ukraine – Duma Speaker (TASS)
• Russia on the Grain Deal at the UN Security Council (Combate)
• Kiev Used Grain Deal To Stock Up On Military Supplies – Russia (RT)
• West Driven By “Impotent Rage” – Moscow (RT)
• China Overtaking US – Orban (RT)
• Western Firms Reluctant To Pull Out Of Russia Despite Sanctions – Orban (TASS)
• Washington Becoming Weary of Zelensky’s Never-Ending Demands For Aid (Sp.)
• Japan Doesn’t Want to Fight for Taiwan and Neither Do Other US Allies (Sp.)
• Lockheed Martin Predicts Strong Profits as Global Instability Rises (LI)
• Hunter Biden Expected To Face Up To 10 Criminal Referrals (ZH)
• New BRICS Currency Boosts Gold & Destroys Dollar – Jim Rickards (USAW)
• Tyranny of the Minority (Turley)
• The Downfall of Blobism (Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Running out

 

 

Ted Nugent
https://twitter.com/i/status/1682755010566803457

 

 

 

 

He says $200 Billion.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1682824375056187393

 

 

Kolakusic
https://twitter.com/i/status/1682649222607261697

 

 

 

 

No Sane Person Goes to War against Russia (Military Textbook Ch. 1 Par. 1) | Dmitry Orlov

 

 

Macgregor: NATO is an Appendage of Globalist Foreign Policy

 

 

 

 

Will he give it away before they come take it?

• Zelensky Carries Out ‘Polonization’ Of Ukraine – Duma Speaker (TASS)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is carrying out “polonization” of Ukraine in hopes that this would allow him to stay in power for longer, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on his Telegram channel. “Zelensky is carrying out a process of polonization [capture of Ukraine by Poland – TASS] of his country, hoping that, in return, his masters [Washington and Brussels – TASS] will allow him to stay in power for longer,” he said. To that extent, a law was adopted that effectively equals Poles to Ukrainians, providing them with the same set of rights – stay without permission, employment, education, medical service and even some allowances, the official added.

According to Volodin, Ukrainians are being expelled from their homes in Sumy and Chernigov regions, which border Russia, as the authorities seek to replace them with Polish migrants, loyal to the neo-Nazi regime. Ukrainian citizens are also being forced to use Polish language instead of Russian; orthodox Christianity is being persecuted, with Ukrainians being converted to Catholicism, the Duma Speaker underscored. “Meanwhile, a 25-thousand military force comprised mostly of Polish and Lithuanian armed soldiers, ready to occupy Western Ukraine, has been established. The Poles want to take back what they consider their historic lands – the Eastern Borderlands. They do not need Ukrainian citizens on these territories,” Volodin noted.

He stated that, according to the ideology of Washington and Brussels, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian people must die at the frontline (with growing amounts of weapons being shipped to Ukraine to that extent), while the rest must lose their national identity. In order to meet this goal, “Poland’s imperial ambitions” are being used. “Washington and Brussels will continue waging the war until the last Ukrainian,” Volodin concluded.

Read more …

Twitter thread. More land given away:

“..the owners of a significant part of Ukrainian arable land (more than 17 million hectares) are Western corporations Cargill, DuPont and Monsanto.”

Did they pay Zelensky personally?

• Russia on the Grain Deal at the UN Security Council (Combate)

“Most of you expressed, in one way or another, disappointment at the termination of the so-called grain deal that provided for exports of Ukrainian grain to global markets. I have a question to you. What was it that you expected? From the very start, we have been drawing everyone’s attention to the fact that the initiative did not meet the initially proclaimed goal and was gaining a well-defined commercial nature. In fact, from the very beginning, developed countries have taken the lead among those buying food from Ukraine. However, no steps were taken to remedy this trend. During the Black Sea Initiative, a total of 32.8 million tonnes of cargo was exported, of which more than 70% went to high- and upper-middle-income countries, including the European Union. The poorest states, notably Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Somalia, accounted for less than 3%…


Such geography and commercialization of an initially humanitarian initiative is easily explained by the fact that the owners of a significant part of Ukrainian arable land (more than 17 million hectares) are Western corporations Cargill, DuPont and Monsanto. They bought up Ukrainian land after Kiev lifted a 20-year moratorium on its sale at the request of the IMF and became the main beneficiaries of Ukrainian grain exports. On the other hand, the Europeans who buy Ukrainian food at dumping prices then process it at home and resell as ready-to-consume goods with high added value. In other words, they earn twice. What does this have to do with the task of getting food delivered to the poorest countries, about which we have heard again today?”

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“A large number of Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries have also been stationed in the areas protected under the deal..”

• Kiev Used Grain Deal To Stock Up On Military Supplies – Russia (RT)

Ukraine has used the Black Sea grain deal to accumulate sizable military and fuel supplies, Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyansky told the organization’s Security Council (UNSC) on Friday. EU nations have also exploited the agreement to reap profits from cheap Ukrainian food products, he said. Since the UN-facilitated deal was introduced a year ago, “the Kiev regime has built up significant military and industrial [supplies], as well as fuel… storage capacities in the areas near its Black Sea ports,” the diplomat said during a UNSC meeting convened after Russia’s decision to withdraw from the agreement.

A large number of Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries have also been stationed in the areas protected under the deal, he said, adding that Russia could “remedy this situation” now that it has left the deal. The Ukrainian military did not hesitate to use the humanitarian corridors reserved for the grain shipments to launch attacks on the Russian military and civilian targets, Polyansky said, adding that neither the UN nor Western nations had reacted to such attacks in any way. “Do you just want us to put up with it?” asked the envoy. The Russian military repeatedly reported on Ukrainian attempts to strike targets in Crimea with both aerial and naval drones, which were mostly thwarted by Russian defense systems.

In May, Moscow stated that the Ukrainian forces had taken advantage of the grain corridors to stage attacks on Crimea. The deal itself, which was initially touted as a humanitarian initiative aimed at helping the poorest nations to avoid a food crisis, was ultimately “commercialized” by the West, Polyansky said. “Europeans, who buy Ukrainian food products at give-away prices, then process them and re-sell them as manufactured goods with high added value,” he continued, adding that EU nations are “benefiting twice” from the deal. “Tell me, where is the goal of providing the poorest nations with food here?” he asked.

Moscow has repeatedly stressed that only a tiny percentage of the grain exported from Ukraine as part of the agreement has been shipped to such nations, while the bulk of it has ended up in Europe. On Friday, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto also stated that “95% of exported Ukrainian grain does not go to Africa.” He blamed this for rising food prices on the continent, which were “destabilizing regions that are already in difficulty.” The US Department of Agriculture also said in its July report that almost half of all Ukrainian wheat exports ended up in the EU after the grain deal was struck. Türkiye imported almost a quarter of Ukraine’s wheat over the same period, and only roughly one-fifth went to the “rest of the world,” the report showed.

Read more …

“Western leaders are suffering from “megalomania and inferiority complex” at the same time, which is a “dangerous mix..”

• West Driven By “Impotent Rage” – Moscow (RT)

The geopolitical decisions of the US and its allies are being dictated by “impotent rage” over the West’s dwindling influence on the global stage, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has stated. Following his meeting with members of the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund in Moscow on Friday, Ryabkov was asked to comment on this week’s hearing at the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, during which some participants suggested that the strengthening of Russia’s ties with Africa was a result of mistakes committed by Washington. In response, the deputy foreign minister broadly criticized the policies pursued by the US and its allies on the international arena, suggesting that the Western countries have been “making one mistake after another.”


“Their path over the past few years is a path of mistakes and suffering – suffering from their own deficiency in international affairs – from their inability to combine their ambitions, their high expectations that everybody around should obey them, with what they see in reality,” he argued. Ryabkov went on to describe the West’s behavior on the international stage as being driven by “impotent rage.” The diplomat said he senses “deep geopolitical volatility and offendedness” in the decisions made by the US and its allies. Western leaders are suffering from “megalomania and inferiority complex” at the same time, which is a “dangerous mix,” Ryabkov stressed.

Read more …

“..today, instead of American dominance, there are two suns in the sky..”

• China Overtaking US – Orban (RT)

The world is facing the biggest power shift in decades, with the US poised to lose its leading position to China, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday. This could result in a major conflict between Washington and Beijing unless the US accepts that it cannot be the “winner” forever, he warned. “[China] has become a manufacturing powerhouse and is now overtaking America,” Orban said in his annual speech in the town of Baile Tusnad in Romania’s Eastern Transylvania. In just 30 years, China has undergone the industrial revolution that took the West around three centuries, the Hungarian prime minister said, adding that America is about to say ‘goodbye’ to its status as the world’s only superpower.

Beijing is also challenging the values Washington seeks to portray as universal, Orban said. China considers American values to be a “hostile ideology,” he said, adding that “there is some truth in it.” Such a development would certainly not sit well with Washington, which will want to remain “on top of the world” forever, Orban warned. He said attempts to challenge existing hegemony had led to major conflict on multiple occasions in human history. “There are no eternal winners and eternal losers,” he added. A conflict between the two great powers is likely but not unavoidable, the Hungarian leader believes. The world needs to find a new balance, and the two opposing parties should recognize each other as equals, he said.

Major nations have to “accept that, today, instead of American dominance, there are two suns in the sky,” Orban added. He also painted a grim picture of Europe’s future by saying it’s about to lose its dominant position in the global economy. Orban blamed the West’s anti-Russian policies for this development. The EU is already “rich but weak,” he said, adding that it would further lose its competitive advantages as a result of its determination to impose sanctions on Russia. The idea that Russia can be separated from the world economy through various restrictions is an “illusion,” he warned. The EU has already witnessed the results of its erroneous decisions, Orban said, adding that “others buy Russian energy instead of us, and we pay more for energy than ever before.”

According to Orban, the UK and Italy would drop out of the world’s top ten economies, and Germany would fall to 10th place, down from its current fourth position. A significant part of the European economy is still linked to Russia despite all the rhetoric about sanctions, he said. Hungary has emerged as one of the major critics of Western policies amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Budapest has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and peace deal in Ukraine, and has criticized the EU for sending arms to Kiev. In June, Orban told the German tabloid Bild that a Ukrainian victory on the battlefield was “impossible.” Hungary has also insisted that anti-Russia sanctions are hurting Europe more than they hurt Russia.

Read more …

“..the European Union countries had annually paid about 300 billion euros for oil and gas, whereas they paid 653 billion euros last year..”

• Western Firms Reluctant To Pull Out Of Russia Despite Sanctions – Orban (TASS)

Western companies are not willing to leave Russia despite the sanctions, as they understand that Russia’s economy will still remain part of the global one, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday in his speech at the Free University and the summer student camp in the Romanian town of Baile Tusnad (Harghita County) in Transylvania. The prime minister said that, according to his information, 88% of pharmaceutical, 79% of mining, 70% of energy and 77% of other European industrial companies that were operating in Russia at the beginning of 2022 were still staying in the country. “Of the 1,400 major Western companies, only 8.5% have left Russia,” said Orban, whose speech was aired by Hungarian television channel M1. According to the prime minister, foreign companies paid $3.5 billion to the Russian budget in 2022.


The prime minister said that there is an attempt to “disconnect Russia” from the European economy through sanctions in order to exert political pressure on Moscow. However, he is convinced that this will not have the desired effect, since Russia’s economy is intertwined with the rest of the world, including in the energy sector. “Somebody else is buying Russian raw materials, while we are suffering from military inflation and losing our competitiveness,” he said. Orban pointed out that before sanctions were imposed on Russia, the European Union countries had annually paid about 300 billion euros for oil and gas, whereas they paid 653 billion euros last year. Europe will not be able to compete with the rest of the world as long as energy supplies are twice as expensive as they used to be, Orban believes.

Read more …

“..while also deciding to view Zelensky at ground level instead atop a pedestal.”

• Washington Becoming Weary of Zelensky’s Never-Ending Demands For Aid (Sp.)

American officials are growing tired of the demands that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to make with regard to Western support for Kiev, Douglas MacKinnon, a former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon, wrote in an opinion piece for a US media outlet. MacKinnon pointed out in his Saturday article for The Hill, citing sources, that US President Joe Biden “lashed out” at Zelensky in June 2022, yelling that the Ukrainian leader “should be showing more gratitude for the billions in aid he was getting from the United States via the American people.” Asked about Zelensky’s never-ending demands for US aid, a former high-level Pentagon official told MacKinnon that Western support is not infinite.

“Zelensky is acting like a spoiled, petulant child who gets everything he wants and it’s still not enough. Many in the U.S. government and many of our citizens are growing tired of his act. I can assure you he is burning bridges in Europe as well. There is only so much money and good will to go around,” the former Pentagon official said. MacKinnon emphasized that more and more Americans are becoming unsupportive of the continued US aid to Kiev and this trend is likely to grow, “as the American people take a harder look at the horrific consequences of the war while also deciding to view Zelensky at ground level instead atop a pedestal.”

Earlier this week, media reported that Washington was planning to announce a new package of military assistance for Ukraine worth up to $400 million. The new package, which could be announced as early as next week, could include artillery munitions, air defense missiles and ground vehicles for Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive. Earlier this month, the US Defense Department announced a new security assistance package to Kiev worth $1.3 billion that for the first time included 155mm cluster artillery rounds.

Read more …

Japan risks becoming both the rock and the hard place.

• Japan Doesn’t Want to Fight for Taiwan and Neither Do Other US Allies (Sp.)

Despite Japan bolstering its military capabilities under the nation’s new Defense Buildup Program, it appears to have zero appetite to engage in direct confrontation with China over Taiwan, Western media and think tanks say. US military facilities in Okinawa, Japan, might play a central role in any Taiwan crisis, according to the Western press. Moreover, American military analysts have almost unanimously agreed that Japan is “the most likely US ally to contribute troops” in a potential US conflict with China over the island. Back in October 2021, War on the Rocks, a US online media outlet, quoted a Japanese poll which appeared to indicate that 74% of respondents would support their government’s military engagement in the Taiwan Strait against China.

The report further speculated about the possibilities of circumventing the country’s Constitution, which limits Japan’s ability to participate in conflicts. Bold statements made by some Japanese officials also seemed to confirm Tokyo’s resolve. One of them, former Minister of Defense Yasuhide Nakayama, insisted in June 2021 that Taiwan is a “red line” and that “we have to protect Taiwan as a democratic country.” Japan and Taiwan are geographically close and any possible military actions over the island could potentially affect Japan’s Okinawa prefecture, Nakayama argued at the time. The People’s Republic of China, which considers Taiwan its inalienable part, has repeatedly stated that it is going to reunite with the island peacefully, referring to years of fruitful collaboration with the former Taiwanese government formed by members of Kuomintang Party.

The Kuomintang can make a spectacular comeback during the Taiwanese general elections, scheduled for January 2024. The party’s victory could nip the fuss around Taiwan’s secessionism and potential conflict in the bud. Even US lawmakers admit it, considering the Kuomintang’s win a potential “threat” to Washington’s plans in the Asia-Pacific. [..] The unfolding situation has apparently given shivers to the Japanese leadership. The Wall Street Journal broke on Monday that the Japanese government is ready to give permission to the US to use bases in Japan in the case of conflict over Taiwan, but Tokyo’s own participation is unlikely. Per the report, Washington invited Tokyo to consider using its Self-Defense Forces, especially the Maritime Self-Defense Force for hunting for Chinese submarines around the island of Taiwan and for other military missions.

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What Ukraine is really about.

• Lockheed Martin Predicts Strong Profits as Global Instability Rises (LI)

Lockheed Martin believes global instability is driving demand and sees an increase in annual profits. Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine has caused an increase in arms spending among NATO members, boosting weapons makers’ stock prices. On Tuesday, Lockheed raised its annual profit and sales outlook on strong demand for military equipment. After making the announcement, the company’s stock price increased by one percent. Reuters reports, “[Lockheed] expects full-year net sales to be between $66.25 billion and $66.75 billion, up from its earlier forecast of $65 billion to $66 billion.”

The billions in profit are driven by sales of big-ticket systems like the F-35. However, Lockheed has struggled to produce F-35s that can perform its promised abilities. In May, the government found the planes’ engines have a serious problem dealing with heat. “The F-35’s engine lacks the ability to properly manage the heat generated by the aircraft’s systems,” POGO reported. “That increases the engine’s wear, and auditors now estimate the extra maintenance will add $38 billion to the program’s life-cycle costs.” The arms maker has additionally experienced a boost in demand for smaller systems, like the Javelin anti-tank missile. The White House has shipped thousands of Javelin systems to Kiev since Joe Biden took office.

As well as predicting future success, Lockheed announced it beat expectations regarding quarterly sales. According to Reuters, “Quarterly net sales rose 8.1% to $16.69 billion, beating expectations of $15.92 billion.” Last year, Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, described the surge in the market for weapons as the highest since the Cold War. “This is certainly the biggest increase in defense spending in Europe since the end of the Cold War,” he said. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lockheed’s stock price traded below $340 a share, the price increased to over $450 within a few months. On Thursday, Lockheed’s stock was valued at $456 per sale.

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How do you keep Joe out of the story?

• Hunter Biden Expected To Face Up To 10 Criminal Referrals (ZH)

The Chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, James Comer (R-KY), says he plans to file “between six and 10 criminal referrals” against Hunter Biden once his committee finishes its investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings. According to the NY Post, the charges would include sex trafficking a woman across state lines for prostitution. “The Democrats kept saying, ‘Oh, we don’t have any evidence. You don’t have any evidence.’ Well, [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene] showed them evidence,” Comer told Fox Business in an interview, referring to a sexually graphic image printed on a poster from Hunter Biden’s laptop, in which he’s stuffing his manhood into a prostitute’s mouth who was allegedly paid for with company funds.

“She showed them evidence of the president’s son committing a crime, violating the Mann Act,” said Comer, adding “She showed the plane tickets, she showed the pictures, she showed the evidence. You know, there’s no question he violated it. That’s another thing that he could have been charged with.” Comer also said that the referrals could include violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). “He was money laundering,” said Comer. “He was racketeering. He committed wire fraud. He violated the Mann Act. The list goes on and on and on.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Thursday released an unclassified FBI document in which a confidential human source lays out an alleged bribery scheme involving Joe and Hunter Biden, in which a Ukrainian gas giant, Burisma, hired Hunter to gain access to his then-VP father. “The House Oversight Committee previously issued a subpoena to obtain the document, with which FBI Director Christopher Wray did not comply. Though he ultimately permitted the committee members to view the FD-1023 in a secure location, the contents remained unpublished until Grassley’s Thursday release. The document shows that the bureau had a trusted source privy to Burisma’s efforts to quash a probe from then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and its plans to expand to the U.S. and secure a company for IPO purposes. -Just the News

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“You don’t need dollars and you don’t need gold. You just need to be smart enough to anchor your currency to gold..”

• New BRICS Currency Boosts Gold & Destroys Dollar – Jim Rickards (USAW)

Seven-time, best-selling financial author James Rickards predicted in his most recent best-seller called “Sold Out” why broken supply chains would cause big inflation. He was right, and he still contends, “Supply chain problems and inflation are not over.” For an example of the supply chain still being in fragile shape, look no further than the failed grain deal between Ukraine and Russia last week. Rickards points out, “Putin has been very patient about this. He had a deal. Ukraine was not living up to their end of the deal. Putin says we are the ones getting attacked, so, screw the deal. What’s that going to do to the price of grain? It’s going to send grain prices up, and it’s already up 10% just in a matter of days.”

This brings us the new BRICS gold-weighted currency (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) that might be announced in the middle to the end of next month. Rickards calls one unit of currency a “BRIC.” This is a competitor to the U.S. dollar, but Rickards says, “It’s not a reserve currency. . . .I think it may be 8 grams of gold to one “BRIC” (currency), but I don’t know. What I do know is it does not matter. What does matter is they are going to anchor it to a weight of gold. . . . It’s NOT redeemable in gold, it is anchored to it. . . . Let’s says a “BRIC” is worth one ounce of gold. Today that is $1,970 per ounce, except the “BRIC” is NOT anchored to the dollar. It is anchored to gold, which stands in the middle of this equation.

So, the dollar price of gold is going to be going up and down all the time, which means the dollar/“BRIC” exchange rate is going to be going up and down all the time. They don’t have to defend the “BRIC.” They have gold, but they don’t have to back it up with gold. . . . They actually don’t need any gold. . . . If you have made your currency anchored to gold . . . do you want the price to go up or down? You want the price of gold to go up because that means the “BRIC” is worth more dollars, and the dollar is crashing. It’s a way to destroy the dollar. You don’t need dollars and you don’t need gold. You just need to be smart enough to anchor your currency to gold, and when dollar inflation starts to go up, your currency is going to be worth more because of how you pegged it, not to dollars, but how you pegged it to gold.”

Rickards goes on to say, “So, if I were a BRICS member, and I were Russia in particular, and I had this currency tied to gold, and I wanted my currency to be more valuable and your currency (U.S. dollar) less valuable, one of the ways to do that is mess with the supply chain and drive up the price of oil, gasoline, grain . . . which drives up pork prices and chicken prices, and the list goes on. That’s one way to do it.” Rickards also talks about deflation this year and big inflation coming after that. Rickards is predicting big inflation coming for people using dollars, and with his track record, you would be a fool to bet against his analysis.

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“I shall resist any illegal federal court order.”

• Tyranny of the Minority (Turley)

“I shall resist any illegal federal court order.” When “the Court’s interpretation of the Constitution is egregiously wrong,” the president should refuse to follow it. Those two statements were made roughly 60 years apart. The first is from segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace (D). The second was made by two liberal professors this month. In one of the most chilling developments in our history, the left has come to embrace the authoritarian language and logic of segregationists in calling for defiance and radical measures against the Supreme Court. In a recent open letter, Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet and University of San Francisco political scientist Aaron Belkin called upon President Joe Biden to defy rulings of the Supreme Court that he considers “mistaken” in the name of “popular constitutionalism.”

Thus, in light of the court’s bar on the use of race in college admissions, they argue that Biden should just continue to follow his own constitutional interpretation. The use of the affirmative action case is ironic, since polls have consistently shown that the majority of the public does not support the use of race in college admissions. Indeed, even in the most liberal states, such as California, voters have repeatedly rejected affirmative action in college admissions. Polls further show that a majority support the Supreme Court’s recent decisions. So despite referenda and polls showing majority support for barring race in admissions, academics are pushing to impose their own values, regardless of the views of the public or of the courts.

However, even if these measures were popular, it would not make them right. It is precisely what segregationists such as Sen. James Eastland (D-Miss.) argued, that “all the people of the South are in favor of segregation. And Supreme Court or no Supreme Court, we are going to maintain segregated schools.” Tushnet and Belkin cite with approval Biden’s declaration that this is “not a normal Supreme Court.” Biden’s view of normalcy appears to be a court that agrees with his fluid view of constitutional law, by which he can forgive roughly a half of trillion dollars in loans or impose a national eviction moratorium without a vote of Congress.

Tushnet and Belkin know their audience. Biden has previously evinced little respect for the Constitution or the courts. Take the eviction case. In an earlier decision, a majority of justices had declared that Biden’s actions were unconstitutional, confirming what many of us had said for months. Even after the majority declared it unconstitutional, Biden wanted to reissue the national moratorium. White House counsel and most scholars told him the move would be blatantly unconstitutional and defy the express ruling of the court. Instead, he consulted the only law professor willing to tell him what he wanted to hear and did it anyway. It was quickly again declared unconstitutional.

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Good point:

“..who would even want to win the support of such vile creatures as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jerrold Nadler, and Adam Schiff, let alone be associated with them in the same club?”

• The Downfall of Blobism (Kunstler)

You might not know it these lazy, hazy, muggy days of midsummer, but things are getting pretty wildly out-of-hand in our republic. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. blew up the Democratic Party yesterday in the House Subcommittee on Weaponization of Government hearing, acting like a normal human while being set upon by a flock of harpies desperately screeching “Russia, Russia, Russia,” as if that means anything anymore. He branded them as worse than the McCarthyites of the 1950s, rebuked their insane scurrilities supporting censorship, and left them in a state of exhausted disgrace.

It happens that he is running for the nomination of that very party knocking itself out to destroy him. To win that prize he would have to put a thousand top Democrats through some grueling act of repentance and contrition — and then you’ve got to ask yourself: who would even want to win the support of such vile creatures as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jerrold Nadler, and Adam Schiff, let alone be associated with them in the same club?

Elsewhere around the scene this week, we have the ever more degenerate antics of the FBI on view as whistleblowers pour out of the woodwork disclosing the rot behind Director Chris Wray and his boss AG Merrick Garland. This Deep State Blob of turpitude has been growing and festering with so many overlapping cover-ups that they’ve run out of rugs to sweep their crimes under. The massive moneygrubbing misdeeds of Hillary Clinton from Skolkovo and Uranium One beat a direct path through the Ukraine coup of 2014, to RussiaGate, to the Biden Family’s global influence-peddling operation and every mendacious act in-between including the FISA falsehoods, the J-6 entrapment caper, hundreds of malicious and deceitful prosecutions, the Covid-19 fraud, the censorship and medical tyranny, and God-knows how many ensuing deaths from a poisonous vaccine… and now, a brain-dead government trifling with nuclear war.

And whose brilliant idea was it, anyway, to install this disgusting and incompetent grifter, “Joe Biden,” as our head-of-state? They surely knew well before 2019 that his bag-man son was rooting out bribes in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere, at the same time he was consorting with whores and trafficked children while destroying his brain with crack and downing a fifth of vodka a day. And you’re telling me that the CIA and FBI did not know about any of this, even before October 2019 when Hunter’s laptop stuffed with graphic evidence fell into their hands? If they didn’t know any of this, then what’s the point of having an intel community?

My guess is that it was Barack Obama’s idea to stick “Joe Biden” in the White House in the vain effort to use this captive criminal to stave off any accounting for the aforesaid villainies that occurred during Mr. Obama’s two terms. The mission was originally Hillary Clinton’s — she had plenty at stake herself — but she botched the job in 2016 and allowed the Golden Golem of Greatness to slip into power. It is amazing to look back and see how the mighty Blob congealed after that election — like a giant rogue macrophage — to surround and eliminate Mr. Trump, who apparently did not know for many months what he was up against: the entire permanent bureaucracy.

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Burton

 

 

 

 

Russ/Gore

 

 

Nanny cam

 

 


saharan dust, a mineral dust from the sahara desert, under the microscope. the dust particles contain sodium, manganese, aluminum, silicon, iron, cobalt, copper, potassium, sulfur and calcium. saharan dust provides marine bacteria and phytoplankton with important nutrients.

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 22 2023

Jan 222023
 
 January 22, 2023  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Joseph Mallord William Turner The Fifth Plague of Egypt 1800

 

• Six More Classified Documents Discovered At Biden House (ZH)
• DOJ Seizes More Classified Docs From Biden’s Wilmington Home (Fox)
• Joe Biden Took Classified Documents Home When He Was a Senator (CTH)
• World Moving Closer To ‘Irreversible’ Disaster – Chomsky (RT)
• Ukraine – Russian Army Activates Southern Front (MoA)
• Fighting Russia ‘Very, Very Difficult’ For Ukraine – Gen. Milley (RT)
• Russian Casualties In Ukraine Have Hit 188,000 – US Intel (Az.)
• US Attempts To Seek Latin America’s Russian Arms Supplies To Kiev (TASS)
• Duma Speaker Warns Of Powerful Retaliation For Weapons Supplies To Kiev (TASS)
• Russians’ Level Of Trust In Putin Exceeds 78% (TASS)
• Twitter Lost 80% Of Its Workforce Under Elon Musk (Az.)
• Twitter Files Prove America Headed for ‘Totalitarian State Territory’ (ET)
• EU Car Sales Collapse – Industry Body (RT)
• GMC Blinks First: Regulator Declines to Investigate Dr Aseem Malhotra (DS)
• Japan Declares It Will Handle COVID-19 Like a Seasonal Flu (GP)

 

 

 

 

The Year of the Tiger has given way to the Year of the Rabbit.

 

 

German MP

 

 

Dowd

 

 

 

 

Scott Adams
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616949618725781506

 

 

 

 

Well, more docs. And more obfuscation. Whereas Trump’s home was raided, Biden is said to have ”offered access to his home” (after more than 2 months. Lots of write-ups, here are two. I went to the CNN homepage, crickets.

BTW, it’s not “Six More Classified Documents”, but “six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials”. Yes, that could mean 1000 documents.

• Six More Classified Documents Discovered At Biden House (ZH)

The Department of Justice found “six items consisting of documents with classification markings” during a Friday search of President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, according to a Saturday statement by the president’s personal lawyers. Also found were notes from Biden’s time as a Senator, as well as his tenure as Vice President, according to a statement from Biden attorney Bob Bauer, which strategically leads with ‘we’ve fully cooperated!’ The search lasted from 9:45 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Friday, during which members of Biden’s personal legal tam were present along with members from the Office of the White House counsel, according to the statement. The DOJ also took materials “for further review.” The new documents mark the latest development in the scandal involving classified documents found at non-authorized locations used by Biden. The first batch of papers was discovered in early November, the day before midterm elections, at the Penn Biden Center. More documents marked classified were found at his Wilmington, Delaware home in December – and then earlier this month, an additional batch of papers was found at the home. “

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Department officials earlier considered having FBI agents monitor a search by Mr. Biden’s lawyers for classified documents at his homes but decided against it, both to avoid complicating later stages of the investigation and because Mr. Biden’s attorneys had quickly turned over a first batch and were cooperating, the Journal reported this week. Some law enforcement officials had discussed the possibility of asking Mr. Biden’s team for consent to have the FBI search the property themselves. Officials didn’t immediately take that step in part to preserve their freedom to take a tougher line later, including by executing a search warrant, the Journal reported. Instead, the two sides agreed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys would inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them. -Wall Street Journal”

So, Biden’s personal attorneys searched the house themselves, said they turned everything over to the DOJ, and yet more were found? When Trump’s lawyers did that he was raided by the FBI.

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13 hour search covered “all working, living and storage spaces in the home.” What are the odds more will be “discovered” next week?

• DOJ Seizes More Classified Docs From Biden’s Wilmington Home (Fox)

The Justice Department seized additional classified records from President Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home after an FBI search on Friday, Fox News has learned. “On Jan. 20, 2023, the FBI executed a planned, consensual search of the President’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware,” Joseph D. Fitzpatrick, an assistant U.S. attorney to U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch, told Fox News Saturday. Lausch was the DOJ official running the investigation into Biden’s improper retention of classified records ahead of the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Hur. Fox News has learned Lausch is still playing an integral role in the probe as Hur gets up to speed. The FBI search began Friday morning at 9:45 a.m. and concluded Friday night around 10:30 p.m.


Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer said Saturday evening the search covered “all working, living and storage spaces in the home.” “At the outset of this matter, the President directed his personal attorneys to fully cooperate with the Department of Justice,” Bauer said. “Accordingly, having previously identified and reported to DOJ a small number of documents with classification markings at the President’s Wilmington home, and in the interest of moving the process forward as expeditiously as possible, we offered to provide prompt access to his home to allow DOJ to conduct a search of the entire premises for potential vice-presidential records and potential classified material.” Bauer said that by agreement with the Justice Department, representatives of both Biden’s personal legal team and the White House Counsel’s Office were present for the search. Neither the president nor the first lady were present during the search.

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Don’t be fooled by comparisons between Trump and Biden classified docs. Trump was president when he took them home, and the criminal probe will address the legality of that. Biden took them as Senator and VP. 100% illegal.

Ted Cruz: on Twitter “This says some of the docs are from his Senate service. Serious Q: how on earth did he do that? I’ve served in the Senate for 10 years. EVERY single classified doc I’ve read—100%—have been in a secure SCIF in the basement of the Capitol. What the hell??”

Note: chief of staff Ron Klain is leaving, and more Obama insiders are lined up for the job.

• Joe Biden Took Classified Documents Home When He Was a Senator (CTH)

According to multiple media report [See Here and See Here] Joe Biden’s attorneys coordinated a friendly FBI search their client’s Delaware residence. Lawyers for Biden were present and overseeing the FBI review of the home, when additional classified documents were discovered. Interestingly, the Biden lawyers seemingly admit their client had been taking classified documents home for quite some time. According to their statement: “DOJ took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President. DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years.”

That statement was written by Joe Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer. That’s interesting on many levels, including the fact that Bob Bauer is married to Anita Dunn. Mrs. Anita Dunn is one of the original people who helped put Barack Obama in the White House; and Dunn worked with President Obama throughout his terms. Additionally, Anita Dunn is on the short list to replace Biden’s outgoing Chief of Staff, Ron Klain. Many people have wondered if Joe Biden was being set up for failure over this classified document scandal. In my opinion, the entire operation is being managed – but not to remove Biden, simply to control him and ensure he doesn’t run again.

When it comes to the insurance of their ideological long-term goals, democrats play cutthroat politics much better than most imagine. Ask Bernie Sanders what it’s like to be viewed as an impediment to the ideological quest, and what lengths his party will take to cut you down. Now overlay Joe Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer. Think about who exactly it was discovering these documents and why. If Obama is the silent partner in the background of the Biden administration, then Dunn is the operational manager. If Dunn is the operational manager, then her husband is very useful as the principle’s attorney. From the big picture, it sure looks like Bauer is playing the role of Brutus.

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“the deterioration of an arena of rational serious debate and deliberation”

• World Moving Closer To ‘Irreversible’ Disaster – Chomsky (RT)

The world is teetering on the brink of the abyss due to an increased risk of nuclear war, failure to address environmental challenges, and diminished ability to tackle problems rationally, world-renowned philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky told RT on Saturday. During the interview, Chomsky, who is Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, was asked to expand on his remark that humanity could be pathologically dedicated to self-destruction. The philosopher recalled that in recent years the Doomsday Clock, which reflects how close humanity is to Armageddon, has moved closer to midnight, which symbolizes the extinction of humanity. He suggested that in several days it could be set even closer to this mark.

According to the philosopher, humanity’s main concerns are “an increasing threat of nuclear war” and “a very severe and growing threat of destruction of climate.” The latter problem persists because “states are not doing what they know they must do to solve this crisis,” he said. The third issue, Chomsky continued, is “the deterioration of an arena of rational serious debate and deliberation” combined with “the collapse of democratic forces” around the world. The professor admitted that while it might seem that this point has nothing to do with the threat of nuclear war and climate change, rational debate is “the only hope for dealing with the first two.”

“All three have gotten considerably worse during the past year, and unless there’s a sharp reversal, we’ll simply be heading for a precipice, falling over, irreversible, and not in the long distant future,” he warned. His comments come after earlier this week, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that those who want to see Moscow defeated in Ukraine, ignore the fact that “a loss by a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger the start of a nuclear war.” Moscow believes the Ukraine conflict to be a proxy war waged against it by the US and its allies. However, Russia has repeatedly said that a nuclear war should never be fought, with its military doctrine allowing the use of atomic weapons only if the very existence of the state is threatened.

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“Russia’s Wagner forces have surrounded Bakhmut, lynchpin of ‘Zelensky Line’ [Ukr deployments in Donbass.] US media has begun backtracking on Bakhmut’s importance, anticipating its imminent fall into Russian hands & preparing opinion. A crushing defeat for US-UK axis in Ukraine.”

“The forces which are currently getting mauled in the Bakhmut area constitute 50% of Ukraine’s battle ready forces..”

• Ukraine – Russian Army Activates Southern Front (MoA)

The long expected Russian offensive in Ukraine has begun. The Ukrainian army, egged on by its U.S. controllers, had put most of its resource into the static defense of the Bakhmut (Artyomovsk) – Soledar sector of the eastern front. An insane number of Ukrainian brigades, though many partially depleted, were concentrated on that 50 kilometer long front. This left other sectors nearly empty of Ukrainian troops. I count the equivalent of some 27 brigade size formations in that area. The usual size of a brigade is some 3,000 to 4,000 men with hundreds of all kinds of vehicles. If all brigades had their full strength that force would count as 97,500 men. In a recent interview the Ukrainian military commander Zaluzhny said that his army has 200,000 men trained to fight with 500,000 more having other functions or currently being trained.

The forces which are currently getting mauled in the Bakhmut area constitute 50% of Ukraine’s battle ready forces. On the southern and northern sectors of the battle-line the Ukrainian forces have been thinned out and are only able to defend against minor forces. The Ukrainian forces in the north and south are in the same position Russian troops had been in when the Ukrainian army last year launched a blitz attack in the Kharkiv region. The Russian screening force of some 2,000 boarder guards and federal police retreated and used its artillery to destroy the oncoming Ukrainian forces. The attack ran out of power and came to a halt after progressing some 70 kilometers on a rather large front. But Ukraine no longer has, unlike the Russians at that time, the artillery that is need to stop a larger thrust.


The big Ukrainian concentration in Bakhmut is now in an operational encirclement. The Russian forces have progressed north and south of the city and their artillery can easily control the western exit roads of Bakhmut. This a Verdun like situation. Russian artillery is by far numerical superior and can slaughter the Ukrainian troops at will. Even the U.S. military is now suggesting that Ukraine should give up on that city. Should the government in Kiev agree to that it will be a retreat under fire with likely high casualties. Not retreating though will make things even worse.

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A good cop, bad cop routine.

“Asked in November whether Ukraine stood a chance of retaking its pre-February territory, he said that the probability of this outcome “is not high, militarily.”

• Fighting Russia ‘Very, Very Difficult’ For Ukraine – Gen. Milley (RT)

Ukraine will struggle to make good on its promise to drive Russian forces out of its former territory, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley stated on Friday. While civilian officials in Washington insist that Kiev must keep fighting, Milley has repeatedly questioned the chances of success. “President Biden, President Zelensky, and most of the leaders of Europe have said this war is likely to end in a negotiation,” Milley said during a meeting of the US-led Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday. “From a military standpoint, this is a very, very difficult fight,” he added. The US alone has allocated more than $110 billion in military and economic aid to Kiev since last February – supplying Ukraine with progressively heavier armaments, including infantry fighting vehicles, anti-air systems, and more than a million artillery shells.

Although Ukraine’s NATO-trained troops appear on the cusp of receiving Western-designed main battle tanks, Russian forces have inflicted a series of crushing defeats on Kiev’s military in recent weeks. The strategically important Donbass settlements of Soledar and Klescheevka have both fallen to Moscow’s troops, and the key city of Artyomovsk is now facing Russian encirclement. “I still maintain that for this year, it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from every inch of Russian-occupied Ukraine,” Milley said on Friday, referring to the four former regions of Ukraine that voted to join Russia in September, and Crimea, an historic Russian territory that voted to rejoin the Russian Federation in 2014.

“That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, doesn’t mean it won’t happen. But it’d be very, very difficult.” Retaking all of this land – including Crimea – is a stated objective of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. To that end, Zelensky has the support of the US, with President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin vowing to bankroll his military for “as long as it takes,” and Secretary of State Antony Blinken declaring in December that “fundamentally, Ukrainians are making the decisions” about whether they want to attempt to capture Crimea or not. However, Milley’s public statements have been more tempered than those of Biden and his cabinet. Asked in November whether Ukraine stood a chance of retaking its pre-February territory, he said that the probability of this outcome “is not high, militarily.”

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These are obviously nonsense numbers.

Gonzalo Lira: “Actual Russian casualties? No one knows for sure. But credible estimates put them at no more than 20,000 KIA, 60,000 WIA.”

Macgregor in the video: 157,000 Ukraine deaths. And we know there are 5-10 times more Ukraine victims than Russian.

• Russian Casualties In Ukraine Have Hit 188,000 – US Intel (Az.)

Russian casualties in Ukraine have hit an eye-watering 188,000 according to United States intelligence, Report informs via The Sun. Report informs via The Sun that the massive new figure of those killed or injured in battle was shared with allies at yesterday’s Western summit to drum up support for Ukraine held at Ramstein Air Base in Southern Germany. It is a significant increase on the publicly estimated 100,000 Russian soldiers killed, wounded, or deserted since last February’s invasion that the UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace outlined at the end of last year. Top US General Mark Milley said Russia has suffered a “tremendous amount of casualties” – but stopped short of revealing the exact figure publicly. He said: “They have really suffered a lot.. I would say significantly well over 100,000.” Yesterday ministers and military chiefs from around 50 nations took part in the talks convened by US defence secretary Lloyd Austin at Ramstein – the main US airbase in Europe.

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Old, rusty, in need of repair, but at least Ukrainians know how to use them.

• US Attempts To Seek Latin America’s Russian Arms Supplies To Kiev (TASS)

Russia will keep a close eye on the US attempts to urge Latin American countries to hand over weapons to Ukraine, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. The Russian presidential spokesman thus commented on a statement by a Pentagon representative that Washington was working with nine Latin American countries to urge them to hand over available Russian weapons to Ukraine in exchange for the delivery of US equipment. Responding to a question about whether this news came as a surprise for Moscow, the Kremlin spokesman said: “In general, it is hard today to imagine anything that can be a surprise.”


“Here it is very important [to bear in mind] the legal restrictions of any deliveries to third countries. This is because any deliveries are, of course, conditioned by certain commitments of those countries that receive military equipment,” Peskov pointed out. “Of course, we will keep a close eye on this situation,” the Kremlin press secretary said. Commander of the US Southern Command General Laura Richardson announced on Thursday that Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and six other Latin American countries had Russian military equipment and Washington was working “to replace that with US equipment if those countries want to donate it to Ukraine.”

Read more …

“Given the technological superiority of Russian weapons, Western politicians who have been making such decisions should realize that this may lead to a global disaster that would wipe out their countries..”

• Duma Speaker Warns Of Powerful Retaliation For Weapons Supplies To Kiev (TASS)

Weapons supplies to Ukraine by the United States and NATO for attacks on Russia would lead to retaliatory use of more powerful armaments, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin warned on Sunday. “Supplies of offensive weapons to the Kiev regime would lead to a global disaster. If Washington and NATO countries send arms that will be used for attacks on peaceful cities or attempts at occupying our lands, a threat they have been making, this would provoke retaliatory measures with the use of more powerful weapons,” Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel. The senior Russian lawmaker slammed as untenable other countries’ arguments that “nuclear powers never used weapons of mass destruction in local conflicts.” “Those powers never faced a situation where the security of their citizens or their territorial integrity was at stake,” he argued.


The State Duma speaker called on members of the US Congress, Germany’s Bundestag, France’s National Assembly and other European parliamentarians to realize their responsibility for humankind. “By their decisions, Washington and Brussels are pushing the world to a disastrous war – to military operations that will be quite different from what they have seen so far, when only military and critical infrastructure being used by the Kiev regime has been attacked. Given the technological superiority of Russian weapons, Western politicians who have been making such decisions should realize that this may lead to a global disaster that would wipe out their countries,” Volodin concluded.

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Try that with your leaders wherever you live.

• Russians’ Level Of Trust In Putin Exceeds 78% (TASS)

The Russian public’s level of confidence in President Vladimir Putin fell by 0.3 percentage points to 78.1% on January 9-15, according to a poll released by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center on Friday. “When asked if they trusted Putin, 78.1% of the poll’s participants said ‘yes’ (a 0.3 percentage point drop from a rating referring to December 26-30, 2022). The share of people who approve of the way the president is handling his job rose by 0.3 percentage points to 75.2%,” the pollster said. A total of 50.5% of those polled said they approved of the Russian government’s work (a 0.6 percentage point increase) and 53.2% approved of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s work (a 0.4 percentage point rise). As many as 62.6% of respondents said they trusted Mishustin (a 0.8 percentage point increase).


As for the leaders of the parliamentary parties, 32.5% of those surveyed trust leader of the Russian Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov (a 0.9 percentage point rise), 28.9% trust leader of the A Just Russia – For Truth party Sergey Mironov (a 3.5 percentage point drop), 8.2% said they trusted Chairman of the New People party Alexey Nechayev (1.7 percentage point fall) and 17.2% of the poll’s participants trust leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) Leonid Slutsky (a 2.4 percentage point rise). The level of popular support for the United Russia party stood at 38.8% (a 0.4 percentage point rise). The level increased by 0.2 percentage points to 10.6% for the Russian Communist Party and fell by 0.2 percentage points to 3.9% for the New People party.

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“..the trust and safety team includes fewer than 20 full-time employees..”

• Twitter Lost 80% Of Its Workforce Under Elon Musk (Az.)

The number of employees at Twitter has decreased by about 80% since US entrepreneur Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar acquisition. Report informs via foreign media that before Musk finalized the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in late October, 2022, the San Francisco-based company had about 7,500 employees, but that number has gone down to approximately 1,300 active employees, CNBC said on Friday. Twitter now has fewer than 550 full-time engineers and the trust and safety team includes fewer than 20 full-time employees.

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Yep.

• Twitter Files Prove America Headed for ‘Totalitarian State Territory’ (ET)

Thanks to the revelations in the Twitter Files, there’s evidence that the FBI and other agencies worked to suppress “lawful speech,” and if this type of action is allowed to continue, the United States is headed for “totalitarian state territory,” Matthew Peterson, the cofounder of New Founding, said in an interview with Epoch Times–NTD collaborative program “Newsmakers.” New Founding helps people and organizations position themselves to avoid threats from Big Tech and “woke capital,” and Peterson has two decades of experience in digital media and political consulting. When asked what will happen if the country’s current trajectory continues for three to five years, Peterson said, “We’ll be in totalitarian state territory, there’s no question about it.”


“I mean, remember, this went so far as the government saying, ‘You need to find evidence that there are Russians influencing the election on Twitter.’ And Twitter saying, ‘No, that’s not happening.’ “And then [Twitter had] to be quiet about it and not even defend themselves when they knew that there wasn’t Russian interference that they could find,” he added. Peterson further explained that the U.S. government drove a narrative that it knew wasn’t true and was the “antithesis” of America’s founding principles. “[The government’s actions are] the antithesis of America. The American founding is basically contradicted by what’s happening here, over and over again. And if we don’t do something about that, we will not have free speech in this country,” Peterson warned.

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Mostly EU cars.

• EU Car Sales Collapse – Industry Body (RT)

The European Union passenger car market contracted by 4.6% last year to just 9.3 million units, which is the region’s lowest level since 1993, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) reported this week. According to the report, the slump was mainly due to the impact of component shortages in the first half of the year. The market, however, improved from August to December, with new car registrations expanding by 12.8% in the last month of the year. Overall, in 2022 only Germany managed to post growth (+1.1%) among the EU’s four largest markets. It was helped by the strong result in December, the ACEA said. The other three markets all performed worse than in 2021, with Italy posting the steepest decline (-9.7%), followed by France (-7.8%) and Spain (-5.4%).


Data showed that the number of vehicles registered in EU countries (excluding Malta, for which statistics are not available) rose to more than 896,000 units last month from over 795,000 a year earlier. Car sales by the Volkswagen Group (including Skoda, Audi, Seat, Porsche, and others) in the European Union decreased by 5.2% last year, the ACEA said. Automaker Stellantis saw its sales nosedive by 14.1%, while Renault Group sales fell by 4.3%, and BMW sales by 5.1%. Mercedes-Benz sales stood practically at the same level as in 2021, at 549,023 units. Meanwhile, South Korean Hyundai (including Kia) increased its vehicle sales in the EU by 2.6%, Japanese Toyota and Honda sales grew by 7.7% and 4.4%, respectively. Sales by American carmaker Ford decreased by 2.3%.


Most popular cars Europe vs US

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More than blinking.

• GMC Blinks First: Regulator Declines to Investigate Dr Aseem Malhotra (DS)

To paraphrase the Sound of Music song, “How do we solve a problem like Malhotra?” After receiving several complaints, the General Medical Council has decided not to investigate cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who has become a thorn in the side of the medical profession. Professional regulators have been at the forefront of pandemic discipline, contributing to a culture of fear among practitioners. Severe action has been taken against registrants who criticise or do not comply with the official narrative. I know this from my experience as an officer of the Workers of England Union, representing members brought before the Nursing and Midwifery Council on charges of bringing the profession into disrepute. Apparently the public must be protected against nurses who don’t believe that masks stop airborne respiratory viruses, or who believe in informed consent for novel mRNA vaccines.

A significant strike against this censorial tyranny was by general practitioner Sam White last year. Dr. White was ordered, as a condition of maintaining his clinical licence, to delete his social media posts about COVID-19 and to refrain from making similar comments. Dr. White took the GMC to the High Court and won. The condition was overturned as a breach of his rights to freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act 1998. Whereas White was an early critic of COVID-19 policy, Malhotra is a relatively recent convert. Initially he promoted the vaccine, but when his fit and healthy father died shortly after receiving the injections, Malhotra changed his mind and began speaking out against the mass vaccination programme.

His personal loss came alongside his observation in clinical practice of a marked increase in myocarditis cases (as well as blood clots and other cardiac complications). Malhotra had a review paper published on this phenomenon, and his findings of iatrogenic harm are corroborated by other medical scientists. sMalhotra has repeatedly urged suspension of the vaccination programme until the risks are better understood. He became a darling of vaccine sceptics, with his charismatic and compassionate voice doing the rounds of alt media channels and independent-minded broadcasters working for more mainstream channels (such as Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, and Neil Oliver on GB News). However, he was ignored by the legacy media, and it was not until two weeks ago, when he took the opportunity of a BBC interview on statins, that his call was more widely heard.

Malhotra

Read more …

Lots of doctors speaking out in Japan.

• Japan Declares It Will Handle COVID-19 Like a Seasonal Flu (GP)

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan announced on Friday that he had instructed his cabinet to reclassify COVID-19, placing it in the same category as seasonal flu, rubella, and chickenpox in spring. “Today, we held a press conference on the discussion on revising the new coronavirus infectious disease into category 5,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday. “In order to further advance the efforts of ‘living with Corona’ and restore Japan to a state of normalcy, we will transition the various policies and measures to date in phases,” Kishida said. In Japan, Covid-19 is currently listed as “Category 2: Very Dangerous” together with tuberculosis, avian flu, and diphtheria.


“COVID-19 is currently classified as “equivalent to category 2,” requiring that hospitals and clinics report the names of infected patients and the details of their diagnosis before making recommendations regarding hospitalization. The soaring numbers of people infected in Japan’s seventh coronavirus wave have increased the administrative burden on the medical front line, leading to regional medical associations and the National Governors’ Association to repeatedly call for a review of the system,” Nippon.com reported. The outlet added that experts have proposed that COVID-19 be reclassified as a “Category 5: Diseases for which outbreaks and spread should be prevented,” similar to seasonal flu, which would restrict reporting to only those at high risk of developing severe symptoms or restrict data collection to only patients diagnosed at designated medical facilities.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Martha Stewart
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616606806574235650

 

 

Kory treatment
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616978685969547266

 

 

 

 

WTF

 

 

Great hornbill
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616774751128625153

 

 

Flycatcher

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 14 2022

Jun 142022
 
 June 14, 2022  Posted by at 7:44 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  72 Responses »


Joseph Mallord William Turner Teasing the Donkey 1827

 

• DC Shifts To Damage Control As Ukraine Defense Fades (AT)
• Russian Forces Cut Off Last Routes Out Of Sievierodonetsk (R.)
• Ukraine Has LOST, And So Have We (Denninger)
• The US Is Still Importing Russian Oil Despite The Ban (FC)
• Biden Admin Quietly Urging Companies To Purchase Russian Fertilizer (ZH)
• Japan On Verge Of Systemic Collapse (ZH)
• ‘Lying’: Aussie Scientist’s Vaccine Outrage (News.com.au)
• January 6th Committee Chair Says No Criminal Referrals Will Be Made (RS)
• Capitol Police Debunk Jan. 6 Panel Allegation About GOP Lawmaker (JTN)
• Society of Spectacle (Chris Hedges)
• Sunday Shows Don’t Cover Attempted Murder of Supreme Court Justice (ET)
• Proud of Yourselves? (Kunstler)
• “National Security” Invoked For Epstein Meeting with US Senators in UK (Webb)
• Julian Assange Extradition Rulings Could Be Annulled (Canary)

 

 

 

 

Biden Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1536355534290489344

 

 

 

 

Food shortage

 

 

 

 

“An armistice would allow Ukraine to deny that it had given up claims on territory held by Russia.”

• DC Shifts To Damage Control As Ukraine Defense Fades (AT)

By late May, Russian artillery had begun to reduce Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, threatening to trap Ukrainian forces in a pocket around Severodonetsk – now all but under Russian control. Pentagon observers noted that the Russians had learned to coordinate artillery, infantry, armor and air power. Ukraine began to lose 100 to 200 killed in action per day. The first sign of a shift to damage-control in Washington came June 8 in a New York Times report by reporter Julian Barnes, quoting US intelligence officials who complained that “American intelligence agencies have less information than they would like about Ukraine’s operations and possess a far better picture of Russia’s military, its planned operations and its successes and failures.”

That is implausible, but not impossible; the United States has satellite images that reveal every detail of ground action, as well as 150 advisers on the ground as of January. Failure to assess the situation on the ground in Ukraine would imply a stupefying level of incompetence in the American intelligence community, which cannot be excluded. A former senior CIA official, Beth Sanner, told the newspaper, “How much do we really know about how Ukraine is doing? Can you find a person who will tell you with confidence how many troops has Ukraine lost, how many pieces of equipment has Ukraine lost?” Sanner formerly was deputy director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence – and a presidential briefer during 2017.

“Everything is about Russia’s goals and Russia’s prospects for meeting their goals,” Sanner added. “We do not talk about whether Ukraine might be able to defeat them. And to me, I feel that we are setting ourselves up for another intel failure by not talking about that publicly.” Translated from spook-speak, Sanner’s warning about an “intel failure” means that the failure had already occurred and that the intelligence services hoped to blame the Ukrainians for it – just as Biden did in Los Angeles two days later. [..] One possible outcome that’s been floated in the American media and closely considered in Moscow is a Korean-style armistice, with an armistice line between East and West Ukraine but without a peace treaty.

Jong Eun Lee of American University wrote May 12 in The National Interest: “Nearly three months into a war, could Ukraine be convinced that a similar armistice is preferable to continued war? The burden is on the United States and the world to convince Ukrainians … that their security threats would not worsen in the future, and that their territorial losses could be restored in the future.” An armistice would allow Ukraine to deny that it had given up claims on territory held by Russia. Although the proposal has been studied in Moscow, Russia has little motivation to accept it while it is gaining ground.

Read more …

Talk peace now.

• Russian Forces Cut Off Last Routes Out Of Sievierodonetsk (R.)

Russian forces cut off the last routes for evacuating citizens from the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, a Ukrainian official said, as the Kremlin pushed for victory in the Donbas region. The last bridge to the city was destroyed, trapping any remaining civilians and making it impossible to deliver humanitarian supplies, said regional governor Sergei Gaidai, adding that some 70% of the city was under Russian control. Ukraine has issued increasingly urgent calls for more Western heavy weapons to help defend Sievierodonetsk, which Kyiv says could hold the key to the battle for the eastern Donbas region and the course of the war, now in its fourth month. Late on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the battle for the eastern Donbas would go down as one of the most brutal in European history.

The region, comprising the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, is claimed by Russian separatists. “For us, the price of this battle is very high. It is just scary,” he said. “We draw the attention of our partners daily to the fact that only a sufficient number of modern artillery for Ukraine will ensure our advantage.” Russia’s main goal is to protect Donetsk and Luhansk, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, after the leader of one of the separatist regions asked for additional forces from Moscow. Ukraine needs 1,000 howitzers, 500 tanks and 1,000 drones among other heavy weapons, Presidential Adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Monday. Moscow issued the latest of several recent reports saying it had destroyed U.S. and European arms and equipment.

Russia’s defence ministry said high-precision air-based missiles had struck near the railway station in Udachne northwest of Donetsk, hitting equipment that had been delivered to Ukrainian forces. Ukraine’s interior ministry on Telegram said that Udachne had been hit by a Russian strike overnight Sunday into Monday, without mentioning whether weapons had been targeted. Moscow has criticised the United States and other nations for sending Ukraine weapons and has threatened to strike new targets if the West supplied long-range missiles. The European Commission will recommend granting Ukraine official status as an EU candidate country, Politico reported late on Monday, citing several unnamed officials.

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“Putin’s folks lob artillery shells at the other guys; anything within 10-20 miles of their weapons gets pulverized.”

• Ukraine Has LOST, And So Have We (Denninger)

I predicted this, and now its happened. Oh yeah, it hasn’t been “recognized” yet, but it will be. There are reports that Zelinsky is drafting women. You don’t do that unless you’re out of fighting-age men who can actually fight. Note that the soyman who runs away or spends his time buttfucking and/or preening can’t actually fight, and you must have people who can. When you even contemplate drafting women you’ve made a statement that you’re out of competent fighting men. This is similar to what the NVA did after Tet and what Iran did, but both grabbed literal boys, shoved rifles in their hands and sent them out to die. Which they did, in size. The war was over in that case both times, but not yet admitted. In the former case we literally walked away from a win thanks to Cronkite and the stupidity of the American people buying his bullshit.

Thus it is here, except this time its just money, much of which has been siphoned off by defense contractors and the families of politicians — like fuckface Biden. Russia has employed a nasty and very effective strategy which our so-called “punditry” has entirely failed to understand. Putin’s folks lob artillery shells at the other guys; anything within 10-20 miles of their weapons gets pulverized. With satellite and UAV targeting and fire direction these are wildly effective — and cheap. He can do this all day long for almost no money. He blasts away until your force is cut in half, creating a no-go zone where if you stick your head up to try to return fire it gets blown up and then slowly does a pincer on one of the pieces, making the perimeter ever-smaller until they either surrender or are all dead. Then he goes after the next one, and so on.

Ukraine has proved incapable of hitting Putin’s field pieces as they do not have air superiority and man-portable stuff does not have the range to hit them. Thus Putin can do this with impunity — and is. Yeah, Russian soldiers are dying. But Ukraine is losing both men and material at a much higher rate, and slowly, one-by-one, all the places in the eastern part of the nation are having their Ukrainian troops removed. In pieces. At the same time the so-called Russian Sanctions have blown up spectacularly in the western world’s face. Russia now has a stronger currency than it did before the war we instigated began. Oil and Natural Gas, never mind things like fertilizer, are nice and expensive which suits Putin just fine. He has negotiated long term interchange with China for both and is building out the capacity to wildly increase same. Europe is fucked down the road as a result and in the meantime they got nothing for all these “sanctions.”

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“..several tankers have come to the U.S. from India since the war began, likely including Russian crude, and more are on the way..”

• The US Is Still Importing Russian Oil Despite The Ban (FC)

Less than two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. banned the import of Russian fossil fuels like oil and natural gas—a major source of funding for the war. But as the war drags on, some Russian oil is still making it to the United States, according to a new report that tracks the flow of fossil fuels from Russia. India has quickly increased the amount of Russian oil that it buys, and some Indian refineries have been re-exporting refined oil products to both the U.S. and Europe. “We can see crude oil shipments going into refineries that take Russian oil, and then we can see where the stuff goes that they produce,” says Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Helsinki-based nonprofit Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which produced the new report.

The exact amount that has reached the U.S. is unknown, but the the report notes that several tankers have come to the U.S. from India since the war began, likely including Russian crude, and more are on the way. The loophole could be closed by making refineries that take Russian cargo ineligible to sell to the U.S. “That would have an impact,” Myllyvirta says. “That would face every one of those refiners with a choice…it’s a business decision to take whether you keep taking on Russian cargo even if that makes it unacceptable for you to ship to the U.S. market.” In the European Union, most Russian oil imports will be banned by the end of the year. Lithunia, Finland, and Estonia have already cut their imports from Russia by more than half.

While Russia has other customers, the EU could potentially impact some of them as well, because oil delivered to India and the Middle East travels on tankers from European countries. A sanction on those ships could make deliveries drop. More sanctions recently introduced from the insurance industry make it harder to insure shipments from Russia, which could impact other buyers like China. Russian oil now sells for around 30% less than oil from other sources—but because of the huge increase in global oil prices, it’s still making more money than it did last year. (Russia’s finance minister recently went on TV to announce that despite sanctions, the country expected to make as much 14 billion euros more this year than last year, and some of that would go to the “special operation” in Ukraine.) In the first 100 days of the war, Russia earned 93 billion euros from fossil fuel sales, the report says.

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“The Kremlin has insisted that the US provide assurances to global buyers that they won’t face sanctions, suggesting it as a condition to unblock any shipments of Ukrainian farm products now.”

• Biden Admin Quietly Urging Companies To Purchase Russian Fertilizer (ZH)

The Biden administration has been quietly urging agricultural and shipping companies to buy and carry more Russian fertilizer, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the efforts. The move comes as fears over sanctions have led to a sharp drop in supplies, contributing to the ongoing ‘spiraling global food costs.’ The effort is part of complex and difficult negotiations underway involving the United Nations to boost deliveries of fertilizer, grain and other farm products from Russia and Ukraine that have been disrupted by President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his southern neighbor. “US and European officials have accused the Kremlin of using food as a weapon, preventing Ukraine from exporting. Russia denies that even as it has attacked key ports, blaming the shipment disruptions on sanctions imposed by the US and its allies over the invasion.” -Bloomberg

With Moscow being a key supplier of fertilizer, the US and EU have included exemptions on sanctions against doing business with Russia – however many shippers, banks and insurers have been cautiously staying away out of fear that they might accidentally run afoul of the rules in an expensive lesson. Now, US officials are trying to encourage activity in the space. Exports of Russian fertilizer are notably down 24% YTD. As Bloomberg notes, the new push by Washington underscores the current challenge facing the west – which seeks to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine, while also easing pressure on economy-damaging food inflation during an election year in America. Since the war began in February, already-high inflation spiked further – a point Putin regularly makes while railing against sanctions.

Earlier this month, the Biden admin sent a representative to UN-led talks with Moscow regarding supply issues – as insufficient deliveries of fertilizer could also negatively affect next year’s crops. The Kremlin has insisted that the US provide assurances to global buyers that they won’t face sanctions, suggesting it as a condition to unblock any shipments of Ukrainian farm products now.

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Bank of Japan buys all goverment bonds, and it’s still not enough.

• Japan On Verge Of Systemic Collapse (ZH)

[..] with Japanese yields surging, the Bank of Japan today bought more than 1.5 trillion yen of government bonds to defend its yield curve control target as the 10Y JGB rose above 0.25%, the upper end of the BOJ’s YCC corridor. As Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos shockingly calculates in a post this morning titled “The printer is on overdrive”, and available to professional ZH subscribers, if the current pace of buying persists, the bank will have bought approximately 10 trillion yen in June. To put that number in context, it is roughly equivalent to the Fed doing more than $300bn of QE per month when adjusting for GDP!

This is a “truly extreme” level of money printing given that every other central bank in the world is tightening policy. It is one of the reasons why we have been bearish on the yen. And as so many have argued, currency intervention in this environment is simply not credible given it is the BoJ itself that is the cause of yen weakness. More broadly, Saravelos echoes what we said in our preview of the end of MMT, writing that he worries that “the currency and Japanese financial markets are in the process of losing any sort of fundamental-based valuation anchor.”

The more global inflation picks up, the more the BoJ prints. But the more easing accelerates, the higher the need to press hard on the brake when the (inflation) cliff approaches and the more dangerous it becomes. As a result, we will soon enter a phase where dramatic and unpredictable non-linearities in Japanese financial markets would kick in, according to the DB strategist, who also notes that “if it becomes obvious to the market that the clearing level of JGB yields is above the BoJ’s 25 basis point target, what is the incentive to hold bonds any more?”

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“I know some people are getting misdiagnosed with anxiety or functional neurological disorder – that’s not what’s going on. It’s a physical injury.”

• ‘Lying’: Aussie Scientist’s Vaccine Outrage (News.com.au)

An Australian scientist, unable to work for eight months after a debilitating neurological reaction he blames on the Covid shot, has likened the treatment of people suffering vaccine injuries to that of returning veterans with health issues after the Vietnam War. Dr Rado Faletic has slammed the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s (TGA) adverse event reporting process, saying the medicines regulator tasked with vaccine safety surveillance was “simply uninterested” in investigating his symptoms despite submitting multiple reports. “I’m similar to thousands of Aussies. After the vaccine I had a huge constellation of symptoms from head to toe,” the 46-year-old said, describing it as similar to “mutant long Covid”.

“The worst has been an oppressive brain fog. I’ve had headaches, chest pains, abdominal pains, unbelievable muscle twitching, issues focusing my vision. Basically I’ve been unable to work for eight months. I’m only now just starting to feel a little bit normal. This is not a mild side effect – this has been life-changing.” Dr Faletic said doctors and specialists were unable to find anything obviously wrong with him. “You go to the hospital, they take your blood, do an echocardiogram or X-ray or MRI and don’t find anything,” he said. “They say, ‘Well you look fine, go home and rest.’” He added, “I don’t necessarily blame the doctors. The problem is there hasn’t been a test to find out what’s wrong. I know some people are getting misdiagnosed with anxiety or functional neurological disorder – that’s not what’s going on. It’s a physical injury.”

Dr Faletic, who earned his PhD in hypersonic technology from the ANU and now runs an international research consulting firm based in Canberra, says his faith in the scientific and medical community has been badly shaken by his experience. He received his first Pfizer dose on October 19 last year and his second on November 9. He had a bad reaction to both “within hours”, but says the second was “dramatically off the charts”. “I waited a little while [to take the vaccine] – I work with technology and have a science background, so I understood that with a new product, new technology, there could be some things we don’t know about,” he said. “I thought, enough time has passed, surely our government would have flagged any reactions of concern. I took it and all this stuff happened to me. It’s not a matter of it being a coincidence – it all happened within hours of the shots.

Then I thought, surely the government would be interested in what’s happened to me? Nope.” Dr Faletic says it soon became clear to him that the TGA wasn’t interested. “I’ve done 50 rounds with the TGA on this,” he said. “They’ve said, ‘We can find no safety signals,’ which I think is disingenuous if not outright lying. In my small personal circle I know over a dozen people with different long vax problems, [ranging from] ongoing headaches, memory problems or brain fog to some people who were basically bedridden for months.” When he went searching for answers, he found “hundreds of people” in online groups who had experienced similar symptoms and submitted reports themselves. “The TGA still claims there is nothing to see,” he said.

Read more …

Schiff and Cheney don’t agree.

• January 6th Committee Chair Says No Criminal Referrals Will Be Made (RS)

On Sunday, multiple members of the January 6th Committee proclaimed that they had enough evidence to support a criminal indictment of Donald Trump. That sent the media into a frenzy as another “the walls are closing in” moment unfolded. Their dream of seeing the former president perp-walked was at hand. That was…until Monday evening arrived. In a sudden turn of events, Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chairs the January 6th committee, is now saying that the committee will not make any criminal referrals at all, not just of Trump, but of anyone. [..] Here’s the money quote per CNN. “Pressed again on whether the committee would ever make a formal referral to the Justice Department, the Mississippi Democrat said, “No, that’s not our job. Our job is to look at the facts and circumstances around January 6, what caused it and make recommendations after that.”

This has been the story of the January 6th committee since its ill-advised, illegitimate inception. They over-promise and underdeliver — every single time. We’ve been hearing about bombshell evidence proving Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cause the Capitol breach for over a year now. Where is it? When are they going to connect those dots they keep insisting connect? With two hearings down, there’s no sign any such evidence is coming. Now, Thompson basically says “Well, yeah, we’ve got the goods, but we won’t be making any criminal referrals.” Does that pass the smell test for anyone? I think what it shows is that you can expect more of the same in the hearings they have left. More emotional speeches, more interviewing irrelevant people like Chris Stirewalt, and absolutely no proof of what they actually allege.

And before some on the left try to cope by saying it’s not Congress’ job to make criminal referrals, the committee absolutely has the power to do so. Further, its own members have stated they have such power. How do I know? Because after Thompson’s comments, Rep. Liz Cheney immediately fired back, saying there has been no decision on any criminal referral regarding Trump. Rep. Liz Cheney, who serves as vice chair of the committee, released a statement contradicting the chairman’s comments. “The January 6th Select Committee has not issued a conclusion regarding potential criminal referrals. We will announce a decision on that at an appropriate time,” the Wyoming Republican tweeted. The comment marked a rare public break between the two leaders of the committee.

Rep. Adam Schiff and Rep. Elaine Luria also tried to walk back Thompson’s proclamation, with the latter directly undermining the chairman. “You know, I haven’t seen the chairman’s statements,” Schiff told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “We haven’t had a discussion about that, so I don’t know that the committee has reached a position on whether we make a referral or what the referrals might be. I thought we were deferring that decision until we concluded our investigation. At least that’s my understanding.” Rep. Elaine Luria, a Virginia Democrat, went a step further, tweeting, “Our committee has yet to vote on whether we will recommend criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. If criminal activity occurred, it is our responsibility to report that activity to the DOJ.”

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“..we do not consider any of the activities we observed as suspicious.”

• Capitol Police Debunk Jan. 6 Panel Allegation About GOP Lawmaker (JTN)

In a major blow to one of the Democrat-led Jan. 6 investigative committee’s allegations, the Capitol police chief declared Monday there is no evidence that Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk led a group of protesters on a reconnaissance mission the day before the riots. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger, appointed since the Jan. 6 tragedy, wrote in a letter to Congress obtained by Just the News, that an exhaustive review of security footage found no evidence that the Georgia congressman did anything other than give constituents a tour of some congressional office buildings. The Congressman didn’t even enter the U.S. Capitol with the group, Manger said.

“There is no evidence that Representative Loudermilk entered the U.S. Capitol with this group on January 5, 2021,” Manger wrote in a letter to Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., the ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee. “We train our officers on being alert for people conducting surveillance or reconnaissance, and we do not consider any of the activities we observed as suspicious.” Davis, who led his own review of all security footage, demanded Monday night that the Democrats who besmirched Loudermilk’s name apologize and face an ethics inquiry. “The Democrats need to be ashamed of themselves,” Davis told the Just the News, Not Noise television show.

Manger’s letter undercuts allegations made a month ago by Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, the chairman and vice chairwoman, respectively, of the Democrat-led Jan. 6 committee. They sent a letter released to the media in May demanding Loudermilk volunteer testimony and explain why he was giving a tour of the Capitol the day before the riots, suggesting it could be part of an effort to help case the Capitol building before the Jan. 6 protests.

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“The gaping hole between the reality of what we have become, and the fiction of who we are supposed to be, is why spectacle is all the ruling class has left.”

• Society of Spectacle (Chris Hedges)

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, whose first of six televised hearings began last Thursday, is spectacle replacing politics. There is nothing substantially new in the accusations. The committee lacks prosecutorial power. No charges have been filed by Attorney General Merrick Garland against former President Donald Trump and none are expected. The choreographed hearings, like the two impeachment trials of Trump, will have no effect on Trump voters, other than to make them feel persecuted, especially with more than 860 people already charged (including 306 guilty pleas) for their role in storming the Capitol. The committee echoes back to Trump opponents what they already believe. It is designed to present inaction as action and substitute role-playing for politics. It perpetuates, as Guy Debord writes, our “empire of modern passivity.”

The committee, which most Republicans boycotted, hired James Goldston, a documentary producer and former president of ABC News, to turn the hearings into engaging television with slick packaging and an array of pithy sound bites. The result is, and was meant to be, politics as reality television, a media diversion that will change nothing in the dismal American landscape. What should have been a serious bipartisan inquiry into an array of constitutional violations by the Trump administration has been turned into a prime-time campaign commercial for a Democratic Party running on fumes. The epistemology of television is complete. So is its artifice.

[..] The gaping hole between the reality of what we have become, and the fiction of who we are supposed to be, is why spectacle is all the ruling class has left. Spectacle takes the place of politics. It is a tacit admission that all social programs, whether the Build Back Better Plan, a ban on assault weapons, raising the minimum wage, ameliorating the ravages of inflation or instituting environmental reforms to stave off the climate emergency, will never be implemented. Those who occupy the “sacred space” of “our constitutional republic” are capable only of pouring money into war, allocating $54 billion to Ukraine, and passing ever higher military budgets to enrich the arms industry. The wider the gap becomes between the ideal and the real, the more the proto fascists, who look set to take back the Congress in the fall, will be empowered.

If the rational, factual world does not work, why not try one of the many conspiracy theories? If this is what democracy means, why support democracy? The right-wing also communicates through spectacle. What were the four years of the Trump presidency but one vast spectacle? Spectacle versus spectacle. The aesthetic of spectacle, as in the dying days of the Roman Empire or Tsarist Russia, is all that is left. “Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business,” Neil Postman writes in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. The current ruling class, blinded by their hubris and pomposity, however, is not very good at it.

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“It is stunningly unprofessional of major media outlets to consciously ignore news of the threat to Justice Kavanaugh..”

• Sunday Shows Don’t Cover Attempted Murder of Supreme Court Justice (ET)

Many news networks on June 12 omitted mention of the recent attempted murder of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, even though some touched on issues facing the nation’s top court. All Sunday morning shows on CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC did not cover the attempted killing, which took place on June 8. Fox News covered the topic during “Fox News Sunday.” Several shows brought up the Supreme Court in other contexts. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Dana Bash noted that the Supreme Court is poised to strike down Roe v. Wade before asking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) about the upcoming midterm elections. Bash also mentioned the nation’s top court declined to take up a case involving elections in Pennsylvania.


Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” only mentioned the Supreme Court once, when asking Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife. The Supreme Court was not brought up on CBS’s “Face the Nation” or ABC’s “This Week.” “It is stunningly unprofessional of major media outlets to consciously ignore news of the threat to Justice Kavanaugh,” Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor at DePauw University, told The Epoch Times in an email, describing what happened as “the journalism of omission.” The safety of Supreme Court justices is a highly important topic, especially with looming decisions on gun rights and abortion, McCall said.

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(“They were enchanted!”)

• Proud of Yourselves? (Kunstler)

Are drag queens really the best interlocutors for the doctrine of Diversity and Inclusion? Have we nothing better on offer to occupy childrens’ minds, say, learning to bake bread or build a bird-house? Practical skills they will need when the economy of Western Civ completes its disorienting descent out of Modern Times into the New Medieval? Does anyone actually know what children think about a drag queen reading, say, My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis to a roomful of five-year-old boys and girls? I mean, apart from what the parents who take them there tell us their children think. (“They were enchanted!”) We know that the parents are pretending that this is a wholesome developmental exercise. And yet, let’s face it: is it not the whole point of being a drag queen to present a horrifying parody of an adult female human? Something like women-as-monsters?

Do any of the mommies who bring their children to the drag queen story hour present themselves in public as women the way the drag queens do? As, above all, sexually super-available? Would, say, the Palo Alto mommy of a five-year-old pause to twerk in the frozen food section of the supermarket on any given afternoon? In that context, what might be the reaction of other mommies shopping for hot pockets and Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby? Five-year-old children generally have no idea what adult sexuality is about. Should perhaps their first exposure to a realm so fraught and complex that many adults do not understand it be the presentation of women as monsters? And why are the mommies so avid for their children to be introduced to sexuality this way? Are some of the children perceptive and astute enough to suspect that drag queens on display are not really women?

That, for instance, they might be… men? (A beard can be a give-away.) And might they take that thought a step or two further and ask themselves: why does this man want to pretend to be a monster-woman? Why doesn’t he want to be a daddy? Are mommies monsters? Can they turn into something like this when I’m not around? Are daddies who try to act like mommies monsters? How exactly is a child supposed to process all of this? All on its own, without any inversions, distortions, and misconstructions, sex is difficult for some young humans to process. By the time they reach the threshold of puberty — say, age thirteen for girls — the onset of sexual development is so alarming that they attempt to starve their way out of it and cut themselves up.

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“..Epstein personally escorted the two women into the room where the two senators were waiting.”

• “National Security” Invoked For Epstein Meeting with US Senators in UK (Webb)

In connection with Whitney Webb’s upcoming book on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, One Nation Under Blackmail, Unlimited Hangout filed a Freedom of Information request asking UK law enforcement and the Ministry of Defence the identity of two sitting US senators who were present at Foxcote House in North Warwickshire, UK on September 1, 2002. UH contributor Johnny Vedmore had previously obtained information from eyewitnesses of that meeting that, not only were two US Senators present at that location that day, but that Metropolitan Police officers had supplied security for the meeting. The FOI request was filed to Metropolitan Police, the UK Ministry of Defence and North Warwickshire Police and only a response from the Metropolitan Police was received.

The motive for UH’s FOI request is as follows. It is known that Jeffrey Epstein, as attested to by Epstein’s flight logs, was present in this part of the UK during this same period (from August 31, 2002 to September 2, 2002) and eyewitnesses saw him attend this specific meeting at this location with two attractive and glamorously dressed women on each arm. One of these women was Nicole Junkermann, a former model and apparent intelligence asset as revealed in Vedmore’s previous investigative work. The other woman was described by eyewitnesses as a tall brunette. Per those eyewitness accounts, Epstein personally escorted the two women into the room where the two senators were waiting.

Notably the house where this meeting took place, Foxcote House, has been owned by the family of Leslie Wexner, specifically his wife Abigail Wexner, since 1999. Wexner’s role in financing much of Jeffrey Epstein’s activities, legal and illegal, is a major focus of Webb’s upcoming book and Wexner has encountered considerable difficulty in explaining away his relationship with Epstein, despite the largely servile posture of mainstream media in this regard. Given the circumstances, it seems highly likely that this meeting was a high-profile instance of Jeffrey Epstein engaging in the sexual blackmail of sitting American politicians. However, due to the well-known scandal around Jeffrey Epstein, his name was not used in our FOI request in order to avoid potentially “spiking” the response.

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“It could be argued that the [extradition] process was flawed because the right of defense was violated by the country requesting the extradition.”

• Julian Assange Extradition Rulings Could Be Annulled (Canary)

UK home office minister Priti Patel is expected to rule any day on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to the US to face espionage related charges. But legal sources now say that surveillance of Assange’s lawyers may see the extradition case thrown out. Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the UK government illegally spied on one of Assange’s lawyers. The Canary has previously listed a number of defence concerns that could be raised in court. These include Spain-based firm UC Global’s surveillance of Assange’s lawyers in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The Canary reported that meetings between Assange and some of his lawyers – including Melinda Taylor, Jennifer Robinson, and Baltasar Garzón – were monitored.

Surveillance also included the logging of visitors such as Gareth Peirce – another of Assange’s lawyers – as well as a seven-hour session between Assange and his legal team on 19 June 2016. Robinson subsequently commented that the surveillance was “a huge and a serious breach of [Assange’s] right to a defence and a serious breach of [Assange’s] fair trial rights”. Indeed, client-lawyer confidentiality remains a cornerstone of the English legal system. In this respect, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson commented: “The case should be thrown out immediately. Not only is it illegal on the face of the [extradition] treaty, the U.S. has conducted illegal operations against Assange and his lawyers, which are the subject of a major investigation in Spain.”

Evidence was presented in a Spanish court at the trial of David Morales, UC Global CEO, that surveillance which UC Global gathered was allegedly provided to a contact with links to US intelligence. The Canary also reported that during the extradition proceedings in London, the defence referred to “Witness #2”, a whistleblower who worked for UC Global. And according to Shadowproof, Witness #2 revealed that: “data was collected and uploaded daily to a remote server. That information was accessed by U.S. intelligence. Original recordings, including sound, were collected from several microphones every 14 days.” The Council of Bar and Law Societies of Europe, representing over one million lawyers, has issued a letter to UK home secretary Priti Patel. The Council points out that the surveillance on Assange and his visitors equated to a serious breach of client-lawyer confidentiality, as well as other concerns:

Letter from The Council of Bar and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) to UK authorities about the interception of communications between Julian Assange and his lawyers — Aitor Martínez (@AitorxMartinez) February 27, 2020 Indeed, the law in England on client-lawyer confidentiality is clear, as indicated by this 2018 judgement in the Court of Appeal. Now legal sources have told El Pais that the surveillance UC Global undertook may lead to the extradition against Assange being annulled. The newspaper reports that: “Proving that US intelligence services learned about Assange’s defense strategy by spying on his lawyers could annul the extradition by questioning the illegal methods used by the US to get Assange tried there, according to legal sources.” “It could be argued that the [extradition] process was flawed because the right of defense was violated by the country requesting the extradition.”

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Russell Brand and Joe Rogan

 

 

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Debt Rattle December 12 2021

Dec 122021
 
 December 12, 2021  Posted by at 9:19 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  39 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh On the Outskirts of Paris 1887

 

• WHO: No Deaths Reported as a Result of Omicron Variant to Date (ET)
• Vaccine Nation Forever (Malone)
• Japan Puts Myocarditis Warning on ‘Vaccines’ – Requires Informed Consent (RAIR)
• Original Antigenic Sin: a Very Serious Reason to Stop Mass Vaccination (Eu.)
• The Manufactured Illusion of an Unprecedented Virus (Ruechel)
• Natural Immunity Protects Better Against Infection Than the Pfizer Vaccine (DS)
• The Social Division Has Long Since Reached Schools (Welt)
• Von der Leyen Won’t Provide Info About Billion-Dollar Deal With Pfizer (NP)
• Pentagon Considering Covid Booster Mandate For All Troops (AT)
• Ukraine Takes Delivery Of American Rockets (RT)
• Chinese State-Run Media Says Beijing Ready To Use Force Against US (RT)
• Julian Assange Has Had A Stroke In Belmarsh Prison (DM)

 

 

 

 

Rona the red spike protein
https://twitter.com/i/status/1469868738820386817

 

 

 

 

Vaccine Propaganda

 

 

Good thing Moderna is preparing a 3-shot vaccine against this harmless variant. Pfizer can’t be far behind.

• WHO: No Deaths Reported as a Result of Omicron Variant to Date (ET)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has informed The Epoch Times that it has not documented any deaths from the Omicron variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19. According to the WHO, “for Omicron, we have not had any deaths reported, but it is still early in the clinical course of disease and this may change.” When reached for comment by The Epoch Times, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent its report on the Omicron variant in the United States from Dec. 1 through 8. It shows that there were no documented deaths from Omicron during that period. The WHO’s latest weekly epidemiological update for Dec. 7 showed that all 212 Omicron cases documented across eighteen European Union (EU) countries were either mild or asymptomatic.


“While South Africa saw an 82 percent increase in hospital admissions due to COVID-19 (from 502 to 912) during the week 28 November–4 December 2021, it is not yet known the proportion of these with the Omicron variant,” the report noted. Omicron has also been detected in the United States, first in California and later in Colorado, New York, Maryland, Utah, and many other states. The first American patient with the variant was identified in San Francisco, testing positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 29 after returning from a trip to South Africa on Nov. 22. Yet the California Department of Public Health has confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that the variant was present in wastewater as early as Nov. 25.

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“..the data show a 90.5% adverse event rate compared to 30% in placebo treated patients..”

• Vaccine Nation Forever (Malone)

Panel A: Efficacy data


Note the subtle lower placement of the Fluzone data graphs, making the mRNA product appear more effective than it is relative to the licensed traditional Fluzone graphs. In a sharp-eyed tweet, @RobertLKruse gets the gold star for pointing out this trick in Moderna’s slide comparing early efficacy data from its flu shot to a competitor. The y-axis being lower for Fluzone’s shot is lower makes it look worse (and $MRNA’s shot better) if glancing quickly and comparing the two graphs. For some reason, Moderna seems to have failed to perform statistical comparison of Fluzone versus Moderna flu jab data. Perhaps because they do not have enough capital to hire competent biostatisticians to run the numbers?

Panel B: Safety – Adverse events


This is the real bombshell! Note that the dose for Moderna’s COVID-19 jab is 100 micrograms, so focus on that column when comparing to placebo- 92% of patients >= 50 years old had adverse events, compared to 33% in the placebo. Even in 18 – 50 year olds – who really have no reason to be vaccinated against COVID-19 with these products- the data show a 90.5% adverse event rate compared to 30% in placebo treated patients. This does not look good. What we can infer from this is that the adverse event profile for the mRNA COVID-19 jabs that has so many of us (including myself!) alarmed is not just due to the Spike protein, but a significant proportion of the risk seems to be due to the artificial pseudouridine-containing mRNA combined with the novel synthetic cationic lipid (positively charged synthetic fat carrier molecule).

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Interesting take. “Vaccination will be given only with the consent of the person to be vaccinated after the information provided.”

• Japan Puts Myocarditis Warning on ‘Vaccines’ – Requires Informed Consent (RAIR)

Japan announces that public and private sectors can not discriminate against those who refuse the experimental mRNA gene therapy injections. Japan is now labeling Covid “vaccines” to warn of dangerous and potentially deadly side effects such as myocarditis. In addition, the country is reaffirming its commitment to adverse event reporting requirements to ensure all possible side effects are documented. These efforts from Japan’s health authority are in stark contrast to the deceptive measures taken by other countries to coerce citizens into taking the injection, downplaying side effects, and discouraging proper adverse event reporting. Additionally, Japan is emphasizing informed consent and bodily autonomy. Until the coronavirus pandemic, the concept of “informed consent” was considered sacred to healthcare professionals in the West.

Japan is particularly raising concerns about the risks of myocarditis in young men injected with Pfizer or Moderna’s gene–therapy treatment. The country is enforcing a strict legal reporting requirement of side effects that must take place within 28 days of the injections. Three Covid-19 gene-therapy treatments are currently offered in Japan. They include the Pfizer/BioNTech (Comirnaty) and Takeda’s Moderna formulation. The product descriptions state that “this product contains an additive that has never been used in a vaccine before.” Furthermore, the pharmaceutical companies urge you to consult your doctor about the additive if you plan to be injected with it. In addition to the Pfizer and Moderna gene-therapies, Vaxzevria (formerly AstraZeneca) is also administered in Japan. However, Japan only recommends it to people 40-year-old and over. Reference is also made to the new type of additive in the Vaxzevria injections.

Japan’s Ministry of Health of health website encourages citizens to receive the “vaccine”; however, they stress it is not mandatory, “Although we encourage all citizens to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, it is not compulsory or mandatory. Vaccination will be given only with the consent of the person to be vaccinated after the information provided.” In addition, the government recommends those who are considering taking the shot carefully consider both its effectiveness and side effects. “Please get vaccinated of your own decision, understanding both the effectiveness in preventing infectious diseases and the risk of side effects. No vaccination will be given without consent.” Furthermore, they stress that businesses do not force employees to receive the experimental gene therapy. Nor should employees discriminate against those who refuse the injections,

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“These concerns are particularly acute in the case of children, who may well be exposed to the risk of very serious illness in the future, if vaccination permanently misdirects their immune system.”

• Original Antigenic Sin: a Very Serious Reason to Stop Mass Vaccination (Eu.)

The severity of Corona infection varies wildly across the population. Children have generally mild or asymptomatic infections, while adults having a wide range of responses. Everyone always assumed that cross-immunity was part of the answer to this conundrum. The problem, is that it is shaping up to be a not very reassuring part of that answer. The untrained, innate non-specific immune response of children looks more and more like a big part of the reason they are spared severe infection. Adults with immune systems tightly calibrated to the common human coronaviruses , meanwhile, often have more severe symptoms. They suffer from Original Antigenic Sin. Over 4.2 billion people across the earth have received at least one dose of vaccine against SARS-2.


The majority of these vaccines have elicited antibodies only against an early form of the spike protein that is no longer in circulation. This would seem to be one reason why many western countries with high vaccination rates appear to have locked themselves into an indefinite phase of heightened SARS-2 transmission. In the United Kingdom, 96% of adults have antibodies to the spike protein – most of these first acquired by vaccination. Shortly after they concluded their vaccination campaign, cases skyrocketed, and they have remained high ever since. Original Antigenic Sin is a real phenomenon. It seems not only to permanently influence the immune response to the spike protein itself, but also to inhibit the development of antibodies to other SARS-2 proteins.

A worst case scenario, would be a future spike mutation that entirely escapes the anti-spike antibodies elicited by our vaccines. In this case, it seems possible that many vaccinated people will be stuck with permanently suboptimal immune responses. If Omicron is indeed circulating primarily among the vaccinated, as some data shows, this would be a good reason why. These concerns are particularly acute in the case of children, who may well be exposed to the risk of very serious illness in the future, if vaccination permanently misdirects their immune system.

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“Frequent re-exposure solves the problem of a rapidly evolving virus by updating our immune system.”

• The Manufactured Illusion of an Unprecedented Virus (Ruechel)

Frequent re-exposure solves the problem of a rapidly evolving virus by updating our immune system to recognize and neutralize closely related variants before we lose all our protective immunity from a previous infection. As long as the interval between exposures is not too long, you will still have cross-reactive immunity from your last exposure to protect you during your next “update”. Re-infection does not necessarily mean you will get sick. As long as it happens while you still have partial cross-reactive immunity, your “update” might be mild or you may not get any symptoms at all. In other words, we have to stop thinking of our immune systems as mere protective shields. They are much more than that.

We need to remind ourselves that our immune systems are self-improving protective shields that need frequent exercise in order to maintain and update their skillset to keep up with an evolving enemy. The propaganda during Covid has not denied this fact, it has merely distorted it to the point where many people have lost faith in their immune systems, have become terrified about every “variant of concern”, and have become fixated on vaccines as the only path to salvation. Fear doesn’t just blind us to what is standing before our eyes. It also makes us doubt our own senses and forget our long-established understanding of the world. Frequent re-exposure is nature’s solution to booster shots. Vaccine boosters make more sense for diseases in which re-exposure is so rare that immunity wears off entirely before you are likely to get a natural update.

It’s worth reminding ourselves that there are over 200 respiratory viruses that cause colds and flus and yet, despite the fact that they are permanently circulating in our communities, we do not get sick with dozens and dozens of colds and flus every year. Although we won’t be exposed to every single one of these 200 viruses every single year, we will cross paths with many of them. But as long as our immune systems have not been weakened by some serious pre-existing health condition (i.e. obesity, cancer, HIV, etc.) or by lifestyle choices that temporarily suppress our immune systems (i.e. poor sleep, lack of exercise, vitamin C or D deficiencies, stress, depression, isolation, etc.), most of these “updates” will merely be mild or asymptomatic infections because our immune systems encounter them so often.

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Why did we ever allow this to be questioned, let alone denied?

• Natural Immunity Protects Better Against Infection Than the Pfizer Vaccine (DS)

At the end of August, a study was published showing that natural immunity provides much better protection against infection than the Pfizer vaccine. It was described by UCL’s Francois Balloux as “a bit of a bombshell”. Subsequent studies have compared natural and vaccine-induced immunity at the cellular level. One found that infection-induced antibodies “exhibited superior stability and cross-variant neutralisation breadth” than vaccine-induced antibodies, suggesting that people who’d already been infected had better immunity against the then-novel Delta variant. However, as I noted in my write-up of the “bombshell” study, its findings still needed to be replicated. After all, certain datasets or methods of analysis can sometimes yield quirky results, which don’t survive independent empirical tests.

Encouragingly, the findings now have been replicated – by another team of Israeli researchers, using a different dataset. In the latest study, Yair Goldberg and colleagues tracked all the individuals in their dataset (of people in Israel) who had tested positive or received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine before 1st July, 2021. They then compared the number of infections in previously infected versus vaccinated individuals from August to September of 2021. The researchers also examined the number of infections among those with so-called ‘hybrid immunity’ – i.e., previously infected individuals who got vaccinated. For each of the three groups, they counted the number of infections and the number of days ‘at risk’ (i.e., the total number of people multiplied by the number of days on which they were ‘at risk’ of becoming infected). Adjustments were made for age, sex, ethnicity, calendar week and a measure of risk exposure.

Results are shown in the chart below. Each bar corresponds to the infection rate per 100,000 ‘risk days’. The reason the researchers used ‘risk days’, rather than just ‘people’, is that the composition of each group changed over time. For example, some previously infected people chose to get vaccinated. Notice that the labels for the horizontal bars are not the same for each group. Since we want to compare apples with apples, look at the bars labelled “Recovered 6–8 months” and “Vaccinated 6–8 months”. This comparison shows that, 6–8 months after the corresponding event, infection rates were more than six times higher among vaccinated individuals – 89 per 100,000 versus only 14 per 100,000 among previously infected individuals.

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Google translate.

“There are teachers who call children individually and ask them about their vaccination status: those who are vaccinated receive applause, those who do not have to justify themselves.”

“It seems as if it has been forgotten that the vulnerable group does not sit in kindergartens and schools.”

• The Social Division Has Long Since Reached Schools (Welt)

Hardly anything is discussed as emotionally as concerns about children in the pandemic. The reasons for this could not be more different, there is only consensus that almost all parents feel abandoned by politics. Although the previous plans of the traffic light parties no longer provide for nationwide school closings, regionally these will also be possible in the future. Conditions that include alternating and distance lessons as well as distance rules are not expressly excluded. In some federal states, compulsory attendance has already been lifted and the first schools have been closed again.Many parents are now ready to accept further measures if only the educational institutions remain open this winter. At the same time, scenes are playing out in schools that would have sparked an outcry from society before the pandemic. There are boards with the vaccinated on one side and the non-vaccinated on the other, who then have to undergo regular tests in front of the assembled class.

There are teachers who call children individually and ask them about their vaccination status: those who are vaccinated receive applause, those who do not have to justify themselves. Adolescents remind their classmates of their “social responsibility” by mistakenly assuming that it is they who have a responsibility for adult society, not for them. The social division has long since reached schools. This is certainly not the case in all schools, but unfortunately they are not isolated cases either. The medical benefit of the vaccination for 12 to 17-year-olds is given, but limited, as Stiko member Rüdiger von Kries recently emphasized in an interview with Bayerischer Rundfunk. Most young people are – and rightly so – not afraid of infection. Nevertheless, many would like to be vaccinated: because they want to live their youth, want to evade the pressure exerted on them and avoid the requirements that apply to those who have not been vaccinated.

The Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) generally recommends vaccinating children and adolescents from the age of 12 against Covid-19, but has explicitly opposed vaccination for children and adolescents to participate in education, culture and other social activities is made dependent. So it says in the recommendation. But politics, with its sometimes disproportionate measures against this age group, prevents their social participation. So 2G is spreading even further for this age group. Children and adolescents from 12 (or 16) years of age no longer have access to public facilities in many places, regardless of their negligibly low risk of developing a serious disease. Von Kries calls such an obligation “simply absurd”. And now that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved the vaccine for children under the age of 12, it must be feared that the younger ones will face the same threat.

A fact-based classification on the basis of scientific evidence no longer seems possible. The parents’ trust in political decisions for the benefit of adolescents has been lost. It seems as if it has been forgotten that the vulnerable group does not sit in kindergartens and schools.

German kids

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Google translate. Note the neat trick: much of the correspondence is done with text messages, like Whats App. Which are not archived (“by their nature short-lived”), and therefore don’t exist, officially. Handy when an FOIA request comes in. Click here for the uncensured 104-page contract.

• Von der Leyen Won’t Provide Info About Billion-Dollar Deal With Pfizer (NP)

The European Commission does not want to make possible agreements between Ursula von der Leyen and the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer transparent. This emerges from a response from the Commission to the EU ombudswoman Emily O’Reilly, which netzpolitik.org has now published. Specifically, it is about messages that the EU Commission President is said to have exchanged directly with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in order to thread a vaccine deal. The New York Times reported on the existence of the news in April. The deal involved 1.8 billion doses from Pfizer-BioNTech. The billion dollar deal for the vaccine was agreed this spring, when the great majority of Europeans were still unvaccinated, via the short official channel in calls and messages directly between Ursula von der Leyen and Albert Bourla, according to the report of the renowned US newspaper . The “text messages” referred to there can mean both SMS and messages via messengers such as Signal or WhatsApp.

Its vaccine Comirnaty makes the consortium of Pfizer and the German company BioNTech the most important vaccine supplier to the EU. But how it sets prices for its vaccines and which countries are preferred for delivery remains in the dark, according to an investigative research by the Financial Times. “How Pfizer is exercising its newfound power – and what the company is planning next – he is keeping top secret.” Despite criticism from MPs and NGOs who are calling for more transparency in EU billion-dollar deals, the EU Commission does not want to give any insight into the purchase of vaccines. As with contracts with other manufacturers, the Commission has disclosed a preliminary agreement and a purchase agreement for its business with Pfizer, but essential details such as the delivery price and liability issues have been blacked out in these.

Not only the contracts, even the initiation of the business remains in the dark. The EU Commission rejected a request for freedom of information from netzpolitik.org on the news between Commission chief Von der Leyen and Pfizer boss Bourla in July: “No documents could be found that fall within the scope of your request,” says the Answer by the Secretary-General of the Commission, Ilze Juhansone. In this case, netzpolitik.org lodged a complaint with the ombudswoman O’Reilly. As a result, there was recently a virtual meeting between seven top officials: from the Commission and five from the Ombudsman. In it, the Commission set out in detail how it deals with SMS or messenger services such as WhatsApp and Signal. Such messages are “by their nature short-lived” and are therefore neither used in formal decision-making nor do they produce binding commitments by the institution. As a result, SMS or messenger messages have never been filed in the Commission’s archive system.

Read more …

For a six-month booster shot. What happens when that is changed to three months? Automatic update?

• Pentagon Considering Covid Booster Mandate For All Troops (AT)

Defense Department officials are reviewing whether to make a coronavirus booster shot mandatory for all active-duty and reserve troops, but have not come to any final decisions on the need yet, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Friday. “There are discussions in the department about the efficacy of a booster mandatory policy as well,” he told reporters during a press conference. “Should there be an addition to the [department’s] mandatory vaccine requirement, we will clearly communicate that and be transparent about it.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that all Americans age 16 and older get both the initial two-dose COVID-19 vaccine (or the one-dose version produced by Johnson & Johnson) and a booster shot six months after completing the initial regimen.


Earlier this month, White House officials announced that all eligible Americans should get a booster shot “as soon as possible” to help counter the recent surge in COVID-19 variant cases spreading worldwide. The military services have required all active-duty troops to be vaccinated with the initial doses, and Guard and Reserve troops to get their shots by next summer. Kirby said that more than 96 percent of the active duty force has gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, with 90 percent fully vaccinated. Guard and reserve numbers are significantly lower — for the military as a whole, the fully vaccinated rate is 74 percent. However, some of those numbers could be lower because of a lag in collecting and reporting information from guard and reserve units.

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“..more and more forces and equipment are being accumulated on the line of contact in the Donbass, supported by an increasing number of Western instructors.”

• Ukraine Takes Delivery Of American Rockets (RT)

The Pentagon has disclosed details of the shipment of anti-tank missile systems and projectiles supplied to Kiev, as Moscow grows increasingly concerned about the prospect of a full-blown conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region. In a statement received by Russian news outlet TASS on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Anton Semelroth said that “the $60 million package… included 30 Javelin command and control launchers, as well as 180 missiles.” According to him, the rocket launchers were delivered to Ukraine on October 23. “In 2021, the US allocated more than $450 million in aid to Ukraine for security tasks as part of our continued commitment to support the country’s ability to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the spokesman added.

Semelroth’s comments come amid warnings from Moscow over tensions in the war-torn region close to Russia’s borders. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “more and more forces and equipment are being accumulated on the line of contact in the Donbass, supported by an increasing number of Western instructors.” At the end of November, the top diplomat said that claims Ukraine’s troops had deployed American-made Javelin rocket launchers were a matter of grave concern and could lead to a full-blown offensive in the war-torn region. “In recent weeks, we have seen a stream of consciousness from the Ukrainian leadership – especially when it comes to the military – that is excessively inflamed and dangerous,” Lavrov said.

Just hours before, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, Kirill Budanov, revealed that advanced US-made Javelin systems had been tested by Ukraine’s troops and were being used by soldiers in the Donbass. Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, warned the White House earlier in November that supplying Ukraine with deadly armaments could diminish hopes for peace in the region, stating that Moscow believes “another opportunity to encourage Kiev to stop the war has been missed.”

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“The op-ed concludes by advising Sullivan to weigh his words carefully going forward and not to “have a big mouth,” lest he “create more embarrassment” for the US.”

• Chinese State-Run Media Says Beijing Ready To Use Force Against US (RT)

A Chinese state-run media outlet has warned Washington that Beijing will not hesitate to strike US forces should they try to prevent China’s reunification with Taiwan, as promised recently by a top American official. The Global Times picked up on National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s statement on Tuesday, in which he said that the US was “going to take every action that we can take, from the point of view of both deterrence and diplomacy” to prevent a scenario where China takes over Taiwan militarily. The message was echoed the same day by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who warned China that a military scenario vis-a-vis Taiwan would be a “very serious mistake.”

However, the Chinese outlet surmised that Sullivan’s assurances should not be construed as a “manifesto of US policy,” as the “US simply cannot build a deterrent to prevent the Chinese mainland from carrying out reunification by force when necessary.” The op-ed goes on to claim that Washington does not really have the “will to defend Taiwan at all costs.” The article takes a yet more bellicose turn when it says it is “credible” that US troops, should they come to Taiwan’s rescue, would be “heavily attacked” by the People’s Liberation Army if “reunification by force” does happen. The Global Times predicts Sullivan would be likely to “recall or downplay” his statement later, since the “US cannot afford” to defend Taiwan “at the cost of a deadly war.”

The op-ed warns that “reunification by force will definitely happen” unless Washington convinces Taiwan authorities to accept the concept of ‘one country, two systems’ and engage with mainland China “on the path of peaceful reunification.” The article blames Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which came to power in 2016, for the escalation, adding that the situation has possibly already gone beyond the point of no return. The op-ed concludes by advising Sullivan to weigh his words carefully going forward and not to “have a big mouth,” lest he “create more embarrassment” for the US.

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This happened on October 27. The High Court, when reading its verdict this week, undoubtedly knew about it.

Jeffrey Sterling @S_UnwantedSpy: “I can guarantee that in a US prison he would not receive medical attention. It took the attention of a US senator for me to receive proper medical attention. #Assange won’t have that “assurance”.

• Julian Assange Has Had A Stroke In Belmarsh Prison (DM)

Julian Assange has had a stroke in Belmarsh Prison, his fiancee Stella Moris revealed last night. The WikiLeaks publisher, 50, who is being held on remand in the maximum-security jail while fighting extradition to America, was left with a drooping right eyelid, memory problems and signs of neurological damage. He believes the mini-stroke was triggered by the stress of the ongoing US court action against him, and an overall decline in his health as he faces his third Christmas behind bars. It happened at the time of a High Court appearance via video link from Belmarsh in October. A ‘transient ischaemic attack’ – the interruption of the blood supply to the brain – can be a warning sign of a full stroke. Assange has since had an MRI scan and is now taking anti-stroke medication.

Ms Moris, 38, a lawyer, said: ‘Julian is struggling and I fear this mini-stroke could be the precursor to a more major attack. It compounds our fears about his ability to survive the longer this long legal battle goes on. ‘It urgently needs to be resolved. Look at animals trapped in cages in a zoo. It cuts their life short. That’s what’s happening to Julian. The never-ending court cases are extremely stressful mentally.’ She said he was kept in his cell for long periods and was ‘short of fresh air and sunlight, an adequate diet and the stimulus he needs’. Assange faced a major legal setback on Friday when the High Court overturned a judgment made this year preventing extradition to the US to face charges under the US Espionage Act.

His lawyers successfully argued he would be kept in conditions in the US that could lead to a serious risk of suicide. The High Court reversed the earlier ruling after the US government offered assurances about his potential imprisonment. But Ms Moris said: ‘I believe this constant chess game, battle after battle, the extreme stress, is what caused Julian’s stroke on October 27. He was feeling really unwell, far too ill to follow the hearing, and he was excused by the judge but could not leave the prison video room. ‘It must have been horrendous hearing a High Court appeal in which you can’t participate, which is discussing your mental health and your risk of suicide and in which the US is arguing you are making it all up. ‘He had to sit through all this when he should have been excused. He was in a truly terrible state. His eyes were out of synch, his right eyelid would not close, his memory was blurry.’

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Where does goverment money come from? A very revealing video from Canada.

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 28 2021

Oct 282021
 
 October 28, 2021  Posted by at 7:19 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  74 Responses »


M. C. Escher Drawing hands1948

 

• Fauci’s NIH Also Funded Medical Experiments on AIDS Orphans in NYC (GP)
• Congress Didn’t Give OSHA Authority to Impose Vaccine Mandates (HF)
• Japan Drops Vax Rollout, Goes To Ivermectin, Ends Covid Almost Overnight (HTRS)
• Two Indian Drugmakers to End Trials of Generic Merck Pill (R.)
• Minnesota Surgeon Fired After Saying Parents Should Decide On Kids’ Masks (JTN)
• Instagram Censors Popular Animal Rescuer for Slamming Fauci (GP)
• Revolt of the Essential Workers (Tab)
• Biden’s Nominee Omarova Wants to Move All Bank Deposits to the Fed (Martens)
• China Cannot Offset Its Property Bubble Easily (Lacalle)
• EU Fines Poland €1 Million Per Day Over Judicial Reforms (DW)
• Pfizer Vaccine To Lower Child Deaths From Almost Zero To Almost Zero (BBee)

 

 

 

 

Wait, so we can’t use Ivermectin because “We don’t have enough data,” But..
“Let’s vaccinate children to see how safe the vaccine is because we don’t have enough data.”

 

 

Tucker FDA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1453180072937107456

 

 

 

 

Such a fine man.

• Fauci’s NIH Also Funded Medical Experiments on AIDS Orphans in NYC (GP)

In August Gateway Pundit contributor Cassandra Fairbanks broke the story on Dr. Fauci’s use of taxpayer money to torture beagles in barbaric animal testing. Dr. Fauci funded a study in Tunisia where beagle dogs were eaten alive by parasite-infected flies. Dr. Fauci also spent over $16 million in taxpayer funds on disturbing “toxic brain injection” experiments on monkeys in 2018. And Dr. Fauci was more recently caught funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China laboratory blamed for the production and leak of the coronavirus. Fauci lied about his funding of the lab under oath numerous times. Now this… Dr. Fauci’s NIH was also caught funding experiments on AIDS orphans at a New York City hospital in 2004.

The Fauci NIH approved experiments on hundreds of New York City orphans. Government agencies and pharmaceutical companies used the orphans in deadly AIDS drug trials. In 2005, the city of New York hired the VERA Institute to form a final report on the drug trials. VERA was given no access to medical records for any of the children used in trials. Their report was published in 2008. They reported that twenty-five children died during the drug studies, that an additional fifty-five children died following the studies (in foster care), and, according to Tim Ross, Director of the Child Welfare program at VERA (as of 2009), 29% of the remaining 417 children who were used in drug studies had died (out of a total 532 children that are admitted to have been used). [LINK]

The WIKIPEDIA writers cover up all details, as is expected. No payment or compensation has been paid to any of the children used in the trials, or to their families. A hospital nurse later spoke out to reporters about the testing. She reported that children would immediately get sick, break out or throw up during the testing. They were orphans at the Incarnation Children’s Center in New York City. The ICC Investigation website offers several documents and interviews with children and childcare workers at the hospital who participated in the research.

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“OSHA will issue the order. And then get sued.”

• Congress Didn’t Give OSHA Authority to Impose Vaccine Mandates (HF)

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is about to require 80 million working Americans to get vaccinated. You may be among them. There’s just one catch: OSHA lacks the legal authority to impose a vaccine mandate. Declaring that his patience was “wearing thin” with unvaccinated Americans, President Joe Biden on Sept. 9 announced that OSHA would require companies with at least 100 employees to mandate that workers either get vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 tests. OSHA sent a draft mandate to the White House on Oct. 8. Once the White House completes its review, OSHA will issue the order. And then get sued. As we detail in our legal analysis, the courts will almost certainly strike down the OSHA vaccine mandate. Here are a few reasons why:

Congress did not place vaccines within OSHA’s purview. OSHA is establishing the vaccine mandate through an “emergency temporary standard.” This highly unusual process allows OSHA to bypass public notice and comment. Federal agencies, including OSHA, typically must submit major rules to public scrutiny before finalizing them. To take the “emergency temporary standard” shortcut, the agency must persuade a court that workers are in “grave danger” and that it is “necessary” to protect them against that danger. The “grave danger” that an emergency temporary standard must address must come from “exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or new hazards.” A toxic substance or agent is a poisonous element or compound. A substance or agent can be “physically harmful” because it is flammable, explosive, or carcinogenic.

The danger a virus causes, by contrast, derives from its ability to replicate within a living organism. Congress created OSHA to promote workplace safety. OSHA inspectors look for hazards that can potentially harm employees, such as improperly stored chemicals, inadequately lighted or ventilated workstations, or lack of protective equipment (e.g., gloves and hard hats). Vaccines against viruses are an entirely different form of protection and are beyond the scope of OSHA’s mandate. Congress tasked the Department of Health and Human Services with determining the safety, efficacy, and appropriate use of vaccines. Congress authorized the Food and Drug Administration to determine whether vaccines should be allowed in interstate commerce. It empowered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend who should receive such vaccines. Both agencies are within HHS. OSHA resides in the Department of Labor. Congress has given neither OSHA nor the Labor Department authority over vaccines.

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Are US, EU even studying this?

• Japan Drops Vax Rollout, Goes To Ivermectin, Ends Covid Almost Overnight (HTRS)

The European Medicines Agency said Thursday that new preliminary data from the Nordic countries supports a warning the agency adopted in July that inflammatory heart conditions called myocarditis and pericarditis can occur in very rare cases following vaccination with Covid-19 shots made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. By far, however, the absolute superstar among foreign nations dealing with COVID is Japan. Japan has PULLED the vaccines and substituted Ivermectin – and in one month, wiped COVID out in that country! [..] By September deaths from the COVID-19 Vaccine jabs were being investigated. At roughly that time, the vials were under scrutiny and metal “magnetic” material was found in them.


Very shortly thereafter, the Japanese minister of health announced doctors could prescribe Ivermectin. A month later, the Western press is shocked that COVID has all but disappeared from the island. [..] This is what it looks like in a country that still has rule of law. The governemnt responds to reports of death and contaminated vaxes, moves to real treatment, people get better, and the virus disappears. Now compare that to what is happening in the United States and in Australia and New Zealand. All three countries are in dismal failure in their handling of COVID-19, and that failure has resulted in staggering loss of freedom and destruction of commerce. This is the biggest news story right now Japan has ended COVID. It did it after it stopped the vax rollout and went to Ivermectin.

Rogan IVM

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Why do they call it generic?

• Two Indian Drugmakers to End Trials of Generic Merck Pill (R.)

Two Indian drugmakers have requested permission to end late-stage trials of their generic versions of Merck & Co’s promising experimental oral antiviral drug molnupiravir to treat moderate COVID-19, a week after Merck said its own trial had succeeded for mild-to-moderate patients. Merck earlier this year suspended its own development of molnupiravir as a treatment for hospitalized COVID-19 patients since many of them have reached a phase of the disease that is too late for an antiviral drug to provide much help. The Indian companies – Aurobindo Pharma Ltd and MSN Laboratories – did not exclude hospitalized patients in designing their moderate COVID-19 trials, according to study documents, although it was not known if the trials ultimately included people in the hospital.

Merck spokesperson Melissa Moody said Merck and the Indian companies had defined “moderate” disease differently. Merck’s trials are based on U.S. Food and Drug Administration definitions, which for moderate COVID-19 describe blood oxygen levels as no lower than 93%. It defines blood oxygen levels for severe COVID-19 as 93% or lower. The trials in India define moderate COVID-19 blood oxygen levels as 90% to 93%, according to the trial documents for the two companies.Aurobindo and MSN are continuing to conduct studies of molnupiravir in patients with mild COVID-19 who have not been hospitalized, according to trial documents and the website of the Indian drug regulator’s internal expert committee.

Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics last week said molnupiravir had nearly halved the risk of hospitalization or death in at-risk non-hospitalized patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19, results hailed by experts as potentially a major advance in fight against the illness. The Indian drug regulator’s committee also disclosed on its website that Aurobindo and MSN had presented interim clinical trial data for moderate COVID-19 patients and asked to end the trials.

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“.. it’s still their responsibility. It’s not yours. God gave it to them. Honor their wishes, either side of the fence.”

• Minnesota Surgeon Fired After Saying Parents Should Decide On Kids’ Masks (JTN)

A Minnesota surgeon was fired from his job earlier this month for giving a speech to school officials in which he advocated for parents to decide whether their children should wear masks. According to Fox News, Dr. Jeffrey Horak spoke before the Fergus Falls School Board on Oct. 11, arguing that parents should have the final decision concerning the health of their children. Dr. Horak’s comments were in response to a district-wide mask mandate that went into effect the day prior. “Who does God put in charge of these kids? Their parents,” Horak said during the meeting. “God gave each one of these kids… to their parents and they speak for them. They may be wrong, they may be dumb, they may be perfect in their decisions. But it’s still their responsibility. It’s not yours. God gave it to them. Honor their wishes, either side of the fence.”


Horak reportedly said that more than a week later, he was dismissed from his position at Lake Region Healthcare because his “views were no longer congruent” with that of the hospital. A spokesperson for Lake Region confirmed that Horak no longer works there as of Wednesday. The spokesperson went on to say that Lake Region’s didn’t make the decision concerning Horak’s employment, rather it was the “Medical Group Board who made the decision about discontinuing Dr. Horak’s practice.”

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Fauci is a protected species.

• Instagram Censors Popular Animal Rescuer for Slamming Fauci (GP)

Instagram has censored the founder of SPARTN Monkey Rescue for blasting Dr. Anthony Fauci over experimental COVID vaccines being injected into sanctuary primates. Michael Robison, a primate expert and rescuer, had stated that Fauci “just helped fund a $37M experimental vaccine trial on 77 chimps via a partnership with Zoetis/Pfizer at a Georgia sanctuary!” “Chimps that were rescued from this mess and other abuse… are now part of the largest animal testing trial in history at his guidance,” Robison continued. Robison added that the use of the experimental vaccines in these rescued primates is a violation of the Endangered Species Act and the CHIMPS Act, both of which are federal laws, “for a version of the vaccine meant for kids!”

The comments were flagged by Instagram for possibly “containing racist language or other content that goes against our community guidelines.” Robison is a well-respected rescuer who has developed quite a following on social media for his charming videos of monkeys and other animals that he has saved. Robison was also recently censored on Twitter for speaking out about his own regrets about getting the vaccine after suffering severe side effects — making his desire to defend the chimps even more urgent. As Gateway Pundit previously reported, one of the largest vaccine testing trials in history will be taking place at Project Chimps — a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals allied “sanctuary” for great apes. Project Chimps was founded in 2014 following the end of National Institutes of Health funding for biomedical research on these animals.

“About 70% of the chimpanzees at Project Chimps have been trained to receive voluntary injections, and the staff is working on preparing the rest,” Science Magazine reports. The nonhuman COVID-19 vaccine was created by Zoetis, a U.S. company that was originally the animal division of Pfizer. It has only been authorized for experimental use in animals. Testing experimental vaccines on these chimps, many of whom were already used for animal research in the past, does appear to be a direct violation of the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Management and Protection (CHIMP) Act and the Endangered Species Act. Under the CHIMP Act, which passed in 2007, chimpanzees that are retired from biomedical research are prohibited from being returned to laboratories or used for experimentation.

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Wishful thinking. They don’t even protest a jab for their kids.

• Revolt of the Essential Workers (Tab)

Back before the COVID-19 pandemic started, the year 2019 saw anti-government demonstrations in Paris, Manila, La Paz, Port-au-Prince, Bogotá, Prague, Quito , Beirut, Hong Kong, London, Baghdad, Barcelona, Budapest, Santiago, New Delhi, Jakarta, Buenos Aires and more, earning the title “the year of the protest.” It was also a year of resurgent labor activity in the United States. After decades of declining union participation, the country saw 25 major work stoppages involving 425,500 workers, the highest number since 2001.

The economic discontent that propelled both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders to popularity had been building for many years. As a recent article in the journal American Affairs noted, $34 trillion of real equity wealth, in 2017 dollars, was created between 1989 and 2017. Nearly half that sum (44%) consisted of a reallocation of corporate equity to shareholders at the expense of worker compensation, while economic growth accounted for just 25% of that increase in wealth. In other words, despite the advent of seemingly near-miraculous, time- and space-saving digital technologies, the post-Cold War “economic boom” consisted mainly of America’s wealthy shareholders taking money from its increasingly insecure workforce.

America, and other Western societies, had moved from a model of real growth and expanding benefits for all to a model where the rich got richer by impoverishing the less wealthy orders of society—and the lower orders were fighting back. However, after lockdowns were imposed in March 2020, the balance of power abruptly shifted back toward billionaire oligarchs and large corporations. Tech-based U.S. monopolies widened their profit margins as workers and their children were confined to their homes and the Fed pumped money into Wall Street. As the Fed provided unlimited purchases of corporate debt and securities, millions of people filed for unemployment, nearly 1 in 4 households experienced food insecurity, and 200,000 small businesses closed. The result was an estimated loss of $1.3 trillion in household wealth for American workers. Meanwhile, U.S. billionaires gained $1 trillion.

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Have nothing and be happy.

• Biden’s Nominee Omarova Wants to Move All Bank Deposits to the Fed (Martens)

This month, the Vanderbilt Law Review published a 69-page paper by Saule Omarova, President Biden’s nominee to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal regulator of the largest banks in the country that operate across state lines. The paper is titled “The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy.” The paper, in all seriousness, proposes the following: (1) Moving all commercial bank deposits from commercial banks to so-called FedAccounts at the Federal Reserve; (2) Allowing the Fed, in “extreme and rare circumstances, when the Fed is unable to control inflation by raising interest rates,” to confiscate deposits from these FedAccounts in order to tighten monetary policy;

(3) Allowing the most Wall Street-conflicted regional Fed bank in the country, the New York Fed, when there are “rises in market value at rates suggestive of a bubble trend,” such as with technology stocks today, to “short these securities, thereby putting downward pressure on their prices”; (4) Eliminate the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that insures bank deposits; (5) Consolidate all bank regulatory functions at the OCC – which Omarova has been nominated to head. Republican Senator Pat Toomey has been running a Red Scare campaign against Omarova, who was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (now Kazakhstan) and attended Moscow State University on a Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship.

The real threat that Omarova poses to U.S. financial stability, that Democrats should be calling out, is that she wants to further concentrate all major aspects of the U.S. banking system in the hands of the Federal Reserve, a captured regulator whose 12 regional bank tentacles are, literally, owned by the banks. Omarova offers not one scintilla of a suggestion about restructuring the Fed so that it is not owned by or controlled by the banks. In her paper, Omarova characterizes the current relationship between the Fed and the banks as the Fed running a “franchisor ledger” to assist its franchisee-banks.

But as the Fed’s secret $29 trillion bailout of the mega banks on Wall Street and their foreign derivative counterparties proved following the financial crash in 2008, it’s actually the banks that are cracking the whip and the Fed amicably doing their bidding. That means that the mega banks are the franchisor and they’ve shifted their faux bank examinations and faux stress tests to the Fed, for appearances sake. This point is further demonstrated by the fact that during the Fed’s 2007-2010 bailouts, most of the Fed’s emergency lending programs were farmed out in no-bid contracts to the very banks being bailed out. JPMorgan Chase, a five-count felon, continues to have a contract with the Fed to serve as custodian of more than $2 trillion of the Fed’s agency Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS).

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“..four times larger than China’s GDP.”

• China Cannot Offset Its Property Bubble Easily (Lacalle)

No economy has been able to ignore a property bubble and, even less so, offset it and continue to grow, replacing the bust of the real estate sector with other parts of the economy. Heavily regulated economies from Iceland to Spain have failed to contain the negative impact of a real estate sector collapse. It will not be different in China. China has three real estate problems: the massive size of the sector, its excessive leverage, and the amount of developer debt in the hands of average households and retail investors. According to China researcher George Magnus, writing in The Guardian, “China’s real estate market has been called the most important sector in the world economy. Valued at about $55tn, it is now twice the size of its U.S. equivalent, and four times larger than China’s GDP.”

Considering construction and other real estate services, the sector accounts for more than 25 percent of China’s GDP. Just to consider other previous examples of property bubbles, the average size of the sector was somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of a country’s GDP. And none of those economies managed the excess of the property sector. Of course, the problem of a real estate bubble is always excessive leverage. Developers take on too much debt, and the smallest decrease in housing prices makes their equity vanish and their solvency ratios collapse. In the case of China, the level of debt is simply staggering. According to the Financial Times, the ratio of net debt of 19 of the largest Chinese developers stands at over 60 percent to equity. Evergrande is not even the most indebted.

Two developers stand at more than 120 percent net gearing. The top 10 most indebted Chinese developers amply surpass the level of debt-to-assets that made Spain’s Martinsa-Fadesa collapse. Chinese and foreign retail investors are also heavily exposed to the real estate and construction market. Evergrande was the biggest issuer of commercial paper, and developers’ debt was sold to small investors in different packages. Furthermore, Chinese families have around 78 percent of their wealth tied up in property, more than double the United States, according to a 2018 report by Chengdu’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics and China Guangfa Bank.

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Bully. All your base are belong to us.

• EU Fines Poland €1 Million Per Day Over Judicial Reforms (DW)

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ordered Poland to pay a fine of €1 million ($1.2 million) per day on Wednesday over its decision to ignore an EU ruling on Warsaw’s judicial reforms. The top EU court imposed the penalty as Poland has not suspended the disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court. The ECJ had ruled in July that the chamber did not guarantee impartiality. The ECJ said in a press release the fine was “necessary in order to avoid serious and irreparable harm to the legal order of the European Union and to the values on which that Union is founded, in particular that of the rule of law.” The European Commission had requested “financial penalties” be levied on September 9 after Poland failed to comply with the July ruling. On Twitter, Poland’s Deputy Justice Minister Sebastian Kaleta called the fine “usurpation and blackmail.”


The disciplinary chamber was set up in 2018 and is able to dismiss judges and prosecutors. The ECJ fears this could be abused to inflict punitive sanctions on those who show independence in not bowing to political will. Earlier this month, Poland’s constitutional court ruled Polish law supersedes EU law when there is a conflict between the two. Last week, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the European Parliament the disciplinary chamber will be abolished, but he gave no timeline for when that would occur and no draft law has been introduced. Poland has been accused of backsliding when it comes to the independence of the judiciary and press freedom by other EU member states. The EU asserts Poland has politicized the judiciary with the placement of judges loyal to the ruling Law and Justice Party.

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“We’re excited to start giving it to them so we can find out.”

• Pfizer Vaccine To Lower Child Deaths From Almost Zero To Almost Zero (BBee)

In a moment celebrated by all hard-working lobbyists, Pfizer announced that the COVID-19 vaccine will reduce average daily child COVID deaths from almost zero all the way down to almost zero. “These are phenomenal results. Our internal studies have proven a microscopic benefit to an even more microscopic risk to children,” stated Dee Pimbly, head of Pfizer’s Department of Propaganda to a crowd of journalists who have not allowed their own children to bask in the warm glow of sunlight, or interact with other children for almost no reason whatsoever.


FDA officials praised Pfizer for fighting a virus that is the leading killer of children after cancer, vehicular accidents, suicide, heart disease, drowning, suffocation, the flu, meteors from space, and slipping on a banana peel. Experts say the vaccine will probably kill more kids than it saves, but it’s ok because science. When asked about any safety concerns, an FDA official replied, “We’re excited to start giving it to them so we can find out.”

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Debt Rattle July 18 2021

Jul 182021
 
 July 18, 2021  Posted by at 9:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  83 Responses »


Pablo Picasso The blue room 1901

 

• Infections in Vaccinated Overtake Those in Unvaccinated For the First Time (LDS)
• British Ministers Decide Against Mass Vaccination For Teens (R.)
• The CDC Owes Parents Better Messaging on the Vaccine for Kids (Wired)
• Fauci: US Might ‘Still Have Polio’ If Media Back Then Opposed Vaccine (Y!)
• Biden Denounces Big Tech as “Killing People” By Not Censoring Speech (Turley)
• Sheriff In California Won’t Enforce Mask Mandate: ‘Not Backed By Science’ (RT)
• Game Postponed After 6 New York Yankees Test Positive For Covid-19 (CNN)
• Kamala’s Husband Spreads Misinformation (ZH)
• US-Backed Tech Restores Internet To More Than 1 Million Cubans (ZH)
• Does Japan Control The Trigger For US Nuclear War On China? (Ritter)

 

 

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There is never a single source of truth. Other than in dictatorships.

 

 

 

 

At what point can this no longer be ignored?

• Infections in Vaccinated Overtake Those in Unvaccinated For the First Time (LDS)

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, despite being vaccinated – and he is far from alone. The latest ZOE data shows that, as of July 12th, infections in the vaccinated (with at least one dose) in the U.K. now outnumber those in the unvaccinated for the first time, as the former continue to surge while the latter plummet (see above). (Note that 68% of the population has had at least one vaccine dose, so there are still at this stage disproportionately more new infections in the unvaccinated, though on current trends that may soon change.) At what point will the Government accept that these vaccines have limited efficacy in preventing infection and transmission, and thus the whole rationale of being vaccinated to protect others – vaccine passports, compulsory vaccination, and so on – is suspect?

The above graph was in yesterday’s report, so I downloaded today’s report (you can get it by signing up to the app and reporting your symptoms) to get the new update. I was dismayed to find the graph was gone. At the bottom, a note explains: Removed incidence graph by vaccination status from the report as there are very few unvaccinated users in the infection survey, the Confidence Intervals are very wide and the trend for unvaccinated people is no longer representative. Which I would say is very convenient, just as infections in the vaccinated became the majority. Perhaps ZOE should try to recruit some more unvaccinated people for its survey, so it can continue to report on this as well as have a control group for its vaccine data? That would seem the scientific thing to do, rather than just stop reporting it because it is suddenly “no longer representative”.

It’s doubly odd because Tim Spector, lead scientist on the ZOE app, made the decline among the unvaccinated a feature of his video this week. So the realisation that the trend is “no longer representative” appears to have been rather sudden, even invalidating the contents of a ZOE ‘data release‘ two days earlier.

Read more …

Rare light.

• British Ministers Decide Against Mass Vaccination For Teens (R.)

Britain has opted against mass COVID-19 vaccinations for all children and teenagers, with ministers instead preparing to offer doses to vulnerable 12 to 15-year-olds and those about to turn 18, the Telegraph newspaper reported late on Saturday. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is believed to have advised ministers against the rollout of vaccines to all children until further evidence on the risks is available, the report added. Under guidance the newspaper said are due to be issued on Monday, vaccine doses will be offered to children between 12 and 15 who are deemed vulnerable to COVID-19 or who live with adults who are immunosuppressed or otherwise vulnerable to the virus.


They will also now be offered to all 17-year-olds within three months of their 18th birthday, according to The Telegraph, which reported that the committee would keep the possibility of vaccinating all children “under review.” In response to the report, Britain’s Health Department said that “no decisions have been made by ministers on whether people aged 12 to 17 should be routinely offered COVID-19 vaccines.” Britain on Saturday reported 54,674 new COVID-19 cases, a rise on the 51,870 new cases reported on the previous day to post a fresh highest daily total in six months.

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Yeah: Don’t!

• The CDC Owes Parents Better Messaging on the Vaccine for Kids (Wired)

On June 23, an advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met to discuss, among other topics, vaccine-related cases of myocarditis, which have hospitalized hundreds of adolescents. Evidence of a correlation between the condition, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and the vaccines had been mounting for months. Numerous countries had altered or withheld recommendations for pediatric vaccination, with some citing an ambiguous risk-benefit. One day after the committee meeting, however, CDC director Rochelle Walensky went on TV and calmly reassured viewers that there was nothing to worry about: Vaccinating kids age 12 and up, at the full dosage and same schedule as adults, should continue with alacrity.

Walensky cited a string of statistics that showed “the benefits of vaccination far outweigh any harm.” But some epidemiologists, public health experts, pediatricians, cardiologists, and other scientists dispute the CDC’s numbers, characterizations, and conclusion. The agency, they variously contend, is both exaggerating the risks of Covid-19 to young people and underplaying the potential risks of the vaccine to them. Much data that would support the CDC’s declarations are either unknown, unrevealed, or far messier than the agency and its director portray. And the data that are known and clear have been projected through a specific lens with blunt certainty. The absolute risk of the vaccine still appears to be extremely small for young people but, on balance, when the data are seen through a different frame, the relative individual risk from vaccination, particularly for healthy young males, may be higher than it is to not be vaccinated at this time.

There is no debate among most experts critical of the CDC about the value of vaccines on a societal level to help usher in the end of the pandemic, which is the ultimate goal of the vaccine. Rather, the matter at hand is the CDC’s messaging, which fails to help parents and children make properly informed decisions about the vaccines on an individual level. As Stefan Baral, an epidemiologist and physician at Johns Hopkins, recently tweeted, “One can be both very pro-Covid-19 vaccination and also be worried about the individual risk:benefit profile of Covid-19 vaccines in <16 yo.”

First, the link between the mRNA vaccines and myocarditis, particularly in young males, is sufficiently clear that the FDA revised its vaccine fact sheets to include a warning about it. As of June 11 (the latest date most data were collected for the meeting), 128 cases within seven days of the second dose had been reported in boys aged 12 to 17, when the CDC’s expected number for that same population was zero to four cases. VAERS, the reporting database for vaccine-related adverse events that these statistics are drawn from, has limitations. Some portion of the events reported may be unrelated to the vaccines. But the differential between expected and observed cases within certain cohorts is the statistical equivalent of a blaring siren. (A detailed analysis in Israel estimated the incidence of myocarditis following vaccination in young males to be around one in 5,000, equating to 200 cases per million.)

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It took Salk 7 years to get a real vaccine, which you still don’t have, and maybe never will. Nuff said. How did this crazed loose cannon become the most trusted voice, and what does that tell us about America?

• Fauci: US Might ‘Still Have Polio’ If Media Back Then Opposed Vaccine (Y!)

Top US scientist Anthony Fauci on Saturday blasted commentators who sound an anti-vaccination theme, saying America might still be battling smallpox and polio if today’s kind of misinformation existed back then. The comments from the country’s leading infectious disease expert reflected mounting frustration over the sharp slowdown in the Covid-19 vaccination rate in the United States, even as the disease has been surging in states with low rates. It also came days after President Joe Biden expressed his own visible frustration, saying social media that carry widely heard misinformation about vaccines are “killing people.”


Fauci was responding to a CNN interviewer who asked if he thought “we could have defeated the measles or eradicated polio if you had Fox News, night after night, warning people about these vaccine issues that are just bunk.” Fauci said: “We probably would still have smallpox and we probably would still have polio … if we had the kind of false information that’s being spread.” Initial vaccine skepticism in many areas has increasingly evolved into outright hostility, a message magnified by baseless conspiracy theories regularly aired on Fox and other conservative networks. “Maybe it doesn’t work and they’re simply not telling you that,” Tucker Carlson, one of Fox’s most popular commentators, said recently.

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“Biden is accusing these companies of actually killing people for refusing even more extensive censorship of speech. The statement equates free speech with death itself.”

• Biden Denounces Big Tech as “Killing People” By Not Censoring Speech (Turley)

President Joe Biden slammed Big Tech companies this week for “killing people” by failing to engage in even greater censorship of free speech on issues related to the pandemic. It was a surprising condemnation of companies who have been loyal allies of Biden, including killing stories embarrassing to his family like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal before the election. It also has censored stories questioning his victory in 2020. Nevertheless, Biden denounced the range of uncensored free speech as the cause of death for many — the ultimate anti-free speech trope for those seeking to convince people to embrace their own censorship. Biden was asked by a reporter what his message was to “platforms like Facebook” on the subject of “COVID misinformation.”

He responded “They’re killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they’re killing people.” This comes as these companies have been criticized for censoring debates over the origin or treatment of Covid-19. For a year, Big Tech has been censoring those who wanted to discuss the origins of pandemic. It was not until Biden admitted that the virus may have originated in the Wuhan lab that social media suddenly changed its position. Facebook only recently announced that people on its platform will be able to discuss the origins of Covid-19 after censoring any such discussion. The White House recently admitted that it was flagging “misinformation” for censorship by companies like Facebook. Moreover, White House press secretary Jen Psaki has called for people to be banned from all social media if any one company bans them.

Biden is accusing these companies of actually killing people for refusing even more extensive censorship of speech. The statement equates free speech with death itself. We have seen this type of reckless rhetoric in other areas where disagreement with a policy or proposal is treated as de facto racism or hate speech. That was the case recently with the NAACP official who denounced those of opposing what is commonly referred to as critical race theory lessons as haters of a long litany of groups from the disabled to children to “help people.” This was followed by the chilling words “Let them die.”

Rather than seek to convince the skeptical, Biden wants to silence them and use these companies to control what is read and discussed about the pandemic. What is chilling is the degree to which reporters and academics have supported the massive censorship system in the United States. However, that system is clearly not (to use Sen. Blumenthal’s words) “robust enough” for Biden who wants these companies to carry out a more complete censorship of opposing views.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH about censorship

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A sheriff who can read. They didn’t count on that. How much did John Wayne ever read when he played one?

• Sheriff In California Won’t Enforce Mask Mandate: ‘Not Backed By Science’ (RT)

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has made waves and caused outrage by refusing to enforce the city’s reinstated mask policy, saying the decision is “not backed by science.” Los Angeles County health officials shocked many this week when they announced that their mask mandate would be returning. Similar to the restriction in place before the county began reopening last month, residents have been told to wear masks in indoor settings and large gatherings, regardless of one’s vaccination status. County officials reinstated the mask mandate due to new Covid-19 daily cases reaching over 1,000 every day for a week. Health officials also cited the Delta variant as a reason why people “need to reduce our risk of infection and our risk for potentially infecting others.”


Villanueva, who is up for reelection next year, was quick to respond to the mandate, and made it clear that he and his officers would have no part in helping the county enforce the new rule. “Forcing the vaccinated and those who already contracted COVID-19 to wear masks indoors is not backed by science and contradicts the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines,” he said in a statement. The “underfunded” department, the sheriff added, will not be using their “limited resources” to make sure people are in compliance, though he made sure to say they “have the authority” to enforce if they wanted to. The sheriff is asking for “voluntary compliance” from residents instead.

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All fully vaccinated.

• Game Postponed After 6 New York Yankees Test Positive For Covid-19 (CNN)

Six players on the New York Yankees have tested positive for Covid-19, general manager Brian Cashman told reporters Thursday, in the second instance this year of breakthrough cases occurring among some members of the baseball team. “We have three positives, and we have three pending that we’ve had rapid tests on,” Cashman said, saying the three positive rapid tests are being confirmed with additional lab work. The players with confirmed positive tests are pitchers Jonathan Loaisiga, Nestor Cortes Jr. and Wandy Peralta, according to the team. The three unnamed players have results pending.


The three named players were all vaccinated, according to the team. Two of the players received Johnson & Johnson vaccines and the other was from either Pfizer or Moderna, Cashman says. The pitchers are “doing well thus far,” Cashman said, while he declined to comment on the unnamed players until final confirmation of their positive tests are received by the team. Earlier this season, eight positive tests were recorded among coaching and travel staff, all of whom had previously taken the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Of the team members who tested positive, only one showed mild symptoms and his condition improved, the Yankees said.

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He’s as crazy as she is.

• Kamala’s Husband Spreads Misinformation (ZH)

Emhoff spoke to the 44-year-old man as if he was a toddler at the doctor’s office. “Don’t be nervous. It won’t hurt. I’ve had it. I can take it. So don’t be scared,” Emhoff told Posadas. The immigrant then stood off to the side while Emhoff shook hands with doctors and medical staff from Ochsner Health. After posing for photos, Emhoff turns back to Posadas. “Gustava, thank you so much. Muy importante,” Emhoff said in English-accented Spanish. “What do you have to say to people? And you’re going to tell a bunch of people…?” “I tell everybody,” Posadas said in Spanish-accented English. “I don’t want this before. But now I think this is real…” “This is real,” Emhoff says, completing his sentence. “And it’s the only thing that is going to prevent you, your family and others from dying or getting really sick.”

Say what? A vaccine is the only thing that is going to prevent people from dying from COVID? Is this what the Biden administration’s door knockers are telling people in private? The recovery rate for COVID is 98 to 99 percent. Almost all the deaths are due to age or underlying conditions. Johns Hopkins currently has the rate at 98.2 percent in America. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before Congress that the survival rate is actually 99 percent because asymptomatic cases are under counted. Emhoff seemingly doesn’t care to give the facts to Posadas and put the success of the media stunt at risk. “I’m so grateful you’re doing this in front of the cameras so you can tell everyone it’s okay,” said Emhoff. Posadas nods his head. “Everything – my people – I thinks, we want the shot. This is real. I not believe you before, but I feel it now.”

No reporter asks questions. But the obvious one is: How long ago did Posadas not “believe” Emhoff? Who convinced him to take the vaccine? What was told to him in English or Spanish? Emhoff wastes no time with Posadas’s hesitancy. “Well let’s do it!” said the Second Gentleman while the medical staff and clergy applaud. Posadas is put in a white, folding chair. He keeps on the mirrored sunglasses. A woman in scrubs tells him to pull the mask over his nose. He rolls up his sleeve as the woman comes in with the needle. Posadas looks in the opposite direction. “Look at me! Look at me!” Emhoff tells him, while the shot is administered. The crowd applauds. Emhoff holds out his fist, and Posadas bumps him after he stands.

“Thank you for doing this,” Emhoff says, while Posadas rubs his arm and says something in Spanish. “Thank you for telling everyone to do this.” Emhoff walks away to do media interviews while a woman is heard off camera saying, “Gustava, did you get your card with your vaccination on it?” The Second Gentleman tells reporters that, “On the Covid piece, on the vaccinations, I’m not going to stop. This administration is not going to stop until we continue to get the word out here.” Emhoff continues but seems to not remember Posadas’s name. “You heard what he said – it’s real. He didn’t believe it. He believes it now….” Harris’s husband does a hard sell of the vaccines and adds, “We’re going to go door to door, bring the vaccines out to the people until we get this done.”

Biden/Kamala vaccines

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Ha ha ha! Think they installed a “misinformation” filter?

• US-Backed Tech Restores Internet To More Than 1 Million Cubans (ZH)

With summer uprisings in Cuba, the communist government has discovered ways to cut the internet off to millions of residents, so organized protesting on social media is near impossible. Let’s take a step back to early last week when reports of the Cuban regime used China-made technology systems to block internet and cell phone service to prevent pictures and videos of what was happening on the ground published online near impossible for the outside world to see. The regime also blocked popular social media channels that would make organized protesting impossible. Remember, a decade ago, during Arab Spring, Facebook and Twitter were critical for organizers to orchestrate uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain.

The Biden administration is finding ways to provide anti-censorship tools to Cubans to access social media during the blackouts. According to Bloomberg, the U.S. government supports a censorship circumvention tool designed to unblock content in Cuba and is powered by a company called Psiphon Inc. As of Thursday, Psiphon tweeted, “1.389 Million daily unique users accessed the open web from Cuba through the Psiphon network. Internet is ON; circumvention tools ARE working.” Psiphon uses proxy servers that disguise internet traffic so Cuban authorities cannot tell if people are accessing social media platforms. The Toronto-based nonprofit has received money from the U.S. government. Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn tweeted Saturday that the proxy service is working well:

The Biden administration has been strategizing on other ways to provide the people of Cuba with internet access. “They have cut off access to the internet. We are considering whether we have the technological ability to reinstate that access,” President Biden said on Friday. Biden commented after Florida Governor Ron Desantis told the president the federal government should restore internet on the island located in the northern Caribbean Sea. Desantis said there’s a technology that would allow the U.S. to broadcast internet access into Cuba remotely. “Technology exists to provide Internet access into Cuba remotely, using the innovation of American enterprise and the diverse industries here,” the governor wrote. He said this reminds him of the Cold War when the U.S. funded radio stations to broadcast information into the Soviet Union.

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A bunch of tiny islands and a dispute that no-one ever bothered to resolve. But now if the US wants to stand with Japan, it must stand against Taiwan. And the Chinese are thinking: let’s have that fun.

• Does Japan Control The Trigger For US Nuclear War On China? (Ritter)

Statements made by Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister about his country’s need to defend Taiwan have raised the specter of a “Japan exception” to China’s no-first-use policy on nuclear weapons. In April this year, Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide became the first foreign leader to visit the White House after the swearing in of Joe Biden as America’s 46th President. After private discussions, Yoshihide and Biden issued a joint statement entitled “US-Japan Global Partnership for a New Era.” What made it stand out from similar joint releases over the past decades of US-Japanese relations was the fact that, for the first time in over 50 years, the Japanese and American leaders made mention of Taiwan, declaring “we underscore the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and encourage the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.”

While the statement was, on the surface, rather innocuous, the Chinese Embassy in the US immediately reacted, declaring Beijing’s resolute opposition to what it deemed to be interference in China’s internal affairs, and noting that the talks had gone beyond the scope of normal bilateral relations, harming third-party interests and threatening peace and stability in the region. While most observers might think the Chinese objection was centered on its long-standing claim on Taiwan proper, the trigger point was, more likely, the specific reference made in the statement to a tiny cluster of uninhabited rocky islands situated some 170 kilometers (105 miles) north of Taiwan and around 400 kilometers (248 miles) due west of Okinawa.

These islands, known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands and in China as the Diaoyu Dao Islands, are located not only in rich fishing waters, but also on top of economically viable underwater oil and gas deposits. While their ownership is a matter of ongoing legal dispute, with China viewing them as constituting part of Taiwan, and Japan as part of the Okinawa prefecture, at the present time the islands are administered by Japan. The US-Japanese joint statement reiterated Washington’s “unwavering support for Japan’s defense under the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, using its full range of capabilities, including nuclear.” It then went on to reaffirm “the fact that Article V of the Treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands,” adding that both the US and Japan “oppose any unilateral action that seeks to undermine Japan’s administration of the Senkaku Islands.”

Left to its own devices, the Sino-Japanese dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Dao Islands should have remained low-key. But on July 6, Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Taro Aso, reportedly stated that “If a major problem took place in Taiwan, it would not be too much to say that it could relate to a survival-threatening situation [for Japan],” citing language which specifically triggers Japan’s Constitutionally-mandated right of collective self-defense, where it would be permitted to deploy its armed forces in support of an ally who had been attacked. A “survival-threatening situation” occurs when an armed attack against a foreign country allied with Japan poses a clear risk of threatening Japan’s survival.

“We need to think hard that Okinawa could be the next,” Aso was quoted as saying, indicating the specific nature of the “survival-threatening situation” he spoke of. While China has never expressed any territorial interest in either Okinawa or the other populated islands contained in the Okinawa prefecture, the fact that Japan views the Senkaku Islands as part of Okinawa, and China views the Diaoyu Dao Islands as part of Taiwan, means that any Chinese move on Taiwan would, as a matter of course, include asserting its claim over the disputed islands. This, in turn, would trigger Article V of the US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation, which is backed by the nuclear arsenal of the United States.

Read more …

 

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Debt Rattle January 13 2021

Jan 132021
 
 January 13, 2021  Posted by at 10:31 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


Alfred Wertheimer Elvis entering the Warwick 1956

 

• The Ireland Event (Ben Hunt)
• Japan To Suspend Entry Of All Foreigners (NHK)
• China Sees Growing COVID-19 Threat As More Cities Locked Down (R.)
• Ron Paul Criticized Social Media Censorship Before Being Blocked (Turley)
• How Silicon Valley Monopolistic Force Destroyed Parler (Greenwald)
• Pence Responds To Pelosi, Won’t Invoke 25th Amendment (Mike Pence)
• Trump’s Last Chance to Declassify Secrets of the Russia Collusion Dud (Maté)
• Israel Isn’t A Democracy, It’s An ‘Apartheid Regime’ – Rights Group (CNN)
• Upbeat Xi Says “Time And Situation On China’s Side” (ZH)
• Food Hampers In Wales As English Mum Posts Picture Of £30 Package (WO)
• Top Scientists: ‘Ghastly Future Of Mass Extinction’, Climate Disruption (G.)

 

 

“There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right: It is the ideal American who is all wrong.”
– G.K. Chesterton

 

 

 

 

“..a 30x spike in Covid cases in Ireland over the span of two weeks in late December..”

• The Ireland Event (Ben Hunt)

And when I say “insane infection numbers” I mean a 30x spike in Covid cases in Ireland over the span of two weeks in late December, where the R number – the basic reproductive rate of the disease – went from something around 1.2 to something around 3. Where you suddenly went from a few hundred new Covid cases every day to more than six thousand cases every day. All in a country the size of Alabama (which, btw, currently has about 4 thousand cases every day). [..] I believe there is a non-trivial chance that the United States will experience a rolling series of “Ireland events” over the next 30-45 days, where the Covid effective reproductive number (Re not R0) reaches a value between 2.4 and 3.0 in states and regions where a) the more infectious UK-variant (or similar) Covid strain has been introduced, and b) Covid fatigue has led to deterioration in social distancing behaviors.

A single Ireland event is a disaster. A series of Ireland events on the scale of the United States is catastrophic. If this were to occur, I’d expect to see a doubling of new Covid cases/day from current levels in the aggregate (today’s 7-day average is 240k/day), peaking somewhere around 500,000 new daily cases before draconian economic shutdowns (more severe than anything we’ve seen to date) would occur in every impacted major metro area. Hospital systems across the country would be placed under enormous additional strain, leading to meaningfully higher case fatality ratios (CFRs) as medical care was rationed. Most critically, this new infection rate would far outpace our current vaccine distribution capacity and policy. Assuming that vaccines are preferentially administered to the elderly, aggregate infection fatality ratios (IFRs) should decrease, but the overall burden of severe outcomes (death, long-term health consequences) would shift to younger demographics.

Current US government policy rejects the possibility of an Ireland event, largely because of what I believe is a politically-motivated analysis by the CDC that models more than 100 million Americans already possessing Covid antibodies, prior to any vaccination effort. Using data from flu monitoring programs in prior years, the CDC models project that 70 MILLION Americans have already gotten sick with symptomatic Covid, but decided to just write it off as a bad cold and never got tested. I am not making this up. Add in another 10 million or so Americans who the CDC models as having already had asymptomatic Covid, add in the 23 million Americans who we know have had Covid, and voila! – per the CDC, one-third of the American population is already effectively immunized against getting Covid in the future. And obviously enough, if >30% of Americans are already effectively immunized against Covid because they’ve already gotten sick, then it’s very difficult to hit the Re numbers of 2.4 – 3.0 that Ireland is currently experiencing.

I think this model is wrong, and I think the CDC knows that it’s wrong. I think it’s wrong because the 2021 behavior of someone who thinks they might have Covid is very different from the 2015 behavior of someone who thought they might have had the flu, but the CDC assumes it is the same in their models. You don’t ignore Covid. You don’t just brush it off. I’d say that no one just brushes off Covid symptoms the way they might have brushed off flu symptoms in the past, but of course that’s not true. I’m sure there are millions of Americans who have, in fact, had symptomatic Covid and ignored it, particularly in spring and early summer when our national testing capability was pathetic. But 70 MILLION Americans? Twenty percent of ALL Americans? More than three times the number of known Covid cases? C’mon, man.

I think the CDC knows this model is wrong because if it were true – if they actually thought that one-third of Americans were already effectively immunized by having Covid antibodies – this would be an ENORMOUS factor in determining vaccination policy. Otherwise, you are going to be wasting one-third of your precious supply of vaccines on people who don’t need it. I think the CDC knows this model is wrong because if it were true, how do you make sense of Covid hospitalization rates?

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Soon to come in a country near you.

• Japan To Suspend Entry Of All Foreigners (NHK)

The Japanese government plans to suspend the entry of all foreigners as the coronavirus continues to spread around the world. Japan halted all new arrivals of non-nationals last month after new strains of the coronavirus that are believed to be highly transmissible were confirmed in the UK and elsewhere. But it continued to allow entry by businesspeople from 10 Asian countries and Taiwan. The government plans to suspend the entry of travelers, regardless of whether a coronavirus variant has been detected in their country, as part of its tighter entry restrictions following the declaration of a state of emergency.


No foreigners will be allowed to enter Japan, except for special reasons, such as a relative’s funeral or childbirth. Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide said last week he plans to ban travel to and from countries and territories where a new strain of the coronavirus has been confirmed. But members of his party and others described the measure as confusing.

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China’s nervous.

• China Sees Growing COVID-19 Threat As More Cities Locked Down (R.)

China has recorded the biggest daily jump in COVID cases in more than five months, despite four cities in lockdown, increased testing and other measures aimed at preventing another wave of infections in the world’s second biggest economy. Most of the new patients were reported near the capital Beijing, but a province in northeast China also saw a rise in new cases, official data showed on Wednesday, amid a resurgence that has seen more than 28 million people under home quarantine. The National Health Commission said in a statement that a total of 115 new confirmed cases were reported in the mainland compared with 55 a day earlier. This was the highest daily increase since July 30.

The commission said 107 of the new cases were local infections. Hebei, the province that surrounds Beijing, accounted for 90 of the cases, while northeastern Heilongjiang province reported 16 new cases. [..] Hebei has put three cities – Shijiazhuang, Xingtai and Langfang – into lockdown as part of the efforts to keep the virus from spreading further, while Beijing city authorities have stepped up screening and prevention measures to prevent another cluster from developing there. Heilongjiang province on Wednesday declared a COVID-19 emergency. The city of Suihua, which borders the provincial capital Harbin, put its 5.2 million people under lockdown.

Most of the cases in Heilongjiang have been found in Wangkui county, under Suihua’s jurisdiction, which had already been put into a lockdown earlier this week. Tieli, a city of about 300,000 people that borders Suihua, said on Wednesday it will not allow any people or vehicles to leave for three days as part of new COVID-19 prevention measurs.

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An 85-year old apostle for peace. Boy, you guys screwed up.

• Ron Paul Criticized Social Media Censorship Before Being Blocked (Turley)

We have been discussing the chilling crackdown on free speech that has been building for years in the United States. This effort has accelerated in the aftermath of the Capitol riot including the shutdown sites like Parler. Now former Texas congressman Ron Paul, 85, has been blocked from using his Facebook page for unspecified violations of “community standards.” Paul’s last posting was linked to an article on the “shocking” increase of censorship on social media. Facebook then proceeded to block him under the same undefined “community standards” policy. Paul, a libertarian leader and former presidential candidate, has been an outspoken critics of foreign wars and an advocate for civil liberties for decades. He wrote: “With no explanation other than ‘repeatedly going against our community standards,’ @Facebook has blocked me from managing my page. Never have we received notice of violating community standards in the past and nowhere is the offending post identified.”

His son is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tweeted, “Facebook now considers advocating for liberty to be sedition. Where will it end?” Even before the riot, Democrats were calling for blacklists and retaliation against anyone deemed to be “complicit” with the Trump Administration. We have been discussing the rising threats against Trump supporters, lawyers, and officials in recent weeks from Democratic members are calling for blacklists to the Lincoln Project leading a a national effort to harass and abuse any lawyers representing the Republican party or President Trump. Others are calling for banning those “complicit” from college campuses while still others are demanding a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to “hold Trump and his enablers accountable for the crimes they have committed.” Daily Beast editor-at-large Rick Wilson has added his own call for “humiliation,” “incarceration” and even ritualistic suicides for Trump supporters in an unhinged, vulgar column.

After the riots, the big tech companies moved to ban and block sites and individuals, including Parler which is the primary alternative to Twitter. Also, a top Forbes editor Randall Lane warned any company that they will be investigated if they hire any former Trump officials. The riots are being used as a license to rollback on free speech and retaliate against conservatives. In the meantime, the silence of academics and many in the media is deafening. Many of those who have spoken for years about the dark period of McCarthyism and blacklisting are either supporting this censorship or remaining silent in the face of it. Now that conservatives are the targets, speech controls and blacklists appear understandable or even commendable. The move against Paul, a long champion of free speech, shows how raw and comprehensive this crackdown has become. It shows how the threat to free speech has changed. It is like having a state media without state control. These companies are moving in unison but not necessarily with direct collusion.

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“..exactly at the moment when it became the most-downloaded app in the country…”

• How Silicon Valley Monopolistic Force Destroyed Parler (Greenwald)

Critics of Silicon Valley censorship for years heard the same refrain: tech platforms like Facebook, Google and Twitter are private corporations and can host or ban whoever they want. If you don’t like what they are doing, the solution is not to complain or to regulate them. Instead, go create your own social media platform that operates the way you think it should. The founders of Parler heard that suggestion and tried. In August, 2018, they created a social media platform similar to Twitter but which promised far greater privacy protections, including a refusal to aggregate user data in order to monetize them to advertisers or algorithmically evaluate their interests in order to promote content or products to them. They also promised far greater free speech rights, rejecting the increasingly repressive content policing of Silicon Valley giants.

Over the last year, Parler encountered immense success. Millions of people who objected to increasing repression of speech on the largest platforms or who had themselves been banned signed up for the new social media company. As Silicon Valley censorship radically escalated over the past several months — banning pre-election reporting by The New York Post about the Biden family, denouncing and deleting multiple posts from the U.S. President and then terminating his access altogether, mass-removal of right-wing accounts — so many people migrated to Parler that it was catapulted to the number one spot on the list of most-downloaded apps on the Apple Play Store, the sole and exclusive means which iPhone users have to download apps. “Overall, the app was the 10th most downloaded social media app in 2020 with 8.1 million new installs,” reported TechCrunch.

It looked as if Parler had proven critics of Silicon Valley monopolistic power wrong. Their success showed that it was possible after all to create a new social media platform to compete with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And they did so by doing exactly what Silicon Valley defenders long insisted should be done: if you don’t like the rules imposed by tech giants, go create your own platform with different rules. But today, if you want to download, sign up for, or use Parler, you will be unable to do so. That is because three Silicon Valley monopolies — Amazon, Google and Apple — abruptly united to remove Parler from the internet, exactly at the moment when it became the most-downloaded app in the country.

If one were looking for evidence to demonstrate that these tech behemoths are, in fact, monopolies that engage in anti-competitive behavior in violation of antitrust laws, and will obliterate any attempt to compete with them in the marketplace, it would be difficult to imagine anything more compelling than how they just used their unconstrained power to utterly destroy a rising competitor.

Tucker Greenwald
https://twitter.com/i/status/1349174579105656833

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They smell blood, this won’t stop them.

• Pence Responds To Pelosi, Won’t Invoke 25th Amendment (Mike Pence)

Dear Madam Speaker:

Every American was shocked and saddened by the attack on our Nation’s Capitol last week, and I am grateful for the leadership that you and other congressional leaders provided in reconvening Congress to complete the people’s business on the very same day. It was a moment that demonstrated to the American people the unity that is still possible in Congress when it is needed most. But now, with just eight days left in the President’s term, you and the Democratic Caucus are demanding that the Cabinet and I invoke the 25th Amendment. I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution. Last week, I did not yield to pressure to exert power beyond my constitutional authority to determine the outcome of the election, and I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our Nation.

As you know full well, the 25th Amendment was designed to address Presidential incapacity or disability. Just a few months ago, when you introduced legislation to create a 25th Amendment Commission, you said, “[a] President’s fitness for office must be determined by science and facts.” You said then that we must be “[v]ery respectful of not making a judgment on the basis of a comment or behavior that we don’t like, but based on a medical decision.” Madam Speaker, you were right. Under our Constitution, the 25th Amendment is not a means of punishment or usurpation. Invoking the 25th Amendment in such a manner would set a terrible precedent.

After the horrific events of this last week, our Administration’s energy is directed to ensuring an orderly transition. The Bible says that “for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven…a time to heal, … and a time to build up.” That time is now. In the midst of a global pandemic, economic hardship for millions of Americans, and the tragic events of January 6th, now is the time for us to come together, now is the time to heal. I urge you and every member of Congress to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment. Work with us to lower the temperature and unite our country as we prepare to inaugurate President-elect Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. I pledge to you that I will continue to do my part to work in good faith with the incoming administration to ensure an orderly transition of power. So help me God.

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Last chance for lots of things.

• Trump’s Last Chance to Declassify Secrets of the Russia Collusion Dud (Maté)

President Trump’s last days in office offer a final opportunity to declassify critical information on the Russia investigation that engulfed his lone term. Already voluminous public records – including investigative reports from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Congress and the Justice Department’s inspector general – have established that Trump and his associates were targeted with a baseless Russian collusion allegation. The fraudulent claim originated with the Hillary Clinton campaign, was fueled by a torrent of false or deceptive intelligence leaks, and was improperly investigated by the FBI, potentially to the point of being criminal. Despite these disclosures, key questions remain about the origins and the spread of the conspiracy theory.


And with a Biden administration set to take office and Democrats taking control of both chambers of Congress, there are no guarantees that the ongoing probe of Special Counsel John Durham will fill in the remaining gaps. Both the CIA and FBI have been slow to produce much material that Trump reportedly wants declassified. They argue that disclosure would reveal sources and methods vital to national security. Such claims arouse skepticism because they have been used in the past to cover up malfeasance – as the public learned when deceptive FISA warrant applications used to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page were finally released.

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What’s striking here is that it’s CNN covering it.

• Israel Isn’t A Democracy, It’s An ‘Apartheid Regime’ – Rights Group (CNN)

Israel is no longer a democracy but an “apartheid regime” devoted to cementing the supremacy of Jews over Palestinians, the country’s best-known human rights group said in a report published Tuesday. B’Tselem, which until now has confined its work to scrutiny of human rights issues in the Palestinian territories, has now also decided to look at what it calls Israel’s “regime” between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean. “More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule,” B’Tselem said in a new analysis titled: “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.”


The human rights group says that the traditional view of Israel as a democracy operating side-by-side with a temporary Israeli occupation in the territories “imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects … has grown divorced from reality.” “Most importantly, the distinction obfuscates the fact that the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group — Jews — over another — Palestinians,” B’Tselem said in its controversial analysis. Years of injustice against Palestinians, culminating in laws that have entrenched discrimination, mean that “the bar for labeling the Israeli regime as apartheid has been met,” B’Tselem said. The allegation that Israel is an “apartheid state” has often been dismissed by rightwing Israelis and their support groups as anti-Semitic. But this argument will be harder to make now that Israel has been labelled this way by such a well-respected Israeli institution, albeit one that enjoys only minority support in its home country.

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“..build and maintain a “super-sized domestic market” to boost consumption…”

• Upbeat Xi Says “Time And Situation On China’s Side” (ZH)

While the political gridlock and alarmist headlines out of Capitol Hill as well as a dramatic Democratic move to impeach look to define Trump’s final week in office, Bloomberg notes that China’s President Xi Jinping is sounding “unusually upbeat”. According to the publication he issued an unusually upbeat assessment about China’s future, noting that “time and the situation” were on the country’s side in a new year marked by domestic turmoil in the U.S. The purpose of the speech before a top-level meeting of government officials in Beijing on Monday was to lay out the Communist Party vision over the next three decades, which included the presence of the Politburo Standing Committee, Beijing’s highest decision-making body.

“The world is in a turbulent time that is unprecedented in the past century,” Xi said, striking a tone which many pundits observed stood in contrast to recent more dire sounding warnings. “But time and momentum are on our side. This is where we show our conviction and resilience, as well as our determination and confidence.” And further according to the Monday remarks in the closed-door meeting: “At the same time, we must see clearly that, for now and until this upcoming period of time, while our country is at an important period of strategic opportunity for development, there will always be changes to our opportunities and challenges,” Xi was quoted as saying. “The extensiveness of these opportunities and challenges is unprecedented but, all in all, the opportunities we face outweigh our challenges,” he added, calling for unity, diligence and flexibility to achieve the party’s goals.

The cautious optimism continued, as South China Morning Post writes, while he made vague or remote references to both the pandemic and political turmoil and uncertainty afflicting the United States: In his speech, Xi also again emphasised Beijing’s new “dual circulation” economic strategy first announced in May amid global challenges brought by the pandemic and China’s slowing growth. “Only by being self-reliant and developing the domestic market and smoothing out internal circulation can we achieve vibrant growth and development, regardless of the hostility in the outside world,” Xi said. Elsewhere in the speech he continued urged that self-reliance would in part come through rapid technological innovation in order to build and maintain a “super-sized domestic market” to boost consumption.

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Scum.

• Food Hampers In Wales As English Mum Posts Picture Of £30 Package (WO)

An investigation has been launched in England after images shared online showed “woefully inadequate” free school meal parcels sent to families. One mum criticised the free school meals scheme after she claimed she was sent just a few pounds worth of food to feed her children for 10 days. It was claimed the image of a £30 parcel contained just over £5 worth of food. Posting the image on Twitter, user Roadside Mum said: “2 days jacket potato with beans, 8 single cheese sandwiches, 2 days carrots, 3 days apples, 2 days soreen, 3 days frubes. “Spare pasta & tomato. Will need mayo for pasta salad. “Issued instead of £30 vouchers. I could do more with £30 to be honest.”


Footballer and campaigner Marcus Rashford tweeted another picture and wrote: “3 days of food for 1 family… Just not good enough. “Then imagine we expect the children to engage in learning from home. “Not to mention the parents who, at times, have to teach them who probably haven’t eaten at all so their children can… We MUST do better.” England children’s Minister Vicky Ford said she would be “urgently” look into the matter. England’s Department for Education wrote on Twitter: “We have clear guidelines and standards for food parcels, which we expect to be followed. “Parcels should be nutritious and contain a varied range of food.” Chartwells, the company which the mum in England said provided the parcel, said it will investigate.


The hamper received in Caerphilly (left) compared to the hamper received by a mum in England

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Paul Ehrlich. Long time no see.

• Top Scientists: ‘Ghastly Future Of Mass Extinction’, Climate Disruption (G.)

The planet is facing a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction, according to an international group of scientists, who warn people still haven’t grasped the urgency of the biodiversity and climate crises. The 17 experts, including Prof Paul Ehrlich from Stanford University, author of The Population Bomb, and scientists from Mexico, Australia and the US, say the planet is in a much worse state than most people – even scientists – understood. “The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms – including humanity – is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts,” they write in a report in Frontiers in Conservation Science which references more than 150 studies detailing the world’s major environmental challenges.


The delay between destruction of the natural world and the impacts of these actions means people do not recognise how vast the problem is, the paper argues. “[The] mainstream is having difficulty grasping the magnitude of this loss, despite the steady erosion of the fabric of human civilisation.” The report warns that climate-induced mass migrations, more pandemics and conflicts over resources will be inevitable unless urgent action is taken. “Ours is not a call to surrender – we aim to provide leaders with a realistic ‘cold shower’ of the state of the planet that is essential for planning to avoid a ghastly future,” it adds. Dealing with the enormity of the problem requires far-reaching changes to global capitalism, education and equality, the paper says. These include abolishing the idea of perpetual economic growth, properly pricing environmental externalities, stopping the use of fossil fuels, reining in corporate lobbying, and empowering women, the researchers argue.

Read more …

 

 

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Debt Rattle December 27 2020

Dec 272020
 
 December 27, 2020  Posted by at 10:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  17 Responses »


Winslow Homer Spanish Girl with Fan 1885

 

• Developers of Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Tied to UK Eugenics Movement (Webb)
• The Breakthrough Medicines That Could Change The Course Of Covid (G.)
• Japan Halts All Foreign Arrivals Over UK COVID Variant (AP)
• Britain First To Infect Healthy Volunteers With Covid19 For Research (NYP)
• Scientists Call For UK Lockdown After Rapid Spread Of Covid19 Variant (G.)
• Two Pandemic Assistance Programs Expire, Leaving 12 Million Without Benefits (ZH)
• RussiaGate 2.0, Right on Schedule (Luongo)
• This Brexit Deal Is Emphatically Nothing To Celebrate (Lis)
• Glenn Greenwald: Coverage Of Coronavirus Pandemic ‘Media Misconduct’ (Hill)

 

 

 

 

Whitney Webb. Long read.

• Developers of Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Tied to UK Eugenics Movement (Webb)

For much of 2020, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was treated as an early front-runner, though its lead would later be marred by scandals related to its clinical trials, including the death of participants, sudden trial pauses, the use of a problematic “placebo” with its own host of side effects and the “unintentional” mis-dosing of some participants that skewed its self-reported efficacy rate. The significant issues that emerged during trials have provoked little concern from the vaccine’s two lead developers, despite critical attention from even mainstream media of its complications. The lead developer of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, Adrian Hill, told NBC on December 9th that the experimental vaccine should be approved and distributed to the public before the conclusion of the safety trials, saying,”to wait for the end of the trial would be the middle of next year. That’s too late, this vaccine is effective, available at large scale and easily deployed.”

Sarah Gilbert, the other lead researcher on the vaccine, seemed to believe that pre-mature safety approval was likely, telling the BBC on December 13 that the chances of rolling out the vaccine by the end of the year are “pretty high.” Now, the UK is expected to approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine shortly after Christmas, with India also set to approve the vaccine next week. While the controversies surrounding the vaccine’s trials did ultimately undermine its previous frontrunner status, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine remains heavily promoted as the vaccine of choice for the developing world, as it is cheaper and has much less complicated storage requirement than its main competitors, Pfizer and Moderna.

Earlier this month, Dr. Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal, told CNBC that “The Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine is the vaccine right now that is going to be able to immunize the planet more effectively, more rapidly than any other vaccine we have” in large part because it is a “vaccine that can get to lower middle-income countries.” CNBC also quoted Andrew Baum, global head of health care for Citi Group, as saying that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine “is really the only vaccine that is going to suppress or even eradicate SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the many millions of individuals in the developing world.”

In addition to longstanding claims that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will be the vaccine of choice for the developing world, this vaccine candidate has also been treated by several outlets in the mainstream and even independent media as “good for people, bad for profits” due to the partnership’s “explicit intention of supplying [the vaccine] around the world on a not-for-profit basis, meaning that the poorest nations on the planet will not have to worry about being shut out of a cure due to lack of funds.” However, investigation into the vaccine’s developers and the realities of their “no-profit pledge” reveals a very different story than that which has been spun for most of the year by corporate press releases, experts and academics tied to the vaccine and the mainstream press.

For instance, mainstream media has had little, if anything, to say about the role of the vaccine developers’ private company – Vaccitech – in the Oxford-AstraZeneca partnership, a company whose main investors include former top Deutsche Bank executives, Silicon Valley behemoth Google and the UK government. All of them stand to profit from the vaccine alongside the vaccine’s two developers, Adrian Hill and Sarah Gilbert, who retain an estimated 10% stake in the company. Another overlooked point is the plan to dramatically alter the current sales model for the vaccine following the initial wave of its administration, which would see profits soar, especially if the now obvious push to make COVID-19 vaccination an annual affair for the foreseeable future is made reality.

Yet, arguably most troubling of all is the direct link of the vaccine’s lead developers to the Wellcome Trust and, in the case of Adrian Hill, the Galton Institute, two groups with longstanding ties to the UK Eugenics movement. The latter organization, named for the “father of eugenics” Francis Galton, is the re-named UK Eugenics Society, a group notorious for its promotion of racist pseudoscience and efforts to “improve racial stock” by reducing the population of those deemed inferior for over a century.

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Is this a Guardian infomercial? Meant to cast doubt on HCQ and azithromycin, and promote dexamethasone?

• The Breakthrough Medicines That Could Change The Course Of Covid (G.)

It remains one of the most dramatically successful outcomes in the battle against Covid-19. A cheap treatment for inflammation was found to save lives of seriously ill patients while a trio of much-touted therapies were shown to have no effect. It is now estimated that the discovery of the effectiveness of the drug dexamethasone has saved around 650,000 lives across the world, according to Professor Martin Landray, a founder of the Recovery programme – the world’s largest randomised Covid-19 drugs trial – which revealed the medicine’s anti-Covid properties last summer. “In the UK alone, dexamethasone has already prevented more than 12,000 deaths,” he told the Observer.

The breakthrough demonstrates the power of large-scale randomised trials in pinpointing effective medicines and will be followed, in the next few weeks, with results from another handful of promising treatments being studied as part of the Recovery programme. These medicines, which could be crucial in the fight to contain Covid-19 next year, are: convalescent plasma, taken from recovering Covid patients; monoclonal antibodies, made by Regeneron, that were used to treat Donald Trump; two anti-inflammatory drugs, tocilizumab and colchicine; and aspirin. All are undergoing trials carried out by thousands of doctors and nurses on tens of thousands of patients in hospitals across Britain. First results are expected in January or early February.

Recovery was set up by Landray and Peter Horby at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The two Oxford scientists realised doctors would soon be looking for treatments once cases started pouring into hospitals but would need a clinical trial to find which were effective. It took them nine days from drafting their first protocol to the enrolling of their first patient, a process that normally takes nine months. One in 10 patients hospitalised with Covid have since entered the trial. And such numbers have been crucial to success, added Landray. Comparing 100 people who get a drug with 100 who do not can produce highly variable results. However, by randomising thousands of patients to get contrasting treatments, robust answers are produced.

“You find out which actually work,” said Landray. “In addition, we can discover which patients will benefit most. Will it be the old or the young or the immuno-compromised? You can only find that out if you have a trial with thousands of people in it.” So far, Recovery – short for Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 Therapy – has pronounced on four medicines: azithromycin, an antibiotic; the drug combination lopinavir-ritonavir; hydroxychloroquine, a treatment for malaria and rheumatic diseases; and dexamethasone. Only the last saved lives or aided recovery. A hit rate of only one in four might seem poor value. However, the extraordinary numbers of lives saved thanks to dexamethasone demonstrates the value of the Recovery programme, the world’s largest randomised Covid-19 drug trial.

The programme also ensured time and money have not been wasted on medicines that were found not to help patients. And that will become an increasingly important issue, Landray said. “When we started Recovery we looked at cheap, widely available but promising drugs, and found one of them – dexamethasone – worked. But the medicines we’re looking at now will cost hundreds of pounds per treatment, so we need to be really sure they work before we deploy them on wide scale,” Landray said.

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The world keeps getting smaller.

• Japan Halts All Foreign Arrivals Over UK COVID Variant (AP)

Japan is barring entry of all nonresident foreign nationals as a precaution against a new and potentially more contagious coronavirus variant that has spread across Britain. The Foreign Ministry says the entry ban will start Monday and last through Jan. 31. Last week, Japan banned nonresident foreigners coming from Britain and South Africa after confirming the new variant in seven people over the last two days — five from Britain who tested positive at airports and two others in Tokyo. Japan is also suspending the exemption of a 14-day quarantine for Japanese nationals and resident foreigners in a short-track program that began in November.


The entrants now must carry proof of a negative test 72 hours prior to departure for Japan and self-isolate for two weeks after arrival. Japan is struggling with surging cases since November. It has confirmed a total of 217,312 cases including 3,213 deaths, up 3,700 from the previous 24-hour period. Tokyo alone reported 949 cases, setting a new record, despite calls by experts and government officials for people to spend a “quiet” holiday season.

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“..an experimental nasal vaccine..”

• Britain First To Infect Healthy Volunteers With Covid19 For Research (NYP)

The world’s first COVID-19 human challenge is about to start. Britain will infect 2,500 healthy volunteers with coronavirus to study how the infection behaves in the body — specifically the amount it takes before a person develops Covid-19, the Sun reported. The government has budgeted $45 million for the research, which is being conducted by Imperial College, the National Health Service’s Royal Free Hospital and pharmaceutical company hVIVO, a pioneer in viral human challenge models. Human challenge studies aren’t used often because of the ethical questions raised about infecting healthy people.


The Brits, ages 18 to 30, will get a dose of an experimental nasal vaccine, then be infected. The project gets underway in January; scientists expect the first results in May. Alastair Fraser-Urquhart, 18, of Stoke-on-Trent, raised his hand because he wants to help “bring the world out of the pandemic sooner.. “I can’t let this opportunity to do something, to really do something, pass me by when I’m at such low risk.” Fraser-Urquhart and his fellow volunteers will be paid about $5,300 for their three-week stay at the hospital’s specialist diseases clinic, where they will be monitored around the clock, the Mail Online reported. Later, researchers will use the human challenge model to find out how vaccines work to prevent coronavirus.

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January will be dark and bleak in many places.

• Scientists Call For UK Lockdown After Rapid Spread Of Covid19 Variant (G.)

Cases of the new variant Covid-19 virus were confirmed in several European countries on Saturday, including Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. All were linked to people who had arrived from the UK. Meanwhile, Japan has announced it is banning all new entries of foreign nationals from Monday following the discovery of the variant in travellers from the UK. The news came at the same time as a further six million people in east and south-east England had tier 4 conditions, England’s strictest Covid level, imposed on them on Boxing Day. Lockdowns were also introduced in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Around 24 million people in England, more than 40% of the population, are now living in tier 4, as pressure mounts for the whole country to be put in this category.

Scientists from the Independent Sage group have urged that all regions of England be placed in tier 4, meaning that non-essential shops, hairdressers, and leisure and entertainment venues must close. Devolved nations were advised to bring forward their own national lockdowns. Tier 4 should include enhanced travel restrictions, the group said, while arguing that an emergency plan be introduced to enable safe education in January and February. This idea is supported by teaching unions, who have demanded that the government keeps schools closed as evidence has grown that the new virus variant is proving to be particularly infectious among children.

This point was backed by Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia. “If this new variant is behind the increase in this age group, then that is a big worry,” he said. France announced this weekend that it has discovered its first case of the new variant – a French citizen who arrived in Tours after travelling from London a week ago, according to health officials. In Madrid, Spanish officials said three cases of the new variant recently discovered in the country involved relatives of a man who had arrived from the UK on Christmas Eve, while the fourth case also involved a traveller from the UK. None of the patients was reported to be seriously ill.

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Blame it on Trump. But never on Pelosi and Schumer. Let alone Biden.

• Two Pandemic Assistance Programs Expire, Leaving 12 Million Without Benefits (ZH)

With Congressional leaders feigning productivity for two months on a renewed stimulus – only for President Trump to veto their 11th hour porkfest and demand they increase direct stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000 per person – a series of assistance programs are set to lapse into the new year. Two of them, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program, will expire Saturday night, leaving around 12 million Americans without the assistance. As we noted in November, this would roughly translate into an income shortfall of $39BN in 1Q if these workers are unable to find work or alternative income support. BofA calculates that based on its work on fiscal multipliers, income loss of $39BN would translate into a 1.2% hit to growth on an annualized basis in 1Q 2021.

One of the two programs expiring Saturday, the PUA, provided unemployment benefits to around 7.3 million gig workers and others not eligible for traditional unemployment, according to the Century Foundation. The expiring programs come after lawmakers cobbled a $900 billion pandemic stimulus package to a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill, which President Trump vetoed over the sheer amount of pork and $600 direct checks, which he deemed to small. House Democrats will vote on a standalone bill Monday for $2,000 checks, while Congressional Republicans are expected to flatly reject it. Meanwhile, several additional programs are set to expire on December 31.

Additionally, the concurrent expiration of eviction moratorium, mortgage forbearance programs, and suspension of student loan payments could all be headwinds early next year, creating further obstacles. Unless Trump reverses course and signs the package on Tuesday, the government will shut down – sans another short-term bill to keep it limp things along into 2021.

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“..whoever it was behind this attack the one group who was definitely NOT behind it was the Russians.”

• RussiaGate 2.0, Right on Schedule (Luongo)

Without offering any evidence or specifics, Pompeo said Russia was “pretty clearly” behind the cyberattack during an appearance on the conservative talk radio Mark Levin Show. “I can’t say much more, as we’re still unpacking precisely what it is, and I’m sure some of it will remain classified. But suffice it to say there was a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of US government systems and it now appears systems of private companies and companies and governments across the world as well,” Pompeo explained. Notice how there is no evidence given, just the typical intelligence agency, “believe me” line, which is your first clue that whoever it was behind this attack the one group who was definitely NOT behind it was the Russians.

This week’s cyber attack on the U.S. government was perfectly timed with the Electoral College submitting its votes to the Congress and Joe Biden claiming he’s president-elect. The reason why the release of this ‘attack’ on our government was perfectly timed is because it is a distraction from the growing unrest over the Democrats’ having stolen the election and cowering the courts into irrelevance. This is classic CIA-level misdirection from what was more likely a Chinese or, dare I say it, homegrown operation for the very purpose of blaming the Russians to tamp down the anger and confuse the MAGA crowd. And it resurrects the ghost of RussiaGate for the libs by putting Trump in a Catch-22.

If he doesn’t respond to this it keeps alive the smoldering embers of the TDS crowd watching Rachel Maddow that Trump really does have deep, covert ties to Russia. If he does react, what possible reaction could he take to escalate the tensions with Russia that are already one step below open warfare? Oh, and he has to respond to this while also fighting an uphill battle against the courts and his own bureaucracy to invoke his executive order involving outside interference into the election. [..] Provoking the exact reaction you’d expect from the BlueChecked Sneetches among the Twitterati. RussiaGate was an embarrassment that should have died years ago but it persists precisely because Trump refuses to formally concede and continues to give his people the opportunity to fight the Swamp.

The only way Putin and the Russians were behind this attack on the U.S. government was as a 5-d chess move where Trump invited them to do it on his behalf to ‘prove’ external interference in the election and allow Trump to cross the Rubicon, invoke the Insurrection Act and his 2018 EO on election interference. Yeah, by the way, John Le Carre died this week, life ain’t a movie and Trump isn’t that savvy a player. Ye gods, I wish he was. That we are in this mess proves he isn’t. This pronouncement by Pompeo was just good ol’ fashioned swamp double talk who continues his job of maintaining continuity of U.S. foreign policy on behalf of the Neoconservatives whose raison d’etre is the destruction of Russia to the exclusion of nearly every other consideration of any other human on the planet.

Don’t be confused by this nonsense. Whoever was behind this attack wasn’t the Russians. The motive for this operation lies squarely with China, The Davos Crowd, the Democrats and our own intelligence agencies trying to move the Overton Window away from the real problem, a stolen election. Outing Solarwinds and tying it directly to Dominion Voting Systems is your smoking gun.

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“The certainty of no tariffs, yes—but also of trade barriers, red tape and reduced future prosperity.”

• This Brexit Deal Is Emphatically Nothing To Celebrate (Lis)

And so the long wait is finally over. Late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, at the precise moment businesses were shutting up shop for a four-day national holiday, Boris Johnson took to a podium in Downing Street to herald a trade deal with the European Union. This was a good deal, he said. It allowed us to take back control of our money, borders, laws and fisheries. It provided certainty for businesses. Of course, the Prime Minister was wrong on almost all counts. This was the thinnest deal available within the ruinous red lines he had laid out, and preferable only to no deal at all. We already had control of everything he claimed to have won back—even fisheries, whose viability depends on exporting British catches into the EU. On only one point was he correct: his deal does indeed provide certainty. The certainty of no tariffs, yes—but also of trade barriers, red tape and reduced future prosperity.

The alternate press conferences in London and Brussels amply demonstrated who had made the concessions. This was an inevitable consequence of differential power, wealth and size, and the UK fell short. While both sides seem to have budged on fish, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emphasised the EU’s success in ensuring the far more important level playing field for competition. The UK would lose key rights such as financial passporting. It would no longer enjoy automatic access to the EU’s invaluable security databases. Fundamentally it was a question of how power is exercised. Sovereignty in the 21st century, she said, meant “pulling each other up, instead of trying to get back to your feet alone.”

While von der Leyen combined detailed information with sensitivity in tone, Johnson took to bluster. He dismissed the media question about security, asserting, without evidence, that everything would work out. He preposterously declared that the deal would eliminate non-tariff barriers, when the truth is our departure from the single market and customs union necessitate the greatest introduction of new bureaucracy and commercial obstacles in recent history. And he batted away the ending of UK access to the Erasmus scheme, which has offered new horizons to thousands of students across the continent. The new “Turing scheme,” he insisted bombastically, would be better and wider reaching.

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“.. they’re just manipulating this messaging to sanction certain events that they find politically palatable while demanding everybody stay home for the things that they don’t value .”

• Glenn Greenwald: Coverage Of Coronavirus Pandemic ‘Media Misconduct’ (Hill)

Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept, said the media’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic was the “worst event of media misconduct.” Speaking on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Greenwald said that the media’s coverage of the pandemic was initially geared toward forcing people to stay home, and shaming those who went outside for acting irresponsibly. Greenwald then added that the media shifted its tone around its coverage after the protests against police brutality over the summer following the police killing of George Floyd in May.


“Suddenly, it all turned to ‘What these people are doing is noble,’” he said. “And not only do you no longer have the obligation to stay at home, you now have the obligation to go and march against racism on the grounds that racism is the worst public [threat] than the coronavirus pandemic.” Greenwald noted that despite its coverage of the protests, the media continued to shame people who went to church or gathered for outdoor protests for different causes. “What it really made it seem like was there’s no trust or confidence due to public health authorities or media narratives surrounding this pandemic,” he said. “That they’re just manipulating this messaging to sanction certain events that they find politically palatable while demanding everybody stay home for the things that they don’t value .”

Read more …

 

 

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