Feb 082023
 
 February 8, 2023  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  85 Responses »


Johannes Vermeer The glass of wine c 1658-1660

 

China Wants its Balloon Back (Celente)
Let’s Talk About Nuclear War (Naveira)
Musk Assesses Public Awareness Of WWIII Risk (RT)
Kiev Inching Closer To Conceding Defeat – Medvedev (RT)
Kiev Still Conducts Terror Attacks Against New Russian Regions – Shoigu (TASS)
Anglo-Zionism and the Confederation of Europe (Batiushka)
China Sees Russia’s Concerns Over NATO Expansion As Premise For Conflict (TASS)
West Uses OPCW To Justify Its Aggression – Moscow (RT)
EU ‘Sold Its Soul’ To Russia – Poland (RT)
EU’s Borrell Can’t Hide His Racist Worldview – Lavrov (RT)
Ukraine: There’s No Substitute For Victory (Steve Forbes)
US Rep. Matt Gaetz Calls For End To Funding Of Kiev’s Army (RT)
Russia Has Lost Confidence In US Dollar – Finance Minister (RT)
US Lacks Unity Before Modern Challenges – Kissinger (TASS)
Where Do Things Stand? (Jim Kunstler)
The Failure of Scientific Journals: the Failure of Science (Ugo Bardi)

 

 

 

 

Trump SOTU

 

 

2014

 

 

Tucker SOTU

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’ve “rescued” it, so let’s hear if it’s just a weather balloon.

China Wants its Balloon Back (Celente)

China’s Foreign Ministry called on the U.S. to immediately return the “airship” that was shot out of the skies last weekend by an F-22 after Washington identified it as a “spy balloon.” Mao Ning, a spokeswoman from the ministry, said during a press briefing Tuesday that the balloon does not belong to the U.S., it belongs to China, according to RT, the Russian outlet. She accused Washington of overreacting and acting in an unprofessional manner with the goal of smearing Beijing. China has insisted that the balloon was a civilian meteorological research airship. Tensions between China and the U.S. are hitting new lows. Wei Fenghe, the Chinese military head, refused a call with Lloyd Austin, the U.S. military chief, on Tuesday.

[..] American F-22 fighters successfully shot down a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon off the South Carolina coast last weekend that the U.S. said was being used by Beijing to “surveil strategic sites.” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called the incursion an “unacceptable violation of our sovereignty.” The Defense Department said it began tracking the balloon, which was carrying a payload the size of three buses, over the Aleutian Islands on 28 January. The balloon floated over Alaska, Canada, and then re-entered U.S. airspace over Idaho, a statement read. The U.S. claimed it did not shoot down the balloon over land to prevent “undue risk” to civilians. President Joe Biden said Saturday that he ordered the Pentagon to shoot the balloon down “as soon as possible” on Wednesday. The balloon was eventually picked off by the Raptor which fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile that cost We the People of Slavelandia about $400,000.


The statement said, “F-15 Eagles flying from Barnes Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts, supported the F-22.” “Long before the shoot down, U.S. officials took steps to protect against the balloon’s collection of sensitive information, mitigating its intelligence value to the Chinese,” the statement read. China said the U.S. overreacted over a weather balloon. “China strongly disapproves of and protests against the U.S. attack on a civilian unmanned airship by force,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday morning, according to the South China Morning Post. “The U.S.’s use of force is a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice,” the ministry said, before noting that Beijing reserves the right to make “further responses that are necessary.”

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“..there is no compromise, a country is either sovereign or a colony..”

Let’s Talk About Nuclear War (Naveira)

The United States and Russia – the two greatest nuclear powers on the planet – have embarked on a wide-ranging “indirect war”. All that now remains is for them to engage in direct warfare, which will end up happening sooner or later. If later, it will be exactly because both powers are aware that any direct war between them will inevitably escalate into nuclear war, with a good chance of devastating them both. How we reached this point will not be examined in depth here. Very briefly, both parties regard this as a struggle for existence – Russia, in order to continue to exist as a nation (in Putin’s words, “there is no compromise, a country is either sovereign or a colony”), and the United States, to continue to exist as the nation with hegemony over the rest (the US economy has become so reliant on that hegemony that its end would entail the country’s collapse).

Accordingly, both are willing to take the conflict to its ultimate consequences in order to prevail, and thus nuclear war becomes more inevitable with every passing day. Among those responsible for a nuclear war that will be the downfall of all Humankind, there can be no “good guy”. However, when one side is fighting to subsist with autonomy, while the other is fighting in order to dominate the rest, it is not difficult to discern which is most the “bad guy”. Also, if it is still possible, after the hecatomb, to bring the culprits to some kind of justice, it will make all the difference to distinguish who “pressed the button” first (that is, who deliberately chose for millions of people to die) from whoever operated their buttons in retaliation to the incoming attack.

What developments will take place until we finally arrive at nuclear war is also not the purpose of this piece. Once again, to summarise, both are trying to “gain time”, hoping for their adversary to fall over their own feet before direct war ensues: the Russians are counting on an economic and social collapse in the West, while the US counts on a military defeat of the Russians by the Ukrainians, resulting in the fall of the Putin government. It has to be said, however, that thus far the Russians are getting the better of this “war of attrition”.

The US also seeks to draw Russia into war against some other, NATO-member country, prodding Lithuania to blockade land access to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, Romania to provide Moldavia with the means to reincorporate the pro-Russian separatist region of Transnistria, and Poland to occupy the westernmost portion of the Ukraine, so as to force Russia to respond militarily. Under the fifth article of the treaty that set up NATO, an attack on any member state is to be taken as an attack on them all; in that way, the United States would drag all of Europe into a war against Russia. The Russians (as well as these European cannon-fodder candidates) have thus far managed to sidestep this trap.

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“Most are oblivious to the danger.”

Musk Assesses Public Awareness Of WWIII Risk (RT)

The majority of people are not even aware that a new world war may erupt soon, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has stated. The risk of a global catastrophe was highlighted this week by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The UN head said in a speech to the General Assembly on Monday that he feared that humanity was marching toward a “wider war” with its “eyes wide open” and urged preserving peace. “Could we please not do WWIII,” pleaded conservative political commentator Luke Rudkowski, reacting to the speech. Musk responded: “Most are oblivious to the danger.” The Twitter and SpaceX CEO previously warned against “relentless escalation” of the conflict in Ukraine, stating that it was dangerous for the country itself and the world.


Musk won praise for supplying SpaceX Starlink satellite internet systems to the Ukrainian government, with some experts assessing that they were a game-changer in the fight against Russia. But he also suggested that Kiev would have to make concessions to Moscow in order to achieve peace, a notion that prompted some Ukrainian officials to harshly criticize and even insult the businessman. Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, claimed last week that Musk was using his control of Twitter to reduce the reach of Ukrainian official accounts and help “Russian propaganda.” “Maybe a regulator is needed to explain competition rules to the owner?” Podoliak mused. The Ukrainian official offered no evidence to support his claims or explanation of how his regulatory threat could be carried out.

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“..Aleksey Danilov, who claimed that Russia is lobbying EU nations to accept a Korean-style split of his nation..”

Kiev Inching Closer To Conceding Defeat – Medvedev (RT)

Discussions of a “Korean scenario” in Ukraine are a sign that Kiev is on the way to recognizing the reality on the ground and accepting its losses, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said. The idea of a Korean-style division of Ukraine has been discussed by current and former officials in Kiev, who claim that this is what Russia is pursuing. The idea that Ukraine could be divided up the way Korea was after the war in the 1950s is “for domestic consumption” and constitutes “wishful thinking,” Medvedev added, citing unnamed “propagandists” as peddling the notion. What is notable is that “they coyly tested the statement that there can be no victory” and that “being split is the best-case scenario,” the former president said. The ‘Korean scenario’ means that a smaller, US-backed Ukraine could eventually develop to the level of South Korea while maintaining its claims over lost territories, Medvedev explained.

“In essence, this is the first step towards accepting the realities on the ground,” he said. Korea was split into two parts after a three-year civil war, in which the opposing factions in the north and south were backed by the USSR and China, and the US respectively. Both Pyongyang and Seoul claim sovereignty over the entire Korean Peninsula, and each considers the other government to be unlawful. Unlike South Korea, Donbass voted in a referendum to become part of Russia rather than forming a sovereign state, Medvedev said, arguing that a ‘Korean scenario’ is not feasible for Ukraine. The former president currently serves as the deputy chairman of the Russian National Security Council.

The idea was floated to the Ukrainian public last month by Medvedev’s counterpart in Kiev, Aleksey Danilov, who claimed that Russia is lobbying EU nations to accept a Korean-style split of his nation, and stated that Kiev would reject it. The Kremlin dismissed the report as a “hoax. This week, the Korean scenario was also brought up by Aleksey Arestovich, the former aide to the office of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Speaking at an expert panel discussion on Monday, he stated that Ukraine does not have enough manpower to beat Russia on the battlefield anytime soon, and claimed that a Korean scenario may become an acceptable off-ramp for the parties involved. Like Danilov before him, Arestovich claimed that Russia is seeking this type of outcome, while noting that the Western nations which Kiev depends upon “think the same way.”

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“..Ukraine’s armed forces have been attacking residential areas, hospitals, and public gathering areas..”

Kiev Still Conducts Terror Attacks Against New Russian Regions – Shoigu (TASS)

Authorities in Ukraine continue intimidating civilians in Russia’s new regions, with Ukrainian troops attacking residential areas and hospitals there, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Tuesday. “While realizing that they won’t be able to inflict a military defeat on Russia, the Ukrainian leadership has been resorting to criminal activity in order to intimidate residents of new Russian regions,” Shoigu said, adding that Ukraine’s armed forces have been attacking residential areas, hospitals, and public gathering areas and committing terror attacks against government and social facilities. On January 28, Russia’s top brass said that the Ukrainian armed forces had launched an intentional attack at around 7:30 am, using rocket-propelled projectiles from the US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, on a hospital in Novoaidar in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR).


Fourteen patients and medical employees were killed, while 24 more suffered wounds. The Russian Defense Ministry pointed out that civilian and military health professionals had been providing medical treatment to local civilians and service members at the Novoaidar hospital for many months. Former LPR’s ambassador to Moscow Rodion Miroshnik said last week that Ukrainian forces had shelled four LPR hospitals since the start of the year. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has said it’s going to look into the circumstances behind the Novoaidar hospital shelling.

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Orthodox priest Batiushka sees the GOP as the Anglos, and the Dems as the zionists.

Anglo-Zionism and the Confederation of Europe (Batiushka)

[..] the main bastion of Anglo-Zionism is undoubtedly the USA, which the bankers from London seriously colonised during the First World War. specifically during the 1916 turning-point, when it became apparent to the Round Table organisation there would only be one winner, neither Germany, nor Great Britain, but the USA. As soon as Russia had been taken out of the equation through US bankers via their British agents and Russian traitors in Petrograd in early 1917, the first US troops appeared in France less than one month later. All had been pre-planned. Today in the US, the Republican Party represents the Anglos and the Democratic Party the Zionists. The billionaire Trump, like Bush, is a typical White Anglo nationalist WASP: America first.

On the other hand, Biden is a typical Zionist, just like Obama and Clinton before him, though quite unlike Kennedy. An electoral accident, he of course had to be eliminated. And he was.For 250 years the Anglos and the Zionists have worked together in the US, they have had the same self-interested interests – money and power. However, there are now discussions between them regarding the Ukraine. Already half of the Anglo Republicans want out of the Ukraine (1). It is too costly and they want to save the US (and their own fortunes) from its multiple self-inflicted wounds just in case it goes under. But the Zionists are thinking along the same lines. There is only one solution. The Anglos wanted the Ukraine in order to defeat their traditional rival, Russia.

However, for the Zionists the Ukraine had another purpose, it was to destroy White Europe, the same purpose they had in fomenting the First and Second World Wars, so ensuring Zionist domination of the world – ‘Globalism’. Not all neocons are Wolfowitzes, Kagans and Nulands. Many are Anglos. Today, we are already seeing that the Republicans are increasingly beginning to support Zaluzhny, the Kiev military commander, whereas the Democrats still stand behind the Jewish Zelensky, but are now wavering. The Republicans originally wanted to weaken Russia. The Republicans are nationalists, so are the Russians. It is now just dawning on them that Russia does not want to recreate the Soviet Empire or any other sort of Empire, all they want is to protect Russians, not to invade other countries. In any case, they are not going to weaken Russia any more through the Ukraine.

All that they have done so far is to strengthen Russia. The Ukraine has not served its purpose. As for the Zionists, they are happy to kill as many White Europeans, especially Russian and Ukrainians, as possible, but above all they want world power. The interests of Anglos and Zionists coincide. For if the Russians do not want world power after all, then the real rival is China, which has real mercantile power. Therefore, the pivot to China, where there is real money. Once the US has lost in the Ukraine, and Kadyrov confidently predicts that it will be over by the end of 2023, the US will turn its attention to China. But it is already happening. That is what the balloon show was all about. China is a much more interesting option for the money-grubbers, whether Anglos or Zionists. But where does that leave benighted Europe?

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“You believe that the NATO expansion does not carry a threat for Russia, but, when [Soviet leader Nikita] Khruschev decided to deploy nuclear weapons on Cuba, what was [US President John] Kennedy’s reaction?”

China Sees Russia’s Concerns Over NATO Expansion As Premise For Conflict (TASS)

China remains neutral in regards to the conflict in Ukraine, but it understands Russia’s concerns over NATO’s eastward expansion and the plans to include Ukraine in the alliance, which have become the premise for the current conflict, Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye said on the LCI TV channel Monday. “NATO has been posing a threat to Russia’s security for decades, […] the five rounds of NATO’s eastward expansion pose a significant threat for Russia’s security. This is what [Russian] President Vladimir Putin is talking about; he strongly opposes the inclusion of a number of neighboring states to NATO, including Ukraine,” Lu Shaye said, answering a question about the reasons behind the current conflict in Ukraine.

“You believe that the NATO expansion does not carry a threat for Russia, but, when [Soviet leader Nikita] Khruschev decided to deploy nuclear weapons on Cuba, what was [US President John] Kennedy’s reaction?” he continued. When the host noted that, prior to the special military operation, there allegedly were no plans to include Ukraine to the alliance and to deploy NATO missiles on its territory, the diplomat noted that this could happen in the future. “If NATO pushes its borders to Russia’s threshold, it will also deploy missiles,” he noted. The Chinese envoy opined that the actions of the West do not contribute to a prompt end of the Ukrainian conflict.

“China remains neutral in this crisis, but we believe that constant shipments of increasingly heavy weapons to one side of the conflict do not contribute to its prompt end. It is like pouring oil to the flame,” he said. Answering corresponding allegations from the host, the diplomat assured that Beijing does not ship weapons to Russia and “does nothing against peaceful settlement of the conflict.” “Several months ago, European countries refused to ship tanks to Ukraine, and now they do. Today, they refuse to ship warplanes, but, maybe, in several months, they will ship them,” he noted. “Maybe, one day, NATO member states will wonder if they are a side to the conflict.”.

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It’s insane that the OPCW still exists. On par with Bellingcat.

West Uses OPCW To Justify Its Aggression – Moscow (RT)

The latest report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which blames Damascus for carrying out a chemical attack in Douma in 2018, looks like a political hit piece meant to justify the West’s continued military aggression against the Syrian government, says Alexander Shulgin, Russia’s permanent representative to the organization. Speaking to RT, Shulgin vehemently dismissed the report, which was released in late January by the so-called Investigation and Identification Team (IIT). Calling the IIT “completely illegitimate,” he claimed the group’s creation was pushed through by the US and its allies in order to undermine the core principles of the OPCW and international law and replace them with their own “made-up rules.”

The IIT’s report, according to Shulgin, is riddled with inconsistencies and factual gaps, and barely holds together. Furthermore, none of Russia’s or any other country’s “uncomfortable” questions regarding the details of the IIT’s findings were even remotely addressed during an OPCW briefing on the report, the ambassador claimed. Shulgin also noted that the report highlighted the double standards currently present within the OPCW. When Russia presented evidence of a chemical attack in Aleppo back in 2016, every minute detail of Moscow’s findings was heavily scrutinized by the organization, he said. However, when it comes to the attack in Douma, OPCW officials seem to turn a blind eye to basic questions such as how and when the evidence was gathered and presented during the investigation.

“For instance, they referred to the fact that some new sample has appeared, provided by a third party. What is this third party? Nothing is said about it. They just say ‘trust us’,” said Shulgin, noting that the sample in question had never been reported on in previous investigations. “So before, there was no sample, but now, suddenly, it has somehow appeared. Without any explanations,” the ambassador stressed, suggesting its sudden appearance can only be explained by the need for the US, France, and UK to escape international accountability for their aggression against Syria.

The three NATO states launched a series of airstrikes against civilian and military targets in Syria in April 2018 after the so-called ‘White Helmets’ – an NGO operating in rebel-controlled areas of Syria – published a series of videos supposedly showing the aftermath of a chlorine attack on the residents of Douma. Syria has vehemently denied any responsibility for the incident, and both Damascus and Moscow have repeatedly pointed to evidence, including testimonies from alleged victims, that suggests the incident was staged in order to justify a Western attack.

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“..Peskov said in December that the EU was only replacing one “addiction” with another while filling Washington’s coffers with billions of dollars…”

EU ‘Sold Its Soul’ To Russia – Poland (RT)

Europe allowed itself to grow dependent on Russian energy like a drug addict, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Monday. Speaking at a conference in Warsaw on efforts to support Ukraine, Morawiecki suggested that the EU got hooked on Russian natural resources, with Moscow doing its best to enable the addiction. “The dealer always gives the first dose for free or very cheap so that the addict comes for more and agrees to any price,” he said. As a result, the prime minister stated, gas contracts with Russia “turned out to be a pact under which Europe sold its soul.” The continent was “so easily seduced by Russia” not through “demonic abilities,” but rather because of its own weakness, he claimed.

At the same time, Morawiecki said the Ukraine conflict had awakened many countries “from their geopolitical slumber.” As the fighting rages, the West stands at a crossroads: “either the victory of Russia and the defeat of the West, or the renaissance of Western civilization,” he asserted. “Today it is not enough for us to talk about rebuilding Europe, today we have to think about rebuilding Europe so that peace and security become permanent foundations for development for many decades,” Morawiecki stressed. Since the start of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, the EU has committed to completely weaning itself off Russian energy by 2030. It intends to double down on the use of green energy and secure oil and gas supplies of non-Russian origin. In particular, the bloc has resorted to importing liquified natural gas (LNG) from the US.

However, in October, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire accused the US of capitalizing on the EU’s economic woes, saying that it sells its LNG “at four times the price that it sets for its own industrialists.” Commenting on the bloc’s push to reduce dependence on Russian energy, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said in December that the EU was only replacing one “addiction” with another while filling Washington’s coffers with billions of dollars.

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“Not so long ago he openly spoke about Europe being a garden surrounded by a jungle that threatens it..”

EU’s Borrell Can’t Hide His Racist Worldview – Lavrov (RT)

Calling African countries easy to manipulate is on brand for Josep Borrell, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday, responding to the EU foreign policy chief’s remarks that accused Moscow of “spreading misinformation.” Borrell had addressed EU diplomats earlier in the day, accusing Russia of using “information manipulation and interference” as weapons of war. Noting that Lavrov was visiting Mali and Eritrea, Borrell called them “easy countries” for Moscow to “spread lies about who is guilty for what is happening” in Ukraine. “So speaks a man who can’t hide the racist essence of his worldview,” Lavrov said when asked about his EU counterpart’s accusations. “Not so long ago he openly spoke about Europe being a garden surrounded by a jungle that threatens it, so the garden needs to be careful with the jungle. That says it all about who actually relates to the needs and interests of African countries, and how.”

“We have nothing to hide or to be ashamed of,” the Russian foreign minister added. “We were at the source of Africa’s liberation from the colonial yoke. The Soviet Union was one of the main initiators of the declaration to grant independence to colonized countries and peoples in 1960. And it was not an imitation, as [former UK PM] Boris Johnson recently called the Minsk agreements, but a real historical act that sealed the end of colonial rule.” Speaking to EU diplomats, Borrell lamented that some African countries do not support the bloc’s position that Ukraine is fighting “for the values on which we are basing our understanding of the world.”

In his view, the current conflict is not only being fought on the battlefield with troops, but “in the information space, trying to win the hearts and minds of people.” For that purpose, the EU is “protecting the freedom of expression” by banning Russian media, while providing support to “independent” outlets that Moscow has designated as foreign agents, he added. While accusing Russia of spreading disinformation, Borrell apparently did so himself – by saying Eritrea was among the “easy” countries Lavrov was currently targeting. The Russian diplomat actually visited that country last month, along with Angola, Eswatini and South Africa. His current trip includes stops in Mali, Mauritania and Sudan.

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Well, well, Mr Forbes.

Ukraine: There’s No Substitute For Victory (Steve Forbes)

The disgraceful dithering—especially by Germany—over sending tanks to Ukraine highlights the hesitation and confusion over what’s at stake in this war with Russia. Since the conflict’s beginning, the U.S. and NATO have provided Ukraine with weaponry, but never in sufficient quantity and quality to win. This hesitation has only stiffened Vladimir Putin’s conviction that despite humiliating battlefield setbacks, he can ultimately triumph, and that as time goes by, the West will tire of the effort and pressure Kyiv into a bad deal.


In Putin’s mind, the best way to achieve the subjugation of Ukraine is to use the same approach that Russia used against Nazi Germany in World War II, when the Red Army relied heavily on massive artillery barrages, tank attacks and unrelenting human wave attacks to beat back the Nazi onslaught—which is why Russian casualties were more than ten times those of the U.S. and Britain combined. Putin is playing for keeps. Russia and our other adversaries still see the U.S. as a country in terminal decline and lacking the stamina it exhibited during the Cold War. Therefore, we should be supplying Ukraine with everything it needs to unmistakably defeat Putin. That means not only many more tanks—especially Germany’s Leopard 2s, which are better suited to the terrain than our Abrams tanks—but also fighter aircraft, including F-16s, antitank and advanced antiaircraft weaponry, drones and much else.

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“..foreigners” have come to Washington “to lecture us about spending our constituents’ money on a conflict thousands of miles away..”

US Rep. Matt Gaetz Calls For End To Funding Of Kiev’s Army (RT)

The US must stop sending billions of dollars to bolster Ukraine’s military, Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz said during a speech in the House of Representatives on Monday. He slammed President Joe Biden and both parties, saying the conflict in Ukraine is only benefiting military contractors. “Tomorrow [at the State of the Union address] President Biden will tell us how much more we must do for Ukraine,” Gaetz said, adding that the ongoing hostilities are only lining the pockets of America’s military industry. “Defense contractors need there to be a war going on somewhere. Whether the arms end up in the hands of ISIS, the Taliban, the Azov Battalion, or on the black market,” according to Gaetz. Washington’s support of Ukraine with endless weapons will not end the war but just “prolong the killing,” he said.


“Bandits in the Sinaloa mountains hurt more Americans than the [Russian] men in Crimea,” Gaetz said, adding that the benefits of the conflict to normal Americans are “unclear.” He lamented that “foreigners” have come to Washington “to lecture us about spending our constituents’ money on a conflict thousands of miles away” – a reference to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s visit to the US Capitol in December. He accused Biden of doing “everything possible” to provoke a nuclear war with Russia and called on the White House to pursue a solution through diplomacy. Biden promised 31 US-made M1 Abrams tanks for Ukraine in late January, but said that Washington would not send F-16 fighter jets. Gaetz noted that Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the warplane, was ramping up production in anticipation that there could soon be “third party transfers” of the jets to Kiev.

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“..the US dollar, euro, and British pound – the main reserve currencies – had once been considered the top units of account. “The situation has shown that now this [dollar] is a completely unreliable instrument..”

Russia Has Lost Confidence In US Dollar – Finance Minister (RT)

Russia no longer has trust in the US currency because it has become an unreliable financial instrument, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov stated on Monday. He pointed out that the US dollar, euro, and British pound – the main reserve currencies – had once been considered the top units of account. “The situation has shown that now this [dollar] is a completely unreliable instrument … Therefore, we have no confidence in this kind of unit of account. It is lost,” Siluanov told Russia’s Channel One channel. He also pointed out that Russia has been switching to trade in other currencies, particularly “in rubles and, of course, currencies from other friendly countries, such as the yuan.”


Moscow has been steadily pursuing a policy of de-dollarization in foreign trade. In recent years, Russia and some of its trade partners, including India and China, have been ramping up the use of domestic currencies in mutual settlements in an effort to move away from the dollar and euro. Siluanov highlighted that in 2021 a significant part of financial transactions in Russia were carried out in dollars and euros. “About one third of settlements were then carried out in rubles, while now more than half, about 55%, are conducted in rubles and friendly currencies,” he said, adding that this figure will continue to grow. According to the minister, the economic wellbeing of citizens is more important than exchange rates. “We are most concerned about how the economy will develop, how the income of the population will grow, what kind of employment we will have,” he concluded.

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“..Reagan “understood better than anyone how to integrate the elements of power and the elements of conciliation.”

US Lacks Unity Before Modern Challenges – Kissinger (TASS)

The US lacks unity inside the country amid modern challenges, Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said during the event, dedicated to the 112th anniversary of former US President Ronald Reagan. “Today we again suffer from domestic division and international disorder about arguments about who we are and what we stand for. We find it difficult to muster the domestic cohesion necessary to face the challenges ahead of us,” Kissinger said. He named “China’s ambitions” and the situation in the Middle East, where, in his words, there is a risk of “developing the world’s most devastating weapons.” He also mentioned the Ukrainian crisis that “shows no signs of abating,” and touched upon the issue of development of artificial intelligence that “is transforming human consciousness itself.””Each of these present developments requires a combination of strength and conciliation,” Kissinger said, adding that Reagan “understood better than anyone how to integrate the elements of power and the elements of conciliation.”.

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“.. Russia’s war-aim is simple: the elimination of chaos on its border. This rational objective is something that America’s Party of Chaos can’t understand..”

Where Do Things Stand? (Jim Kunstler)

The Right perceives that its opponents have lost their minds, but there is no arguing with people who are literally insane. What must be done is to wrest political power away from them. In the madness of the Left, power is solely a destructive force, and coercion is a form of pleasure-seeking. Unable to control the dynamics in-play, they seek to wreck the dynamics, to induce as much chaos as possible, so as to punish the non-insane. That is exactly what the Green New Deal does. Unable to control the dynamic disruptive changes in the global oil-and-gas industry that our high-tech economies depend on, the Left pretends that there is work-around “Green” energy system that can replace fossil fuels with wind and solar devices that don’t scale up and which require fossil fuels to make and deploy.

It’s slick and grandiosely hypothetical (i.e., wishful thinking), and the net effect of this major crusade will be to hasten the collapse and impoverishment of our society (ergo: the punishment). Keep all this in mind as you watch the Congressional inquiries now just getting underway. Much as they are likely to reveal the insane and arguably criminal machinations of a panicked bureaucracy, and the figures who run it, the Left will remain impervious to any truthful revelations that emerge. Of course, many of these officials are culpable for actions extremely damaging to the people of this land, and the masses on the Left who supported those actions — such as mandatory vaccinations — will be among the most damaged. These True Believers will find it hard to admit that they did it to themselves. So, the hearings upcoming, such as the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, will probably not change the minds of your friends and relatives stuck in the mass formation of Jacobin-Wokery.

But the hearings will be a step in wresting power away from these maniacs. Part of that step must be to demonstrate the dishonesty of recent elections, so as to remove the implanted mechanisms that enabled that dishonesty: mail-in, no-ID ballots, “motor-voter” laws, electronic vote-counting machines. If that can be fixed, the left can be voted out of power. The hearings will take place against the back-drop of our deteriorating charade over in Ukraine. The Zelensky regime that we employed to foment this conflict with Russia is losing its mojo for creating chaos in that corner of the world. The newly-announced tank caper will amount to nothing. Russia’s war-aim is simple: the elimination of chaos on its border. This rational objective is something that America’s Party of Chaos can’t understand. How will it react when chaos gets cancelled in Ukraine? Probably by attempting to foment chaos in another corner of the world, or on the home front — another reason that power must be wrested away from it.

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Covid coverage has hurt scientific journals like nothing ever has.

The Failure of Scientific Journals: the Failure of Science (Ugo Bardi)

“Biophysical Economics and Sustainability” is a scientific journal that I helped create back in 2016. I still think it was a good idea, but it didn’t work and it couldn’t have worked. So, I resigned from my position as editor of the journal this December. But let me tell the story from the beginning. The journal was the brainchild of Charles W. Hall and David Packer. About Charlie Hall, you may have heard of him, he was the developer of the fundamental concept of EROI (energy return on energy invested). Dave Packer was a senior editor at Springer (now retired). The idea was to create a high-quality journal that could offer a publishing outlet in the field called “biophysical economics,” or also “econophysics.” You may have heard about this field: it is an approach to economics based on the same models used in biology.

The idea was to examine the basic elements of what an economic system is: an entity that transforms resources into products, and then into waste. The main difference with traditional economics is that biophysical economics is focused on physical things that can be measured: energy, mass, materials, and the like. In contrast, economics is heavily focused on money and prices and, often, it loses contact with the physical world. For instance, it is often said in the field of the economics of natural resources that “prices create resources.” The idea is that when a non-renewable resource becomes scarce, prices become higher, making it possible to extract resources that were not profitable before. It is a magic trick supposed to create something out of nothing. No need to say that it doesn’t work in the real world. And it doesn’t work in the biophysical approach, either.

The concept of EROI (Energy Return for Energy Invested) is fundamental to understanding this point. It tells you what’s possible to do with energy technologies, and what’s not possible. But it just does not exist in traditional economics: it is ignored and, as a consequence, plenty of resources are wasted in non-viable energy technologies, biofuels for instance. You may think that it is time to replace the obsolete approach of traditional economics with the more rigorous one of biophysical economics. But it is just not happening. If you look at the number of publications in scientific journals on databases such as “Scopus”, you see that growth has stalled during the past 10 years or so, and now it is going down, as you can see below for a search of the term “Biophysical Economics.” Not only growth stopped about 10 years ago, but the number of published studies remains a minor fraction of the publications in economics.

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Democracy

 

 


Located in the province of Catania, in the Italian island of Sicily, is the town of Grammichele

 

 

No nails
https://twitter.com/i/status/1622959130368524288

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 182023
 


Dorothea Lange Richmond, California 1942

 

NATO Keeps On Demilitarising Itself in Ukraine (Tweedie)
Kremlin Mum On Putin’s Alleged Order To Liberate Donbass Before March (TASS)
Game-Changing Russia (Batiushka)
CNN: Ukraine Has Become a ‘Weapons Lab’ for Western Arms (Antiwar)
The West’s New Anti-Russia Sanctions Are A Total Game Changer (Timofeev)
EU Sanctions Goal Is To Crush Russian Economy – Von Der Leyen (RT)
Ursula Von Der Leyen: Russia’s Crimes Won’t Go Unpunished (Az.)
EU Leaves Back Door Open For Sanctioned Russian Oil (RT)
New Meeting With CIA Director Burns ‘Possible’ – Russian Spy Chief (RT)
Crimea’s ‘Return’ To Ukraine Is Impossible – Russian Intelligence Chief (TASS)
Destroying Monsters (Helmholtz Smith)
Kissinger Offers ‘Updated’ Ukraine Plan (RT)
Key Revelations of the ‘Twitter Files’ (ET)
Elon Musk Throws Shade on the WEF (Street)
FBI Decided Not To Monitor Biden Document Search (ZH)
Not a Coup, but a Coverup (ET)
Biden in ‘Very Big’ Mess Over Document Scandal – David Gergen (ET)
The Renewable Energy Problem That No One Talks About (ET)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Biden

 

 

Tucker tax returns
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615166116292333568

 

 


“There seem to be ever increasing suggestions that restricting people’s travel will reduce atmospheric CO2. We had an experiment on that in 2020. No flights, no work or school travel. Here’s the result of that experiment. Show me lockdown on this graph.”

 

 

Japan high temps
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615038638261141523

 

 

Kerry

 

 

 

 

“..the ultimate end of the SMO is not just to de-militarise (and de-Nazify) the Ukraine, but all of NATO too.”

NATO Keeps On Demilitarising Itself in Ukraine (Tweedie)

It has been said often over the past year, most recently by Emmanuel Todd, that the conflict in Ukraine is “existential” for Russia. Certainly, the Great Bear cannot abide a NATO ballistic missile launchpad just 300 miles from Moscow in a country run my rabidly-Russophobic Nazis — not neo-Nazi skinhead cosplayers but the literal descendants of the real deal. But others have argued that the Special Military Operation (SMO) is also a make-or-break roll of the dice for NATO and the US which dominates it. How else can we explain the latest mania for arming the regime in Kiev just as its ‘Siegfried Line’ in the Donbass starts to crumble?

How else can one explain cry-bully US National Security Spokesman John Kirby’s response to news that Russian Wagner ‘private military company’ had liberated the town of Soledar, a keystone of the Ukrainian defences? He simultaneously tried to cast doubt on the facts while claiming the town’s capture was strategically insignificant. “We don’t know how it’s gonna go, so I’m not going to predict failure or success here,” Kirby said as Wagner were mopping up stranded Ukrainian conscripts. “But even if both Bakhmut and Soledar fall to the Russians, it’s not going to have a strategic impact on the war itself, and it certainly isn’t going to stop the Ukrainians or slow them down in terms of their efforts to regain their territory.”

To the contrary, reports indicate that several Ukrainian brigades being concentrated for a southward push on Melitopol, near the narrow isthmus to the Crimea, were redeployed to Donbass in a vain attempt to hold Soledar and Bakhmut, where they suffered huge casualties. Taking Bakhmut could allow the Russian forces to ‘roll up’ the Ukrainian line to the north and south and advance on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two major cities Ukraine holds in Donetsk. Moscow has repeatedly said there can be no peace while the West keeps pumping arms into Ukraine. The most obvious interpretation of those statements is that NATO is only prolonging the suffering of the Ukrainian and Donbass peoples with its cornucopia of death. But another is, as blogger Andrei Martyanov said recently, that the ultimate end of the SMO is not just to de-militarise (and de-Nazify) the Ukraine, but all of NATO too.

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Plenty speculation about new offensives, either by Russia or Ukraine/NATO.

Kremlin Mum On Putin’s Alleged Order To Liberate Donbass Before March (TASS)

Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused on Tuesday to comment on the Ukrainian intelligence service’s recent speculations that Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly ordered Chief of Russia’s General Staff and Commander of the Russian group of forces in Ukraine Valery Gerasimov to liberate the territory of Donbass before March 2023. Asked at a news conference to comment on the speculations, Peskov replied: “No, I cannot [comment on it] and have zero intention of doing it.” A number of web media outlets circulated reports earlier citing Andrey Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian intelligence service, as saying that Putin issued an order to liberate Donbass by March and that the Russian Armed Forces would focus on assault operations across the entire territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).


On January 11, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu made new appointments in the military command of the special military operation in Ukraine. The decision to raise the level of military command in the special military operation is related “to the broader scope of missions tackled in its course and the need to organize closer coordination among military branches and services of the armed forces and also the increased quality of all types of logistics support and efficiency in command and control of the groups of troops (forces), the Russian Defense Ministry stated earlier. On February 21, 2022, President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was recognizing the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics DPR and LPR respectively). Russia signed agreements on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance with their leaders. Moscow recognized the Donbass republics in accordance with the DPR and LPR constitutions within the boundaries of the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions as of the beginning of 2014.

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Britain has 227 tanks. Russia has 15,000.

Game-Changing Russia (Batiushka)

While Western Europe is prepared to pay for the last Ukrainian to die for Western Europe – Germany, France, Finland, the UK and some other countries are prepared to get rid of some more of their old armoured vehicles and even tanks, palming them off on the Neo-Nazi Kiev regime. Thus, the UK is thinking of sending 14 of its 25-year old Challenger 2 tanks. How the UK will train Ukrainians to operate them, how it will supply enough ammunition for them to fire, how they will supply the mechanics and spare parts to repair them, how – and when – they will deliver them to Poland and then get them to the Kiev front, over 1,000 kilometres further away, nobody can tell us. Meanwhile, the British Army Chief of General Staff, Sir Patrick Sanders, is complaining. ‘Giving Kiev tanks means we won’t have enough for ourselves’. After all they do cost £8 million each and there are only 227 of them in the much-underfunded British Army anyway.

Nobody has told the British Army that after one Russian missile all 14 of these obsolescent ‘wonder-weapons’ will go up in smoke before they ever get to the front. £112 million gone. No wonder Ukrainian refugees are returning to Kiev to get proper medical treatment that the grossly underfunded and strikebound British Health System cannot provide them with. Nobody has told the British Army or any EU Army that Russia is fighting a war of attrition. Given Russian air superiority, far superior artillery, drones, missiles and its 15,000 tanks, the Kiev forces, their mercenaries and all their equipment are being wiped out. Worse still, none of the Western hack-journalists, presstitutes to the core, has yet explained why ‘the victorious Kiev forces’ need ever more Western armoured vehicles and tanks.

You read it here first: It is because all the other ‘game-changing’ armoured vehicles, tanks and equipment have already been destroyed. Now at least astronomers know what a black hole looks like. It looks like the Kiev regime. Yes, black holes really are game-changing because you can get sucked into one. In the face of NATO (= US) aggression, surely there is only one choice left for Russia – to liberate all 27 Ukrainian regions (and maybe even elsewhere too). I have to confess that I was never in favour of Russia taking the far-west Galicia. ‘They can go to Poland’. I was thinking of the old Russian curse: ‘Go to hell – and take Galicia with you’. But, actually, I am now thinking that Russia should take the lot, Crimea and the four partially liberated ones nearly done, 22 to go. The fact is that as long as a single piece of the Ukraine is under Nazi control, it will be a threat to the Russian Federation.

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Do his people know he’s saying this? That they’re now lab rats?

“We are interested in testing modern systems in the fight against the enemy and we are inviting arms manufacturers to test the new products here..”

BTW: a heli just crashed near Kiev. Cause as yet unkown. 16 dead, including Ukraine Interior Minister.

CNN: Ukraine Has Become a ‘Weapons Lab’ for Western Arms (Antiwar)

Ukraine has turned into a “lab” for Western arms as the war has given the US and its allies an opportunity to see how their weapons fare in a conflict with a major military power like Russia, CNN reported on Monday. A source familiar with Western intelligence on the war told CNN that Ukraine is “absolutely a weapons lab in every sense because none of this equipment has ever actually been used in a war between two industrially developed nations.” The source described it as “real-world battle testing.” Back in July, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov offered his country as a “testing ground” for Western arms makers. “We are interested in testing modern systems in the fight against the enemy and we are inviting arms manufacturers to test the new products here,” he said.

Reznikov got his wish as the US, and its allies have significantly stepped up military aid since then, and the war has escalated as Russia began large-scale strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure in October. Russia’s success in its use of cheap kamikaze drones in the infrastructure attacks has influenced plans for Western arms makers. The British arms maker BAE Systems has announced that it’s developing a new armored vehicle with added protection to defend it from kamikaze drone attacks from above. Multiple intelligence and military officials told CNN that making cheap single-use drones has become a priority of many defense contractors.

The CNN report said that for the US military, the war has become an “incredible source of data on the utility of its own systems.” For example, the US has seen that its HIMARS rocket launch system has been effective against Russian forces, while the M777 howitzer has become less effective and less accurate over time. The war in Ukraine has also created a demand for weapons that were beginning to become obsolete, such as the Stinger shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Raytheon stopped producing Stingers for years but now has been asked by the Pentagon to ramp up production as thousands have been shipped to Ukraine.

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“..the law says that the authorities, at their own discretion, may decide to transfer the proceeds from the confiscated property in favor of a foreign state affected by a grave breach of international peace and security..”

The West’s New Anti-Russia Sanctions Are A Total Game Changer (Timofeev)

Canada is the first country to legally implement the forfeiture mechanism. The 2022 revision of the Special Economic Measures Act gives Canadian authorities the power to seize property located in the country that is owned by a foreign state, any person or entity in that state, as well as a national of that foreign state who does not ordinarily reside in Canada. Such measures may be applied if “a grave breach of international peace and security has occurred that has resulted in or is likely to result in a serious international crisis.” The final decision is made by a judge after receiving a corresponding petition from a relevant representative of the executive authorities. Following that, the law says that the authorities, at their own discretion, may decide to transfer the proceeds from the confiscated property in favor of a foreign state affected by a grave breach of international peace and security, towards the restoration of international peace and security, and to compensate victims of a grave breach of international peace and security, gross human rights violations or acts of corruption.

The Canadian assets of tycoon Roman Abramovich’s company Granite Capital Holding Ltd. will be the first to fall prey to the new law. According to a statement by the Canadian authorities, it is valued at $26 million. Roman Abramovich is already on Canada’s blocked persons list, which means that his assets are frozen and any transactions with him are prohibited. The Russian businessman’s assets will now be seized and probably transferred towards the needs of Ukraine. The value is relatively small, but it may be used to set the mechanism in motion. The next steps may be a lot grander in scale. Other countries are likely to follow Canada’s example. The U.S. talked about implementing a similar law back in April 2022, but nothing has been done at the legislative level so far.

In the EU, the procedure hasn’t been legalized either, although Article 15 of Regulation 269/2014 obliges Member States to develop rules on the seizure of assets obtained as a result of sanction regime violations. The concept of “violations” is subject to broad interpretation. For example, Article 9 of the Regulation obliges blocked Russian individuals to provide an account of their assets to EU authorities within 6 weeks. A violation of this requirement may be seen as a circumvention of the sanction regulations. What conclusions can we draw? Presently, we may note several consequences of the Canadian authorities’ initiative.

First, it’s evident that forfeiture risks do exist, and they aren’t lying dormant. The current situation is a red flag for Russian individuals and companies that haven’t yet been sanctioned but own assets in Western countries. They need to understand that their property may be seized, not just frozen. This risk will surely be considered by foreign investors and property owners in those countries that risk becoming targets of Western sanctions in the future. This includes nationals of China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and other states. Although it’s unlikely to cause a mass exodus of the citizens of these countries and their assets from Canada and other Western states, the warning signal will be heard.

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But instead they’re crushing the EU economy. Europe better get rid of Ursula and her ilk, fast.

EU Sanctions Goal Is To Crush Russian Economy – Von Der Leyen (RT)

EU sanctions are aimed at plunging the Russian economy into a recession for years to come and depriving the country of crucial technologies, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in an address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Tuesday. The European bloc has imposed nine rounds of sanctions against Russia since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, targeting many sectors of the economy, including energy, high-tech, aviation, banking, mining, automotive and other industries. “We have put in place the strongest sanctions ever, which leave the Russian economy facing a decade of regression and its industry starved of any modern and critical technologies,” von der Leyen said.


The latest restrictions came into force in December and include new export controls and restrictions on dual-use goods and technology, along with products and technology that could be used in the defense and security sectors. The measures target key chemicals, nerve agents, night-vision and radio-navigation equipment, as well as electronics and IT components. Brussels is now working on the next batch of penalties, which will reportedly target Russia’s nuclear industry and diamond trade. Other penalties which the EU is rushing to symbolically implement by February 24 include cutting more Russian banks off from the SWIFT global messaging system and banning more of the country’s media outlets. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the country’s economy is performing “much better than what not only our opponents but even we ourselves predicted” and is on course for further stabilization.

Ursula private war
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615309858789531648

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Ha ha ha: “..severe sanctions on Russia that will plunge the Russian economy into recession for decades..”

Ursula Von Der Leyen: Russia’s Crimes Won’t Go Unpunished (Az.)

Russia’s crimes will not go unpunished, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Report informs. Von der Leyen noted that when the war in Ukraine began, everyone expected that Kyiv would be taken in a matter of days, but they were able to resist. “Many doubted whether Europe’s support would be so unwavering, but today Ukraine is a candidate for EU membership. And European countries are providing more and more weapons to Ukraine. We are also imposing severe sanctions on Russia that will plunge the Russian economy into recession for decades, and its industry will be deprived of modern and critical technologies,” she added.

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Not quite fully suicidal yet…

EU Leaves Back Door Open For Sanctioned Russian Oil (RT)

India may substantially boost its exports of diesel fuel to the EU, refined from Russian oil targeted by Western sanctions, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The scheme wouldn’t breach the EU’s regulations, but it highlights the inefficiency inherent in the sanctions policy, the report notes. The EU ban on almost all imports of Russian oil products kicks in on February 5, coinciding with the implementation of a price cap on sea-borne crude shipped from the sanctioned country. The latest Ukraine-related penalties ban Western businesses from providing services, like insurance, for Russian oil cargoes unless it’s purchased at or below $60 per barrel. The ceiling is expected to be revised depending on market conditions.

Until recently, Russia was the biggest external supplier of diesel to EU countries, which have been ramping up purchases ahead of the cutoff. Due to the sanctions, the global market is projected to see a great rerouting of diesel flows as new importers of Russian crude are sending fuel back to the former buyers. Analysts expect a growing risk of higher prices in the short term. Among the new buyers of sanctioned Russian oil products will reportedly be traders in Africa, Latin America and possibly Asia. “The loss of Russian barrels is huge and replacing them will be a huge logistical challenge,” Keshav Lohiya, founder of consultant Oilytics, told Bloomberg. “But the market is pricing in less panic as markets and trade flows have proven resilient. This will be a new rerouting of diesel.”

India’s role in supplying EU member states is reportedly significant, as the South Asian nation has turned into one of the largest importers of discounted Russian crude since last year. At the beginning of 2022, Russia’s share of India’s oil imports amounted to just 0.2%. By the end of last year, it had grown to nearly one million barrels per day, reaching more than 20% of the country’s oil import basket. India, the world’s third-biggest importer of crude oil after China and the US, remained Russia’s top importer for three months in a row as of December. India, along with the US, has recently been boosting exports of diesel, the fuel pillar of the global economy, to the EU, as production levels there currently exceed domestic consumption.

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“The Americans themselves told us ten times that this channel of communication was absolutely confidential and should not be disclosed..”

New Meeting With CIA Director Burns ‘Possible’ – Russian Spy Chief (RT)

Sergey Naryshkin, who heads Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), said he is willing to have a face-to-face with his counterpart from the CIA, Director William Burns. The two previously held a meeting in Ankara in mid-November. The top Russian spy said on Tuesday that a new engagement with Burns was “possible” provided that the parties agree to it, the news agency TASS reported. Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization hosted the previous meeting on November 14 last year, which reportedly lasted for about two and a half hours. The senior officials discussed nuclear threats arising from the Ukraine conflict and ways to mitigate them, according to the American side. Then, Burns reportedly traveled to Kiev to meet Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.


Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lamented last month that the event in Türkiye became publicly known, blaming a leak in Washington. “The Americans themselves told us ten times that this channel of communication was absolutely confidential and should not be disclosed … so that it would not be tainted by some propagandistic spin,” he told journalists. “We agreed. But as soon as they landed in Ankara, [the news] got immediately leaked. I don’t know where from, whether it was the White House or the Department of State,” he added. In his interview with TASS on Tuesday, Naryshkin discussed the Ukraine crisis, and Russia’s cooperation with China and Iran.

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“..96.7% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation..”

Crimea’s ‘Return’ To Ukraine Is Impossible – Russian Intelligence Chief (TASS)

Russian Foreign Intelligence chief Sergey Naryshkin said on Tuesday that the ‘return’ of Crimea to Ukraine is impossible. “This is impossible,” Naryshkin told TASS commenting on Kiev’s recently announced intentions to launch work on ‘returning back Crimea.’ The Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with a special status on the Crimean Peninsula, where most residents are Russian, refused to recognize the legitimacy of authorities that seized power amid riots during the illegitimate coup of February 2014 in Ukraine. Crimea and Sevastopol adopted declarations of independence on March 11, 2014. They held a referendum on March 16, 2014, in which 96.7% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification treaties on March 18, 2014. The documents were ratified by Russia’s Federal Assembly, or bicameral parliament, on March 21. Despite the overwhelming results of the referendum, Ukraine still refuses to recognize Crimea as part of Russia.

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“An America of war all the time everywhere, of tent cities and full jails, of open borders, disappeared manufacturing, opiates, misery, poverty, corruption.”

Destroying Monsters (Helmholtz Smith)

A lot of the people who comment on this blog seem to me to be patriotic Americans. And, it’s clear, if you read the comments, that many of them – probably the majority – want Russia to win the war. This is not because they like Putin or Russia particularly, and certainly not because they’re on the “Putin payroll”. Not at all. These people understand what is really at stake. These are people who know that the American war party (one of many names – deep state, borg, neocons, one percent, MICIMAC) is responsible for pushing Russia to the decision that it made last February. That it is the war party that expanded NATO despite the promises, that arms Ukraine, that encourages the fanatics driving that country, that blocks all routes to a peaceful settlement, that encourages Kiev to squander the lives of its people. But what really concerns these patriotic Americans is the damage the war party has done to their country.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force… She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit… An America of war all the time everywhere, of tent cities and full jails, of open borders, disappeared manufacturing, opiates, misery, poverty, corruption. An America with endless money to spend abroad but none to spend at home. (The hundred billion dollars dumped into Ukraine would give a $200,000 house to every one of the estimated half million homeless in the USA!) An America failing, no longer the American they loved, served and believed in. The Twitter revelations show some of the activities of this enemy embedded in the American polity. It’s very late and many fear that it is too late. How to get this leech off America’s back? Voting can’t make much difference if both parties are manipulated. Is the voting system itself corrupted? Can the judicial system be trusted?

Special counsels who report when it’s too late to matter? The managed media? Some may still believe in these things but the people I’m talking about don’t any more. They can only see one way that the power of this internal enemy can be broken – complete and utter defeat. Defeat that cannot be ignored, cannot be explained away, defeat too big and too obvious for the obedient mass media to bury. And that is why these people want Russia to win. They don’t necessarily like Russia or Putin or dislike Ukraine – it has little to do with either. It’s because they see this as the opportunity for the humiliating defeat that will shatter the power of the internal enemy. The war party assumed that Russia was weak and sanctions would crash its economy and bring down Putin. When this didn’t happen, they doubled down on their failed bet arrogantly certain they were right because everybody they allowed to speak agreed with them. If (when) Russia scores a decisive and undeniable victory, the perpetrators of the disaster will be revealed as corrupt fools wasting your money on their worthless fantasy.

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Useless drivel, and he knows it. They all do.

Kissinger Offers ‘Updated’ Ukraine Plan (RT)

Ukraine’s neutrality is “no longer meaningful” given the circumstances, Henry Kissinger told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. He endorsed Kiev’s eventual membership in the US-led military bloc, but continued to insist on dialogue with Russia – a stance that earned him a spot on the notorious Ukrainian “kill list.” Kissinger, now 99, was the US secretary of state (1973-1977) and national security advisor (1969-1975), playing a major role in the talks to end the Vietnam War, as well as the policy of pitting China against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. At last year’s Davos gathering, in May, he advocated an urgent end to hostilities in Ukraine, lest Russia is “driven into a permanent alliance with China.” For daring to suggest that Moscow could keep Crimea – which rejoined Russia in 2014 – he was placed on the “Peacemaker” list of Ukraine’s enemies, however.

On Tuesday, he prefaced his remarks with “admiration” for Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and the “heroic conduct of the Ukrainian people,” before proposing essentially the same peace deal as last year. “Before this war, I was opposed to the membership of Ukraine in NATO, because I feared it would start exactly the process that we have seen,” Kissinger said. “Now that this process has reached this level, the idea of a neutral Ukraine under these conditions is no longer meaningful.” “I believe Ukrainian membership in NATO would be [an] appropriate outcome.” In Kissinger’s view, the way to prevent the conflict from escalating is to do exactly what Kiev, the US and its allies have been doing so far: demand a Russian withdrawal, while giving Ukraine military and financial aid and maintaining “sanctions and other pressures” on Moscow.

Russia should be given an “opening” to rejoin the West, “if it meets the required conditions to participate as a member in these European processes,” the elderly diplomat argued. It is important, he said, to avoid the perception that the conflict has become “against Russia itself,” which may cause Russians to re-evaluate both their historic “attraction to the culture of Europe and a fear of domination by Europe.” Kissinger also said that the US-led military alliance ought to be the guarantor of the final peace settlement “in whatever forms NATO can develop.”

While his proposal flattered the Western perception that Ukraine was winning on the battlefield with the help of NATO weapons, Kissinger chose to ignore the agency of both Kiev and Moscow. Zelensky has categorically rejected any sort of ceasefire unless Russia capitulates, while the Kremlin is on the record that any deal must concede that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye are parts of Russia – with Crimea being off the table altogether. It was also unclear whether Moscow would accept any Western-mediated negotiations at all, after former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s admission – later echoed by French ex-president Francois Hollande – that the 2014 Minsk armistice was not arranged in good faith, but intended to “give Ukraine time” to prepare for war.

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Good overview by Petr Svab.

Key Revelations of the ‘Twitter Files’ (ET)

The journalists have only released a fraction of the documents they reviewed. They’ve also redacted the names of employees involved, aside from some high-level executives. The documents show that the FBI and other state, local, and federal agencies have been scrutinizing the political speech of Americans on a significant scale, and trying to get lawful speech suppressed or removed online. Many conservative and traditionally liberal commentators have deemed that a violation of the First Amendment. Twitter, a major hub of political speech, has been among the main targets of censorship. Many news stories have broken on Twitter in recent years, and a significant portion of the nation’s political debate takes place on the platform, as it allows an efficient way for direct and public interaction between users, from the most prominent to the least.


Twitter resisted some censorship requests, but there was little sign the company did so as a matter of principle. Rather, executives sometimes couldn’t find a policy they could use as a justification. Prior Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was under pressure from his lieutenants to expand the policies to allow more thorough censorship, the documents show. “The hypothesis underlying much of what we’ve implemented is that if exposure, e.g., misinformation directly causes harm, we should use remediations that reduce exposure, and limiting the spread/virality of content is a good way to do that (by just reducing prevalence overall),” said Yoel Roth, then Twitter’s head of trust and safety, which governs content policy, in a 2021 internal message published by Weiss. “We got Jack on board with implementing this for civic integrity in the near term, but we’re going to need to make a more robust case to get this into our repertoire of policy remediations—especially for other policy domains.”

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“The billionaire who became the most influential boss in the world explained that his decision was due to the fact that he found Davos boring. ”

Elon Musk Throws Shade on the WEF (Street)

The World Economic Forum in Davos is back to normal. The annual meeting of the world’s political and economic elites opened on January 16 in the ski resort of Davos in Switzerland. After nearly a year of war in Ukraine and in the face of the climate emergency, this year’s ambition is to find a way to “cooperate in a fragmented world” between war in Ukraine, climate change and globalization in existential crisis. “The world today is at a critical inflection point,” the World Economic Forum (WEF) said on its website. “The twin triggers of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine rattled an already brittle global system. Economic growth in the world’s largest economies is stalling, while navigating headwinds from rising food and energy prices.” This year, the meeting “is held in the most complex geopolitical and geo-economic context for decades”, underlined the president of the WEF, Borge Brende.

The Covid-19 pandemic, trade disputes between China and the United States, and the war in Ukraine have contributed in recent years to multiplying geopolitical fault lines and fueling more protectionist policies. One of the main causes of this fragmentation is a lack of cooperation, and it results in short-term and selfish policies, regretted the founder of the WEF, Klaus Schwab. To reflect and discuss all these issues, the WEF welcomes 52 heads of state and government and nearly 600 CEOs, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. One major CEO will not be there, however. Musk had revealed in December to have received an invitation but to have declined it. “I was invited to WEF, but declined,” the billionaire said on Dec. 24. The billionaire who became the most influential boss in the world explained that his decision was due to the fact that he found Davos boring.

“My reason for declining the Davos invitation was not because I thought they were engaged in diabolical scheming, but because it sounded boring,” the serial entrepreneur explained on December 31. Musk’s refusal to take part in the Davos Forum comes at a time when this circle of political leaders, business executives, cultural trend-setters and international organization chiefs is facing increasingly violent criticism. These critics challenge the power and influence of this gathering of elites, and in particular of its founder. Musk seems to share these criticisms. This is what he has just suggested in a message posted on Twitter on January 15, the day before the opening of the Forum. If the Techno King, his title at Tesla, recognizes the need to have a space or a forum where there are exchanges and a dialogue between the private sector and the governments, he seems to think that the World Economic Forum is not the good frame or is just all perfect.

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“..the DOJ’s willingness to let Biden’s lawyers conduct unsupervised searches is obviously fraught with concern..”

You cannot have two different justice systems.

FBI Decided Not To Monitor Biden Document Search (ZH)

After President Biden’s lawyers found classified documents at an office he used at a DC think tank, His Justice Department considered, and then declined, a plan to have FBI agents monitor a search for classified documents at his residences, in order to ‘avoid complicating later stages of the investigation,’ and because Biden’s attorneys ‘had quickly turned over a first batch and were cooperating,’ the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter. Instead, the DOJ decided that it would be just fine for Biden’s lawyers to conduct the additional searches by themselves, and would agree to immediately notify the Justice Department if they found any other potentially classified records – after which law-enforcement authorities would take them.

The arrangement meant that FBI agents wouldn’t bear witness to things such as the volume, or contents, of whatever might turn up. This is, of course, the same FBI that participated in a plan (and fabricated evidence) in a plot to frame former President Trump as a Russian asset, and then ran cover for the Bidens during the 2020 US election – telling social media companies that Hunter Biden’s laptop, or anything like it, was likely Russian disinformation. In the week since news reports first surfaced about the documents, the incident has drawn parallels to the discovery of a much larger number of documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, which federal agents obtained a warrant to search in August after more than a year of negotiations between Mr. Trump’s lawyers, the National Archives and the Justice Department and after Mr. Trump’s lawyers said all documents had been returned. -WSJ

After the initial finding at the Penn-Biden Center in early November (and not disclosed until last week), classified materials were discovered on three separate occasions in Biden’s Wilmington house in December and January, in the garage and a room adjacent to it, White House lawyer Richard Sauber said last week. According to Sauber, the documents were “inadvertently placed” at the locations. Trump supporters have accused the DOJ of a double standard in the handling of the Biden situation vs. Trump’s. And of course, as President, Trump’s ability to declassify the documents obtained in the raid remains a constitutional grey area. Biden’s supporters have pointed to the president’s cooperation, however the DOJ’s willingness to let Biden’s lawyers conduct unsupervised searches is obviously fraught with concern. According to the White House, it’s no big deal.

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“..Robert Hur is a protégé of Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general under Trump who reportedly offered to wear a wire to spy on the previous president.”

Not a Coup, but a Coverup (ET)

The Nov. 14, 2022, article was evidence that the Biden circle was walking back its scorched-earth campaign against Trump on classified papers. Nearly three months later, it’s clear why—to reframe the context for when news of Biden’s own problems with classified documents went public. When the story broke last week in administration-friendly media outlets, Democratic lawmakers not only rallied around the president but also compared his response favorably to Trump’s. Unlike Trump’s team that argued with the institution tasked to keep U.S. records, Biden’s lawyers, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) intimated, “appear to have taken immediate and proper action to notify the National Archives.”

Dozens of media publications, from The New York Times to Vox, have published explainers showing why what Trump did is much worse than what Biden did. Trump had more documents, the argument runs; Biden’s lawyers were more forthright; and so forth. The fact is that no one on the Democratic side has broken with the president or even so much as hinted that he did something wrong. This isn’t what an internal coup looks like. The special counsel appointed to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents identifies as a Republican but he appears to be a Never Trump Republican. Robert Hur is a protégé of Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general under Trump who reportedly offered to wear a wire to spy on the previous president.

Rosenstein furthered the anti-Trump cause by withholding documents from the investigation led by former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) into alleged FBI crimes and abuses committed during the bureau’s Trump–Russia probe. He also allegedly threatened to subpoena Nunes’s staffers, including Kash Patel. A winter 2018 chain of emails between Department of Justice officials shows that Hur was part of the law enforcement team tasked to stonewall Nunes’s investigation. Former congressional investigators say that Hur’s appointment as special counsel is intended not to uncover potential crimes committed by the president but rather to give the appearance of a genuine investigation and thereby bury the issue once and for all. And thus, actions taken by the Biden administration and the responses of Democratic officials and the media show that what’s unfolding at present isn’t a coup, but a coverup.

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“There’s a temptation in every one of these kinds of crises to hunker down..”

Biden in ‘Very Big’ Mess Over Document Scandal – David Gergen (ET)

The brewing scandal of classified documents poses a very serious problem for President Joe Biden, warned David Gergen, a White House adviser-turned-political analyst. Speaking on CNN on Saturday, Gregen was asked by host Anderson Cooper how big a mess the Biden administration is in following the discoveries of classified documents at Biden’s private offices. He responded, “It’s a very, very big deal.” News broke earlier this week that classified material dating from Biden’s vice presidency had been found in the Washington office of the Penn Biden Center, a think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, in the days leading up to the 2022 midterm elections. The White House later admitted that more pages of classified documents were discovered in the president’s Delaware home.

The “Biden people” are not dealing with this political crisis properly, according to Gergen, a former adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. “I do think that they may be making a big mistake,” he said. “I don’t think sitting there, hunkering down now, just acting like it’s not out there, is a good strategy. They’re going to get creamed doing that,” Gergen told Cooper, noting that the longer the White House remains reluctant to tell the truth, the more eager the American public will become to ask the question, “What are they hiding?” “As matters now stand, that long delay in putting it out there is going to encourage people to believe, ‘Well, what are they hiding?’” he said.

Instead of giving in to the temptation to hunker down, Biden should simply “get the facts out,” Gergen argued, pointing to the Iran-Contra affair that occurred during Reagan’s second term. When it was exposed that the CIA had secretly sold missiles and other military weapons to Iran in exchange for some Americans held hostage by Iran-backed terrorists and used the money to fund anti-communist Contra fighters in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration’s popularity took a dip, largely because of the White House’s unsuccessful damage control attempts. “There’s a temptation in every one of these kinds of crises to hunker down,” he said. “You are going all the way back to Iran-Contra and other kind of crises like that. You’ve just got to get the facts out.”

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Trojan Horse redux.

The Renewable Energy Problem That No One Talks About (ET)

Traditional generators use turbines—steam turbines, open-cycle turbines, and water turbines (hydroelectricity). This equipment is called “synchronous” because the frequency of the electricity they produce is directly linked to the speed that the shafts of the turbines rotate. Because these machines are large and heavy, it takes time and energy to speed them up or slow them down, which means that the frequency of the electricity cannot change too quickly. This is called “inertia.” As you may imagine, solar panels, having no moving parts, do not provide inertia. They match whatever frequency is already in the system; they do not help stabilise it.

Wind turbines, though they do have large spinning components, change speed all the time merely due to wind conditions. Hence they are not designed to synchronise with the AC network. So they do not provide inertia either. If a system does not have inertia, then instead of gently responding to a change in load, the frequency can flail about like a cyclist getting speed wobbles (any engine can have the same problem if it doesn’t have a sufficiently heavy flywheel). After the 2016 blackout, energy security gained its rightful place as the highest priority for a few glorious and brief weeks. A package of actions was taken by the South Australian government over the next couple of years, including the installation of a large-scale battery (following a promise by Elon Musk to construct it within 100 days or provide it for free), the building of a new diesel power station, and providing incentives for new natural gas exploration and production.

Additionally, two synchronous condensers were installed. Synchronous condensers are large, heavy rotating shafts, similar to what is contained in a turbine, but they don’t produce electricity—they just help to stabilise the frequency of the network. In the subsequent years, each of these responses was vindicated. The diesel generator has been used at several critical times. It was also found that the primary value of the large-scale battery was to stabilise the network. Though it stores comparatively little energy, the battery responds rapidly to faults originating anywhere in the east coast network, even in Queensland. It has since been programmed to provide “virtual inertia.”

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Ducklings
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615136819959500800

 

 

The perfect geometry of Hoya flowers. five-pointed double-star shapes that bloom from a sphere called an umbel

 

 


The Indian flower mantis

 

 

YOU’RE A WONDERFUL ONE

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 202022
 
 December 20, 2022  Posted by at 9:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  80 Responses »


Saul Leiter 463 1956

 

Managing the Ukraine Denial Narrative (Crooke)
News From The NATOstan-Imposed Meat Grinder (Escobar)
Why Time Isn’t Ripe For Ukraine Talks (Bhadrakumar)
How To Avoid Another World War (Kissinger)
Ukraine Blasts ‘Appeaser’ Henry Kissinger For Urging Peace Negotiations (ZH)
Moscow: Delivery Of Greece’s S-300s To Ukraine Would Be ‘Very Provocative’ (K.)
How Lobbyists Captured The EU (Fazi)
A Christmas Parable (Kunstler)
Will Musk Step Down After Twitter Poll? (Turley)
TWITTER FILES: How The FBI Moved To Quash Hunter Laptop Story (ZH)
‘Twitter Files’ Make it Clear: We Must Abolish the FBI (Ron Paul)
FBI Agent Elvis Chan Gave Twitter Execs Top Secret Clearance (Senger)
Canada Health Director Who Lead Vaccine Rollout Dies Suddenly at 35 (GP)

 

 

 

 

#StopTheTreaty

 

 

Greatest athletic achievement

 

 

Gonzalo

 

 

 

 

“The ‘writing is on the wall’, in other words. Ukraine cannot win.”

Managing the Ukraine Denial Narrative (Crooke)

Look around: the tectonic plates of geo-politics and geo-finance are shifting – shifting radically away from an increasingly flailing West.The inflection has begun. It has been messaged by the Financial Times (FT) and The Economist – the two media that so faithfully transmit any ‘replacement narrative’ to the globalist sherpas (those who carry the baggage up the mountain, on behalf of the mounted nabobs). The Economist leads with interviews with Zelensky, General Zaluzhny and Ukraine’s military field commander, General Syrsky. All three are interviewed – interviewed in The Economist, no less. Such a thing does not occur by happenstance. It is messaging intended to convey the Ruling Class’ new narrative to the ‘golden billion’ (who will all read and absorb it).

On the surface, it is possible to read The Economist piece as a plea for more money and many more weapons. But the underlying messaging is clear: “Anyone who underestimates Russia is heading for defeat”. The Russian force mobilisation was a success; there is no problem with Russian morale; and Russia is preparing a huge winter offensive that will start soon. Russia has huge reserve forces (of up to 1.2 million men); whereas Ukraine now has 200,000 who are militarily trained for conflict. The ‘writing is on the wall’, in other words. Ukraine cannot win. It is appended with a huge shopping list of sought-after weapons. But the shopping list is ‘pie in the sky’; the West simply does not have them in inventory. Period.

The FT’s ‘Big Read’, by contrast, is a venting of deep western anger at those Russian ‘reformist’ siloviki technocrats who, instead of breaking with Putin over the SMO, instead shamefully enabled the Russian economy to survive western sanctions. The message uttered – through clenched teeth – is that Russia’s economy has successfully survived western sanctions. Leading US military strategist, Col. Douglas Macgregor, here expands on the messaging: Even the provision of seven or eight Patriot missiles is “no escalation”. It will have at best – ‘marginal impact’ on the Ukraine battlescape; it is mere window dressing. Scott Ritter, in discussion with Judge Neapolitano, believes that The Economist interviews reveal the West pushing aside Zelensky – as Zaluzhny administers his large dose of reality (that will be shocking to many sherpa loyalists). The Economist interview emphasis thus was unmistakably on General Zaluzhny, with Zelensky pointedly de-emphasised – which Ritter suggests indicates that Washington wishes to ‘switch leadership horses’. Another ‘message’?

Judge Nap/Scott Ritter

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“..Russia can conveniently defeat the whole of NATO as there is hardly anything “there”..

News From The NATOstan-Imposed Meat Grinder (Escobar)

The non-stop trashy parade of Western military analysts is now “assessing” that the first targets of an incoming, joint Russia-Belarus attack on the 404 black hole formerly known as Ukraine will be Lviv, Lutsk, Rivne, Zhytomyr, and why not throw Kiev in the mix straight out of a second axis. The Russian General Staff is attentively monitoring all the action and may even follow the advice of such “analysts”. And then there’s outright panic, as the Ministry of Defense announced that the Strategic Missile Forces have loaded two Yars ICBMs into their intended silos. Cue to widespread shrieks of horror of the “Russia Readies Nuclear Missile Capable Of Striking Deep Into US” variety. Some facts though never change. Number One is NATO as a figment of the collective West’s – extremely impaired – imagination. If push ever came to shove – as Straussian/neo-con armchair warriors hope and pray – Russia can conveniently defeat the whole of NATO as there is hardly anything “there”.

That, of course, would require a massive Russian mobilization. As it stands, Russia may look feeble in a few quarters as they activated at best 100,000 troops against possibly 1 million Ukrainian troops. It’s as if Moscow was not exactly seduced by the idea of “winning” – which may be the case, in a quite twisted way. Even now, Moscow has not mobilized enough troops to occupy Ukraine – which, in theory, would be imperative to completely “denazify” the Kiev racket. The operative concept though is “in theory”. Moscow in fact is busy demonstrating a completely new theory – irrespective of the fact that a few exalted souls have been peddling that Putin should be replaced by the FSB’s Alexander Bortnikov.

With its array of hypersonic missiles, Russia can knock out all NATO bridges, ports, airports as well as power stations, oil and natural gas storage, Rotterdam oil and natural gas installations, in a matter of a few hours. All energy production equipment across NATOstan would be destroyed. Europe would be shut off from natural resources. A dazed and confused Empire would be unable to move troops, any troops, to Europe. And still provocations run unabated. The recent attack by Tu-141 Ukrainian drones against Engels-2 airbase was blamed by Moscow on Kiev – which predictably denied all responsibility. Yet what really mattered was Moscow’s strategic messaging to US/NATO, with Putin flirting with the notion that sooner or later the response may be up a serious notch in case US/NATO weaponry supplied to Kiev is used to strike deep into sensitive Russian Federation territory.

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Drawn in too deep.

Why Time Isn’t Ripe For Ukraine Talks (Bhadrakumar)

A Russian-American “consensus” is forming that the Ukraine conflict is far from a climactic stage leading to peace talks. Russia’s stance is that any settlement will devolve upon Kiev recognising “realities” — namely, acceptance of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions being integral parts of Russian Federation. But wouldn’t Russia know that no government in Kiev can afford to concede a demand that entails loss of over a quarter of the country’s territory? On the other hand, Kiev wants to vacate the Russian occupation and restore Ukraine’s 1991 borders and the Biden Administration is supportive. Wouldn’t they know that is a pipe dream?

Truly, since four of the erstwhile Ukrainian oblasts (excluding Crimea) are far from under Russia’s total control and the Kremlin intends to fully “liberate” them, the fighting continues in Donbass and further Russian moves to gain full control over Zaporozhye and Kherson regions will depend on its outcome. But the big question remains: How could any government in Kiev surrender vast tracts of Ukrainian territory after such sacrifices by the people? That may leave Russia with no choice but to seek total victory. The attitude of the Biden Administration is crucial. The clearest indication that the US is far from in a hurry to negotiate comes from none other than the White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan whose visit to Kiev last month (just before the US midterms) had triggered a flurry of speculations that Washington was pressuring President Zelensky to negotiate.

Now, Sullivan’s remarks at an appearance at the Carnegie last weekend made it clear that the US is in Ukraine for the long haul. He said: “We don’t know when this is going to end up. What we do know is that it is our job to continue to sustain our military support to Ukraine so that they are in their best possible position on the battlefield, that if and when diplomacy is ripe, they will be in the best possible position at the negotiating table. “That moment is not ripe now, and so, as a result, we’ve gone to Congress and asked for a substantial amount of further resources to be able to continue to ensure that Ukraine has the means to fight this war. We’re confident we will get bipartisan support for that…

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“Auto-nomous weapons already exist, capable of defining, assessing and targeting their own perceived threats and thus in a position to start their own war.”

How To Avoid Another World War (Kissinger)

As the world’s leaders strive to end the war in which two nuclear powers contest a conventionally armed country, they should also reflect on the impact on this conflict and on long-term strategy of incipient high–technology and artificial intelligence. Auto-nomous weapons already exist, capable of defining, assessing and targeting their own perceived threats and thus in a position to start their own war. Once the line into this realm is crossed and hi-tech becomes standard weaponry – and computers become the principal executors of strategy – the world will find itself in a condition for which as yet it has no established concept. How can leaders exercise control when computers prescribe strategic instructions on a scale and in a manner that inherently limits and threatens human input?


How can civilisation be preserved amid such a maelstrom of conflicting information, perceptions and destructive capabilities? No theory for this encroaching world yet exists, and consultative efforts on this subject have yet to evolve – perhaps because meaningful negotiations might disclose new discoveries, and that disclosure itself constitutes a risk for the future. Overcoming the disjunction between advanced technology and the concept of strategies for controlling it, or even understanding its full implications, is as important an issue today as climate change, and it requires leaders with a command of both technology and history.The quest for peace and order has two components that are sometimes treated as contradictory: the pursuit of elements of security and the requirement for acts of reconciliation. If we cannot achieve both, we will not be able to reach either. The road of diplomacy may appear complicated and frustrating. But progress to it requires both the vision and the courage to undertake the journey.

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“Previously he’s been on record as saying “It was not a wise American policy to attempt to include Ukraine into NATO.”

Ukraine Blasts ‘Appeaser’ Henry Kissinger For Urging Peace Negotiations (ZH)

It didn’t take long for the Ukrainian government to blast and dismiss former US Secretary of State Kissinger’s peace plan proposal as “appeasing the aggressor”. “Mr. Kissinger still has not understood anything… neither the nature of this war, nor its impact on the world order,” Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said in response to the 99-year old influential US statesman’s Saturday op-ed in The Spectator entitled How to Avoid Another World War. “The prescription that the ex-Secretary of State calls for, but is afraid to say out loud, is simple: appease the aggressor by sacrificing parts of Ukraine with guarantees of non-aggression against the other states of Eastern Europe,” Podolyak stated, expressing a firm rejection of what Kissinger outlined in his piece.

The Ukrainian official added that the proposal was simplistic, saying: “All supporters of simple solutions should remember the obvious: any agreement with the devil – a bad peace at the expense of Ukrainian territories – will be a victory for Putin and a recipe for success for autocrats around the world.” In his weekend op-ed, Kissinger had warned that continued attempts to render Russia “impotent” could result in an uncontrollable and unpredictable spiral. He laid out that along with the sought after “dissolution” of Russia would come a massive power vacuum out of which new threats to the whole world would emerge as bigger powers rush in. “The dissolution of Russia or destroying its ability for strategic policy could turn its territory encompassing 11 time zones into a contested vacuum,” Kissinger wrote.

“Its competing societies might decide to settle their disputes by violence. Other countries might seek to expand their claims by force. All these dangers would be compounded by the presence of thousands of nuclear weapons which make Russia one of the world’s two largest nuclear powers.” Among the more controversial aspects of Kissinger’s plan was his suggesting the possibility of referendums for contested territories now occupied by Russia and still being fought over “which have changed hands repeatedly over the centuries” [i.e.: particularly the Donbas] – according to the essay. Kissinger last May also angered Ukrainian officails for daring to propose that Ukraine be willing to recognize Crimea as under Russia, and in return Russian forces would fall back to their lines before the Feb. 24 invasion. Previously he’s been on record as saying “It was not a wise American policy to attempt to include Ukraine into NATO.”

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Erdogan plays this game a lot smarter.

Moscow: Delivery Of Greece’s S-300s To Ukraine Would Be ‘Very Provocative’ (K.)

The spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova stated on Monday that a potential delivery of Greece’s S-300 PMU1 missile defense system to Ukraine would be considered a very provocative move.“We consider plans to supply the Kyiv regime with S-300s or other Russian/Soviet air defense systems that will be used against Russia very provocative,” stated Zakharova. “The Greek authorities recently underlined their readiness to supply Ukraine with the S-300 PMU1 missile defense system, on condition of receiving additionally American Patriot missile defense systems to replace them,” she added. “There is a complete indifference by Greece on the international limitations on arms trading,” she concluded, stating that the Russian armed forces will locate and destroy all military supplies sent to Ukraine.

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“Bribery and corruption are endemic to the Brussels system — and most of it is perfectly legal.”

How Lobbyists Captured The EU (Fazi)

Addressing a recent European Parliament debate on “human rights in the context of the World Cup”, vice-president Eva Kaili had an unexpected message: “Qatar is a frontrunner in labour rights.” So, perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised when, last week, she was among six people arrested by Belgian police amid allegations of Qatari corruption and money laundering . Members of the EU establishment have been quick to spin the issue as a problem limited to a few bad apples. Several European Parliament officials told Politico the allegations were limited to a “few individuals” who had gone astray. Others, however, expect more names to be drawn into the widening dragnet. But whether or not the scandal extends to other people is beside the point.

By focusing on “Qatargate”, we risk losing sight of the fact that the scandal is a symptom of a much deeper and more widespread malaise, involving not just the European Parliament but all EU institutions. Bribery and corruption are endemic to the Brussels system — and most of it is perfectly legal. It is estimated that there are more than 30,000 lobbyists working in Brussels, making it the second capital of lobbying in the world after Washington, DC. Most are in the service of corporations and their lobby groups, with huge sums at their disposal: the combined lobbying budget of the 12,400 companies and organisations on the EU lobby register has grown steadily over the years — especially since the pandemic — and today amounts to €1.8 billion.

Topping the list are Big Tech, Big Pharma and Big Energy giants such as Apple, Google, Meta, Bayer and Shell, as well as industry associations such as the European Chemical Industry Council, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), and BusinessEurope — all of which declare annual lobbying budgets of €4-6 million. The true figure is likely to be significantly higher, given the long history of businesses under-reporting their spending. Big Pharma and Big Tech, in particular, both significantly boosted their lobbying firepower throughout the pandemic. EFPIA alone — which represents Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson — increased its spending by 20% in 2020. A conservative estimate of total annual EU lobby spending by Big Pharma is now close to €40 million per year, with nearly 300 lobbyists officially working in Brussels to push the industry’s interests (though the actual number is probably higher, since disclosure rules do not capture all the spending on law firms, academic partnerships and activities in individual countries).

It’s safe to say the investment was amply repaid: by the end of 2021, the EU had signed €71 billion worth of confidential contracts, securing up to 4.6 billion doses of vaccines (more than ten doses for each European citizen). EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen negotiated its biggest deal yet with Pfizer — for up to 1.8 billion doses, worth up to €35 billion if fully exercised — via a series of text messages with the company’s chief. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into the matter. Such extreme cases, however, mask the true extent of the structural problem that pervades every aspect of the Brussels system. It goes without saying that this army of well-funded lobbyists, which far outnumbers and outspends public interest groups, gives corporations a massive influence over the European decision-making and legislative process.

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“Up rose a social movement, Wokery, that had the earmarks of a histrionic religious mania, with Satanic overtones. Up rose the demons, the Antifa louts, the BLM arsonists, the drag queens.”

A Christmas Parable (Kunstler)

It started when the women of the professional and managerial class watched their avatar, Hillary Clinton, lose the 2016 election against a man who seemed the quintessence of everything they hated about Daddydom. Donald Trump, flawed to perfection, wrecked the chance of the amalgamated successful women of America to run the national household. Out came the pussy-hats, the Wiccans, and the celebrities threatening to “blow up the White House.” Out came a savage animus against men generally, and a campaign to feminize them in retaliation — and then punish them for objecting to it. Up rose a social movement, Wokery, that had the earmarks of a histrionic religious mania, with Satanic overtones. Up rose the demons, the Antifa louts, the BLM arsonists, the drag queens.

Thus unrolled a national psychodrama that continues to spool out as every system, every business, every institution in our country wobbles and flies apart now. The men embedded in the professional and managerial class tried in 2016 to chivalrously protect their womens’ avatar and her steadfast followers and, failing ignobly that grim November day, then turned to actually attack their adversary, Donald Trump, with the explicit intent to destroy him by all means necessary. In the years-long process, they devolved into criminality, and in so doing they entered a vicious cycle of lying about everything they did to escape the consequences of their ostensible exercise in gallantry. In effect, the people running things went from a war against a particular person to a war against reality and its twin sister, truth.

Now they are deeply invested in unreality and untruth to the point where they have forgotten how this whole thing started and all they can do is desperately patch the dike they had to construct against a deluge of information composed of truth and reality coming at them like a tsunami rolling across the sea. The harder they work at this futile task of defense, the more absurd they make themselves, leading to ridicule, humiliation, and, finally condemnation in whatever remains of the legal arena, where their deeds will finally be judged. The first stage of that outcome for them is pretending that none of it is happening. That’s why The New York Times and Washington Post ignore the news that the gallant knights of the FBI and several other tentacles of the Intel octopus mounted a ferocious, long-running psy-op through the new phenomenon of social media — that happened to rise in importance through this whole period of national discord. In effect, the intel agencies seized the transmitters (as Fidel Castro might put it) and used them very effectively to control their hallowed narratives.

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Did he hold the poll just to expose the bots?

Will Musk Step Down After Twitter Poll? (Turley)

Many of us have supported Elon Musk in his fight to restore free speech protections to Twitter despite concerns over decisions like the use of polls to determine if individuals should be allowed back on the social media site. He has now subjected himself to the same poll judgment in asking if he should step down as CEO. After more than 17.5 million users voted, 57 percent said yes. Unless Musk was looking for an exit, it was a mistake. He handed his critics an easy opportunity to remove him. For the left, Musk has been a nightmare because he cannot be bullied like most corporate executives. He is an eccentric billionaire who has refused to yield despite a full mobilization of the political, media, and business establishment. That could now change.

While many on the left spent weeks dismissing Twitter’s polls as unscientific, they are now demanding that Musk follow through and step down. Some 42.5% of users wanted him to stay. On Twitter Sunday, Musk seemed to say that he would follow the results but expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO. He said that the person “must like pain a lot” to run a company that “has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy.” He further noted that “no one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.” That is precisely why the left wants Musk out. As shown in companies like Disney, the left can muscle executives to take actions even against the interests of the company or shareholders. The left has strived to make such campaigns personal for executives, who often yield rather than risk being individually tagged and targeted.

That is why it was essential to remove Musk. The political and media establishments generally are unstoppable forces — but they met their first immovable object in Musk. That immovable object has now taken a step to remove himself from the path of the establishment. One can hardly blame him, but, as Democratic members warned Facebook not to even consider following the path of Twitter, the prospect of Musk’s departure will strengthen the efforts to maintain censorship over social media. It is hard to ask anyone to continue to stand against this alliance of political, media, and business forces. Musk has been made a persona non grata for seeking to reduce censorship on the site. He has put billions on the line for the free speech of others. One can certainly understand why he would want this cup to pass from his lips. However, if he stays the course, his work at Twitter could prove to be his greatest legacy in resisting the trend toward censorship and speech controls in social media.

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Do we understand how crazy this is?

TWITTER FILES: How The FBI Moved To Quash Hunter Laptop Story (ZH)

In the latest episode of ‘THE TWITTER FILES,’ journalist Michael Shellenberger reveals “How the FBI & intelligence community discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings both after and *before* The New York Post revealed the contents of his laptop on October 14, 2020.” The story begins in December 2019 when a Delaware computer store owner named John Paul (J.P.) Mac Isaac contacts the FBI about a laptop that Hunter Biden had left with him On Dec 9, 2019, the FBI issues a subpoena for, and takes, Hunter Biden’s laptop. By Aug 2020, Mac Isaac still had not heard back from the FBI, even though he had discovered evidence of criminal activity. And so he emails Rudy Giuliani, who was under FBI surveillance at the time. In early Oct, Giuliani gives it to @nypost.

Shortly before 7 pm ET on October 13, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, emails JP Mac Isaac. Hunter and Mesires had just learned from the New York Post that its story about the laptop would be published the next day. 7. At 9:22 pm ET (6:22 PT), FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sends 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter. 8. The next day, October 14, 2020, The New York Post runs its explosive story revealing the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Every single fact in it was accurate. 9. And yet, within hours, Twitter and other social media companies censor the NY Post article, preventing it from spreading and, more importantly, undermining its credibility in the minds of many Americans. Why is that? What, exactly, happened?

10. On Dec 2, @mtaibbi described the debate inside Twitter over its decision to censor a wholly accurate article. Since then, we have discovered new info that points to an organized effort by the intel community to influence Twitter & other platforms

Berman

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“This should be a massive scandal and likely it would have been had it occurred under a Trump Administration.”

‘Twitter Files’ Make it Clear: We Must Abolish the FBI (Ron Paul)

As we learn more and more from the “Twitter Files,” it is becoming all too obvious that Federal agencies such as the FBI viewed the First Amendment of our Constitution as an annoyance and an impediment. In Friday’s release from the pre-Musk era, journalist Matt Taibbi makes an astute observation: Twitter was essentially an FBI subsidiary.The FBI, we now know, was obsessed with Twitter. We learned that agents sent Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth some 150 emails between 2020 and 2022. Those emails regularly featured demands from US government officials for the “private” social media company to censor comments and ban commenters they did not like.

The Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), a US government entity that included the FBI as well as other US intelligence agencies expressly forbidden from domestic activities, numbered 80 agents engaged regularly in telling Twitter which Tweets to censor and which accounts to ban. The Department of Homeland Security brought in outside government contractors and (government-funded) non-governmental organizations to separately pressure Twitter to suppress speech the US government did not like. US Federal government agencies literally handed Twitter lists of Americans it wanted to see silenced, and Twitter complied. Let that sink in.

This should be a massive scandal and likely it would have been had it occurred under a Trump Administration. Indeed, Congress would be gearing up for Impeachment 3.0 if Trump-allied officials had engaged in such egregious behavior. But since these US government employees were by-and-large acting to suppress pro-Trump sentiment, all we hear are crickets. What is interesting about these Twitter revelations is how obsessed the FBI and its government partners were with satire and humor. Even minor Twitter accounts with small numbers of followers were constantly flagged by the Feds for censorship and deletion. But knowledge of history helps us understand this obsession: in Soviet times the population was always engaged in joking about the ineptitude, corruption, and idiocy of the political class. Underground publications known as samizdat were rich with satire, humor, and ridicule.

Go home

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More insanity.

FBI Agent Elvis Chan Gave Twitter Execs Top Secret Clearance (Senger)

New internal documents from Twitter, revealed today as part of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” series, show FBI Agent Elvis Chan arranged for Top Secret security clearance—the highest level of US national security clearance—to be granted to Twitter executives for the purpose of facilitating the censorship of suspected misinformation in advance of the 2020 election. Elvis Chan has long been closely involved in working with social media companies to identify and censor suspected misinformation from sources both foreign and domestic, especially with regard to suspected election interference. This has included regularly sending lists of social media posts to social media companies for them to take down, as well as the suspension of the New York Post and others for what was subsequently borne out to be a true story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

In his deposition last month, Chan described how the pressure that he and other FBI agents placed on social media companies to censor information about Hunter Biden’s laptop stemmed from a “thesis” that the incriminating content may have been uploaded onto the laptop as part of a Russian “hack-and-leak” operation. But the basis for this Russian hack-and-leak thesis is disputed, in no small part because the FBI took possession of the laptop in December 2019, nearly a year before the story was censored, and because there did not appear to be any new intelligence to suggest that Russia was interfering in the 2020 election. Elvis Chan’s regular emails and weekly meetings with social media executives raise new questions about the level of coordination taking place between the federal government and social media companies for the purpose of censoring suspected misinformation shared by ordinary citizens.

The level of this coordination is currently the subject of lawsuits including my own, Changizi v. Dept. of Health & Human Services, and Missouri v. Biden, in which a damning round of discovery previously revealed that more than 80 federal officials across a dozen agencies had been involved in the censorship of social media content. Upon hearing the news, one FBI agent expressed disgust at what he described as the “gross subservience” that’s been shown by social media companies to the FBI, noting that the “default position” is for private companies to be “totally adversarial” to inquiries by the FBI about their customers.

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Sad.

Canada Health Director Who Lead Vaccine Rollout Dies Suddenly at 35 (GP)

The Director of Parliamentary Affairs at Health Canada, who oversaw the country’s response to Covid-19 and the rollout of the vaccine, passed away unexpectedly at the age of 35. Adam Exton, a long-time Liberal Party organizer, died suddenly on Friday, December 9th, according to his family.“It is with great sadness that the family of Adam Exton announce his passing on December 9th, 2022 at the age of 35 in Ottawa, Ontario. Much loved son of Wendy Exton, brother of Bradley Exton (Ellen Wessel) and son of Allan Exton. He will also be deeply missed by his loving girlfriend, Reesha, as well as his many cousins, aunts, uncles and grandmother, Bette Readman,” his obituary reads. “As a young person, Adam became actively involved in politics and had a passion for public service and volunteering in the community. In 2012, Adam won the Ontario Young Liberal Volunteer of the Year Award.


He received a degree in political science from the University of Toronto. Adam spent many years working at various levels of government, eventually holding the position of Director of Parliamentary Affairs at Health Canada.” Adam Exton was a part of the group that orchestrated the response to Canada’s totalitarian mandates against its own citizens.His obituary stated, “During the challenging times of the pandemic, Adam was part of the leadership team that led Canada’s health response to COVID-19. He was a talented and respected campaign manager that was instrumental in helping to bring cabinet ministers and members to Queens Park and Ottawa. Adam always did and will continue to make his family extremely proud of who he was and his service to his community and country.”

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Smart dogs

 

 

Larry

 

 

It’s a wonderful life
https://twitter.com/i/status/1604624935569313793

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 172022
 


Saul Leiter Phone call c1957

 

Moscow Reveals Capabilities Of Forthcoming ICBM Mobile Launcher (RT)
US Considers Providing Ukraine With More Weapons – Politico (RT)
Kissinger Outlines Ukraine Peace Proposal (RT)
Time For Ukraine Talks ‘Not Right Now’ – White House (RT)
Carthage Must Be Destroyed! (David Sant)
Approval of EU Support For Ukraine Lags Among Greeks (K.)
THE TWITTER FILES: Twitter… The FBI Subsidiary (ZH)
Twitter Docs Reveal FBI Pressure To Control Speech (RT)
EU Threatens Elon Musk With Sanctions (RT)
AOC Accuses Musk Of ‘Proto-fascism’ (RT)
What I Discovered At Twitter HQ (Jay Bhattacharya)
Truth And Consequences (Jim Kunstler)
Has ‘The End Of History’ Arrived In The Balkans? (Lukyanov)
Is Europe’s Energy Crisis Actually A Boon? (OP)
German MP Blasts ‘Absurd’ Price Cap On Russian Oil (RT)
The Petrodollar’s Long Goodbye (Prashad)

 

 

 

 

FTX O’Leary This is good.

 

 


Germany died suddenly

 

 

Dutch farmers nitrogen

 

 

Trump

 

 

 

 

Tucker vaccine risks

 

 

 

 

“..capable of evading any anti-ballistic missile system that could be fielded in the foreseeable future..”

Moscow Reveals Capabilities Of Forthcoming ICBM Mobile Launcher (RT)

Russia will commence the development of a road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system next year, which will be a significant upgrade on the existing Yars system, Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) Commander Sergey Karakaev has said. The new platform will have increased mobility to facilitate “swift redeployment and launch from any region anywhere in the Russian Federation,” he told Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), the official newspaper of the country’s military. Karakaev offered no further details about the new project. The interview was published on Friday, ahead of SMF Day, which will be celebrated on Saturday. The SMF is the arm of the Russian military responsible for the country’s ground-based nuclear deterrence. It is currently “on the lookout for new technologies… which could be used to improve strategic weapon systems or create new ones,” Karakaev stated.


The silo-based Sarmat ICBM, as well as the Avangard and Yars systems, are examples of what is possible through such research, he added. The general praised the Sarmat missile in particular, which he said was capable of evading any anti-ballistic missile system that could be fielded in the foreseeable future. Russia approved production of the rocket following a successful test launch in April. Earlier this week, the Defense Ministry showcased the rearmament of an SMF site in central Russia by releasing footage, which showed two Yars missiles being loaded into silos. The ICBM has silo-launched and road-mobile variants.

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“..an additional 300 tanks, up to 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 Howitzers would be needed to repel the Russian forces..”

US Considers Providing Ukraine With More Weapons – Politico (RT)

The US is planning to provide Ukraine with more weapons in the near future, extending the strike range of its military, Politico has reported. The media outlet, citing “six people with knowledge of the discussions,” claimed the move to provide additional supplies was prompted by concerns among top Ukrainian officials that Russia is amassing forces ahead of a major winter offensive. In its report on Thursday, Politico alleged that the Biden administration is currently entertaining the possibility of providing Kiev with, among other things, ground-launched small diameter bombs – high-precision munitions with a range of 150km (94 miles). Also under consideration, according to the article, is the delivery of joint direct attack munition kits, which are used to convert unguided aerial munitions into smart bombs.

These deliveries would be in addition to existing plans for the shipment of Patriot air-defense systems, Politico reported. Several US media outlets have indicated that those plans are in the final stages. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russia would certainly target these missile systems in Ukraine, should they be deployed there. On Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Patrick Ryder announced the expansion of a training program for Ukrainian military personnel at a US base on German soil. The number of troops attending there each month is reportedly expected to rise to around 500. In recent days, top Ukrainian officials – including the country’s top military commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, and Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba – have expressed concerns that Russia could launch a massive offensive as early as next month.

Zaluzhny did not rule out a new attempt by Moscow’s forces to take the Ukrainian capital Kiev. He also called on the West to provide Ukraine with more weaponry, saying that an additional 300 tanks, up to 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 Howitzers would be needed to repel the Russian forces. While the US has already supplied Ukraine with short-range NASAMS air-defense systems, Kiev has been specifically requesting Patriot batteries since October, when Russia began massive missile and drone strikes on the country’s critical infrastructure. Moscow said the new strategy came in response to Ukraine’s attacks on Russian infrastructure, including the Crimean Bridge. Back in September, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned Washington that “it would cross the red line and become an actual party to the conflict,” should it provide Ukraine with longer-range missiles.

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“..the other territories Ukraine claims – Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea – “could be the subject of a negotiation after a ceasefire.”

Kissinger Outlines Ukraine Peace Proposal (RT)

Urgently negotiating an end to hostilities in Ukraine would prevent another world war, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger argued in an essay published on Friday. The 99-year-old statesman noted that, in 1916, the US government had the chance to end the First World War through diplomacy, but missed it for reasons of domestic politics. Kissinger laid out his reasoning in the December 17 issue of The Spectator, describing the current conflict as a “war in which two nuclear powers contest a conventionally armed country,” a clear reference to Ukraine being a proxy war between the US and Russia. The “peace process” Kissinger proposes would “link Ukraine to NATO, however expressed,” as he believes neutrality for Kiev is no longer an option.

He also wants Russia to withdraw to the lines before February 24, while the other territories Ukraine claims – Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea – “could be the subject of a negotiation after a ceasefire.” In addition to “confirming the freedom of Ukraine,” the arrangement would strive to “define a new international structure, especially for Central and Eastern Europe,” in which Russia should “eventually” find a place, he explained. While some would prefer “a Russia rendered impotent by the war,” Kissinger disagrees, arguing that Moscow’s “historical role should not be degraded.” Dismantling Russia could turn its vast territory into a “contested vacuum,” where “competing societies might decide to settle their disputes by violence” and neighbors could seek to claim territory by force, all in the presence of “thousands of nuclear weapons.”

In substance, this is the same proposal Kissinger had first floated in May, for which he was labeled an enemy of Ukraine and added to the notorious ‘Peacemaker’ kill list. In an interview earlier this month, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky categorically rejected any sort of ceasefire that did not take Kiev’s claimed 1991 borders as the starting point. It was also unclear whether Moscow would accept any Western-mediated ceasefire at all, after former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s admission that the 2014 Minsk armistice was intended to “give Ukraine time” to prepare for war. What’s fresh in Kissinger’s Spectator essay is his reasoning. He points to August 1916, at the height of the First World War, when the warring powers sought US mediation to end the unprecedented bloodshed.

Though “a peace based on the modified status quo ante was within reach,” President Woodrow Wilson delayed the talks until after he could get re-elected in November. By then it was too late, and the war would go on for two more years, “irretrievably damaging Europe’s established equilibrium.” Asked about Kissinger’s proposal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “eager to give the article a thorough reading,” but “hasn’t had a chance to do so yet, unfortunately.” Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The Kremlin demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that would never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

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“..if and when the diplomacy is ripe, they will be in the best possible position at the negotiating table.”

Time For Ukraine Talks ‘Not Right Now’ – White House (RT)

It is not yet time for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan argued in an interview on Friday. Meanwhile, Henry Kissinger – who held the same post in the early 1970s – has said talks should happen sooner rather than later. “We don’t know where this is going to end up,” Sullivan said of the conflict, speaking at the Carnegie Endowment think tank in Washington. “What we do know is that it’s our job to continue to sustain our military support to Ukraine, so they are in the best possible position on the battlefield, so that if and when the diplomacy is ripe, they will be in the best possible position at the negotiating table.” “That moment is not right now,” he added. According to Sullivan, Ukraine has won a series of battles, “repelled the Russian invaders from most of the country,” and is now “fighting to reclaim the remaining land.”

He called it “a remarkable thing” and said the Biden administration is asking Congress for “a substantial amount of further resources” to ensure “Ukraine has the means to fight this war.” Meanwhile, Americans training Ukrainian troops on the ground have spoken of mounting casualties and Ukraine’s chief of general staff, Valery Zaluzhny, is asking for more tanks, armored vehicles and artillery than most NATO members have in their arsenal, much less to spare. The US and its allies have supplied Ukraine with tube and rocket artillery, air defense systems, small arms, vehicles and ammunition, allowing Kiev to fight long after its domestic capabilities had been degraded. Russia has condemned the shipments as needlessly prolonging the conflict and increasing casualties, repeatedly warning the West that it risks becoming an open party to the conflict.

Earlier in the day, Sullivan applauded Japan’s new national security strategy, which will see Tokyo embark on massive military expansion citing the “strategic challenge posed by China.” The Japanese constitution – drafted mainly by the US occupation authorities after the Second World War – had renounced war and limited the country to a “self-defense” force. There was no indication that 46-year-old Sullivan was aware of his predecessor’s essay in The Spectator, in which the 99-year-old Kissinger called for an armistice in Ukraine before the conflict spins out of control. He pointed to the missed US opportunity to negotiate an end to the First World War in 1916, which led to millions more deaths and a far less stable post-war world that eventually collapsed into another global conflict.

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“One might say that the West forgot the art of diplomacy..”

Carthage Must Be Destroyed! (David Sant)

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was not the result of losing a war. It was caused by the failed policies of a centralized economy, exacerbated by American manipulation of the oil markets, and a costly American-backed guerilla war in Afghanistan. The United States moved in with “shock therapy” economic advisors and took the opportunity to restructure a confused and gullible Russia, including writing a new constitution. For Russia the collapse of the Soviet Union had many similarities to the loss of Carthage in the Second Punic War. Despite making peace with their former adversary, and honoring their treaties, Russia found that she could never be accepted as a friend on equal terms by the Western world order. And this was for the very same reason that Carthage could never be tolerated by Rome.

Russia was and is in every way an equal to the Anglo-American Empire. Ever since Vladimir Putin became President of Russia, the chorus of the West has become louder and louder that Putin must go. While they cannot say it aloud yet, what they really mean is “Russia must be destroyed!” If Russia had continued the policy of submission to Western control that was begun by Boris Yeltsin, we can be assured that Moscow would have eventually met the same fate as Carthage from the Anglo-American Empire. However, the appointment of Vladimir Putin as President of Russia derailed their plans. Under his rule Russia has steadily reasserted her former leadership and strength against the machinations of the Anglo-American Empire.

While at first Mr. Putin made a genuine effort to be a “partner” with the West, by the year 2011 it was clear that the West would never accept Russia as a friend or an equal. The West had enjoyed two decades of bossing everyone else around and had learned to enjoy giving orders rather than negotiating. One might say that the West forgot the art of diplomacy. After watching in horror the NATO-led destructions of Serbia, Libya, and Syria, the Kremlin began asserting itself with foreign policy problems that directly affected Russian security interests starting in 2013.

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Harder to brainwash.

Approval of EU Support For Ukraine Lags Among Greeks (K.)

Deviating from the general mood in Europe, a large number of Greeks hesitate to declare their approval of the European Union’s backing for Ukraine following the Russian invasion. In the relevant question of the Parliament’s Eurobarometer for autumn 2022, a majority of citizens in the 24 member-states approve of the position taken by the EU, with the exception of Slovakia, Bulgaria and Greece, which have the lowest percentages (49%, 48% and 48% respectively). The highest levels are recorded in Sweden (97%), Finland (95%), the Netherlands (93%), Portugal (92%) and Denmark (92%). The same survey showed that three quarters of European citizens (73%) agree with the specific measures taken by the EU, namely sanctions against the Russian government, as well as economic, military and humanitarian support to Ukraine. Again, Greece is at the bottom of the ranking, with only 46%.

Loffredo

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And the FBI works for the DNC, Pfizer and Raytheon..

THE TWITTER FILES: Twitter… The FBI Subsidiary (ZH)

Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary. Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth. Some are mundane, like San Francisco agent Elvis Chan wishing Roth a Happy New Year along with a reminder to attend “our quarterly call next week.” Others are requests for information into Twitter users related to active investigations. But a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.


The FBI’s social media-focused task force, known as FTIF, created in the wake of the 2016 election, swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds. Federal intelligence and law enforcement reach into Twitter included the Department of Homeland Security, which partnered with security contractors and think tanks to pressure Twitter to moderate content. It’s no secret the government analyzes bulk data for all sorts of purposes, everything from tracking terror suspects to making economic forecasts. The #TwitterFiles show something new: agencies like the FBI and DHS regularly sending social media content to Twitter through multiple entry points, pre-flagged for moderation.

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“..she asked whether there would be “impediments” to passing along classified information to industry partners. In response, the FBI was “adamant” that there were “no impediments to sharing.”

Twitter Docs Reveal FBI Pressure To Control Speech (RT)

Twitter has maintained “constant and pervasive” contacts with the FBI and other US intelligence agencies for several years, according to internal company documents leaked to reporters. The files appear to show a concerted government campaign to blacklist content labeled as “misinformation.” Published by journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday, the sixth installment of the ‘Twitter Files’ revealed additional pressure placed on the website by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) between January 2020 and as recently as last month, largely focused on moderating particular posts and accounts discussing American elections. While earlier documents indicated high-level coordination between intelligence agencies and Twitter, the latest files suggest such collusion took place on a larger scale than was previously known.

In a period of less than three years, the site’s former Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth alone exchanged more than 150 emails with the FBI. Prior to Friday, Roth was the only executive said to have had regular, direct contacts with the bureau, however the new files show that legal exec Stacia Cardille also held weekly meetings with not only the FBI, but the DHS, Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) beginning in September. In a letter addressed to Twitter’s former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker – himself an ex-lawyer for the FBI – Cardille noted that she asked whether there would be “impediments” to passing along classified information to industry partners. In response, the FBI was “adamant” that there were “no impediments to sharing.”

“This passage underscores the unique one-big-happy-family vibe between Twitter and the FBI. With what other firm would the FBI blithely agree to ‘no impediments’ to classified information?” Taibbi asked. A number of messages sent to Twitter by the FBI contain explicit requests to take down certain posts, or even ban accounts altogether. In one case, the agency flagged so much “possible violative content” that Twitter staffers were later seen congratulating each other in an internal company chat for the “monumental undertaking” of reviewing it. Another missive sent on November 5, 2022 from the FBI’s ‘National Election Command Post’ provided a list of 25 accounts that “may warrant additional action.” Twitter was quick to permanently ban seven of those handles, while it temporarily suspended another and deleted eight tweets for alleged “civil misinformation policy violations.”

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EU=hot air.

EU Threatens Elon Musk With Sanctions (RT)

The EU has warned Elon Musk that Twitter could be targeted by sanctions after the platform owned by the entrepreneur suspended several journalists for allegedly sharing real-time location data about the billionaire and his family. “News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying,” wrote EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova in a tweet on Friday. “EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights,” she said, adding that these rights are reinforced under the recently adopted European Media Freedom Act.= “[Elon Musk] should be aware of that. There are red lines.

And sanctions, soon,” Jourova warned, as the Digital Services Act is set to start coming into force next summer and will be fully implemented by 2024. Her threats come after Twitter suspended around half-a-dozen journalists on Thursday who reported and shared links to ElonJet, which provides real-time tracking of Musk’s personal flights. Musk has explained the decision by stating that the information being shared was “basically assassination coordinates” and pointed to Twitter’s terms of service, which prohibit doxxing – the illegal publishing of personal information – of anyone by anyone. “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else,” the billionaire wrote on Thursday.

Twitter has previously suspended the original @elonjet account, as well as other similar flight-tracking channels owned by Florida student Jack Sweeney, who had been posting real-time data on private flights of the world’s wealthiest men, including Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Musk – a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” – purchased Twitter for $44 billion in late October. Back then he initially promised not to suspend any accounts that were exercising free speech, noting that that extended “even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk.”

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“Take a beat and lay off the proto-fascism. Maybe try putting down your phone,” the New York congresswoman suggested. Musk brushed off AOC’s criticism by simply replying: “You first.”

AOC Accuses Musk Of ‘Proto-fascism’ (RT)

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, commonly referred to as AOC, has joined the backlash against Elon Musk after Twitter suspended several journalists for allegedly violating the platform’s anti-doxxing policies while reporting on the ElonJet flight tracker. AOC accused Musk of abusing his power as the new owner of Twitter and told him to “lay off the proto-fascism.” That was after he temporarily suspended half-a-dozen journalists from CNN, the New York Times, and The Washington Post, among others, for reporting on and providing the links to ElonJet – a flight tracker that posted real-time flight data about Musk’s private jet.

Musk had accused the journalists of sharing information that was “basically assassination coordinates” and cited Twitter’s terms of service, which prohibit doxxing – publishing the personal information and real-time coordinates of other people. In a series of Twitter posts on Friday, Cortez insisted that Musk should not have suspended the reporters because he was “a public figure,” suggesting that being the victim of such location information-sharing comes with the territory. “You’re a public figure. An extremely controversial and powerful one,” AOC wrote. “I get feeling unsafe, but descending into abuse of power + erratically banning journalists only increases the intensity around you.”

“Take a beat and lay off the proto-fascism. Maybe try putting down your phone,” the New York congresswoman suggested. Musk brushed off AOC’s criticism by simply replying: “You first.” The billionaire had previously stated that he was fine with any criticism coming his way over his handling of Twitter, which he purchased in late October for $44 billion, but insisted that threatening the safety of his family was over the line. “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not,” he wrote.

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“I could have bought an island with the $44 billion, but this was a much better use of the money.”

What I Discovered At Twitter HQ (Jay Bhattacharya)

You spoke with Elon for almost an hour. How was your conversation? The topic, of course, was censorship. My sense is that he bought Twitter in part because he is deeply offended by the idea that something like Twitter, which is so important for public communication… had put their thumb on the scale. It wasn’t specifically about Covid. Generally, his sense was that one side of the conversation wasn’t being heard on many, many issues… I think he views this as: he’s in a very privileged position that allows him to restore free speech, allow for free discussion of ideas. And he wants to use what gifts he’s had for that purpose. He even made a joke: I could have bought an island with the $44 billion, but this was a much better use of the money.

Was he a lockdown sceptic during the pandemic? I think he generally was a lockdown sceptic… He famously, early in the pandemic, protested against being locked down when the shutdown orders came, and then moved Tesla’s headquarters to Texas… He was very clear that he was aware of the harms of lockdowns. He mentioned the early days of the pandemic — that he had a number of plants in China, with tens of thousands of employees. He said: “Look, if somebody dies in amongst my employees, I find out immediately, because we stop paying them.” But he noticed that there were very, very few deaths on that metric early on. So his view was that it wasn’t clear that the case fatality rate numbers that were coming out matched reality in China itself, even from the earliest days of the pandemic… Certainly at this point, he was very sympathetic to my message about the harms to the poor of the world threatened by the economic dislocation caused by lockdowns, the closing of schools — all of that I think he opposed.

So then an engineer shows you your files. What did you find out? An engineer comes to me, we talk in this little cubicle. And so it turns out that there are two major sources of information for the journalists that are looking at this. First, there’s this tool, which Bari Weiss made famous: for each person, they’ll have the status of the person and history of the status of that person… That includes some personal identifying information, which is why you’re not seeing a dump of those files for everybody, because they’re not supposed to share that… I had got permission to look at myself of course. And I asked for permission to look at Martin Kulldorff.

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“The Big News Media may not be able to avoid reporting on it, especially with Twitter loosened up, and their lying attempts to spin events is going to look pathetic..”

Truth And Consequences (Jim Kunstler)

Even if NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, The WashPo, and the rest of the Big News Media mafia ignore the Twitter Files story, the revolution at Twitter is going to shake their windows and rattle their walls. There will be free debate in 2023 on this social media platform. News and ideas will be set loose across the landscape, and, for the first time in years, reality will have a chance to compete with the bad faith narratives of a regime at war against its own people. We’ll have to see how long this lasts before the Intel Community tries to shut Twitter down, ramp up a campaign to defame it, or blow it up as a viable business. Or make a move to, shall we say, neutralize the person behind the revolution there.

The more that free speech is actually permitted on Twitter, the more every other platform will look like a lame organ of propaganda, especially when it comes to issues that really matter such as the deadly consequences of the mRNA “vaccines,” the shady doings around recent US elections, the actual condition of the US economy, the perilous folly of “Joe Biden’s” war in Ukraine (and the family grifting operation that prompted it), and the evil machinations of the Intel Community itself. In about three weeks, the Party of Chaos will be swept out of power in the US House of Representatives. Their opponents will take control of all the House committee chairs, with subpoena power to compel the testimony of public figures who have managed to avoid answering questions for years. The Big News Media may not be able to avoid reporting on it, especially with Twitter loosened up, and their lying attempts to spin events is going to look pathetic when it is instantly contrasted with free analysis and informed debate in the public arena.

You can’t overstate what an advantage the insidious takeover of social media gave to forces seeking to wreck the country, though the effects have not been adequately explored yet. The people remain bamboozled over the Covid-19 operation especially. It certainly wasn’t some random act by Mother Nature, not with US public health agencies supporting gain-of-function research on coronaviruses from Ukraine to North Carolina to Wuhan, China. And the subsequent damage caused by the government’s response to the outbreak was either an epic fiasco of inept officialdom, or something that smells like mass murder. Dr. Anthony Fauci’s little trick to so far avoid answering questions about these matters was simply to not use the term “gain-of-function” in his correspondence arranging grants for it — especially after President Barack Obama banned that type of research by its name in 2014. So when asked about gain-of-function, he could just lie with abandon. After that simple ruse is exposed, the patent and royalty benefits enjoyed by Dr. Fauci — who doubled his net worth after 2019 — will be dragged into the light of day.

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“Current events in northern Kosovo resemble an attempt to bring about the “end of history” in the Balkan context..”

Has ‘The End Of History’ Arrived In The Balkans? (Lukyanov)

Current events in northern Kosovo resemble an attempt to bring about the “end of history” in the Balkan context. Of course, the same one that was promised 30-odd years ago, on a global scale, hasn’t happened, but the idea behind it has remained in people’s minds. Francis Fukuyama, the author of the concept, later admitted that he had been hasty and had failed to take into account important circumstances in the development of societies. However, he hasn’tabandoned it, and continues to believe that the predicted triumph of Western liberal ideology, and the corresponding way of life, will still take place, just later than expected. What has Kosovo got to do with this? The disintegration of Yugoslavia has taken as long as the concept of “the end of history” has existed.

And it has been, perhaps, the clearest example of what it meant in practice. The nature of that state – a socialist federal republic – was diametrically opposed to what was thought to be right after the Cold War. Firstly, socialism as a socio-political construct was simply written off as having failed. Secondly, it was a complex federation dominated by the largest ethnic group. This, to be fair,could be described as being in the spirit of multiculturalism, which has become popular in developed countries over the past couple of decades. But no, because multicultural communities have only been welcomed if they were part of a process that develops from homogeneous to heterogeneous through immigration and the influx of new citizens of different origins.

Thus, multinational states like Yugoslavia or the USSR (or even Czechoslovakia) have instead been perceived through the prism of self-determination. In other words, national aspirations were worthy of support but the desire to maintain (con)federative unions was equated with imperial ambitions.

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“..now that winter proper has begun and the cold is settling in, consumption will increase, whatever the price of gas.”

Is Europe’s Energy Crisis Actually A Boon? (OP)

The energy crisis that began last year in Europe and dramatically escalated following the EU response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has seen many in government worry about the survival of the continent during the winter. Yet not all see such a bleak picture. In fact, some believe that not only is the worst over for Europe but that the crisis actually did the EU a favor. That favor took the form of accelerating the buildout in renewables and the restart of hydrocarbon-fueled power plants. This take, which is certainly not very common right now, came from one investment manager, Per Lekander, who is managing partner at a firm called Clean Energy Transition LLP. Speaking to CNBC this week, Lekander said that Russia had, in fact, very little to do with Europe’s crisis, and it could even be said Vladimir Putin did Europe a favor.

“This [the crisis] is the consequence of long term under-investments in conventional, long term red tape in renewables and then these political closures of nuclear, coal, lignite, etcetera,” Lekander told CNBC. He then went on to add that the measures that European countries took after Russia began responding to EU sanctions by reducing gas flows went a long way toward ensuring that the continent would survive this winter. Energy demand reduction was one of these measures, according to the financier, and returning to hydrocarbons for power generation was another. A third one was the planned reduction in red tape in wind and solar power system construction—obstacles that these two industries have been complaining about for years.

It could be argued that this energy demand reduction that has allowed Europe to save on gas was a result of exorbitant prices rather than any voluntary change in energy consumption behavior patterns. Indeed, millions of people across the continent are being hit with electricity bills that are substantially higher than last year’s bills because of the international gas price inflation caused by the tightening of supply following the EU sanctions on Russia and Russia’s easy to predict response. The sabotage of Nord Stream added to this tightening and pushed prices higher. Another reason for the lower demand was the warm European autumn, as many noted at the time. As the weather was warmer than usual, people’s heating needs were lower. Yet now that winter proper has begun and the cold is settling in, consumption will increase, whatever the price of gas.

Indeed, the worst might not be over. The Guardian reported this week that Germany was at risk of gas shortages because it had failed to hit its consumption reduction target. The reason it had missed it—the target is 20 percent of consumption—was the colder weather last week, the head of the country’s energy regulator said. The European Union last month approved a gas consumption reduction target of 15 percent, but Germany was more ambitious because of its high reliance on the commodity. Whether the rest of Europe would be able to hit the 15-percent target is yet to be seen because, as Klaus Mueller said, “With temperatures of -10C [14F], gas consumption shoots up dramatically.”

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“..such policies are “leveled against” ordinary consumers across the bloc.”

German MP Blasts ‘Absurd’ Price Cap On Russian Oil (RT)

Imposing an artificial ceiling on the price paid for Russian oil will provoke an increase in prices for the commodity, the chairman of the Bundestag committee on energy, Klaus Ernst, said in an interview with TASS, calling the measure “absurd.” Berlin is planning to entirely abandon energy imports from Russia, according to Ernst, who stressed that the operations at an oil refinery in the German city of Schwedt are critically dependent on Russian supplies. “It is absolutely clear that when a ceiling is introduced on energy prices, the object targeted by the measure will inevitably reduce the supply. It is clear that this will be counterproductive, because the price will rise,” Ernst argued. “In this regard, I think that such a restriction is absurd.”


The price limit on Russian seaborne oil, set at $60 per barrel, was introduced earlier this month by the EU, the G7 countries, Australia and Norway. The measure bans Western companies from providing insurance and other services to vessels loaded with Russian oil, unless the cargo is bought at or below the price indicated. The EU is currently debating a similar step targeting Russian gas supplies. According to Ernst, the policies pursued by Brussels are “self-destructive.” “The EU deliberately excluded pipeline oil supplies from sanctions. The government rejects them, although there is no need for this,” he said, adding that such policies are “leveled against” ordinary consumers across the bloc.

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“..they will do so slowly, as they both remain exposed to the U.S. economy..”

The Petrodollar’s Long Goodbye (Prashad)

At this first China-GCC summit, Xi urged the Gulf monarchs to “make full use of the Shanghai Petrol and Gas Exchange as a platform to conduct oil and gas sales using Chinese currency.” Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia suggested that it might accept Chinese yuan rather than U.S. dollars for the oil it sells to China. While no formal announcement was made at the GCC summit nor in the joint statement issued by China and Saudi Arabia, indications abound that these two countries will move closer toward using the Chinese yuan to denominate their trade. However, they will do so slowly, as they both remain exposed to the U.S. economy. (China holds just under $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds).

Talk of conducting China-Saudi trade in yuan has raised eyebrows in the United States, which for 50 years has relied on the Saudis to stabilise the dollar. In 1971, the U.S. government withdrew the dollar from the gold standard and began to rely on central banks around the world to hold monetary reserves in U.S. Treasury securities and other U.S. financial assets. When oil prices skyrocketed in 1973, the U.S. government decided to create a system of dollar seigniorage through Saudi oil profits. In 1974, U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon — fresh off the trading desk at the investment bank Salomon Brothers — arrived in Riyadh with instructions from U.S. President Richard Nixon to have a serious conversation with the Saudi oil minister, Ahmed Zaki Yamani.

Simon proposed that the U.S. purchase large amounts of Saudi oil in dollars and that the Saudis use these dollars to buy U.S. Treasury bonds and weaponry and invest in U.S. banks as a way to recycle vast Saudi oil profits. And so, the petrodollar was born, which anchored the new dollar-denominated world trade and investment system. If the Saudis even hinted towards withdrawing this arrangement, which would take at least a decade to implement, it would seriously challenge the monetary privilege afforded to the U.S. As Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, told The Wall Street Journal, “The oil market, and by extension the entire global commodities market, is the insurance policy of the status of the dollar as reserve currency. If that block is taken out of the wall, the wall will begin to collapse.”

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Play
https://twitter.com/i/status/1603760623858376704

 

 

 

 

Wood art
https://twitter.com/i/status/1603925323166646272

 

 


Wat Samphran is a Buddhist temple in Amphoe Sam Phran, Nakhon Pathom province, around 40 km west of Bangkok. The temple is notable for its 17-story tall pink cylindrical building with a gigantic dragon sculpture curling around the entire height

 

 

Goose
https://twitter.com/i/status/1603508898421673985

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 302022
 


Henri Matisse Open window, collioure 1905

 

Europe Warned Of Danger For Many Winters To Come (RT)
Europe’s Economic And Social Suicide (MoA)
Western Europe Headed For ‘Energy Collapse’ – Hungary (RT)
One In Four Britons Won’t Turn On Heating This Winter (RT)
‘A Horrible Winter Lies Ahead’: Next PM Will Inherit An NHS On Its Knees (G.)
White House Sets Date For First ‘Hunger Conference’ In Decades (RT)
Zelensky Promises To Recapture Donbass (RT)
Ukraine’s Attempt At Counter-offensive Has Failed – Russia (RT)
Ukrainian Drone Downed Over Nuclear Plant – Russia (RT)
Moscow Urges ‘All Nations’ To Pressure Kiev Over Nuclear Site (RT)
Kissinger And The WEF’s Young Global Leaders Program (UH)
How Dick Cheney Created Anthony Fauci (Unherd)
The Wild West (Jim Kunstler)
Trump Calls for New Election Immediately (Celente)
Third of Pakistan Under Water – Official (RT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

German/Soviet deaths

 

 

[..] from 16th Aug, the UK Govt removed advice for pregnant & breastfeeding women to be vaccinated against #COVID19. Source:
https://gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-approval-of-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-for-covid-19/summary-public-assessment-report-for-pfizerbiontech-covid-19-vaccine

 

 

 

 

Tasmania funeral director
https://twitter.com/i/status/1564178692787818499

 

 

 

 

“The real threat to the world is global cooling. Otherwise known as winter.” – Carlson

Europe Warned Of Danger For Many Winters To Come (RT)

Europe could face gas shortages for several winters as a result of the Russian supply cut, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden told a news conference on Monday, as reported by Reuters. “I do not think this crisis is going to be limited to just one winter. It may well be that we will have a number of winters where we have to somehow find solutions,” van Beurden said. The chief executive pointed out that Europe will remain under pressure as it takes steps to scrap Russian gas supplies by 2027. “If there was no Russian gas supply at all… life would be very hard,” van Beurden noted, adding “We should all be very mindful and responsible when it comes to that.”


According to the Shell CEO, the expectation of a swift resolution to Europe’s energy crisis “is a fantasy we should put aside.” European gas and power futures contracts rocketed to record highs last week, with prices reaching around 10 times above the levels where they were a year ago. The rally followed Russian energy giant Gazprom’s announcement of an upcoming shutdown due to maintenance of the only operational turbine on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Gas transit via the route will be entirely suspended from August 31 to September 2.

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“..The economic and financial breakdown of Europe will be much faster than the obviously necessary political change of its third rate leadership..”

Europe’s Economic And Social Suicide (MoA)

The U.S. has, out of purely egoistic reasons, dragged Europe, and especially Germany, into a trap that will lead to its economic and social destruction. Instead of recognizing the danger, and taking the necessary countermeasure, the European and the German ‘leaders’ committed themselves to help with the process. The best thing for Europe and Germany would of course have been to avoid the crisis. That failed because of a lack of insight and effort. But now, as Europe is deep down in a hole, the politicians should at least stop digging. It is in Europe’s and especially Germany’s obvious interest to keep the crisis as short as possible. But the lunatics who are ruling over Europe are still doing the opposite:

“Germany will keep up its support for Kyiv “for as long as it takes”, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday, calling for an enlargement of the European Union to eventually include Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia…. Germany had undergone a “fundamental change of heart” in recent months on its military support for Ukraine, he said. “We will keep up this support, reliably and, above all, for as long as it takes,” he told the packed university audience. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen echoed the “as long as it takes” promise to Kyiv in a speech in Slovenia, calling for “a new strategic thinking” to uphold European values.

As those ‘leaders’ seem to see it, affordable energy, warm homes, sufficient food, jobs and pensions of Europe citizens are not part of the ‘European values’ they intend to uphold. The economic and financial breakdown of Europe will be much faster than the obviously necessary political change of its third rate leadership. The only political sector that will not be damaged by all this, at least in France and Germany, is the far right. That in itself is also a danger.

Von der Leyen

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The solutions are obvious. They’re both called Nord Stream.

Western Europe Headed For ‘Energy Collapse’ – Hungary (RT)

Western Europe’s policy of rejecting Russian energy, even in the absence of suitable alternatives, could lead to systemic collapse when the public is left without heat this winter, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto warned on Monday. “All these statements … from Western Europe on the issue of energy supply simply do not work at all with winterr approaching,” Szijjarto explained to a meeting of his country’s diplomats, according to the Sputnik news agency. The Foreign Minister pointed out that while“ideological, political, communication statements with effective support from the international media can easily inflate balloons that cover people’s eyes,” all the ideology in the world won’t keep EU citizens warm when winter approaches.

It is very difficult to explain to someone in winter that they are not cold when there is no heating. Insisting that Hungary had not yet fallen into this trap, he warned that pressure from other EU governments would only get worse, as the current world order “is approaching a huge collapse, almost at the speed of an asteroid.”Russian sources are integral to European energy security, he argued, implying that without them, social discontent could lead to systemic collapse. Not only will Hungary not entertain talk of sanctions on Russian energy, but other nations will quietly back it on the matter – even if they won’t do so publicly, Szijjarto told the ambassadors.

While Budapest has pushed back against bloc-wide calls for an embargo on Russian oil and gas since the notion first began circulating among EU politicians, other states that once demanded Moscow be punished over Ukraine have quickly realized that no other source of energy can make up for the loss of Russian supplies. Electricity costs in Germany and France shot up to record heights on Friday, driven by Moscow’s threat to shut down the last operational turbine on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline for three days’ maintenance. Those countries are far from the only ones to feel the bite of sanctions that were supposed to punish Russia, however, and Europeans of all nationalities are stockpiling what fuel they do have – whether it’s firewood or coal – for the long winter ahead.

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“..placing the blame on the “zombie Government in Westminster, and two leadership contenders living on another planet.”

One In Four Britons Won’t Turn On Heating This Winter (RT)

Nearly one in four adults in Britain do not plan on turning on their heating this winter as energy bills are set to skyrocket, The Independent reported on Monday, citing researcher Savanta ComRes. According to a survey conducted by the firm on July 29 and 30, before the new price cap was announced, the figure is even higher for parents with children under 18. The study shows that 23% of those polled (more than 2,000 adults) said they will not turn their heating on at all. Seven in ten (69%) indicated they would switch their heating on less, and one in ten (11%) said they would take out a loan, with the latter figure rising for those with children under 18 (17%).The research comes amid warnings of a dire winter, as the energy price cap is set to rise 80% by October, pushing the average household’s yearly bill up from £1,971 to £3,549 ($2,300 to $4,150).


According to The Independent, the Liberal Democrats, which commissioned the survey, warned that British families are being forced to make difficult choices, with the country “on the brink of the worst cost-of living-crisis in a century.” “Families and pensioners across the country are making heartbreaking decisions because the Government has failed to save them,” the Liberal Democrats’ Cabinet Office spokesperson, Christine Jardine, said, adding, “It is a national scandal that parents are having to choose between heating their homes and feeding their children. It shouldn’t be like this.” Jardine warned that an “economic catastrophe”is “just a month away,” placing the blame on the “zombie Government in Westminster, and two leadership contenders living on another planet.”

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Is it only this bad in Britain?

‘A Horrible Winter Lies Ahead’: Next PM Will Inherit An NHS On Its Knees (G.)

In a television studio in Stoke-on-Trent last month, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak traded blows over everything from credit card economics to Channel migrants to the accessories chain Claire’s. The list of issues the pair clashed over was dizzyingly long. There was one glaring omission, however. In the hour-long debate there was not a single mention of the NHS – despite being engulfed in its biggest ever crisis. The NHS now shares the same traits as many of those relying upon it to keep them alive and well: it is elderly, has multiple comorbidities, and is in dire need of emergency care. Summer has left it on its knees. Worse is expected this winter.

“The new prime minister will inherit an NHS in its worst state in living memory,” says Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents the healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. “There is no escaping that the NHS is in a state of crisis.” The facts, he says, speak for themselves. “There are 105,000 vacancies. A&Es are overcrowded. Around one in seven hospital beds are occupied by patients who can’t be discharged. Some patients have had to wait over 40 hours for an ambulance. Care is being put at risk by neglected buildings due to underinvestment. And then there’s the waiting lists, which stretch into the millions across elective care, mental health and community care.”

Jeremy Hunt, the chair of the health and social care committee, is equally concerned. “The new PM will inherit an NHS facing the most serious crisis in its history,” he warns. “A&Es, ambulances, general practice and social care are in serious peril across the country.” The overriding problem for the new Downing Street incumbent is that, while in previous years problems in the NHS centred on specific areas, today the entire house is on fire. “The NHS has never been as challenged as it is now,” says Alastair McLellan, the editor of Health Service Journal. “There is not one area of NHS provision that isn’t really struggling … There is literally nowhere where it isn’t bad, and in some cases really bad.”

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Some things need to be read more than once.

“We will announce a national strategy at the Conference that identifies actions the government will take to catalyze the public and private sectors to drive transformative change and address the intersections between food, hunger, nutrition, and health,”

White House Sets Date For First ‘Hunger Conference’ In Decades (RT)

The White House has announced when it plans to hold the first Hunger, Nutrition and Health conference in over 50 years as the US continues to deal with rampant inflation, which is affecting food prices throughout the country. Set to be held on September 28 in Washington, DC, the conference will supposedly bring together “government leaders, academics, activists and Americans from all walks of life” to focus on issues affecting millions of citizens who are faced with food insecurity amid surging prices. “We will announce a national strategy at the Conference that identifies actions the government will take to catalyze the public and private sectors to drive transformative change and address the intersections between food, hunger, nutrition, and health,” a statement by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reads.

President Biden’s administration says it aims to improve food access and affordability, empower people to make healthy food choices and enhance food security research in areas experiencing destitution. Washington has claimed it plans to eradicate hunger in the US completely by 2030. “I’ll be convening the White House Conference with Hunger, Nutrition, and Health to bring together anti-hunger and nutrition advocates, food companies, local state governments, tribal and territory committees to lay out our plan to combat hunger and improve nutrition for every American,” Biden said in a video statement back in May. The meeting will come as inflation has put a noticeable strain on the food budgets of many American families as grocery store prices have gone up some 12.2% since last year, according to the Consumer Price Index.

Inflation has reached a 40-year high under the Biden administration, hitting 9.1% in June and currently sitting at 8.5%. With prices of food, fuel, and consumer goods rising, the Biden administration has continued to spend lavishly, with the president allocating more than $54 billion since February for military and economic aid to Ukraine and passing a $739 billion climate, healthcare, and tax reform bill earlier this month. While the bill is named the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’, the Congressional Budget Office has noted that it will saddle middle-class Americans with around $20 billion in additional taxes over the coming decade, whilst having a “negligible” impact on inflation.

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Mad man.

Zelensky Promises To Recapture Donbass (RT)

President Vladimir Zelensky said in his daily evening address on Sunday that Ukraine will recapture Donbass, which is now almost fully seized by Russian forces. “We have not forgotten and will not forget any of our cities and any of our people,” he said. “Now Donbass is almost destroyed by Russian strikes, devastated. The proud and glorious Ukrainian Donetsk was humiliated by the Russian occupation and robbed. But Ukraine will return. For sure. Life will return. The dignity of the people of Donbass will return. The ability to live will return. The opportunity to live safely and happily,” the president added.


According to him, this is what the Ukrainian flag will symbolize “when we set it up in Donetsk, Gorlovka, Mariupol, in all cities of Donbass, Azov area, in all areas under Russian occupation – in Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Kherson regions. And definitely in Crimea.” “Ukraine remembers everything,” Zelensky said. The US may be helping Ukraine prepare for an impending counteroffensive against Russia, the Washington Post claimed in a piece published this week, pointing to the type of weaponry making up the latest batch of military aid pledged to Kiev by the Pentagon. Last month, a number of top Ukrainian officials suggested that the country’s military would launch a counteroffensive in the south of the country in August to retake the city of Kherson.

Stephen Cohen RIP

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“Kiev has been talking about a “Kherson counteroffensive” all summer, while soliciting more weapons and ammunition from its Western backers.”

Ukraine’s Attempt At Counter-offensive Has Failed – Russia (RT)

Ukraine’s much-heralded “counter-offensive” in Kherson has “failed miserably,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday, listing the losses suffered by Kiev at the end of the day. Ukrainian forces attempted to attack in three directions on orders of President Vladimir Zelensky but made no gains, Moscow said. Russian troops caused “great losses” to the Ukrainian attackers during the day’s battles, including 26 tanks, 23 armored fighting vehicles, nine more armored vehicles, two SU-25 ground-attack jets and more than 560 troops, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday evening. The enemy’s another attempt at offensive actions has failed miserably.


Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian outlet Suspilne quoted Southern Command spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk as saying that “offensive actions in various directions” had begun, “including in the Kherson region.” She offered no details, however, saying only that “any military operation needs silence.” By Monday evening, however, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine mentioned only a Russian attack near the village of Potemkino. Kiev has been talking about a “Kherson counteroffensive” all summer, while soliciting more weapons and ammunition from its Western backers. In a video address to the people on Sunday, Zelensky vowed that “Ukraine will return” to Donbass – as well as Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Kherson and “definitely in Crimea.”

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“Ukrainian artillery launched at least eight large-caliber shells at the city on Sunday, with two of them landing near the nuclear power plant, according to the report.”

Ukrainian Drone Downed Over Nuclear Plant – Russia (RT)

Russian forces on Sunday shot down a Ukrainian drone that was apparently on a mission to strike the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the Russian military said on Monday. The drone was shot down by small arms fire and fell on the roof of one of the buildings at the nuclear site, the Russian Defense Ministry said during a daily briefing. The building in question serves as storage for nuclear fuel and waste, it said. The crash didn’t cause any significant damage, the statement added.


The incident was described as part of a pattern of Ukrainian attacks against the Russia-controlled facility and the city of Energodar, which hosts it. Ukrainian artillery launched at least eight large-caliber shells at the city on Sunday, with two of them landing near the nuclear power plant, according to the report. The Ukrainian staff at the facility “ensures the technical condition and operation” of the Zaporozhye plant, the Russian ministry added. It said there was no evidence of radiation leaks from the site.

https://twitter.com/A__Alimov/status/1564187762177331200

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“We’ve been waiting for this mission for a long time. We believe it to be necessary,” the Kremlin spokesman said..”

Moscow Urges ‘All Nations’ To Pressure Kiev Over Nuclear Site (RT)

Making Ukraine cease its attacks on the Russian-controlled Zaporozhye nuclear power plant will require a joint effort from the whole international community, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. “We still believe that all countries are obliged to put pressure on the Ukrainian side, so that it stops endangering the European continent by shelling the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and adjacent areas,” Peskov told the media on Monday. The statement came hours after International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi announced that IAEA experts would visit the nuclear plant this week to assess the security situation and establish a permanent presence at the facility.

“We’ve been waiting for this mission for a long time. We believe it to be necessary,” the Kremlin spokesman said, adding that Moscow was ready to cooperate with the UN atomic agency. He assured that Russia would provide the necessary security to the IAEA inspectors once they reach the plant from Ukrainian-held territory. Peskov also commented on a suggestion by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the crisis at Europe’s largest nuclear power station could be resolved by setting up a demilitarized zone around the perimeter. “No, there’s no talk about it,” the Kremlin press secretary said when asked about the proposal.

Russia has repeatedly accused Ukraine of targeting the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and the nearby town of Energodar with artillery and drones, warning that it could trigger a disaster that would eclipse the 1986 Chernobyl incident. Ukraine, meanwhile, has claimed that Russian forces have turned the nuclear plant into a military base and that they’ve been shelling the facility themselves to pin the blame on Kiev. Moscow, which has denied those accusations, has been insisting on a visit by the IAEA to the site.

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From Whitney Webb’s outlet.

Kissinger And The WEF’s Young Global Leaders Program (UH)

When the World Economic Forum began their Global Leaders for Tomorrow initiative in the early 1990s, Klaus Schwab’s organization implemented a program of recruitment and training for global leaders which was almost indistinguishable from Kissinger’s CIA-funded International Seminar. Schwab was treading in the footsteps of his mentor, Henry Kissinger, and it was the Dan David Foundation, while Kissinger was seated on their board, which eventually awarded Schwab with the initial funding required to create the current iteration of the program, the Forum for Young Global Leaders. The World Economic Forum has spawned many globalist-aligned heads of states, cabinet ministers, business leaders, entrepreneurs and other powerful actors, through their Global Leaders for Tomorrow and Young Global Leaders initiatives.

Schwab has even spoken openly on how his organization has gone on to “penetrate the cabinets” of supposedly sovereign states, and we should not be naive, as he has been planning on doing exactly this for at least three decades. However, it isn’t the thousands of participants who have completed these programs who we should be most concerned about. Our real concern should be with the billions of democratic voters who have been tricked into believing that any of the leaders produced by either Schwab or Kissinger have their best interests at heart.

Klaus Schwab became the heir to Henry Kissinger’s most important project, the infiltration of individuals and organizations in countries around the world with the aim of creating globalist-aligned governments built within the framework of an outdated and soulless conceptualization of American imperialism. Klaus Schwab’s activities since his time at Harvard can be seen as simply a direct continuation of Kissinger’s work during the 1950s and 1960s, and it would be naive of us to believe that there is not someone else, already groomed and trained, who is ready and willing to pick up Kissinger’s political baton from Schwab and continue in their joint mission towards globalist governance.

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Fauci’s been there since Reagan.

How Dick Cheney Created Anthony Fauci (Unherd)

Few people in America today are as powerful and polarising as Anthony Fauci. For the Left, Fauci is a consummate cool-headed scientist, emblematic of the essential role of government. On the Right, he is a Deep State operative who destroyed the lives of countless people to serve a hidden agenda, all while mysteriously taking home a bigger paycheck than any other of the country’s two million federal employees (including their collective boss, the President). The reality is that both narratives fundamentally misunderstand the position Fauci occupies in American government. Far from being a public health expert, Fauci sits at the very top of America’s biodefence infrastructure. And contrary to the notion that he is a Deep State string-puller of the Democratic party, it was George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who not only put Fauci there but created the very framework that the immunologist-physician commands.

This in part accounts for the otherwise inexplicable fact that Fauci, loathed by President Trump, was never fired by the notoriously vengeful politician who galvanised his brand with the phrase “You’re fired!”. But Fauci’s untouchability raises an even more perplexing question: Why did the media beatify him as the country’s beneficent, infallible Covid saviour rather than look into the reality of his position and the source of his nearly limitless authority? To understand the rise of Fauci, and his legacy as he retires this year, we must return to the first months of the 2000s, when a hawkish new administration was settling into power. While George W. Bush had come to Washington touting a new brand of “compassionate conservatism”, Cheney came carrying decades of Defense Department experience, including a term as Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush during Operation Desert Storm.

Bush’s interest in biodefence and pandemic preparedness is frequently traced back to a 2004 book, The Great Influenza. The reality, however, is that the administration came to power with biological weapons and infectious disease very much top of mind, with Cheney seeking to address the gaping hole in America’s national security left by the country’s lack of a coherent biodefence strategy. But if biodefence wasn’t already a priority for the Bush White House, that swiftly changed a week to the day after the 9/11 attacks, a mere eight months into Bush’s first term, when the United States suffered the most serious biological weapons attack in its history. On September 18, 2001, a number of national media outlets, including CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, the New York Post and the National Enquirer, received a series of letters containing a dry white powder.

Three weeks later, a second round of letters was sent to the offices of senators Tom Daschle, then the Senate Majority leader, and Patrick Leahy, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Twenty-two people were infected with anthrax, five of whom died. Already in a state of unprecedented military alert, the United States was sent into near-chaos by the anthrax attacks, which, by essentially weaponising the postal system with one of the world’s most lethal pathogens, engendered a sense that the country was under attack by an unseen enemy with unfathomable capabilities.

Hilton Fauci

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“This is the third time in a hundred-odd years that Germany has attempted suicide, and this time it looks like it’s going to work.”

The Wild West (Jim Kunstler)

The West’s biggest project these days, the war it provoked over Ukraine, turned out to be a giant Acme land-mine under the West’s collective Wile E. Coyote ass. As Russia advances implacably there and financial sanctions fizzle, behold the scramble in Europe now among citizens desperate to not freeze to death in the months ahead. This is the third time in a hundred-odd years that Germany has attempted suicide, and this time it looks like it’s going to work. Farewell nice German cars, machine tools, and other symbols of industrial might. In feckless Poland, the folks are out gathering lumps of coal and scouring the forest floor for firewood — they’re forbidden by law from cutting standing timber. Mr. Macron tells France she must accept “reduced living standards.”

Looks like Brexit did not go far enough as the UK holds hands with the rest of NATO tromping into economic oblivion. Think the USA is doing better? The summer rally in financial markets was just another frame in the Loony Tunes festival that American life has become. The Fed Chair, Mr. Powell, said all the parts out loud at the annual Jackson Hole banker meet-up last week: look out below, we’ve decided to take this sucker down (in the immortal words of George W. Bush), since pretending to stoke prosperity via Modern Monetary Theory only results in, duh, ruinous inflation. This raises the question, though, as to which is more politically damaging: inflation or depression? It is really only the difference between having plenty of worthless money or having no money at all.

The institutional rot eating away at our national underpinnings got more exposed last week when Mark Zuckerberg stupidly blurted to Joe Rogan that, yes, in the fall of 2020 the FBI warned Facebook — “came to the folks on our team,” he put it, smarmily — about a Russian disinformation campaign underway, wink wink. And so, Facebook turned the volume down to zero on certain news about a laptop belonging to one Hunter Biden stuffed with selfie porn (prostitutes included), video evidence of narcotics use, and deal memos about worldwide influence peddling involving the whole dang Biden family.

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‘We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that so just be vigilant.’ ”

Trump Calls for New Election Immediately (Celente)

Former President Donald Trump took to social media on Monday to call for an emergency presidential election after the latest developments on the Hunter Biden laptop story. “This is massive Fraud & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our country. REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new election.” The move came after Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, told podcaster Joe Rogan about how his company handled the Hunter Biden story and its interactions with the FBI. “Basically, the background here is the FBI basically came to us, some folks on our team, and was like, ‘Hey, just so you know you should be on high alert,’ ” said Zuckerberg. “

‘We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that so just be vigilant.’ ” The New York Post noted that when Rogan asked the tech head if the FBI had told Facebook to “be on guard specifically for our story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, Zuckerberg claimed, rather unconvincingly that he did “not remember . . . specifically” but “it basically fit the pattern.” Claiming it was a hoax and never existed, The New York Times reported in March that it was able to finally authenticate emails from Hunter Biden found on a laptop just before the 2020 election, but was snuffed out by Big Tech and mainstream media companies.

[..] The New York Post, citing invoices on Hunter’s abandoned laptop, reported that Burisma Energy in Ukraine, paid the Biden boy $1 million a year while his father was vice president—or about $83,333 per month. The holding company cut his pay in half when his father exited office, the report said. Twitter decided to block the Post’s story—at the height of the election season—due to its “Hacked Material Policy.” On Sunday, Trump called on FBI agents to stand up to their bosses. “When are the great Agents, and others, in the FBI going to say ‘we aren’t going to take it anymore,” much as they did when James Comey read off a list of all of Crooked Hillary Clinton’s crimes, only to say that no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute.,” Trump said.

“The wonderful people of the FBI went absolutely “nuts,” so Comey had to backtrack and do a FAKE INVESTIGATION in order to keep them at bay,” he wrote. “The end result, we won in 2016 (and did MUCH better in 2020!). But now the ‘Left’ has lost their minds!!!”

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With only 33 million of 242 million affected?

Third of Pakistan Under Water – Official (RT)

The country is faced with a crisis of “unimaginable proportions,” climate change minister Sherry Rehman says. A third of Pakistan is under water as a result of flooding caused by record monsoon rains, the South Asian country’s climate change minister, Sherry Rehman, has said. “It’s all one big ocean, there’s no dry land to pump the water out,” Rehman told the news agency AFP on Monday. Pakistan spans 881,913 square kilometers (340,509 square miles), which makes it the world’s 33rd-largest country by area, ahead of the likes of Turkey, France and Germany. Inhabited by almost 242 million people, it’s also the fifth most populated nation in the world. What’s happening in Pakistan now is “very far from a normal monsoon – it is climate dystopia at our doorstep,” the minister said.


The flooding has created a crisis of “unimaginable proportions” in the country, she added. In a separate interview with Deutsche Welle, Rehman claimed that “we’ve had to deploy the navy for the first time to operate in Indo-Pakistan” because such vast areas are being covered with water. The death toll since mid-June from the monsoon rains had reached 1,061 as of Monday, according to the National Disaster Management Agency. More than 3,000 roads have been destroyed, with 130 bridges and 495,000 homes damaged by flash floods, the agency said. Rehman estimated last week that the disaster had affected around 33 million people in the country.

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Reverse racism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Ali in Paris

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Aug 142022
 


Pablo Picasso Portrait of Dora with bun 1937

 

A Tale of Two Cities (Batiushka)
Biden Wants Regime Change In Russia – Tulsi Gabbard (RT)
Zelensky Aide Explains Why Ukraine Won’t Negotiate With Russia (RT)
Major Rating Agencies Declare Ukraine In Default (RT)
Ukraine Struggles To Find Money To Pay Troops – WSJ (RT)
Former FBI Assistant Director: ‘Handful in Leadership’ Politicizing Bureau (ET)
FBI Sends ‘Clear Message’ to Trump, His Supporters (ET)
Will The West’s Greed And Hatred Lead To The End Of The World? (Mirzaei)
US: The New Real Hoaxes? (Hoekstra)
Kissinger Explains How The World Was Brought To ‘The Edge Of War’ (RT)
UN War On Fertilizer Began in Sri Lanka (Shellenberger)
Zimbabwe Hails Gold Coin Success And Wants To Issue More (BBC)

 

 

 

 

Brook Jackson, former Regional Director of Operations for Ventavia Research Group, turned whistleblower.

 

 

“A new study has found cardiovascular adverse effects in around a third of teens following Pfizer vaccination, and heart inflammation in one in 43, raising fresh concerns about the risks of vaccination for young people. ”

 

 

Same script

 

 

 

 

“Either we will have a One World Dictatorship imposed on us by the Western elites, or else we will have Freedom and Peace, Justice and Prosperity.”

A Tale of Two Cities (Batiushka)

Moscow and Washington. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. The opening words of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. It is the best of times. That which some in Moscow and in the Orthodox Christian world in general have been awaiting for a thousand years is coming to pass. Just as it has been prophesied again and again down the centuries: the West and its ruthless Imperialism are collapsing in the face of the resistance of the long-suffering and long-exploited Rest. This struggle is being led by Russia. What a time to be alive. We did not think we would live to see it.

After the disaster of the Western and Russophobic ideology of Parliamentary Democracy, which was imposed by Great Britain and others on the old Russian Empire in February 1917, and then, as a prime example to the West of blowback, those incompetents passed power into the hands of the equally Western and Russophobic ideology of Marxism, which began genociding its subject peoples in October 1917. It is the worst of times. Nobody likes this Washington-imposed war. People are dying, people are being mutilated both in their bodies and in their souls, people are being exploited and manipulated. Still worse is our pain for the Western peoples, on whom their wealthy elites are about to threaten with death by hunger and death by freezing, with all the civil strife that is hanging over them like black Doomsday.

It is the age of wisdom. Some in Moscow and elsewhere know that this is an existential war not just for the Russian Federation, but for the whole world. Either we will have a One World Dictatorship imposed on us by the Western elites, or else we will have Freedom and Peace, Justice and Prosperity. It is the age of foolishness. The gerontocracy in Washington has imposed a choice. From 330 million Americans, all they could find as candidates to be US President, him who has charge of the nuclear button, is two very elderly men, an ill-reputed, viagra-charged businessman-clown and an ill-reputed double-dealer of dubious personal morality, clearly suffering from the onset of dementia.

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“..Joe Biden is using the conflict in Ukraine to engineer “regime change in Russia”and feed the military-industrial complex..”

Biden Wants Regime Change In Russia – Tulsi Gabbard (RT)

US President Joe Biden is using the conflict in Ukraine to engineer “regime change in Russia”and feed the military-industrial complex, former US representative and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard told Fox News viewers on Friday. Meanwhile, America’s European allies are paying the price as Biden builds his “New World Order.” Filling in for Fox host Tucker Carlson on Friday, the former Congresswoman from Hawaii issued a scathing condemnation of the Biden administration’s anti-Russia sanctions, which she said have only hurt the US and Europe while Russia rakes in record energy profits. “Europe is in a massive energy crisis right now,”she stated, citing record power prices in France, public lighting cutbacks and impending heating shortages in Germany, and restrictions on home and business energy usage in the UK and Spain.

“Why is all this happening?” she continued, before answering: “Because of Joe Biden’s sanctions, which are nothing short of a modern day siege. This is a supply problem that Joe Biden created, one that Russia is now profiting from.” The US and EU have imposed multiple rounds of economic sanctions on Russia following the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine in February. The US has also ended imports of Russian oil and gas, while the EU has begun a phased withdrawal from Russia’s energy exports. However, with several European countries refusing to pay for Russian gas in rubles – as Moscow has demanded – and with the bloc’s sanctions impeding maintenance on gas pipelines, the EU, which depends on Russia for around 40% of its gas, is facing soaring energy costs and inflation.

Meanwhile, Russia is expected to double its gas profits this year. With the US concurrently pumping tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons into Ukraine, Gabbard argued that the conflict there has “never been about morality.” “It’s not about the people of Ukraine or ‘protecting democracy’,” she declared. “This is about regime change in Russia and exploiting this war to strengthen NATO and feed the military-industrial complex.” “To Joe Biden, it’s even about bringing about a new world order. ‘We’ve got to lead it,’ he says, and he’s trying to do just that, even if it means bringing us to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.”

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“Talks with Russia today will mean only one thing: Russia has won… Are you ready for that?”

Zelensky Aide Explains Why Ukraine Won’t Negotiate With Russia (RT)

Ukraine has ruled out peace talks with Moscow under the existing circumstances, comparing any negotiations to “civilizational catastrophe.”Re-starting talks would not contribute anything to Kiev’s goals, Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to President Vladimir Zelensky, told Ukraine’s Babel news media outlet on Friday. “Today, Ukraine has no motives to hold the talks,” Podoliak said, adding that the “opportunity to win this war is much more important than any situational pause.” Starting dialogue under the present circumstances would only “formalize” the defeat of Ukraine and that of Europe, as well as “European values,” he added. Talks with Russia today will mean only one thing: Russia has won… Are you ready for that?

The presidential aide warned that Ukraine’s defeat would also mark the “collapse of the global security system and the system of democratic values.” Reaching a ceasefire now would not stop further conflicts, he said, adding that Russia might launch another attack on Ukraine at some point in the future. Podoliak also compared the idea of starting peace talks with Moscow to conducting talks with Nazi Germany in 1942, when the Nazis occupied large swathes of Soviet territory, including all of Ukraine. “One cannot even imagine it. Any talks at that moment and with that [balance of power] would mean a civilizational catastrophe,” he said.

In early August, the Kremlin signaled its readiness to strike a peace deal with Kiev, while warning that it would achieve the goals of its military operation in Ukraine regardless of Kiev’s willingness to concede. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the time that the two nations were close to settling their differences in a way that was acceptable to Russia, but the draft agreement prepared during a meeting in Istanbul was torpedoed by Ukraine. Kiev broke off the talks with Moscow after accusing Russia of committing war crimes, an allegation that Russia said was based on fabricated evidence. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who visited Moscow in early August, also said that a negotiated solution is possible and argued that the recent “initial success” of the grain export deal should be used to reach a ceasefire.

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Down we go.

Major Rating Agencies Declare Ukraine In Default (RT)

Global rating agencies S&P and Fitch have lowered Ukraine’s foreign currency ratings to ‘selective default’ and ‘restricted default’, respectively, as the country’s latest debt restructuring is seen as distressed. Earlier this week, state-owned companies Ukrenergo and Ukravtodor requested a two-year freeze on payments on almost $20 billion in international bonds. The country’s overseas creditors agreed to suspend interest payments and postpone the maturity date of the bonds by two years. This is expected to save Ukraine about $6 billion on payments, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said, commenting on the move. S&P reduced Ukraine’s foreign currency rating to ‘SD/SD’ – meaning selective default – from ‘CC/C’.


“Given the announced terms and conditions of the restructuring, and in line with our criteria, we view the transaction as distressed and tantamount to default,” the agency said. Meanwhile, Fitch cut the country’s long-term foreign currency rating to ‘RD’ (restricted default) from ‘C’, deeming the deferral of debt payments to be a distressed debt exchange. S&P also said it expects the macroeconomic and fiscal stress caused by Russia’s military operation to weaken Kiev’s ability to service its local-currency debt. It therefore downgraded Ukraine’s domestic currency rating to ‘CCC+/C’, from ‘B-/B’. Fitch, meanwhile, kept the country’s domestic currency rating at ‘CCC-‘.

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Ask Sleepy Joe.

Ukraine Struggles To Find Money To Pay Troops – WSJ (RT)

With Western financial help slow to arrive, Ukraine is forced to print money to pay its troops in the fight against Russia, the Wall Street Journal has reported. Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko told the US outlet on Friday that it’s “a constant headache” for him to keep balancing the cost of the conflict and the lower tax revenues in an economy battered by almost half a year of fighting. With around 60% of the budget being spent on the fighting, the minister said he has had to cut all unnecessary expenditures. But it’s still not enough, as tax revenues only cover 40% of government spending, the WSJ reports. The Kiev authorities earlier said they needed $5 billion per month to run the country, and would not be able to cope without Western help.

However, the grants and loans pledged to Ukraine by its foreign backers have been arriving slower than expected, according to the journal. For example, the EU has so far provided only €1 billion out of €9 billion it promised to Kiev, with Germany resisting the idea of offering low-interest loans backed by guarantees from the bloc’s member states. According to Marchenko, a lot of his time at work is spent trying to persuade Western governments to act faster. “Without this money, the war will last longer and it will damage economies more,” he explained. Rostislav Shurma, an economic adviser to President Vladimir Zelensky, described the situation in harsher terms.

If Kiev acted as sluggishly at the West, “the Russians would be at the Polish border by now,”he told the WSJ. “They don’t feel the war. That’s the problem. The only thing they feel in the EU is high prices,”Shurma said. Due to the lack of funds, the Ukrainian Central Bank has no choice but to print more money to allow the government to pay the troops and purchase arms and ammunition in order to keep fighting.

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No, way more than a handful.

Former FBI Assistant Director: ‘Handful in Leadership’ Politicizing Bureau (ET)

Years of investigations have led to claims by Republicans of partisan political power plays at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice. A raid on former President Donald Trump’s home on Aug. 8 has sharpened the nation’s focus on what many Republicans have been raising alarms about for years—the politicization of the Justice Department (DOJ) and its law enforcement arm, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Republican U.S. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa has been demanding answers about alleged politicization well before the raid. “Unfortunately, a growing number of Americans have lost confidence in the bureau based on its inconsistent handling of politically sensitive investigations, its lack of cooperation with legitimate congressional oversight inquiries, and its failure to hold its own people accountable for their misconduct,” Grassley told The Epoch Times.

Late in July, Grassley sent a searing letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray that stated that if allegations the senator has received from FBI whistleblowers are true, “The Justice Department and the FBI are–and have been—institutionally corrupted to their very core”. But not all agree. In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, former Assistant Director for Intelligence of the FBI Kevin Brock said Grassley’s statement didn’t “fit the facts” and that “it is dangerous to plant seeds in the minds of the American people that the FBI is corrupt.” While Brock said that Grassley’s claims about the FBI went too far, he is also highly critical of the actions of what he refers to as a “handful in leadership” who he said are politicizing the bureau and doing damage to its image.

In response to the raid on former Trump’s residence at Mar-A-Lago, Brock told Epoch Times: “The use of armed agents to execute an invasive search warrant does not match up with the relatively low-level offense—for anyone—let alone a former and possible future president. Most Americans recognize this extraordinary search for what it is: an attempt by one political party that temporarily controls the DOJ to eliminate an adversary from the other party.” [..] About the same time the DOJ decided not to pursue charges against Clinton, the now infamous “Crossfire Hurricane” probe was being opened against then-candidate Trump. While the predicate for that investigation has been debunked, the claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin preferred Trump over Clinton is frequently referenced as fact by Democrats and some in the news media.

Former Assistant FBI Director Brock disagrees with that conclusion, citing eight years of Obama and four years of Secretary of State Clinton’s appeasement of Putin. “If Putin preferred Trump over Clinton he’s a bigger idiot than anyone thought,” Brock said, referring to a list of things the Obama Administration did to appease Putin and Russia. The list included Clinton’s “reset” with Russia, withdrawing missile defense systems from strategic allies Poland and Czech Republic, the return of ten Russian spies in 2010 before the FBI could interrogate the sleeper cell, and being conciliatory following Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea. Brock says “it is in the face of all that it is beyond the scope of imagination” that Putin would have preferred Trump.

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“..former IRS official Lois Lerner, Bill Clinton’s national security adviser Sandy Berger, and even Hillary Clinton allegedly mishandled and destroyed classified information but avoided raids by the FBI.”

FBI Sends ‘Clear Message’ to Trump, His Supporters (ET)

The FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago is an escalation of an ongoing attack on anyone who dares to upset the political status quo in Washington, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) says. “I think a lot of my constituents were shocked, frankly, across the political spectrum. But obviously, the more supportive of President Trump, the more upset they were,” Davidson told The Epoch Times and NTD as part of a special report on the raid airing on Aug. 11 on EpochTV at 9 p.m. “I think for anyone who doubted that there was a swamp when Donald Trump was saying ‘drain the swamp,’ now I think there’s true believers. So it’s historic.”

In support of his statement, Davidson pointed out that the FBI still has many of the same people who spent years supporting a Russia collusion narrative that was based on a falsified warrant. More concerning, Davidson says, is that the FBI appears to have wholly ended its pretense of objectivity. Davidson pointed out to The Epoch Times that former IRS official Lois Lerner, Bill Clinton’s national security adviser Sandy Berger, and even Hillary Clinton allegedly mishandled and destroyed classified information but avoided raids by the FBI. He then pointed out that the FBI has taken no action on Hunter Biden, despite a mountain of evidence of suspect business dealings.

“No accountability for Hunter Biden, no action on that; no action on any number of things that they could have taken action on, like for example, targeting of Supreme Court justices,” Davidson said. He added it is really hard to believe that the bureau believes that it’s objective. Davidson says the message the FBI is sending is clear. “Hey, if you support the cause, we got your back. But if you’re working against us, as [current Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer promised Donald Trump, they have six ways to Sunday to wreck you. “And they seem to have been very focused on doing that to Donald Trump.”

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“..it is Russia and the Russians that the “international community” hates with a passion. Why else would they ban Russian athletes, journalists and even ordinary citizens?”

Will The West’s Greed And Hatred Lead To The End Of The World? (Mirzaei)

It can certainly be said that the risk for nuclear war is far greater today than it was less a year ago. Ever since the conflict in Ukraine began, the collective West and its vassals, also known as the “international community” have been engaged in a hybrid war against Russia, stopping just short of direct confrontation. Although some EU leaders like Borrell seem to think that the West is an active combatant in the conflict. “We must explain to our citizens that this is not someone else’s war,” Borrell said in an interview published by newspaper El Pais on Thursday. “The public must be willing to pay the price of supporting Ukraine and for preserving the unity of the EU.” “We are at war. These things are not free,” he added.

The same Borrell offered his thoughts on Western hypocrisy and double standards in international affairs, with regards to the Zionist slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza this past week. “We are often criticized for double standards. But international politics is to a large degree about applying double standards. We do not use the same criteria for all problems,” he told El Pais newspaper, as cited on Thursday. A rare piece of honesty for a man who makes his living by lying and deceiving others. Yet he failed to mention why those double standards exist. International politics is only about applying double standards when you’re an imperialist and colonizer. Of course he wouldn’t mention that they don’t “use the same criteria for all problems” when it is his masters in Tel Aviv that are the ones waging war on defenceless people.

So this proves that the West throwing tantrums to the left and right over Ukraine really has nothing to do with concern for civilian lives lost. Because when the Zionists massacre children with impunity, the “international community” is pretty silent. Illegal sanctions, rabid Russophobia, and supplying Kiev with heavy weaponry despite the known dangers of doing so, all show the West’s deeply rooted hatred of Russia. If anyone was still delusional to think that this hatred had anything to do with President Putin only, then these past months should’ve proven that it is Russia and the Russians that the “international community” hates with a passion. Why else would they ban Russian athletes, journalists and even ordinary citizens? Of course, the case would’ve been much different had Russia given up on its sovereignty and offered its territory to Washington. Only a non-sovereign and non-independent Russia can be considered “democratic” in the eyes of this “international community.”

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“..under the Constitution’s separation of powers, Congress, has no legitimacy even to hold a criminal investigation: that power belongs to the Judiciary..”

US: The New Real Hoaxes? (Hoekstra)

The investigative reporting by these two organizations [the New York Times and the Washington Post] was so thorough and groundbreaking it turned up things that were not even there. For having refused to rescind these awards, the Pulitzer Committee should receive its own Pulitzer — for fraud. The real hoax appears to have been the CCP’s ostensible good behavior and the now-hugely-discredited initial reporting on the virus. Or how about the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up? Once again, On October 14, 2020, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, a critical story of possible extensive influence-peddling with senior intelligence officers in the CCP, Russia and Ukraine by the son of a presidential candidate. The contents of the laptop raised questions that the candidate at the time, Vice President Joe Biden, could be compromised.

The entire subject was decisively pushed aside, along with the potential threat to national security that such an eventuality might entail. Also not allowed during the January 6th hearings have been any witnesses for the defense, any cross-examination, or any exculpatory evidence. One wonders, for instance if the January 6th Committee will consider the July 29, 2022 tweet by General Keith Kellogg, that on January 3, 2021, Trump, in front of witnesses, did indeed ask for “troops needed” for January 6. Kellogg wrote: “I was in the room.” The January 6th Committee has also not released any information about government informants or FBI undercover law enforcement officers who might have been in the crowd, and Pelosi is also said to be blocking access to a massive quantity of documents.

Finally, according to attorney Mark Levin, under the Constitution’s separation of powers, Congress, has no legitimacy even to hold a criminal investigation: that power belongs to the Judiciary. The entire proceeding is illegitimate and a usurpation of power. Is it surprising that after the Pulitzer decision, the Russia collusion hoax, the Whitmer kidnapping hoax, the Covid origin hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop hoax, and now the January 6th Committee hoax, that many Americans believe there is something wrong with the system? Recently former US President Donald Trump challenged the award of Pulitzer Prizes to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their investigative reporting on alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

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Kissinger, Orban and Bolsonaro are the voices of reason these days.

Kissinger Explains How The World Was Brought To ‘The Edge Of War’ (RT)

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Wall Street Journal that Washington has rejected traditional diplomacy, and in the absence of a great leader, has driven the world to the precipice of war over Ukraine and Taiwan. Kissinger previously courted controversy for suggesting that Kiev abandon some of its territorial claims to end the conflict with Russia. “We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” Kissinger said in the interview, published on Saturday. Kissinger, now 99 years old, elaborated on the West’s role in the Ukraine conflict in a recent book profiling prominent post-WWII leaders. He described Russia’s decision to send troops into the country in February as motivated by its own security, as having Ukraine join NATO would move the alliance’s weapons to within 300 miles (480km) of Moscow.

Conversely, having Ukraine in its entirety fall under Russian influence would do little to “calm historic European fears of Russian domination.” Diplomats in Kiev and Washington should have balanced these concerns, he wrote, describing the current conflict in Ukraine as “an outgrowth of a failed strategic dialogue.” Speaking to the Wall Street Journal a month after the book’s publication, Kissinger stood by his insistence that the West should have taken Russian President Vladimir Putin’s security demands seriously, and refused to signal that Ukraine would one day be accepted into the NATO alliance. In the runup to its military operation in Ukraine, Russia presented the US and NATO with written outlines of its security concerns, which were rejected by both receiving parties.

Kissinger, who in the late 1960s and early 1970s held extensive negotiations with Vietnamese communists even as the US military waged war against them, said that modern American leaders tend to view diplomacy as having “personal relationships with the adversary,” and in words paraphrased by the Wall Street Journal, “tend to view negotiations in missionary, rather than psychological terms, seeking to convert or condemn their interlocutors rather than to penetrate their thinking.” Instead, Kissinger argued that the US should seek “equilibrium” between itself, Russia, and China. This term refers to “a kind of balance of power, with an acceptance of the legitimacy of sometimes opposing values,” Kissinger explained. “Because if you believe that the final outcome of your effort has to be the imposition of your values, then I think equilibrium is not possible.”

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WEF test case?!

UN War On Fertilizer Began in Sri Lanka (Shellenberger)

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) describes itself as “the global authority that sets the environmental agenda… and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.” Through its “Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food” program launched in 2014, the UNEP advocates that nations “steer away from the prevailing focus on per hectare productivity.” But today the world is in its worst food crisis since 2008. The number of people suffering acute food insecurity increased by 25% since January 2022 to 345 million, according to the United Nations World Food Programme. Why, then, is the UNEP trying to steer nations away from fertilizers that increase food production? The UNEP’s Acting Director in 2019 said the reason was humankind’s “long-term interference with the Earth’s nitrogen balance.”

In October of that year, the UNEP hosted a meeting in the capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo and issued a “road map” to push nations to cut nitrogen pollution in half. But the Netherlands proves that nations can slash nitrogen pollution from livestock by 70% while also increasing meat production. Same for crops. Since the early 1960s, the Netherlands has doubled its yields while using the same amount of fertilizer. While rich nations produce 70 percent higher yields than poor nations, they use just 54 percent more nitrogen. One month after the Colombo meeting in 2019, which generated significant media attention in Sri Lanka, voters in that nation elected an anti-fertilizer president, H.E. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who claimed, without scientific evidence, that synthetic fertilizers were causing kidney diseases. In April 2021, he banned fertilizer imports.

In June, 2021, two months after the fertilizer ban, Sri Lanka hosted a UN-sponsored “Food System Dialogue” aimed at influencing the UN’s broader anti-fertilizer agenda for the world. “Sri Lanka’s inaugural Food System Dialogue is part of a series of national and provincial dialogues conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture ahead of the 2021 UN Food System Summit set to take place in New York later this year.” In his statement to the UN Food System Summit in New York in September, Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa repeated his claim that “chemical fertilizers… led to adverse health and environmental impacts.” He said, “My Government took the bold step to restrict imports of these harmful substances earlier this year,” and blamed farmers for resisting his fertilizer ban, saying that “changing the mindset of farmers long accustomed to using chemical fertiliser has proven challenging.”

In fact, the fertilizer ban was causing a crash in agricultural production. After the fertilizer ban, 85% of Sri Lankan farmers experienced crop losses. Rice production fell 20%, prices rose 50 percent, and the nation had to import $450 million worth of the grain. In Rajanganaya, where farmers operate on just a hectare (2.5 acres), of land on average, families reported producing half their normal crop harvest. There were other factors behind the government’s fall, but those factors affected many other nations and none fell. Covid lockdowns hurt tourism. The government borrowed too much. Oil prices rose. All were factors and none were decisive. What made the difference was Sri Lanka’s ban on fertilizers.

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Return to real money, only after everything else has failed.

Zimbabwe Hails Gold Coin Success And Wants To Issue More (BBC)

Gold coins used as currency in Zimbabwe will soon be available in smaller denominations, the central bank says. Sky-rocketing inflation saw people rushing to cash in their Zimbabwean dollars for US dollars, to stop their savings losing value. This led to a shortage of US currency and drove up exchange rates, so the central bank reacted by halting loans. But it soon changed tack, and last month issued gold coins worth US$1,800 instead, to ease demand for US dollars. Those higher-value gold coins are available to buy at approved banks and are tradeable locally. The average yearly salary in Zimbabwe for a civil servant is US$2,600, and according to the state-affiliated Herald newspaper 4,475 gold coins have been sold since their introduction last month.

This makes it a success in the eyes of the central bank. The lower value US$180 gold coins are to be released in November, the Herald reports. Zimbabwe’s current economic woes are not as grave as in the early 2000s when hyper-inflation reached record levels and local currency was abandoned altogether. Nor has the country quite reached the levels of 2008, when many ordinary people’s pensions and savings were wiped out after the Zimbabwean dollar crashed. However President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who succeeded Robert Mugabe after his ousting by the military in 2017, has failed to revive the national economy despite promising to raise it to what the World Bank calls a “middle income country” by 2030.

Zimbabwe still uses two main currencies, the US and the Zimbabwe dollar, with most people preferring to exchange their local dollars for foreign currency to maintain value. Inflation topped 256% in July – and the local currency tumbled in worth from Z$108.66 to US$1 at the start of the year, to Z$481.85 to US$1 in August. Reaction to the coins has been mixed. Some say they are good for companies wanting to maintain value of their money, but others say the majority of Zimbabwean workers will still not be able to afford them.

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Wolves

 

 

 

 

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Jun 132022
 
 June 13, 2022  Posted by at 8:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  68 Responses »


Caravaggio I musici 1595-96

 

Russia Gains More Ground in Donbas Region (WSJ)
Should Russia Pay Reparations For The Ukraine War? (Barry Eichengreen)
Effort to Force Russia to Pay Reparations to Ukraine Faces Uphill Battle (WSJ)
Global Nuclear Arsenal Set To Grow For First Time In Decades (R.)
Army Official Predicted Vaccines Might Be Paused Over Myocarditis (ET)
99% Certain Justin Bieber’s Facial Paralysis Caused By Covid Vaccine (Kirsch)
USS Liberty: A Forgotten Anniversary (Moglia)
Greens Unlikely To Survive The Coming Winter (CoS)
Freeport LNG Explosion Raises Risk Of European Winter Energy Crisis (CNN)
Jan. 6 Committee Caught ‘Lying and Altering Evidence’ (TH)
Cost of Living Crisis a Result of Lockdowns, Experts Tell MPs (DS)
Elon Musk’s Twitter ‘Best’ Offer Looks Bogus (Gasparino)
Henry Kissinger At 99: How To Avoid Another World War (Ferguson)

 

 

 

 

3xvaxxed

 

 

 

 

Tulsi woke
https://twitter.com/i/status/1535920648622444545

 

 

 

 

Are the leaders of France, Germany and Italy going to talk some sense into Zelensky?

Russia Gains More Ground in Donbas Region (WSJ)

The leaders of France, Germany and Italy plan to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv this week, officials said, as reports showed Russia making gains in the country’s east and Ukrainian officials urgently sought arms from Western nations to hold Russian forces at bay. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi were planning to visit the Ukrainian capital on Thursday, said two European officials, who cautioned that plans could yet change. The trip would be the first to Ukraine since the beginning of the war for the three Western leaders.

News of the planned meeting came as Ukrainian officials said Russia had made fresh gains in its efforts to encircle and capture the city of Severodonetsk, which would bring Moscow significantly closer to its goal of controlling the Donbas area in the country’s east, its foremost target recently in the war. Serhiy Haidai, the Ukrainian governor of the Luhansk region, which includes Severodonetsk, said on Sunday that Russians had destroyed a second bridge connecting Severodonetsk to Lysychansk, a Ukrainian stronghold just across the Siverskyi Donets river. Russian forces also shelled a chemical plant in the city’s industrial section, where civilians had taken shelter in bunkers, Mr. Haidai said.

The battlefield advances were the latest evidence that Russia is outgunning Ukrainian forces, using its superior artillery power to steadily take territory. Its gains have thrown added focus onto Ukraine’s pleas for more powerful and longer-range artillery and other weaponry from the West, as well as on Ukraine’s lack of capacity to manufacture ammunition for the Soviet-era heavy weapons in its arsenal.

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Why would an economist want to opine on this?

Should Russia Pay Reparations For The Ukraine War? (Barry Eichengreen)

Russia’s war on Ukraine shows no sign of ending, but it is not too soon to start thinking about how to ensure postwar Ukraine’s stability, prosperity, and security. Already, two discussions are occurring: one about financing economic reconstruction, and the other about affirming Ukraine’s external security. The problem is that these discussions are proceeding separately, even though the issues are intimately related. Reconstruction costs are uncertain because the course of the war is uncertain. Ukraine’s prewar GDP was about $150bn (£120bn). Given a capital-output ratio of three, and assuming that a third of the capital stock will be destroyed, we are again talking about $150bn. As always, alternative assumptions yield alternative scenarios, but $150bn seems like a reasonable starting point.


This is not an impossible amount of aid for donors to commit. It is one-sixth the size of the NextGenerationEU program on which EU states agreed in July 2020. It is one-twelfth the size of the American Rescue Plan Act signed by Joe Biden in March 2021. Still, it seems wrong to ask the US and Europe to repair what Russia has broken. So, it is tempting to suggest that Ukraine’s reconstruction should be financed by garnishing Russian assets. At $284bn, the Bank of Russia’s frozen reserves would certainly fit the bill. True, there is a moral case for reparations: Russia started an unprovoked war and has almost certainly committed war crimes in prosecuting it. There is also an argument grounded in deterrence. As Volodymyr Zelenskiy put it at Davos this year: “If the aggressor loses everything, then it definitely deprives him of his motivation to start a war.”

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It’s a popular topic.

Effort to Force Russia to Pay Reparations to Ukraine Faces Uphill Battle (WSJ)

Since Russian forces swept into Ukraine on Feb. 24, swaths of the country’s buildings and infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed, leading to calls for Moscow to pay for the damage. As the leading western backer of Ukraine in the conflict, the U.S., which also holds some of Russia’s frozen assets, would likely be critical to any effort to get Moscow to pay for that damage. Yet even if Washington were to try to force Russia to pay reparations, the Biden administration would have limited options for making Moscow comply, particularly while the war rages on, according to former officials and legal experts. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on Russia to compensate his country, saying in early May the war had caused more than $600 billion in damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure. The figure has only grown as the war continues.


There is, in theory, a pot of money for the West to draw on if it wants to force Russia to pay. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in March that half the country’s gold and foreign-currency reserves were frozen as a result of sanctions, denying Moscow access to roughly $300 billion, according to the TASS news agency. The share of Russia’s foreign-exchange reserves held in Chinese currency wasn’t affected. When the Biden administration in late April submitted its $33 billion supplemental funding request for Ukraine, the White House said it was “proposing legislation to streamline the process to recoup proceeds from seized and forfeited assets and use them to remediate the harm caused in Ukraine.”

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Cui bono?

Global Nuclear Arsenal Set To Grow For First Time In Decades (R.)

The global nuclear arsenal is expected to grow in the coming years for the first time since the cold war, and the risk of such weapons being used is the greatest in decades, a leading conflict and armaments thinktank says. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and western support for Kyiv has heightened tensions among the world’s nine nuclear-armed states, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) thinktank said on Monday in a new set of research. While the number of nuclear weapons fell slightly between January 2021 and January 2022, Sipri said that unless immediate action was taken by the nuclear powers, global inventories of warheads could soon begin rising for the first time in decades.

“All of the nuclear-armed states are increasing or upgrading their arsenals and most are sharpening nuclear rhetoric and the role nuclear weapons play in their military strategies,” Wilfred Wan, the director of Sipri’s weapons of mass destruction program, said in the thinktank’s 2022 yearbook. “This is a very worrying trend.” Three days after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin calls a “special military operation”, President Vladimir Putin put Russia’s nuclear deterrent on high alert. He has also warned of consequences that would be “such as you have never seen in your entire history” for countries that stood in Russia’s way.

Russia has the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal with a total of 5,977 warheads, 550 more than the United States. The two countries possess more than 90% of the world’s warheads, though Sipri said China was in the middle of an expansion with more than 300 new missile silos according to the latest estimate. Sipri said the global number of nuclear warheads fell from 13,080 in January 2021 to 12,705 in January 2022. An estimated 3,732 warheads were deployed with missiles and aircraft, and around 2,000 – nearly all belonging to Russia or the US – were kept in a state of high readiness.

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No, it’s too rare.

Army Official Predicted Vaccines Might Be Paused Over Myocarditis (ET)

A U.S. military official predicted a pause in the administration of the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines could happen if more cases of post-vaccination heart inflammation were detected, according to newly obtained emails. Harry Chang, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, made the prediction on April 27, 2021—the same day the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the agency was not seeing a safety signal when it came to heart inflammation experienced after getting a COVID-19 vaccine. Chang noted the pause in the administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine over blood clots and said an increased number of heart inflammation issues could trigger a similar action.


“A pause of the Pfizer/Moderna administration (much like the J&J blood clot pause) will have an adverse impact on US/CA vaccination rates; assessed as unlikely due to causes of myocarditis can come from multiple sources (eg. COVID, other conditions, other vaccines/prescriptions, etc),” Chang wrote in an email. Myocarditis is a type of heart inflammation. “However, increased reported #s & media attention is likely to trigger a safety review pause by ACIP/FDA,” he added, referring to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the CDC on vaccines, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which decides whether to clear immunizations. Chang was talking to Tricia Blocher, an official at the California Department of Public Health, and other California and military officials. He was reacting to a story about the U.S. Department of Defense detecting a higher-than-expected number of cases of heart inflammation in troops following COVID-19 vaccination.”

Montagnier

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Very rare,

99% Certain Justin Bieber’s Facial Paralysis Caused By Covid Vaccine (Kirsch)

The VAERS data shows that Ramsay Hunt Syndrome (RHS) is 160 times more likely after a COVID vaccination than for all the other vaccines combined in any given year. And if you exclude the anthrax vaccine from that comparison, the likelihood is simply too high to calculate (0 cases in 32 years). So the COVID vaccine should definitely be considered as a possible cause for this rare disease because when you’ve been vaccinated, it’s no longer rare. For example, one doctor tweeted he say 4 cases in a month, but had never seen any cases before in the 32 years he’s practiced medicine. All the cases had gotten the COVID vax 3 to 4 months earlier.


I show below that the estimated rate of RHS after COVID vaccination is likely at least 338 cases per 100,000. The medical literature says it occurs naturally in 5 cases per 100,000. Therefore, because it is much more likely after vaccine than by chance, it is 99% likely that Justin’s RHS was caused by the vaccine, and only 1% chance that he got “unlucky.” Sadly, it’s unlikely Bieber’s doctors will ever acknowledge that so it’s unlikely he’ll get the care he needs (treat both the RHS and the vaccine injury). He’ll simply assume he is just unlucky. The mainstream press isn’t doing its job if they don’t report this (which they won’t).

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“..the attack on the Liberty dramatically demonstrates the nature of who exercises actual power in the United States.”

USS Liberty: A Forgotten Anniversary (Moglia)

It is a property of the past to sink into oblivion, and of unpleasant truths to fade into evanescence. To such past belongs the attack on the USS Liberty. When to the session of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, Israel’s 1967 war of Middle East invasion is/was for me but a negligible blip compared to other important personal events. Such as my getting ready to read the thesis for my degree in Electronic Engineering, in Genova, Italy. Therefore, without particular consciousness I submitted to the sentences of the official media without examining the authority of the judge. My first doubts arose not long later when I decided to visit the Eastern Orthodox Saint Catherine’s Monastery, located on the Sinai Peninsula at the very foot of Mt. Sinai. It could then only be reached from Tel Aviv via Sharm-el-Sheikh and a bus trip.


On welcoming the tourists on the bus the guide announced with pride that the Sinai was “now and forever an unalienable part of Israel.” I found the declaration irrelevant, if not odd, but I consider that moment as the beginning of my associated historical interest. The official US line is that, on Jun 8, 1967, the Israelis mistakenly attacked by air, and torpedoed by sea, an unarmed US intelligence ship, killing 34 sailors and wounding 171 others. 2022 marks the 55th anniversary of that attack. Following are some details of the ship, of the episode and of its aftermath. For, similar to occasions that perhaps we all have felt, a detail that uncalled-for returns to mind, rekindles fuller memories of a larger connected event, not otherwise spontaneously recalled. The detail is the inspired arrogance of the Israeli guide I mentioned. More in general, I think that the attack on the Liberty dramatically demonstrates the nature of who exercises actual power in the United States.

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“..there is simply no way of maintaining even a fraction of the western standard of living in the event that anyone were foolish enough to remove the fossil fuels..”

Greens Unlikely To Survive The Coming Winter (CoS)

By 2017, real-life James Bond Villain Klaus Schwab was inviting celebrities, representatives of the technocracy, the godzillionaires and the political class to fly their carbon-belching private jets to Switzerland to learn about The Fourth Industrial Revolution, and to discuss how they could get the little people to cut their carbon footprints. By 2020, this had morphed in to the Green New Great Reset in which we – but not they, of course – would own nothing, and allegedly be happy as we ate our insects, spent our central bank digital basic incomes, and were driven around in a new fleet of corporate-owned, hydrogen-powered self-driving cars. There was – to paraphrase Captain Blackadder – just one teensy-weensy problem with the Great Plan adopted by the Davos crowd… it was bollocks!

Only by ignoring the physicists, engineers and technicians who were expected to make it happen, and by listening instead to the siren voices of climate NGOs, bankers and economists, could the technocracy convince itself that the world could seamlessly transition to the proposed bright green future. And to our cost, politicians of all stripes who bought into this nonsense are now grappling with the inevitable economic consequences. The problem, at is simplest, is that much of what was considered “green” was largely a conjuring trick. States like Britain and Germany, which claim to be world leaders simply offshored their most polluting industries (and a large part of the waste) to less prosperous parts of the world where governments were happy to load the environmental costs onto the indigenous population in exchange for tradable foreign currency.

This was the only politically-acceptable means of hiding the fact that there is simply no way of maintaining even a fraction of the western standard of living in the event that anyone were foolish enough to remove the fossil fuels which make up some 80 percent of the energy mix in the UK, and 85 percent of the global economy. Even this is a simplification of the problem because each fuel source has its uses in specific niches of the global economy and so is not interchangeable. Wind and solar, for example, cannot generate the heat required to manufacture steel (although they can recycle it) or, ironically, to produce the silicon wafers and high-grade glass required in solar panels.

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In 2021, LNG was maybe 10% of EU gas. It will have to be much more going forward. Disaster assured.

Freeport LNG Explosion Raises Risk Of European Winter Energy Crisis (CNN)

A fire at one of the world’s biggest suppliers of liquefied natural gas has thrown Europe’s fragile energy security into doubt and spooked global gas markets. Freeport LNG, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer in Texas, will shut its doors for at least three weeks, the company confirmed to CNN Business. “The cause of the fire at Freeport LNG’s liquefaction facility on Quintana Island remains under investigation,” Heather Browne, a company spokesperson, said.
Europe has snapped up global stocks of LNG in recent months as it attempts to sharply pivot away from Russia’s natural gas exports. The region, including the United Kingdom, imported 28.2 million tons between February and April, according to Independent Commodity Intelligence Services — up 29% from the same period last year.


The United States is the world’s largest supplier of LNG, accounting for just over a fifth of global exports, according to data from analytics firm Vortexa. Output from the Freeport LNG facility makes up 18% of these exports. With no direct pipeline between the United States and Europe, American energy companies cool their natural gas for export to -260 degrees Fahrenheit and place the liquefied gas on tanker ships for overseas transport. That process, though more complex than land transport, has become crucial to Europe meeting its energy demands during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Freeport blast could deal a blow to that stopgap solution, particularly if the facility fails to come back online soon. “Despite the initial estimate of three weeks of downtime by the operator, the production impact is likely to stretch into July,” Felix Booth, head of LNG at Vortexa, told CNN Business.

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Adam Schiff is back.

Jan. 6 Committee Caught ‘Lying and Altering Evidence’ (TH)

The January 6 committee is facing pressure as details reveal it lied and altered evidence to favor Democrat’s radical narrative of the Capitol Hill protests. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) called out the committee for changing text messages between him and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during an interview on Fox News. A spokesperson admitted that the messages Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA.) showed during the hearings had been adjusted to support the idea that Meadows wanted former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results. In a statement, the spokesperson confessed that “the Select Committee on Monday created and provided Representative Schiff a graphic to use during the business meeting quoting from a text message from ‘a lawmaker’ to Mr. Meadows.

The graphic read, ‘On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.’ In the graphic, the period at the end of that sentence was added inadvertently. The Select Committee is responsible for and regrets the error.” Jordan fired back saying “this committee has altered evidence and lied to the American people about it, so much so that they had to issue a statement which says, ‘We regret the error,’ which is government speak for, ‘We got caught lying.’” The “error” was that Schiff presented the message out of context by cutting out key words and ending it with a period.

According to the Federalist, the original text message was a summary of a legal briefing Jordan forwarded from lawyer Joseph Schmitz to Meadows the day before the Capitol protests, meaning that a “lawmaker” did not write the message at all. Jordan has been blocked from taking part in the committee by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA.). He is now undergoing his own investigation of the events that took place that day last year.

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“..the ability of governments to respond to this cost-of-living crisis via either tax cuts or increased benefits is limited due to the hit to public finances caused by lockdown-induced government spending.”

Cost of Living Crisis a Result of Lockdowns, Experts Tell MPs (DS)

The cost of living crisis and runaway inflation are a result of imposing ruinous lockdowns on society, experts have told MPs and Peers. The comments came in the latest meeting of the the Pandemic Response and Recovery All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). Chaired by the Rt Hon Esther McVey MP, the group heard from experts about the societal consequences of closing businesses and schools, prohibiting healthcare, ordering the public to stay at home and unchecked money printing. One businessman told the group how government COVID-19 policies personally affected him, costing him £120,000, destroying his previously thriving business and leaving him in debt. Professor of Industrial Economics at the University of Nottingham Business School, David Paton, explained why lockdowns are at the root of the current crisis:


“Eye-watering sums of money were spent during lockdowns, on furlough and business support schemes which helped mask the inevitable economic consequences we are now seeing. Many of our current problems could have been avoided had the government carried out an effective cost-benefit analysis of lockdowns and other restrictions. Quite simply, the lack of spending opportunities during lockdown contributed to a build up of personal and corporate savings. As restrictions eased, people began to spend these savings and, combined with the supply chain issues that built up in the meantime, sustained inflation became the inevitable result. Even worse, having spent about £70 billion, paying healthy people not to work and some £150 billion in total on support measures, the ability of governments to respond to this cost-of-living crisis via either tax cuts or increased benefits is limited due to the hit to public finances caused by lockdown-induced government spending.”

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Gasparino doesn’t appear to like Musk.

Elon Musk’s Twitter ‘Best’ Offer Looks Bogus (Gasparino)

[..] here’s the viewpoint of two bankers, one who has worked with his Tesla board, and another at a firm involved in his Twitter financing machinations. They say virtually the same thing. Musk is telling people he still wants Twitter. He thinks he can make it work as a private company, clean up the bot problem and sell it at a profit sometime in the next five years. But Musk wants the company (like everything else) on his terms, which are always in flux. He doesn’t read balance sheets but goes by his gut and has no issue with flouting conventional banker norms (i.e. your word is your bond) to get his prize. His gut told him to waive due diligence. It’s now telling him that even though he signed a deal leaving him on the hook for the $1 billion breakup fee and maybe more in damages, he can get Twitter to the table and agree to his terms, aka a much lower purchase price.

He might be right. Twitter first said it would enforce the initial deal terms, maybe even go to court, but now appears to be playing ball with Musk. It recently said it will turn over more data on its bot issue — a move that means talks are back on. The bankers tell me the Twitter board knows that finding another suitor will be difficult even at around the $40 a share it’s trading at now. The board can’t just accept anything, but also can’t tell Musk to just pound sand. So the thinking among my two guys is that Twitter agrees to a lower price, possibly significantly lower, and Crazy Elon gets his public square, albeit for much cheaper. That means the deal is on, right? Seems so. But no one really knows with Crazy Elon.

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Kissinger and Niall Ferguson. Not my favorite people, but here goes…

Henry Kissinger At 99: How To Avoid Another World War (Ferguson)

Henry Kissinger turned 99 on May 27. Born in Germany at the height of the Weimar hyperinflation, he was not yet ten years old when Hitler came to power and was just 15 when he and his family landed as refugees in New York City. It is somehow almost as astonishing that this former US secretary of state and giant of geopolitics left office 45 years ago. As he heads towards his century, Kissinger has lost none of the intellectual firepower that set him apart from other foreign policy professors and practitioners of his and subsequent generations. In the time I have spent writing the second volume of his biography, Kissinger has published not one but two books — the first, co-authored with the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and the computer scientist Daniel Huttenlocher, on artificial intelligence, the second a collection of six biographical case studies in leadership.


We meet at his rural retreat, deep in the woods of Connecticut, where he and his wife, Nancy, have spent most of their time since the onset of Covid. The pandemic had its silver linings for them. It was the first time in 48 years of marriage that the compulsively peripatetic Dr Kissinger came to an enforced halt. Cut off from the temptations of Manhattan restaurants and Beijing banquets, he has shed pounds. Though he walks with a stick, depends on a hearing aid and speaks more slowly than of old in that unmistakable bullfrog baritone, his mind is as keen as ever. Nor has Kissinger lost his knack for infuriating the liberal professors and progressive or “woke” students who dominate Harvard, the university where he built his reputation as a scholar and public intellectual in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Bach

 

 

 

 

Mariupol

 

 

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May 252022
 


Vincent van Gogh Pietà (after Delacroix) 1889

 

America’s Ukraine Policy Is On A Collision Course With Reality (Moloney)
The Secret American Plan to Make Russia Great Again (Orlov)
Ukraine Official Blasts Kissinger Over Comment on Ceding Territory (Celente)
NATO vs Russia: What Happens Next (Escobar)
No Way Out but War (Chris Hedges)
Finland, Sweden Send Teams To Turkey After Erdogan’s ‘Don’t Even Bother’ (ZH)
Comey’s FBI Lied To Its Own Agents In Russia Hoax Cover-Up (Jarrett)
‘Fired Up’ FBI Leadership Pushed Trump Probe Despite Flimsy Evidence (JTN)
Individual Carbon Footprint Tracker (CTH)
Bill Gates Poured Millions into Dark Money Fund Attacking Elon Musk (BB)
One Billion People At Risk Of Power Blackouts As Global Grids Stretched
Biden Underwater On Almost All Issues Except Handling Of Covid (Hill)
Bayer Deploys Big Ag Buddies to Push Biden on Roundup Cancer Lawsuit (CHD)

 

 

 

 

Ricky Gervais is an absolute treasure
https://twitter.com/i/status/1529025826712391681

 

 

“..the holes in the upbeat Ukraine narrative have reached a point where the mainstream media no longer can credibly deny them..”

America’s Ukraine Policy Is On A Collision Course With Reality (Moloney)

If we accept the mainstream media narrative about Russia’s war in Ukraine, we are witnessing the emergence of the Biden administration’s greatest triumph to date. Under this roseate scenario, the Ukrainians are doing wonderfully well in their fight against Russia; the Russian troops are failing badly almost everywhere; NATO is enjoying a renaissance of unity not seen since the Cold War; and President Biden is being lauded globally for bold leadership and for proving once again that the United States is the world’s indispensable nation. Perhaps best of all is the narrative that Biden is delivering his long-promised bipartisan unity among Americans, as large numbers of Republicans sign onto his requests for more money and more weapons for Ukraine.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are among the luminaries who paraded to Kyiv for coveted photo-ops with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In stark contrast to these upbeat perspectives about the war, however, a far less pleasant reality is forcing its way to the forefront of American consciousness: The U.S. economy is reeling through a historic crisis in the direction of an almost certain recession, with inflation far outpacing wage gains; income inequality soaring, as elites continue to prosper and the working class is crushed by the cost of living; frightening levels of violent crime plague large cities; and unprecedented numbers of illegal migrants are surging across America’s southern border.

In light of these less palatable realities, it cannot be surprising Biden’s approval rating and that of his Democratic Party are plummeting to new depths — including among bedrock elements of the Democratic coalition such as Hispanics, Black voters and, perhaps, educated suburban women. Traditional liberals such as Democratic strategist James Carville clearly see the looming electoral disaster of this fall’s midterms, but it’s being ignored by Pelosi and the party’s progressive wing, which continues to influence Biden’s policy initiatives. The disconnect between these two realities has become evident as new complications arise in Ukraine and America’s domestic disorders worsen. In particular, the holes in the upbeat Ukraine narrative have reached a point where the mainstream media no longer can credibly deny them, as John Walsh described in a recent Asia Times article, “NY Times shifts pro-war narrative.” Walsh draws attention to two items appearing recently in the Times: a front-page story about Russia seizing much of the East, and an opinion piece entitled, “America and Its Allies Want to Bleed Russia. They Really Shouldn’t.”

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“After the Soviet collapse, very little was needed to speed along the collapse of Russia itself. But none of these steps have been taken, and the steps that were taken (with the ostensible goal of weakening and destroying Russia) have done the exact opposite.”

The Secret American Plan to Make Russia Great Again (Orlov)

It is generally a good idea to avoid ascribing nefarious intent to actions explained by mere stupidity. But this is a case where mere stupidity cannot possibly explain the long, steady procession of foreign policy errors spanning three decades, all of them specifically aimed at strengthening Russia. It is not possible to argue that a surplus of hubris, ignorance, greed and political opportunism and a deficit of competent foreign policy analysts can produce such a result, for that would be essentially the same as arguing that some monkeys armed with drills, mills and lathes can produce a Swiss watch. But the only alternative would be to claim that there is a network of Kremlin’s agents ensconced deep within the bowels of the American Deep State and that they are all working in concert to advance Russia’s interests while meticulously maintaining plausible deniability all the while and at all levels of the operation.

Ostensibly, the plan was to weaken and destroy Russia; but then, following the Soviet collapse, Russia was weakening and destroying itself very well all by itself, no intervention needed. What’s more, every US effort to weaken and destroy Russia has made it stronger; had there existed even a most rudimentary feedback mechanism, so vast a discrepancy between policy goals and policy results would have been detected and adjustments would have been made. Superficially, this may be explained by the nature of America’s sham-democracy, where each administration can blame its failures on mistakes made by the previous administration, but the Deep State remains in power throughout, and it would simply be forced to admit to itself that there is a problem with the plan to weaken and destroy Russia after a few cycles of this unfolding fiasco. The fact that it hasn’t detected any such problem brings us full circle, back to the suspicion that there are Putin’s agents toiling tirelessly deep within the Deep State.

But that’s pure conspiracy theory and we shouldn’t want to go anywhere near that. Suffice to say, there is at present no adequate explanation for what happened. After the Soviet collapse, very little was needed to speed along the collapse of Russia itself. But none of these steps have been taken, and the steps that were taken (with the ostensible goal of weakening and destroying Russia) have done the exact opposite. Why? Below are listed 10 of the most successful initiatives of what appear to be a US Deep State MRGA campaign. If you have an alternative explanation, I’d like to hear it. b

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Turns 99 on Friday. Terrible legacy. But today’s crop are far worse.

Ukraine Official Blasts Kissinger Over Comment on Ceding Territory (Celente)

Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state, said Monday what The Trends Journal has been advocating since the start of the Ukraine War: President Volodymyr Zelensky should negotiate for a peaceful resolution and prevent thousands more from dying needlessly. “Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome,” Kissinger told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante.” The 98-year-old said pursuing the war “beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.” He said Ukraine should be willing to cede territory in the peace process. Ukraine has said it will not stop fighting until Russia retreats from the country.

Kissinger saw some success during his time as the U.S.’s top diplomat with the Soviet Union and played a role in arms control treaties like the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He told the audience in Davos that it would be “fatal” for Western countries to disregard Russia’s position of power within Europe. “I hope the Ukrainians will match the heroism they have shown with wisdom,” Kissinger said. Kissinger’s comments were mocked on social media by “journalists” who -two months ago- didn’t know the difference between Kyiv and a quiche. One even suggested that he should die. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, was critical of Kissinger’s remarks and said he would as easily “allow to take Poland or Lithuania away,” Newsweek reported.

[..] Kissinger’s comments follow nonagenarian Noam Chomsky’s earlier statements about the dangers of a prolonged conflict in Ukraine. Chomsky, correctly, stated earlier this month that Ukrainian leadership’s cry for more heavy weapons is actually the Western “propaganda system.” Chomsky was criticized after saying in an interview that former President Donald Trump is the “one Western statesman of stature” who laid out a “sensible” solution for Ukraine. He said Trump spoke about facilitating negotiations instead of “undermining them and moving towards establishing some kind of accommodation in Europe in which there are no military alliances and mutual accommodation.”

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“Herr Schwab stressed that an actor impersonating a president defending neo-Nazis is supported by “all of Europe and the international order.”

NATO vs Russia: What Happens Next (Escobar)

Three months after the start of Russia’s Operation Z in Ukraine, the battle of The West (12 percent) against The Rest (88 percent) keeps metastasizing. Yet the narrative – oddly – remains the same. On Monday, from Davos, World Economic Forum Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab introduced Ukrainian comedian-cum-President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the latest leg of his weapons-solicitation-tour, with a glowing tribute. Herr Schwab stressed that an actor impersonating a president defending neo-Nazis is supported by “all of Europe and the international order.” He means, of course, everyone except the 88 percent of the planet that subscribes to the Rule of Law – instead of the faux construct the west calls a ‘rules-based international order.’

Back in the real world, Russia, slowly but surely has been rewriting the Art of Hybrid War. Yet within the carnival of NATO psyops, aggressive cognitive infiltration, and stunning media sycophancy, much is being made of the new $40 billion US ‘aid’ package to Ukraine, deemed capable of becoming a game-changer in the war. This ‘game-changing’ narrative comes courtesy of the same people who burned though trillions of dollars to secure Afghanistan and Iraq. And we saw how that went down. Ukraine is the Holy Grail of international corruption. That $40 billion can be a game-changer for only two classes of people: First, the US military-industrial complex, and second, a bunch of Ukrainian oligarchs and neo-connish NGOs, that will corner the black market for weapons and humanitarian aid, and then launder the profits in the Cayman Islands.

A quick breakdown of the $40 billion reveals $8.7 billion will go to replenish the US weapons stockpile (thus not going to Ukraine at all); $3.9 billion for USEUCOM (the ‘office’ that dictates military tactics to Kiev); $5 billion for a fuzzy, unspecified “global food supply chain”; $6 billion for actual weapons and “training” to Ukraine; $9 billion in “economic assistance” (which will disappear into selected pockets); and $0.9 billion for refugees. US risk agencies have downgraded Kiev to the dumpster of non-reimbursing-loan entities, so large American investment funds are ditching Ukraine, leaving the European Union (EU) and its member-states as the country’s only option.

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“It will signal the death of Pax Americana.”

No Way Out but War (Chris Hedges)

The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses.

No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon. The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $ 6 trillion more than the US GDP of $ 24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spent more on the military, $ 813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.

We are paying a heavy social, political, and economic cost for our militarism. Washington watches passively as the U.S. rots, morally, politically, economically, and physically, while China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and other countries extract themselves from the tyranny of the U.S. dollar and the international Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a messaging network banks and other financial institutions use to send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. Once the U.S. dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, once there is an alternative to SWIFT, it will precipitate an internal economic collapse. It will force the immediate contraction of the U.S. empire shuttering most of its nearly 800 overseas military installations. It will signal the death of Pax Americana.

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Arms embargo.

Finland, Sweden Send Teams To Turkey After Erdogan’s ‘Don’t Even Bother’ (ZH)

Finland and Sweden on Tuesday confirmed they are sending delegations to Ankara in hopes of resolving issues surrounding Turkey’s publicly voiced vehement opposition to the two countries’ bids to join NATO. They formally submitted their applications in a ceremony attended by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg last week, which Turkey immediately sought to block. Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said the delegations will begin meetings with Turkish counterparts on Wednesday, even after days ago President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Finnish and Swedish diplomatic teams “shouldn’t bother coming” if they aren’t prepared to halt support for PKK terrorists.

Speaking during a panel discussion of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Haavisto acknowledged, “We understand that Turkey has some of their own security concerns vis-a-vis terrorism.” He added: “We think that these issues can be settled. There might be also some issues that are not linked directly to Finland and Sweden but more to other NATO members.” US Secretary Antony Blinken and the Biden administration say they’re “confident” the issues will be smoothed over, despite Ankara officials still showing no sign of stopping the denunciations. Turkey has also demanded that Sweden extradite “terrorists” being hosted in its midst, along with the Nordic countries immediately lifting an EU arms embargo which took effect in 2019 in response to the Turkish military’s anti-Kurdish operations in northern Syria.

According to the latest statements from Turkey’s foreign ministry, Ankara is waiting on both countries to take concrete steps. “Sweden, which has applied for membership, is expected to take principled steps and provide concrete assurances regarding Turkey’s security concerns,” a statement said. “Since 2017, our country has requested the extradition of PKK/PYD and FETO terrorists from Sweden but has yet to receive a positive response,” it added in reference referring to Syria’s main Kurdish party PYD and the Gulenist group FETO.

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“Testimony has shown that the FBI opened its probe of Trump because Hillary’s lawyer warned the Bureau that the media was about to report on it.”

Yeah, because “Hillary’s lawyer” fed them the story. That’s how it becomes a story. And then a probe.

Comey’s FBI Lied To Its Own Agents In Russia Hoax Cover-Up (Jarrett)

As if the FBI’s gross misconduct couldn’t get any worse, we learned Monday in court that top bureau officials actively concealed from their own field agents that it was Hillary’s lawyer, defendant Michael Sussmann, who was peddling phony Trump-Russia collusion claims to the FBI. Instead of telling their agents the truth of the information source, FBI brass lied by wrongly attributed it as coming from the “Department of Justice,” thus giving it the imprimatur of greater credibility than it deserved. As Monday’s testimony showed, had agents been told that Hillary’s campaign lawyer was behind it they would have recognized it for what it was –a politically motivated smear and immediately discounted it as a lie.

Monday’s testimony also revealed that the FBI eventually concluded as early as January of 2017 –just as the new president was about to take office– that the so-called “Alfa-Bank secret back-channel communication” between Trump and the Kremlin was a hoax. Yet, Comey hid that critical information from Trump, congress, and the American people. As a consequence, the media kept up its false reporting in the same way it continued to flog the fabricated “dossier.” Comey and others at the FBI like Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok knew that “dossier” funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign was a collection of exaggerations and made-up stories that originated from her own people. Comey could have told the truth and refuted all of the false media stories, but he didn’t. He and his acolytes exploited it as a pretense to escalate their investigation of Trump to drive him from office.

It’s not surprising that CBS, NBC, ABC, and MSNBC have refused to report any of the stunning revelations in the Sussmann trial. They are shameless cowards. They spent the better part of three years obsessed with the collusion story with their non-stop coverage portraying Trump as a Russian asset. They were reckless and wrong. But now, they don’t want to draw attention to just how wrong they were by reporting on the trial. The Washington Post is worse. On Monday, the newspaper published a “news analysis” with the title, “Again: There’s no evidence Hillary Clinton triggered the Russia probe.” Like much of the Post’s reporting, it is completely untrue. Declassified CIA documents show that Hillary invented the hoax by approving a plan on July 26, 2016 to frame Trump. She also gave her personal approval to leak it to the media, according to her own campaign manager’s testimony in court on Friday. Testimony has shown that the FBI opened its probe of Trump because Hillary’s lawyer warned the Bureau that the media was about to report on it.

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“..not opening an investigation was not an option..”

‘Fired Up’ FBI Leadership Pushed Trump Probe Despite Flimsy Evidence (JTN)

In explosive testimony Tuesday in the Michael Sussmann trial, an FBI agent said “fired up” senior FBI leadership insisted on continuing the investigation into now-debunked allegations of a secret Trump back channel to Moscow via a Russian bank despite learning the story was unsubstantiated. FBI agent Curtis Heide was the co-case agent on the investigation into the allegation that there was a secret communications channel between the Trump Organization and Kremlin-linked Alfa Bank. He testified on Tuesday in the Sussmann trial that the bureau’s top brass pushed for the investigation.

Heide was told in an instant message from FBI Agent Joe Pientka, who was the supervisor leading the Crossfire Hurricane investigation regarding Trump-Russia collusion allegations, that senior leadership was “fired up” about the Alfa Bank and Trump Organization email servers and not opening an investigation was not an option. He received this message two days after Sussmann met with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker to give him the underlying, allegedly pretextual data. Sussmann, a 2016 Clinton campaign lawyer, is on trial for allegedly lying to the FBI in his September 2016 meeting with Baker by saying he was not representing any clients in sharing information purportedly substantiating a Trump Organization back channel to the Kremlin through Alfa Bank.

Special Counsel John Durham has provided evidence that Sussmann was representing clients at the meeting — both the Clinton campaign and then-Neustar tech firm executive Rodney Joffe. Heide testified that he concluded the allegation was unsubstantiated based on the analysis by the FBI cyber division, review of the internet data logs, cybersecurity company Mandiant’s independent assessment corroborating the FBI’s findings, discussions with Spectrum Health about a TOR (The Onion Router) exit node, and his own training regarding previous Russian cyber investigations. By Sept. 26, 2016, Heide believed the allegation was a bunk report. In an Oct. 3 email, he asked to interview the anonymous source who relayed the allegation because he believed the investigation was reaching a logical endpoint as the claims appeared unfounded.

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“The 5G telecommunications network is designed to use geolocation and behavioral tracking that will connect your digital identity to your individual behavior and facilitate the carbon footprint tracing process..”

Individual Carbon Footprint Tracker (CTH)

It is important to remember the ultimate goal of the ‘climate change’ promotors (World Economic Forum) is not an energy system that changes the global climate. The goal of the ‘climate change’ group is to create a carbon trading system; a new financial mechanism (a global tax program) to control human activity on a world-wide basis. This system also needs a digital identity in order to work {hint-hint}. You cannot tax, or trade, things you cannot track. As a result, there was always going to be a need for an individual tracking and monitoring system that would connect to the global digital identity and determine the carbon footprint. The carbon taxing and trading system will be more financially lucrative than any stock exchange or monetary banking system. It is the ultimate human control mechanism, and the preferred way to redistribute wealth under the guise of global equity.


Of course, the system will beta test as a consumer demand product until the government steps in to take over the allocation and distribution equity part. In this video segment, Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans boasts at the 2022 World Economic Forum about the development of an “individual carbon footprint tracker” to monitor what you buy, what you eat, and where/how you travel.

The individual carbon tracker is the baseline for a global carbon trading system that involves everyone; at least, everyone connected to the outlook of western government. Carbon allocation creates the financial metric that replaces currency. You buy and sell carbon credits allowing you to engage in specific functions within society, like dining, traveling, home ownership and type, vehicle or transportation type, even the clothes you can purchase. Hence, “carbon trading” is the term most people are familiar with. In essence, you are a parasite to earth; therefore, you must offset your derogatory footprint on the planet by paying a fee to exist. If you cannot pay for the carbon credits needed to engage in the transaction (travel, home ownership, cooling, heating, etc.) you cannot engage in the regulated activity.


The carbon exchange process is at the end of the slippery slope created by a digital identity. The 5G telecommunications network is designed to use geolocation and behavioral tracking that will connect your digital identity to your individual behavior and facilitate the carbon footprint tracing process. We are already passed the “if” stage.

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“..a shape-shifting nonprofit group that uses aliases to push an array of left-wing causes from a shell office in Washington, D.C.”

Bill Gates Poured Millions into Dark Money Fund Attacking Elon Musk (BB)

Research exclusively shared with Breitbart News identifies hundreds of millions of dollars flowing from Bill Gates’ foundation to 11 of the 26 organizations that signed an open letter last month urging Twitter advertisers to boycott the company if Elon Musk restores free speech on the platform. Breitbart News’ report, based on research and analysis from the newly-formed Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO), analyzed public filings to trace hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions from the letter signatories back to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In total, 11 of the 26 anti-Musk organizations received funding from a Gates-backed entity.

[..] The open letter’s connection to the billionaire Microsoft founder is significant, as Gates is in the middle of a public feud with free speech advocate Musk. Last month, Gates revealed his $500 million short position against Musk-owned Tesla, prompting Musk to call Gates a “b*ner” killer alongside a meme of Gates as a pregnant man emoji. Gates is also an outspoken censorship proponent, frequently calling on tech companies to do more to stop “health misinformation” spreading online. Musk threatens to reverse Gates’ strongly desired censorship policies — and now faces the wrath of Gates-funded NGOs. Recently, Musk asked his 94 million Twitter followers to uncover the funding behind the 26 NGOs who signed an intimidation letter threatening to destroy the company’s advertising revenue if Musk reversed its censorship policies.

Musk followed up his request by highlighting one particular shadowy group, Accountable Tech, musing: “I wonder who funds them”. His curiosity was prompted by a Washington Free Beacon investigation into Accountable Tech, which sought to get to the bottom of the nonprofit’s financial sponsorship. The Free Beacon visited Accountable Tech’s corporate office in Washington and concluded the organization doesn’t “actually exist.” Rather, “Accountable Tech” was merely a “registered trade [name] for the North Fund, a shape-shifting nonprofit group that uses aliases to push an array of left-wing causes from a shell office in Washington, D.C.”

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A crisis created for the good of mankind.

One Billion People At Risk Of Power Blackouts As Global Grids Stretched

This summer, power grids worldwide won’t produce enough electricity to meet the soaring demand, threatening more than one billion people with rolling blackouts. Grids are stretched thin by fossil fuel shortages, drought and heatwaves, commodity disruptions and soaring prices due to the war in Ukraine, and the failed green energy transition where grid operators retired too many fossil fuel generation plants. Combine this all together, and a perfect storm of blackouts threatens much of the Northern Hemisphere. The power crisis, affecting a large swath of the world and top economies, could be less than a month away when summer begins on June 21. Regions that concerned Bloomberg are Asia, Europe, and the US, where there’s not enough power to go around when cooling demand is set to surge as households crank up their air conditions to escape the sweltering heat.

“Asia’s heatwave has caused hours-long daily blackouts, putting more than 1 billion people at risk across Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India, with little relief in sight. Six Texas power plants failed earlier this month as the summer heat just began to arrive, offering a preview of what’s to come. At least a dozen US states from California to the Great Lakes are at risk of electricity outages this summer. Power supplies will be tight in China and Japan. South Africa is poised for a record year of power cuts. And Europe is in a precarious position that’s held up by Russia — if Moscow cuts off natural gas to the region, that could trigger rolling outages in some countries.” –Bloomberg

BloombergNEF analyst Shantanu Jaiswal says the combination of “war and sanctions” disrupting commodity markets, “extreme weather,” and “an economic rebound from COVID boosting power demand” is a “unique” situation that he “can’t recall” the last time a “confluence of so many factors” happened together. As we noted in the beginning, it’s a perfect storm of factors.

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Ha ha ha!

Biden Underwater On Almost All Issues Except Handling Of Covid (Hill)

President Biden’s approval rating continues to be underwater on virtually every issue, with the exception being on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey from Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll. Biden’s overall approval rating sits at 41 percent in the survey, and the numbers are not much better when broken down by each issue. Only 35 percent of registered voters approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, 44 percent approve of his efforts to stimulate job growth and just 33 percent approve of his handling of inflation. Thirty-eight percent of respondents say they support his handling of immigration, and his approval rating on foreign affairs sits at 40 percent.


However, 52 percent of registered voters said they approve of his handling of COVID-19, the lone bright spot in the survey for the White House. Yet overall, his sagging approval ratings portend a political atmosphere this midterm cycle that will heavily favor Republicans — and warn that a 2024 reelection bid could be a slog. “Biden continues to struggle with the job and is particularly being slammed by the voters over inflation and immigration. No president has been reelected with numbers like these on job performance,” said pollster Mark Penn.

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Monsanto has real power.

Bayer Deploys Big Ag Buddies to Push Biden on Roundup Cancer Lawsuit (CHD)

Two weeks after a top Justice Department official advised the U.S. Supreme Court there was “no sound reason” for the high court to review a loss by Monsanto owner Bayer AG in nationwide Roundup cancer litigation, a coalition of large agricultural groups is demanding that President Joe Biden withdraw the opinion. Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018, has looked to the high court as its last, and best, hope for putting an end to the ongoing litigation. Bayer has asked the justices to take up the case, which centers on allegations that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

But Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar advised the court in a May 10 brief that Bayer’s arguments for seeking Supreme Court review were “misconceived,” and said there was no valid dispute for the high court to consider. The agricultural groups responded Monday with a blistering letter to Biden, alleging Prelogar’s brief established a “new policy” that “poses great risks to our science-based regulatory system and global food systems.” The letter urges Biden to withdraw Prelogar’s brief and “consult with the U.S. Department of Agriculture regarding the implications of this decision for food production, environmental sustainability, and science-based regulation.”

[..] Bayer filed its petition to the high court in August, asking the justices to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s May 14, 2021, decision that affirmed a district court’s judgment in Monsanto’s 2019 trial loss to plaintiff Edwin Hardeman. The jury, in that case, agreed with Hardeman’s attorneys that exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide was a cause of Hardeman’s NHL and that Monsanto failed to warn of its product’s health risks, despite decades of science showing links between the herbicide and cancer. Hardeman was awarded approximately $80 million by the jury, though the award was cut by the trial court judge to roughly $25.2 million.

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May 142021
 


Pablo Picasso Woman Sitting Near a Window (Marie-Therese) 1932 (sold yesterday for $103.4 million)

 

Predictions On Outcome Of Mass Vaccination During A Pandemic (VanDenBossche)
Don’t Mention Ivermectin; It’ll Upset The Vaccine Rollout (BizN)
CDC Says Vaccinated People Can Largely Stop Wearing Masks (F.)
8 Vaccinated Yanks Coaches, Staff Have Virus (AP)
More Than A Quarter Of EU Adults Reluctant To Get Covid Vaccine (RT)
Scientists Slam WHO For Dismissing Wuhan Lab Leak Theory (DM)
New Study Finds Delaying The Second Dose Of Vaccine Can Save Lives (Hill)
An Insider’s View Of The Tragedy Of The US Deep State (Escobar)
Debt Collectors: We Should Be Able to Break Your Legs (Sirota)
Why Has Netanyahu Allowed For A Palestinian Uprising? (RT)

 

 

There’s no such rule. If only because if there were, it would be illegal.

 

 

VanDenBossche will not be silenced.

Predictions On Outcome Of Mass Vaccination During A Pandemic (VanDenBossche)

Current single (S) and full (F) vaccination rates are shown next to the country name. In all cases, full vaccine resistance is expected to occur within the next few months, or even weeks. A number of smaller islands (e.g., Seychelles, Maldives, Bahrain) have managed high vaccine coverage rates within a relatively short period of time. Some of them had relaxed their infection prevention measures as their vaccine coverage rates were growing (e.g., Seychelles). This already explains why these islands have now begun to face a substantial wave of morbidity and mortality (more infectious variants), even in subjects who’ve been fully vaccinated (see fig. 3a, 3b).

Overall conclusion: Covid-19 vaccination campaigns that are rolled out in the heat of a pandemic will inevitably breed variants that are more infectious and ultimately become resistant to vaccines. The smaller the population and the faster mass vaccination campaigns are rolled out, the faster infection, morbidity and mortality rates will rise. Based on how the pandemic is currently evolving in a number of smaller countries/ islands (e.g., Seychelles, Maldives, Bahrain), it is reasonable to assume that over the next coming months, or weeks, several other countries are going to show a dramatic increase in these rates as well.

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“Only 19 deaths are known and side-affects are generally mild and short. As a comparison, approximately 450 US citizens die from paracetamol every year.”

Don’t Mention Ivermectin; It’ll Upset The Vaccine Rollout (BizN)

What if there was a cheap drug, so old its patent had expired, so safe that it’s on the WHO’s lists of Essential and Children’s Medicines, and used in mass drug administration rollouts? What if it can be taken at home with the first signs COVID symptoms, given to those in close contact, and significantly reduce COVID disease progression and cases, and far fewer few people would need hospitalisation? The international vaccine rollout under Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) would legally have to be halted. For an EUA to be legal, “there must be no adequate, approved and available alternative to the candidate product for diagnosing, preventing or treating the disease or condition.” The vaccines would only become legal once they passed level 4 trials and that certainly won’t happen in 2021.

This would present a major headache for the big public health agencies led by the WHO. The vaccine rollout, outside of trials, would become illegal. The vaccine manufactures, having spent hundreds of million dollars developing and testing vaccines during a pandemic, would not see the $100bn they were expecting in 2021. In a pandemic, and for the next one, we need big pharma to react quickly, and the best way to that, is to reward them financially. Allowing any existing drug, at this time, well into stage 3 trials, to challenge the legality of the EUA of vaccines, is not going to happen easily. On the 31st of March 2021, the WHO recommended against the use of Ivermectin for COVID treatment, citing safety and lack of large RCT proof.

[..] In January this year, the several months long, Ivermectin research, meta-analysis of Randomised Control Trials (RCT), commissioned by WHO was released. The paper showed that Ivermectin reduces death by 74% and is 85% effective as prophylaxis. [..] Ivermectin has been used in humans for 35 years and over 4 billion doses have been administered. Merck, the original patent holder, donated 3.7 billion doses to developing countries. 2015 the two individuals who developed Ivermectin were awarded a Nobel Prize for medicine. While known primarily as an anti-parasitic, Ivermectin has powerful anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. Its safety is documented at doses twenty times the normal. Only 19 deaths are known and side-affects are generally mild and short. As a comparison, approximately 450 US citizens die from paracetamol every year.

Merck’s patent on Ivermectin expired in 1996 and they produce less than 5% of global supply. In 2020 they were asked to assist in Nigerian and Japanese trials but declined both. In 2021 Merck released a statement claiming that Ivermectin was not an effective treatment against Covid-19 and bizarrely claimed, “A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies” of the a drug they donated to be distributed in mass rollouts, by primary care workers, in mass campaigns, to millions in developing countries. The media reported the Merck statement as a blinding truth without looking at the conflict of interests when days later, Merck received $356m from the US government to develop an investigational therapeutic. The WHO even quoted Merck, as evidence, that it didn’t work, in their recommendation against the use of Ivermectin. It’s a dangerous world when corporate marketing determines public health policy. Global vaccine rollout, to everyone, is the policy.

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Having a robust immune system will save you from the virus, but not from the new religion.

CDC Says Vaccinated People Can Largely Stop Wearing Masks (F.)

Fully vaccinated Americans no longer need to wear masks indoors or socially distance in most cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday, a major loosening of Covid-19 advice as more Americans get vaccinated. The CDC’s new guidelines say it’s safe for vaccinated people to go maskless in most indoor and outdoor settings, and they can participate in large activities without physical distancing, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing. Americans should still wear masks in healthcare facilities and other sensitive locations, and immunocompromised people should seek medical advice, Walensky said. Walensky cited a range of studies showing the vaccines are highly effective at stopping the spread of coronavirus and staving off serious illness, including most new variants.

Mask mandates are normally the domain of state and city governments, but the CDC releases advice for public officials and individuals, and the federal government mandates masks inside federal buildings and on interstate modes of transit. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” Walensky said. “We have all longed for this moment.” 35.4%. That’s the share of Americans who are fully vaccinated, meaning they’ve received two doses of Pfizer or Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine or one dose of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine. Some 46.4% have received at least one vaccine shot.

The CDC has gradually lifted its coronavirus guidelines in recent weeks. The agency now says it’s safe for fully vaccinated people to gather in small groups without masks, go maskless outdoors unless they’re in crowded areas, or travel domestically. But some health experts have urged the CDC to move faster, arguing vaccinated people face very little risk of contracting Covid-19 and looser rules would encourage hesitant people to take the vaccine. Many states have already loosened or dropped their mask mandates. Texas and Mississippi struck down virtually all of their coronavirus restrictions in March, some states like Massachusetts and New York have lifted outdoor mask-wearing rules but left indoor restrictions in place, and stricter places like California have promised to drop masking rules in the coming months.

Dr. Anthony Fauci — the federal government’s top infectious disease expert — has started encouraging vaccinated Americans to get used to going maskless outdoors, amid criticism President Joe Biden’s administration has been overly cautious in loosening coronavirus guidelines. “Put aside your mask. You don’t have to wear it,” Fauci told CBS News Thursday.

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Calling VanDenBossche. “All are fully vaccinated.”

8 Vaccinated Yanks Coaches, Staff Have Virus (AP)

New York Yankees shortstop Gleyber Torres was kept out of Wednesday night’s starting lineup at Tampa Bay as a precaution as the number of confirmed positive COVID-19 tests among the team’s coaching and support staff reached seven. Manager Aaron Boone said MLB’s Joint COVID-19 Health and Safety Committee is waiting and reviewing a number of test results. The members of New York’s traveling party have been tested at least three times each since Tuesday. “I know everybody is going to read into that but hopefully it’s nothing, it’s more just getting all the information,” Boone said of Torres. Boone said the Yankees expect to receive an update about Torres on Wednesday night. He added that Torres tested positive for COVID-19 in December and has been vaccinated.


It was also confirmed by Boone that pitching coach Matt Blake has joined third base Phil Nevin and first base coach Reggie Willits as members of the coaching staff testing positive for the virus. A couple additional staff members had positive tests confirmed on Wednesday, bringing the total there to four. Six of the seven are asymptomatic. All are fully vaccinated. “We’re seeing the vaccinations also kind of blunt the effects of the virus,” Boone said. “We’re also learning as we go and getting informed as what we need to do exactly and just try to do as best we can to be able to make quick adjustments on the fly. Just doing the best we can with it all.” The Yankees on April 30 were able to relax MLB protocols after reaching an 85 percent vaccination rate among players and staff such as managers, coaches and athletic trainers.

Read more …

They’ll be shamed and restricted.

More Than A Quarter Of EU Adults Reluctant To Get Covid Vaccine (RT)

Vaccine hesitancy rates in the EU are raising alarms, after a survey found that 27% of adults across the bloc said they’d be unlikely to accept a Covid-19 jab, amid a “failure” to persuade people of its efficacy and safety. A Eurofound survey investigating vaccine take-up across EU member states flagged concerns about the success of messaging from health officials on Covid jabs, warning that the failure to fully convince the adult population to be inoculated could put the fight against the pandemic at risk. Some 27% of those surveyed across Europe, including half of French respondents and 67% of those in Bulgaria, said they would be very unlikely or rather unlikely to get a Covid vaccine.


There were big variations between states though, with people surveyed in Eastern European nations more likely to be more cautious about taking the jab. Hesitancy figures were above 30% in several states, including Croatia, Latvia, Poland and Slovenia. “Unfortunately, these findings reflect a failure to deliver persuasive and clear communication regarding the efficacy and safety of vaccines,” Daphne Ahrendt, senior research manager at Eurofound, said. Looking at the possible root causes of vaccine hesitancy, researchers found a link between people who said they were less likely to get a Covid jab and social media as a main source of information. Among those surveyed who said they primarily relied on social media

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‘The information, data, and samples for the study’s first phase were collected and summarized by the Chinese half of the team; the rest of the team built on this analysis..’

Scientists Slam WHO For Dismissing Wuhan Lab Leak Theory (DM)

Researchers at a number of top universities have penned a letter saying theories that COVID-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab ‘remain viable’ and called for further studies to investigate the origins of the virus. Stanford University microbiologist David Relman and the University of Washington virologist Jesse Bloom organized the letter published in the journal Science and signed by 18 prominent biologists from universities like Harvard and Cambridge. Claims that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology have been laughed off as conspiracy theories – but the researchers suggest in the letter that the ‘hypotheses’ cannot be ruled out until there is more evidence. Relman told The Times of London that ‘many who signed this letter feel the same way’ that researchers ‘simply just don’t have enough information.’

‘Anyone who asserts a strong opinion one way or another can’t really be basing it on a whole lot of good data,’ he said. He added: ‘Let’s try to refrain from offering speculation where we really don’t have a basis for it, especially when we’re trying to maintain our credibility has purveyors of good science.’ The letter reads that ‘yet more investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic.’ ‘Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks,’ the letter reads. The letter blasts the World Health Organization and China for their recent joint study investigating the origins of COVID-19, saying that the theory it came from the lab was ‘not given balanced consideration’ to the theory it came from natural spillover.

The report concluded that it was ‘likely to very likely’ that a bat had infected an intermediate host but said it was ‘extremely unlikely’ it was the result of a laboratory accident. ‘The information, data, and samples for the study’s first phase were collected and summarized by the Chinese half of the team; the rest of the team built on this analysis,’ the letter reads, suggesting China had a conflict of interest. The letter noted that ‘only 4 of the 313 pages of the report and its annexes addressed the possibility of a laboratory accident.’ ‘A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest,’ the letter reads.

Read more …

Now they’re just f*king with you.

“Results displayed up to 20 percent less mortality, namely for hypothetical countries ..”

New Study Finds Delaying The Second Dose Of Vaccine Can Save Lives (Hill)

Delaying the second dosage of the COVID-19 vaccine could result in a lower COVID-19 mortality rate, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal. In the United States, the vaccination rate has been consistently increasing under President Biden’s ambitious inoculation goals. But other countries are experiencing more delay in vaccinating their residents. Public health experts have advised that Pfizer vaccines be given three weeks apart and Moderna vaccines be given four weeks apart for optimal efficacy. Now, new research suggests that waiting on the second dose may pose some public health benefits. A team of international scientists and researchers constructed a simulation examining the health outcomes associated with the standard interval between COVID-19 vaccinations versus those associated with a delayed second shot.

They found that the cumulative mortality rate tended to be lower in the simulation where participants delayed their second shot beyond the recommended 21 to 28 days after the first shot. Results displayed up to 20 percent less mortality, namely for hypothetical countries that have a lower vaccination rate at 0.1 or 0.3 percent. The report authors made a point to exclude people aged 65 years and older who tend to be more vulnerable to severe COVID-19 infections. “A delayed second dose vaccination strategy, at least for people aged under 65, could result in reduced cumulative mortality under certain conditions,” the authors concluded. Notably, researchers found that the declining mortality rate was primarily associated with situations with a low vaccination rate and when the vaccine used in the simulation is above 70 percent effective at preventing infections.

“These results suggest that higher first dose efficacy estimates favor delaying the second dose and that for a first dose efficacy of 70% or below, no meaningful difference is apparent between the standard and delayed second dose strategy,” the report reads. This could have beneficial implications for countries struggling to secure enough vaccine doses to vaccinate their population and that, in certain situations, delaying a second dose could help lower deaths due to COVID-19.

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“The first point that we make is that it was not Kissinger who created policy for Nixon, but the Deep State. Kissinger was just a messenger boy. ”

An Insider’s View Of The Tragedy Of The US Deep State (Escobar)

Henry Kissinger, 97, Henry the K. for those he keeps close, is either a Delphic oracle-style strategic thinker or a certified war criminal for those kept not so close… He now seems to have been taking time off his usual Divide and Rule stock in trade – advising the combo behind POTUS, a.k.a. Crash Test Dummy – to emit some realpolitik pearls of wisdom. At a recent forum in Arizona, referring to the festering, larger than life Sino-American clash, Henry the K. said, “It’s the biggest problem for America; it’s the biggest problem for the world. Because if we can’t solve that, then the risk is that all over the world a kind of cold war will develop between China and the United States.” In realpolitik terms, this “kind of Cold War” is already on; across the Beltway, China is unanimously regarded as the premier U.S. national security threat.

Kissinger added U.S. policy toward China must be a mix of stressing U.S. “principles” to demand China’s respect and dialogue to find areas of cooperation: “I’m not saying that diplomacy will always lead to beneficial results…This is the complex task we have… Nobody has succeeded in doing it completely.” Henry the K. actually must have lost the – diplomatic – plot. What Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are now involved in, full time, is to demonstrate – mostly to the Global South – how the American-enforced “rules-based international order” has absolutely nothing to do with international law and the respect of national sovereignty. At first I had archived these Henry the K. platitudes out of sight. But then someone who used to hold a stellar position at the top of the U.S. Deep State showed he had been paying close attention.

This personality – let’s call him Mr. S. – has been one of my invaluable, trustworthy sources since the early 2000s. Mutual confidence was always key. I asked him if I could publish selected passages of his analysis, not naming names. Consent was given – ruefully. So fasten your seat belts. Mr. S., in a quite intriguing fashion, seems to be expressing the collective views of a number of extremely qualified people. Right from the start, he points out how Henry the K.’s observations explain today’s Russia-China-Iran triangle. “The first point that we make is that it was not Kissinger who created policy for Nixon, but the Deep State. Kissinger was just a messenger boy. In the 1972 situation the Deep State wanted to get out of Vietnam, which policy was put in place as containment of communist China and Russia. We were there based on the domino theory.”

“The Deep State wanted to achieve a number of objectives in approaching Chairman Mao, who was antagonized by Russia. It wanted to ally in 1972 with China against Russia. That made Vietnam meaningless, for China would become the containing party of Russia and Vietnam no longer meant anything. We wanted to balance China against Russia. Now, China was not a major power in 1972 but it could drain Russia, forcing it to place 400,000 troops on their border. And our Deep State policy worked. We in the Deep State had thought it through, and not Kissinger. 400,000 troops on the Chinese border was a drain on their budget, as later Afghanistan became with over 100,000 troops, and the Warsaw Pact had another 600,000 troops.”

Read more …

Lobby.

Debt Collectors: We Should Be Able to Break Your Legs (Sirota)

Two months ago, debt collectors won a victory when congressional lawmakers allowed stimulus checks to be garnished by creditors and government agencies. Now, as the credit industry hits a jackpot during the pandemic, the leading lobby group for debt collectors has more than tripled the amount of cash it funnels to lawmakers as it campaigns to block upcoming Democratic legislation to protect millions of Americans from the repo man. At issue is a package of bills designed to restrict the $13 billion debt collection industry, as new Federal Reserve and Census Bureau reports show consumer and medical debt has skyrocketed during the pandemic. One measure would prohibit the collection of medical debt for the first two years after a medical payment is due.

Another would discharge student debt in the event of a debtor’s death. Other provisions aim to block lenders from forcing debtors to sign away their legal rights; outlaw threats of demotion that debt collectors reportedly aim at members of the military; and subject government-contracted debt collectors to the same restrictions as consumer debt collectors. “In the midst of the pandemic crisis, predatory debt collectors have made record profits while continuing with their abusive, harassing tactics while consumers struggle to make ends meet through no fault of their own,” said Democratic representative Maxine Waters, who led the successful effort to pass the bill through the House Financial Services Committee last month over the objections of GOP lawmakers.

As the legislation now moves to the House floor Thursday, ACA International — which bills itself as “the largest trade group for the debt collection industry” — has been running what it calls a “grassroots campaign” urging its 2,500 members to pressure lawmakers to vote down the legislation. “The accounts receivable management industry plays a key role in the process of attempting to recover outstanding payments, and as such, collection agencies are an extension of every community’s businesses,” says a form letter that ACA has asked debt collectors to send to lawmakers. “If creditors cannot collect, they will be forced to not lend, and consumers — who much of this legislation is supposedly aimed at protecting — will end up being harmed the most, particularly those with fewer options for credit.”

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Trying to stay out of jail.

Why Has Netanyahu Allowed For A Palestinian Uprising? (RT)

Lehava, the extremist settler group that organised the racist demonstration weeks ago, is headed by a man named Bentzi Gopstein. Although the group would previously have been allowed no legitimacy by the Israeli government, Gopstein’s lawyer, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is a member of the Knesset and a close ally of Israeli PM Netanyahu. Ben-Gvir heads the Jewish Power party (Otzma Yehudit), which falls under the Religious Zionism slate led by Bezalel Smotrich. It’s no surprise, then, that Lehava feels they have been accorded a sense of legitimacy, when they witness Israeli members of the Knesset and allies of the prime minister standing beside them in Jerusalem. Israel just had its fourth round of elections since 2019, in which Netanyahu’s Likud won the most seats of any party.

But Likud’s, combined with the seats of their natural allies, still fell short of the 61-seat threshold required to form a government. The Religious Zionism slate forms part of Netanyahu’s backbone when it comes to his political survival, so any decision by the Israeli premier to abandon them could hurt him politically. After Netanyahu failed to form a coalition government, the responsibility to do so was handed over to the opposition figure Yair Lapid, who was invited to form a coalition of anti-Netanyahu parties. At this point, Netanyahu is fighting not only to stay in government, but also to avoid potentially going to prison on charges of corruption. Conversely, if Yesh Atid party leader Lapid cannot form a coalition government either, Israel will then head to a fifth round of elections, which would keep Netanyahu in power and give him more time to prepare for a potential future victory at the polls.

Following the Israeli settler “death to Arabs” march, the leader of the Palestinian political party Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, warned that the next march, planned for Israel’s Jerusalem Day would not be tolerated and there would be a response. In fact, a barrage of about 30 rockets was fired the night following the original march, and claimed by the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in response to attacks on hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem. The issue of Israeli courts processing the orders for evicting Palestinians from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, which threatens to render 550 people homeless, has also been another point of contention.

Instead of stepping in to de-escalate tensions, in accordance with calls from Israel’s close ally, the United States, Netanyahu has allowed his allies from the Religious Zionism slate to provoke Palestinians further. When last Friday’s attack on worshippers at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound occurred, the ‘Joint Operations Room’ of Palestinian armed factions, based in Gaza, vowed a response to Israel if it did not stop the settler march planned for Monday. Yet Netanyahu still stood idly by and refused to act, ignoring the threats, and, on Monday, allowed for another escalation, which led to the injuring of hundreds in Jerusalem.

Richard Medhurst
https://twitter.com/i/status/1392873946232639488

Read more …

 

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As Elon Musk dishes bitcoin and promotes dogecoin, here’s what the latter’s founder thinks of him:

 

 

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Nov 142020
 
 November 14, 2020  Posted by at 9:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  8 Responses »


Eugène Delacroix Les femmes d’Alger 1834

 

“Never Bet Against Me” (York)
McEnany, Navarro Say Trump Expects To Serve Second Term (ZH)
New Federal Lawsuit Seeks To Toss 800,000 Ballots In Wisconsin (WE)
Trump’s Anti-ISIS Envoy Misled President About US Troop Numbers In Syria (RT)
Joe Biden’s Agenda Is Meant For America’s Unhappy Rich Ladies (Fox)
Biden, Media, CIA: Hunter Biden Emails “Russian Disinformation” (Greenwald)
The Worm in the Machine (Jim Kunstler)
The Winner Of The Most Coveted Henry Kissinger Endorsement Is… Joe Biden (RT)
A Breakdown Of This Strange Moment In US History (SCF)
Justice Alito Speaks Against Pandemic Restrictions, Other Controversies (Turley)
Fauci’s New COVID19 Guidance: ‘Do What You’re Told’ (NYP)
Elon Musk Says He Tested Positive & Negative For COVID19 In Same Day (RT)
Coronavirus Mutation May Be Achilles Heel For Vaccines To Target (RT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump is going to need something earth-shattering to turn the election around. Sidney Powell promises exactly that – “I’m going to release the Kraken” -, but let’s see it. The legal team says they have people from inside Dominion on record. Bring them on.

“Never Bet Against Me” (York)

It was definitely an optimistic scenario and one at odds with the current state of the race. Wisconsin has already been called for Joe Biden, who has a lead of 20,546 votes. Arizona has just been called for Biden, with a lead of 11,390 votes. Georgia has not been called yet and is headed for a recount, the hand recount that Trump wanted, with Biden leading by 14,057 votes. North Carolina, on the other hand, looks good for Trump. Although it has not yet been called, the president leads Biden by 73,244 votes.

Then, there are Michigan and Pennsylvania. Both have been called for Biden, who has a 148,382-vote lead over Trump in Michigan and a 54,273-vote lead over Trump in Pennsylvania. There is no way that many votes for Trump could appear, so the president’s hope is for the protests to work — so far, they haven’t — and also, in Pennsylvania, for a judicial victory over the state Supreme Court’s unilateral decision to extend the deadline in which mail-in votes could be received. That is a case Trump should definitely win — the state court completely ignored the legislature’s constitutional authority to make such decisions — but that does not mean it will make much difference in the vote totals.

Indeed, the picture looks bleak for the president. As he spoke on Thursday, GOP strategist Karl Rove, Hugh Hewitt, and this newsletter noted that it is impossible, or all but impossible, for him to come back in enough states to win the election. At one point in the conversation, the president seemed to consider and then quickly reject the idea of losing. “I’m a guy who realizes — five days ago, I thought, ‘Maybe,'” he said, pausing for just a second. “But, now I see evidence, and we have hundreds of affidavits,” referring to the testimonials included in his lawsuits.

Democrats and their allies in the press, of course, are demanding that Trump drop his legal challenges. They are nothing more than a “temper tantrum” by the president and Republicans, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday. On the other hand, many in the GOP would prefer to let the process run its course. But one voice on the Left is also arguing that the litigation should go ahead. “Americans should not worry about these suits,” wrote Jed Shugerman, a professor at Fordham Law School, in a Washington Post op-ed. “Indeed, we should welcome them.” Shugerman said he does not believe the various Trump suits have any merit and indeed thinks they will all be thrown out of court. That, he said, would highlight their shortcomings.

But then: “It is also a bad idea, as a general matter to object to election law litigation. In two years, or four years — and possibly in two months in Georgia — the shoe may be on the other foot. It would look hypocritical to condemn the very idea of challenging an election result now, only to turn around and do so in different (albeit more legitimate) circumstances.” Whatever the case, Trump is forging ahead. When I asked him how quickly he might turn things around, he said, “I don’t know. It’s probably two weeks, three weeks.” He knows the situation. He has heard many people tell him it’s over and time to concede. But at the very least, it is important for his most devoted supporters to see him fighting to stay in office. And he closed with a good-natured warning for everyone who has told him there is no hope: “Never bet against me.”

Sidney Powell: “I’m going to release the Kraken”

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Million MAGA March in DC this weekend.

McEnany, Navarro Say Trump Expects To Serve Second Term (ZH)

Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has earned even more scorn from her MSM reporter-adversaries over the past couple of days for sharing poll-watcher affidavits calling into question the results in Michigan and other swing states that broke away from the Dems’ “blue wall” back in 2016. Now, after Peter Navarro said earlier that he’s operating on the assumption that there will be a second term for President Trump, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed in comments to the press on Friday morning that President Trump is operating under the assumption that he’s headed for a second term. “We are moving forward here at the White House under the assumption that there will be a second Trump term…we think he won that election,” Navarro said earlier, adding that any “speculation” about what Joe Biden might do is moot at this point.

A few days ago, Secretary of State Pompeo appeared to crack a joke about a second Trump term, which infuriated the media. According to the press, contesting the vote count isn’t the only strategy for staying in the White House currently under consideration. Trump has reportedly floated the idea of Republican legislatures intervening to pick pro-Trump electors in a handful of key states to deliver him the election in the Electoral College. Still, that story, by the NYT’s Maggie Haberman, one of Trump’s most-hated journos, claimed that Trump “knows it’s over” and that “there is no grand strategy at play”. She also claimed that by sticking with the narrative of victory, Trump is trying to galvanize his supporters for “whatever comes next”.

Some have suggested that the GOP is going along with Trump to ensure that the base comes out to vote in a pair of special elections in January where two GOP senators are facing reelection in Georgia, typically a red state that has seen reams of out-of-state money flow in thanks to Stacy Abrams. Meanwhile, as a “next step”, the NYT claims that Trump plans to seriously discuss running again in 2024. We thought he was going to launch his own digital media company to compete with Fox?

Jack Murphy

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Voting without ID.

New Federal Lawsuit Seeks To Toss 800,000 Ballots In Wisconsin (WE)

A federal lawsuit filed by three voters in Wisconsin seeks to have hundreds of thousands of ballots thrown out in three counties, including in the state’s two largest counties, which are Democratic strongholds. The lawsuit filed on Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Green Bay contends that the absentee voting process in Milwaukee County, Dane County (where Wisconsin’s capital of Madison is located), and Menominee County included “illegal votes” and thus must have their presidential election results invalidated. If the long-shot lawsuit succeeds, it would add the state’s 10 Electoral College votes to President Trump’s ledger.

The plaintiffs focus part of their argument on “indefinitely confined voters.” State law allows those self-reporting as indefinitely confined to vote without a photo ID due to confinement to their residence because of age, physical illness, or disability for an indefinite period of time. This year, the number of indefinitely confined voters increased by a striking rate amid the coronavirus pandemic. Last year, some 72,000 voters said they were indefinitely confined. That number reportedly exploded to 243,000 voters this year.

In March, the Dane County clerk drew a flurry of controversy when he said that state’s order met the threshold for voters to list that they were indefinitely confined, thus bypassing the requirement to provide photo ID. Milwaukee County’s clerk offered similar guidance, citing the pandemic. Republicans quickly cried foul, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court later sided with the GOP and said that the “advice was legally incorrect.” Despite the state Supreme Court’s rebuke, a GOP official told the Washington Examiner earlier this week that voters who listed themselves as indefinitely confined and requested an absentee ballot during the primaries automatically received another absentee ballot for the November election without being asked again to provide photo ID.

The Thursday federal lawsuit contends that in addition to Dane and Milwaukee counties, Menominee also encouraged people to request absentee ballots. Menominee is a small, majority-Native American county that is heavily Democratic and cast 1,303 ballots in favor of President-elect Joe Biden to 278 for Trump. The lawsuit also raises issues with absentee ballot witness signatures and the addition of the ballot witness’ addresses on the ballot envelope, another point Republicans have said they are looking into. A Republican source told the Washington Examiner that observers at the polls noticed that “a lot” of the ballot envelopes had been edited by clerks.

The US Military Has Raided And Seized Servers In Germany Tied To The Dominion Election System

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Craziest story of the day?!

Trump’s Anti-ISIS Envoy Misled President About US Troop Numbers In Syria (RT)

When President Donald Trump ordered all but a few hundred US troops withdrawn from Syria, his own diplomats hid the true number of American forces from the president, envoy Jim Jeffrey has revealed in a new interview. “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey, envoy to the global coalition against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) told Defense One on Thursday. Jeffrey added that the actual number of troops in northeastern Syria is “a lot more” than the 200-400 that Trump agreed to leave behind last year. Trump’s withdrawal appeared to make good on his campaign-trail promise to extricate the US from its “forever wars” in the Middle East.

Trump, who referred to Syria in 2018 as “sand and death,” angered a host of Pentagon chiefs and diplomats when he announced the near-total pullout from the country last October. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned in protest when Trump first announced withdrawal plans in 2018, and Jeffrey said on Thursday that the decision was “the most controversial thing in my fifty years in government.” Jeffrey’s predecessor, Brett McGurk, also handed in his notice when Trump revealed the pullout. Taking over from McGurk, Jeffrey and his team routinely misled the president to ensure that “there was never a Syria withdrawal.” Even before he signed up to work for the Trump administration, Jeffrey’s opposition to the president was well known.

Shortly after Trump was named as the Republican candidate in 2016, Jeffrey signed a letter declaring that the businessman and TV host “would be the most reckless president in American history.” The letter’s other signatories included a host of Bush administration security officials, who helped shape the policies that destabilized the Middle East and gave rise to Islamic State. Despite his open and secret opposition to Trump’s policies, Jeffrey told Defense One that the president’s “modest” approach to the Middle East has yielded better results than George Bush’s military interventionism or Barack Obama’s apologetic overtures to Muslim leaders while arming extremist militias in Syria. Trump, by contrast, has managed to put together a political alliance between Israel and a number of Gulf states, while maintaining relations with Iraq and focusing pressure on Iran. Conflict in the region is frozen in a “stalemate,” Jeffrey noted. “Nobody really wants to see President Trump go, among all our allies,” he said. “The truth is President Trump and his policies are quite popular among all of our popular states in the region. Name me one that’s not happy.”

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Tucker.

Joe Biden’s Agenda Is Meant For America’s Unhappy Rich Ladies (Fox)

We’re told that Joe Biden is our president-elect and he will shuffle into the White House in January with something called a “mandate.” If that’s true, what exactly is he going to do with this mandate? That’s an interesting question, but almost no one is asking it. Instead, our news media is busy swarming Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor who hasn’t held public office in decades, because he has questions about some of the voting that took place last week. Therefore, he’s an imminent threat to the republic requiring blanket coverage. But whatever you do, do not cover the guy that you claim is president. The Biden people are fine with this, by the way. They don’t want to deal with the media either, so they’re not. On Tuesday, Ryan Lizza of Politico noticed “[D]iscouraging signs about the Biden team and press access so far.

“[N]o regular transition briefings, no readout of calls with foreign leaders … no open press access to the candidate and his people,” Lizza wrote. “This is a break with tradition.” Of course, it is a break with tradition and it’s worrisome, but you’re not allowed to notice it. Biden supporters immediately screamed at Ryan Lizza to shut up. So what exactly is going on behind this news blackout veiling Joe Biden from public view? Well, pretty much exactly what you expect: They are busy rewarding the forces of repression that made these election results possible. Guess who’s first in line? You guessed it, the tech monopolies. They did their job. They shutdown one side, protected the other.

And now it’s time for the reward. In one of his first acts as president elect, Joe Biden named a man called Ron Klain to be his chief of staff. Now, Klain worked for Biden before and is a close ally. That’s the story that you’ve read about why he got the job. But that’s not why he got the job. Ron Klain is also a lobbyist for Big Tech. Four years ago, he joined the executive council of Silicon Valley’s lobbying arm in Washington. Ron Klain was not chosen for his success as a public servant. We know that because last year, he acknowledged that the Obama administration, where he was a senior official, totally mishandled the swine flu pandemic, the one that came before this one.

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“Schiff, as he usually does when he moves his mouth, was lying..”

Biden, Media, CIA, Schiff: Biden Emails “Russian Disinformation” (Greenwald)

Congressman Adam Schiff, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and, not coincidentally, the single most shameless pathological liar in the U.S. Congress by a good margin, appeared on CNN with Wolf Blitzer on October 16 to discuss The New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s emails. The CNN host asked him a rhetorical question embedded with baseless assumptions: “does it surprise you at all that this information Rudy Giuliani is peddling very well could be connected to some sort of Russian government disinformation campaign?” Schiff stated definitively that it is: “we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” adding: “clearly, the origins of this whole smear are from the Kremlin, and the President is only too happy to have Kremlin help in amplifying it.”

Referencing Trump’s promotion of The New York Post reporting while at his White House desk, Schiff said: “there it is in the Oval Office: another wonderful propaganda coup for Vladimir Putin, seeing the President of the United States holding up a newspaper promoting Kremlin propaganda.” Schiff, as he usually does when he moves his mouth, was lying: exploiting CNN’s notorious willingness to allow Democratic officials to spread disinformation over its airwaves without the slightest challenge. Schiff claimed certainty about something for which there was and still is no evidence: that the Russians played a role in the procurement and publication of the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

As he also usually does when he publicly lies, Schiff was merely echoing the propaganda of current and former operatives of the CIA and other arms of the intelligence community who abuse their power to interfere in U.S. domestic politics: the very factions over which the Intelligence Committee run by Schiff is supposed to exercise oversight supervision, not serve as their parrot. During the same week as Schiff’s CNN appearance, as Politico reported, “more than 50 former senior intelligence officials signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.’”

In that letter from intelligence operatives about The New York Post story — signed by Obama’s former CIA chief John Brennan now of MSNBC (repeatedly caught lying), Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper now of CNN (who got caught lying to the Senate about NSA domestic spying), Bush’s former NSA and CIA chief Micheal Hayden now of CNN (who served during 9/11 and the Iraq War), and dozens of other similar professional disinformation agents — the intelligence operatives announced “our view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue,” adding “that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”

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“The algorithm appears to subtract votes from one candidate and add them to the other candidate. It’s a feature, not a bug. Weird, a little bit.”

The Worm in the Machine (Jim Kunstler)

The avatars of good government, Joe Biden, and his righteous Democrats, seem a little bit spooked by the globe-of-silence enveloping Mr. Trump and his lawyers the past few days. The Dems’ narrative at this point, mid-game, is that… “the election was the most secure in the nation’s history” (The New York Times). Anything else is a “conspiracy theory.” Here’s what the Democrats don’t tell you: theories are subject to proof, and proof brings theories into compliance with reality, including, sometimes, the part about conspiracy. Such as a conspiracy to queer the recent election with vote tabulation software and other wizardries. I guess we’ll find out what can be proven, and that is all the president is attempting to do, like anybody with faith in the scientific method. In Oakland County, Michigan, for instance, comprising the northwest suburbs and exurbs of Detroit, the graph shows a mysterious bending of votes off a trend-line at a pretty clear break-point. Each blue square is a voter precinct.


Chart by Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai

The very same plotline is repeated in several other Michigan counties heavily trending for the president in early voting and then swooning mysteriously for Mr. Biden after a four-hour break in action. How to account for this strange occurrence? The worm in the machine, perhaps: a simple algorithm (i.e., set of coded instructions) embedded in the Dominion vote tabulation software — product of a company, to remind you, partially owned by Senator Feinstein’s husband, Richard C. Blum, and represented by lobbyist Nadeam Elshami, Nancy Pelosi’s former chief of staff. It was Mr. Elshami’s mission to visit state legislators around the country and persuade them to adopt (that is, purchase) the Dominion system. The algorithm appears to subtract votes from one candidate and add them to the other candidate. It’s a feature, not a bug. Weird, a little bit.


So, that’s one thing that remains to be proven. How did the algorithm work? Can it be isolated and described? Did its task leave digital footprints? Not all the software geniuses in the USA work for Silicon Valley. Some may be assisting Mr. Trump’s attorneys in figuring this out and constructing cases for the various courts. Since it takes more than a day-and-a-half to bring lawsuits, that may account for the Democrats’ rush to peremptorily discard such formal inquiries and just declare Mr. Biden the winner. Similar ballot tabulation doings show up in the Georgia vote, where a recount is underway, this time with observers and without four-hour mystery pauses. And then there is Pennsylvania.

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“Kissinger has killed a lot of friends of mine, beginning in Chile in 1973. He killed a lot of children who look like my children, in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. And he is a personal role model of Tony Blair, to whose incarceration for war crimes and crimes against humanity my own life is now dedicated.”

The Winner Of The Most Coveted Henry Kissinger Endorsement Is… Joe Biden (RT)

Nixon’s secretary of state and the arch realist of Washington has given his blessing to the former vice president. Let the bombs fall where they may… No matter what happens in the Supreme Court, Joe Biden will always have Henry KissingeThe oldest-living war criminal – Kissinger, not Biden – has made clear his preference for the oldest living senator (Biden claimed during the campaign he’d been in the Senate for 180 years) and perhaps come January the oldest ever president to take the oath. You may not share my religious beliefs, but I consider the continued sulphurous presence of Henry K proof of Satan’s existence on Earth. To my mind, no man since Hitler has more blood on his hands than Kissinger. But I must declare an interest.

Kissinger has killed a lot of friends of mine, beginning in Chile in 1973. He killed a lot of children who look like my children, in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. And he is a personal role model of Tony Blair, to whose incarceration for war crimes and crimes against humanity my own life is now dedicated. From the killing fields of Indo-China, through the years of living dangerously in Suharto’s Indonesia, to the ruins of La Moneda and corpse of Salvador Allende, and to the ghost city of Quneitra in Syria. There is, in fact, no operating theatre of bloody colonialism since the 1960s in which he hasn’t been so steeped in blood that a commemorative statue wouldn’t have been in order. And he’s backed Biden. The “vulgarity” of Donald J. Trump was just TOO much for Henry K.

To Business Insider, “the most famous Secretary of State the US has had” revealed “I like Joe Biden,” whom he described as “thoughtful and moderate.” Just like himself, in fact. When Biden bombs it will be with regret rather than relish. They will be humanitarian bombs, just like Barack O’Bomber’s were. That there will be rather more of them, and in fresh countries too, is something, dear reader, you will have to prepare yourself for. There will be no “Muslim ban,” just the continuation of Muslim-bombing. Including a resumption of Muslim-bombing in the likes of Syria. But these bombers, at least, will be adorned with Black Lives Matter paraphernalia and maybe the rainbow flag painted on their tail-fins for good measure.

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“These are two radically different messages in direct opposition to each other, and the parties are no longer “two sides of the same coin..“

A Breakdown Of This Strange Moment In US History (SCF)

The Old Russian joke that a revolution could “never happen in America because there are no U.S. Embassies in Washington” has now become obsolete. The media, including even the supposedly conservative Fox News, has completely and totally given the election to Biden despite many irregularities. Not to mention, the fact that as these words are being typed – the election is not officially over. If there is one key element to a Color Revolution that must be in place for success it is control of the media. If every TV channel and news site says candidate X is the winner, then he has won regardless of votes and regardless of how many people still use said dinosaur media. They ultimately cast the big final ballot.

The rampant tampering and falsification witnessed (and often self filmed by the perpetrators) during the election looked like something you would expect to see in a “backwards third world hellhole” type of country. The manipulation was rampant, blatant and primitive. This fact can and should be used by the nations at odds with America (Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Syria, etc.) in perpetuity as proof that the U.S. never had, nor should have, some sort of democracy-based moral authority over anyone else. America’s own Color Revolution delegitimizes any attempts to spread regime change via media elsewhere across the globe. The Dynamic between the Republicans and Democrats has changed forever. The Dynamic between the Republicans and Democrats has changed forever.

Donald Trump has changed the Republican Party, from the party of Businessmen and a defensive Upper Middleclass with a sprinkling of Social Conservatism speaking almost exclusively to a White audience into a populist party that offers a Right Wing emotional vision to the multi-ethnic America that we live in today. The shift in concept of the Republican Party is so severe that Trump’s influence has had the same or maybe even a greater effect that “The Southern Strategy” ever did. Around ten or fifteen years ago it looked like America would evolve into a one-party state due to demographics and the inability of Republicans to appeal to non-Whites. If polls can be trusted, at the very least Trump has doubled the amount of Black Americans who voted for him last time and was able to persuade 1/3 of Latinos to vote for him despite building “The Wall”.

Looking back on the 2016 election it is easy to see these huge gains, in groups that the Democrats took for granted as “theirs”. In contrast to Trump’s vision of a pro-Consitution, somewhat Libertarian populous party the Democrats have doubled down on hardcore Progressive positions. If the Dems used to represent the working man in a White vs. Blue collar America battle, they have now shifted over to being a Postmodernist circus of race, gender and sexual orientation baiting with a sprinkle of environmentalism via taxation as icing on the cake. These are two radically different messages in direct opposition to each other, and the parties are no longer “two sides of the same coin”, being two slightly different takes on the Liberalism laid down by the Founding Fathers. This is probably why things have gotten so unusually ugly, American politics may have become truly “winner take all”.

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“I have great reservations over a justice speaking on issues that are likely to come before him on the Court.”

Justice Alito Speaks Against Pandemic Restrictions, Other Controversies (Turley)

Justice Sam Alito is making headlines after his speech last night as the keynote at this year’s all-virtual Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention. Alito slammed pandemic measures and attacks on free speech in his remarks to the Convention, including the crackdown on “unfashionable views” in our society. I happen to agree with some of his points, but I have great reservations over a justice speaking on issues that are likely to come before him on the Court. Indeed, I have long been a critic of the Supreme Court justices engaging in public appearances where they hold forth on contemporary issues. I have been particularly critical of the late Justice Antonin Scalia and Associated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who clearly relished appearances before ideologically supportive groups.

Justice Alito addressed attacks on religious liberty and free speech, including citing past cases and disputes before the Court. He also declared “The Covid crisis has highlighted constitutional fault lines” in attacking such rights. Pandemic limits are the subject of petitions before the Court as well as major cases working through the federal system. Alito also launched into liberals who he views as threatening religious rights, noting that “[i]n certain corners, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.” Alito attacked the Obama administration’s “ protracted campaign” and “unrelenting attack” against the Little Sisters of the Poor.” He also criticized a Washington State for requiring pharmacies to provide emergency contraception. He maintained that such emergency contraception “destroys an embryo after fertilization.”

All of those issues have been and will again be before the Court. Indeed, as Alito was making these ill-considered comments, the Catholic Church was coming before his Court in these very issues. There are a number of cases on the docket and pending review that include issues raised by Alito in his public remarks. Those litigants are entitled to justices who are not speaking publicly (directly or indirectly) on the merits of such claims. [..] It is worth noting that many liberals are objecting to Alito’s speech despite celebrating even more alarming public speeches by Justice Ginsburg during his life. Throughout her career, Justice Ginsburg triggered controversies over public comments where she joked that she would move to New Zealand if Donald Trump is elected. Ginsburg apologized for that controversy. While she expressed “regret” in that instance, it did not deter Ginsburg in continuing to speak publicly and hold forth on contemporary issues. There were speeches that electrified the left and built her persona as the “Notorious RBG.”

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Newsflash: it’s not his fault.

Fauci’s New COVID19 Guidance: ‘Do What You’re Told’ (NYP)

Dr. Anthony Fauci has some new coronavirus guidance: “Do what you’re told.” In an interview Thursday, the coronavirus task force member and infectious disease expert pushed back on the notion that scientists were “authoritarian” for promoting strict lockdowns and social distancing measures. But the 79-year-old suggested the American spirit of independence had gotten in the way and the nation needed to follow their orders, whether they liked it or not. “I was talking with my UK colleagues who are saying the UK is similar to where we are now, because each of our countries have that independent spirit,” Fauci said during a panel with other experts in Washington, DC.

“I can understand that, but now is the time to do what you’re told,” he said, as first reported by CNBC. The longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has repeatedly clashed with President Trump and his administration, who have dismissed him as “a bit of an alarmist” amid the pandemic. Fauci said Thursday it was unfortunate that America’s scientists had been “lumped into politics” and that people were unwilling to follow their guidance because society was so “divisive.” “All of a sudden, science gets caught in a lot of this divisiveness,” he told the audience.

It comes as public health officials and the Trump administration grapple with how to combat new record numbers of daily coronavirus infections. Daily US cases topped 150,000 for the first time Wednesday, while hospitalizations have also hit another all-time high. Fauci said the nation could avoid another round of economically devastating lockdowns if people simply washed their hands, wore a mask and remained socially distant. “It sounds simple in the context of this ominous outbreak, but in fact we can turn it around,” he said.

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“..revenues from tests are likely not bogus & very consistent.“

Elon Musk Says He Tested Positive & Negative For COVID19 In Same Day (RT)

Futurist entrepreneur Elon Musk has expressed doubts about the accuracy of coronavirus tests, after claiming to have been both diagnosed and cleared of the disease on the same day. The SpaceX and Tesla founder wrote on Twitter that he had been administered four tests for the virus over a 24-hour period, leading to contradictory results. “Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD,” Musk said. The tweet sparked a heated debate on social media, with some accusing the billionaire businessman of being “irresponsible” by suggesting that Covid-19 tests are unreliable.

However, Musk paid no attention to the criticism and expressed further skepticism about the testing process in follow-messages. One Twitter user speculated that Musk’s apparent false-positive illustrates why countries are seeing “spikes” of the disease, to which the Tesla CEO responded: “If it’s happening to me, it’s happening to others.” The billionaire also agreed with a comment that noted that “revenues from tests are likely not bogus & very consistent.” Musk said he was taking polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests from separate labs and that the results would be ready in about a day. He explained that he had symptoms of a “typical cold” but was otherwise not exhibiting any health problems purportedly linked to Covid-19.

The 49-year-old has been an outspoken critic of government response to the spread of the virus. Previously, he denounced lockdown policies adopted in countries around the world, arguing that only at-risk people should quarantine “until the storm passes.” He also said that neither he nor his family will likely take future coronavirus vaccines once they become available, saying that the response to the pandemic has “diminished [his] faith in humanity.”

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D614G

Coronavirus Mutation May Be Achilles Heel For Vaccines To Target (RT)

A new study has found that the very mutation which allowed SARS-CoV-2 to spread so far and wide among the human population may also be an Achilles heel for future vaccines to target. One of the latest strains of coronavirus, and currently the most common in the world, is called D614G. Through tests on hamsters, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that this particular strain replicates faster and spreads more easily than the original variant, which emerged in China at the beginning of the pandemic. D614G outcompetes and outgrows its Chinese ancestral strain by about 10-fold, courtesy of its spike protein’s enhanced infiltration ability, which allows the virus easy access to human cells.

According to a recent study published on November 12, the disease caused by D614G was found to spread faster but didn’t result in more severe cases, while also being slightly more sensitive to medication including antibody treatments. Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virologist on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, ran a series of experiments using the original and mutated variants of the coronavirus on hamsters, to study both the severity of resulting symptoms after infection and the infectiousness of individual strains. Two groups of hamsters were inoculated with each strain of the virus, and then uninfected animals were placed in nearby cages, with shared air supply. The mutant virus spread to six of the eight newly introduced hamsters within two days, while the original virus strain hadn’t transmitted to any hamsters by day two but spread to the entire group by day four, highlighting the different pace of infection.

Now, however, researchers suspect that this increased infectiousness may in fact be a double-edged sword which could prove to be coronavirus’ undoing. The D614G mutation opens a small access port on the tip of one of the coronavirus crown’s spikes, increasing the rate of infection but leaving the virus core exposed – easy pickings for antibodies, such as the ones contained in the current generation of vaccines. Ralph Baric, professor of epidemiology at the UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, who was previously involved in the development of the remdesivir antiviral drug, says that the unpredictability of coronavirus mutations necessitates ongoing study. He warned that, especially in light of the newly discovered mink SARS-CoV-2 cluster 5 variant in Denmark, studies into the exact mechanics of each mutation are necessary to maximize public health.

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