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Debt Rattle April 7 2023

Apr 072023
 
 April 7, 2023  Posted by at 8:42 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  54 Responses »


John William Godward Dolce Far Niente (It’s Sweet Doing Nothing) 1909

 

• Russian MP Suggests Swapping WSJ Reporter For Assange (RT)
• Time Is Ripe For NATO To Retire – Zakharova (TASS)
• ‘The Sooner The Better’ – Ron Paul on Disbanding NATO (Dick)
• Macron Failed To Change Xi’s Mind – Politico (RT)
• Macron In China: Lecturing Xi Or Promoting French Business Deals? (Doctorow)
• Blinken Can’t Reschedule His Trip to China After Canceling (Antiwar)
• US, NATO Must Bear Responsibility For Crisis In Ukraine – China (TASS)
• CIA Head Says US ‘Blindsided’ By Saudi-Iran Deal – WSJ (RT)
• US Opposes NATO ‘Roadmap’ For Ukraine – FT (RT)
• ‘Secret’ NATO War Plan Leak Triggers Pentagon Probe – NYT (RT)
• US, NATO Plans On Preparing Ukrainian Offensive Leak On Social Media (Az.)
• EU Plan For Ukraine Ammunition Stuck On Details – Politico (RT)
• ‘Everything Russian’ Must Be Eradicated In Crimea – Zelensky Aide (RT)
• Finnish Government Led By Sanna Marin Submits Resignation (TASS)
• Bragg’s Case Against Trump: An Ed Wood Movie Come To Life (Turley)
• The Shambolic Criminal Case Against Donald Trump (NC)
• US Commercial Real-Estate Prices Could Tumble 40% (Az.)

 

 


Planet Ponzi: #SummitForDemocracy. One of the Four Has No Mandate & Was Not Elected. The 2nd Is About To Be Sacked (He Will Resign), 3rd’s Country Is On Fire & Popularity is below 15%, & The Last Has Stage 4 Dementia.

 

 

Nap w Larry Johnson

Long version:

 

 

Food mRNA

 

 


mRNA & Cows. Iowa State in the middle of a 5-year project for novel mRNA, funded by NIFA with certain goals: •Lower cost for wider use •More thermal-stable, for easy use on farms •mRNA delivered continuously by vaccine implant Repeat, DELIVERED CONTINUOUSLY BY VACCINE IMPLANT

 

 


Pepe Escobar: If you think this is not bad enough, the second phase of Paris strikes will start NEXT WEEK. Paris will be literally turned into a giant trash bin. Until the BlackRock pension “reform” is thrown out.

 

 

BlackRock

 

 

Comer

 

 

 

 

A journalist for a journalist.

• Russian MP Suggests Swapping WSJ Reporter For Assange (RT)

If Moscow decides on a prisoner swap involving Evan Gershkovich, it should ask for Julian Assange’s release from a British dungeon, Russian State Duma Deputy Sergey Obuhkov said on Friday. Obuhkov, a Russian Communist Party MP, told reporters that some members of the Duma have already proposed offering political asylum to former US President Donald Trump and trading him for Gershkovich.“I say, let’s exchange him for Assange instead,” Obukhov told RIA Novosti. Russian authorities detained Gershkovich in Ekaterinburg on March 30, saying they caught him “red-handed” in an act of espionage. A Lefortovo court has ordered the Moscow bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal to remain in custody for two months. He is appealing the decision and will face the judges again on April 18.

Earlier this week, the district attorney in New York had the 45th US president arrested on charges of improper business bookkeeping, supposedly related to “hush money” paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels, which they allege somehow improperly influenced the 2016 presidential election. Trump has denounced the charges as a politically motivated “witch hunt.” Assange has been held in Belmarsh prison in south London since April 2019, after Ecuador canceled his asylum under pressure from the US. He had spent almost seven years in the embassy of the Latin American country, seeking refuge from trumped-up Swedish charges he called a front for US persecution.

After his arrest, Washington unsealed a years-old indictment charging the WikiLeaks publisher under the Espionage Act. He is wanted for the 2010 publication of the notorious ‘Collateral Murder’ video showing the US military killing civilians, as well as other US classified documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If extradited and convicted, Assange faces up to 175 years behind bars. Russia and the US last swapped prisoners in December, with Moscow releasing convicted drug smuggler and basketball star Brittney Griner in exchange for businessman Viktor Bout. Washington has faced criticism for not requesting the release of Paul Whelan, a retired US Marine serving a sentence in Russia for espionage.

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“..one can state with certainty that security and NATO are incompatible..”

• Time Is Ripe For NATO To Retire – Zakharova (TASS)

NATO is trying to make the world a more dangerous place and in doing so it is resisting the emergence of alternative centers of power and increasingly asserting its global role and the ambition to spread its influence beyond the Euro-Atlantic area, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, adding that “time is ripe for the alliance to retire.” In this way Zakharova commented on the meeting of the NATO foreign ministers held the day before to mark the alliance’s 74th anniversary. “We hear the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg speculate ever more often about a global role of the alliance. Everything is being done to make the world even more dangerous, to prevent the existence of alternative centers of power capable of undermining the hegemony of the West.


“In general, one can state with certainty that security and NATO are incompatible. In this regard, there is only one conclusion that readily offers itself – at 74 years of age it is time for the North Atlantic bloc to retire,” Zakharova said in a commentary the Foreign Ministry released on Thursday. She believes that NATO is trying to “usurp the entire system of European security through Finland’s accession.” “Finland has become another victim of the North Atlantic Alliance. The Finnish government decided to give up its longstanding neutrality in exchange for turning the country into a frontline zone, a bridgehead for deterring Russia in the Northwest. As we can see, NATO does not intend to stop there,” she added.

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“Does no one worry that this continued provocation of Russia might have negative effects in the future? Is it necessary?”

• ‘The Sooner The Better’ – Ron Paul on Disbanding NATO (Dick)

On March 30, 2004 — just over 19 years ago, then-Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) concluded a United Sates House of Representatives statement with a strong admonition regarding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and US involvement in it. Paul stated: “In conclusion, we should not be wasting US tax money and taking on more military obligations expanding NATO. The alliance is a relic of the Cold War, a hold-over from another time, an anachronism. It should be disbanded, the sooner the better.” Paul’s statement was made in opposition to a resolution (H.Res. 558) being considered on the House floor that day that welcomed “with enthusiasm” the addition of seven new members to NATO and encouraged consideration of adding more nations to NATO. The addition of these new nations all near the Russian border — Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia — made 2004 a big year in NATO expansion.

Regarding the addition of the seven new members to NATO in 2004, Paul made this particular warning: “The expansion of NATO to these seven countries, we have heard, will open them up to the further expansion of US military bases, right up to the border of the former Soviet Union. Does no one worry that this continued provocation of Russia might have negative effects in the future? Is it necessary?” This comment is prescient considering that such expansion of NATO and US military bases is a contributor to Russia’s decision last year to send its military into Ukraine, a development to which the US and several NATO nations have responded with a fervor of warlike declarations and actions.

The addition of more nations near Russia to NATO continued since 2004. Albania and Croatia were added in 2009, Montenegro was added in 2017, and North Macedonia in 2020. With the addition of Finland this week, 12 nations since 2004 have joined NATO — the same number of nations as founded NATO in 1949. NATO membership now comes in at 31 nations. And there is momentum to add more, including Sweden potentially quite soon.

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“According to Politico, Xi “looked impatient and annoyed” as Macron spoke, and “heaved several deep sighs” when Ukraine came up..”

• Macron Failed To Change Xi’s Mind – Politico (RT)

Chinese President Xi Jinping was unmoved by the rhetoric of his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on the conflict in Ukraine, Politico reported on Thursday. Paris has tried both appeals and threats in order to pressure Beijing into denouncing Moscow, apparently to little effect. “I know I can count on you to bring Russia to its senses and everyone to the negotiating table,” Macron told Xi. Earlier, he told French reporters that “anyone helping the aggressor would be an accomplice in breach of international law.” Xi responded by saying China was “willing to jointly appeal with France to the international community to remain rational and calm,” and repeated Beijing’s position on the conflict. “Peace talks should be resumed as soon as possible, taking into account the reasonable security concerns of all sides with reference to the UN Charter… seeking political resolution and constructing a balanced, effective and sustainable European security framework,” he told reporters at the Great Hall of the People.

Macron broke protocol by speaking almost twice as long as Xi, and veered into demands that China condemn “the war waged by Russia against Ukraine.” According to Politico, Xi “looked impatient and annoyed” as Macron spoke, and “heaved several deep sighs” when Ukraine came up. The French president announced a trip to China just after Xi spent three days in Moscow, signing a series of agreements with Russian President Vladimir Putin. At one point, the smiling Chinese leader was overheard telling Putin that their two countries were driving change the world hadn’t seen in over a century. Meanwhile, problems piled up at home for Macron. A sanitation workers’ strike left Paris buried in uncollected garbage, while mass protests against retirement reform – which Macron imposed by decree, bypassing the parliament – continued across France. New polls showed his rival Marine Le Pen becoming more popular.

Macron is scheduled to travel with Xi to Guangzhou on Friday for more talks and a private dinner. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, whom Macron brought along to “showcase European unity,” met with Xi on Thursday but was not included in many of the bilateral meetings. Appearing at a press conference by herself on Thursday evening, Von der Leyen repeated the Brussels talking points without much regard for her hosts. She brought up Taiwan, saying that any threat of force to change its status was “unacceptable.” The EU official also argued that providing weapons to Russia would “significantly harm the relationship between the EU and China,” and that Brussels expects Beijing to “play its role and promote a just peace, one that respects Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.”

Lukashenko

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Strictly business. Macron brought with him 50 CEOs of France’s leading corporations..

• Macron In China: Lecturing Xi Or Promoting French Business Deals? (Doctorow)

If you picked up yesterday’s leading French newspapers Le Monde or Figaro, you might be excused for thinking that the sole purpose of President Emmanuel Macron’s three day visit to Beijing in the company of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is to lecture the Chinese leadership on its obligations as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to denounce the Russian military operation in Ukraine and to end all support for the Kremlin. There was no hint that Macron brought with him 50 CEOs of France’s leading corporations who were looking forward to signing business contracts that were prepared ahead of the visit. Last night’s digest of news sent to subscribers by The Financial Times summed this up nicely: “French president Emmanuel Macron has gone to Beijing in the latest attempt by a European leader to urge China’s Xi Jinping to withdraw support for Russian president Vladimir Putin.”

Of course, this interpretation of the meaning of the trip comes from those who fail to comprehend the stature of today’s Chinese leadership and its ability to enforce the millennial traditions of the country when dealing with the barbarians beyond its borders. China would never have agreed to receive Macron or von der Leyen if it perceived that their purpose was to deliver demeaning lectures about what Beijing should or should not do with respect to Russia. No, Xi, like Macron, had expectations of major new contracts with Airbus, to spite America’s Boeing, and with other French concerns which are desperate not to lose their privileged access to the Chinese market and to Chinese manufacturing capacities.

In my interview with Press TV of Iran’s evening program of news analysis yesterday, I was given the opportunity to explain why the trip has been misrepresented to Western audiences, and how any business deals that result from it will not be featured in our newspapers or state television channels, as would normally be the case in good times. At the conclusion of my time on air, I brought up another major event of the past month which also was blacked out by our broadcasters, namely the destruction of an underground bunker near the Western Ukraine city of Liviv by a Russian hypersonic missile Kinzhal, which cost the lives of more than 200 NATO generals and other high military officers, including about 20 Americans. That event, which first was announced very discreetly on Russian news tickers immediately following its execution, was again quietly and briefly mentioned on the Yandex ticker yesterday with respect to the “shipment in crates” of the recovered remains of those officers killed to their home countries in the West.

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They don’t pick up the phone.

• Blinken Can’t Reschedule His Trip to China After Canceling (Antiwar)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is looking to reschedule his trip to China that he canceled over the Chinese balloon that wound up floating over the US, but Beijing is rebuffing the effort, POLITICO reported Wednesday. The POLITICO report said China has effectively frozen high-level contacts with US officials. An unnamed US official said that the Biden administration is also trying to schedule a call between President Biden and President Xi Jinping and send other high-level officials to China but isn’t having any luck. Before the balloon incident, the US and China were making a point to engage at a high level despite soaring tensions. But since Blinken canceled his trip, and the US shot down the balloon, which ended up over US territory due to unexpected weather, the progress on engagement with Beijing has been reversed.


After the US shot down the balloon in February, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin tried to contact his Chinese counterpart, Wei Fenghe, who has since been replaced. But China declined to take Austin’s call, and he hasn’t had any luck since then.Wei was replaced by Li Shangfu, a Chinese general who is under US sanctions for being involved in China’s purchase of Russian weapons. The sanctions make US-China military communication even more difficult, and the Biden administration has not signaled it will lift them. Tensions between the US and China soared even higher on Wednesday as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) hosted Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in California. China repeatedly warned McCarthy and Tsai not to hold the meeting and is expected to respond with more military drills around Taiwan.

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” The North Atlantic Alliance does not have the necessary status to reproach China or put pressure on it..”

• US, NATO Must Bear Responsibility For Crisis In Ukraine – China (TASS)

The US and military alliances such as NATO should bear responsibility for the crisis in Ukraine, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a news conference on Thursday in the wake of statements by the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg about the consequences for China in case of arms supplies to Russia. “As far as the responsibility for the Ukrainian problem is concerned, I believe it should be borne by the United States and military blocs like NATO. The North Atlantic Alliance does not have the necessary status to reproach China or put pressure on it,” she pointed out. Mao stressed that China was in favor of facilitating peace talks from the outset.


“History will eventually pronounce its verdict who really took a fair and correct position,” Mao Ning said. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference following a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers in Brussels on April 5 that serious consequences were in store for China, if it supplied weapons to Russia. He also said that China was working more and more closely with Russia. Stoltenberg mentioned the alliance’s close attention to joint sea and air patrolling and exercises in South Africa. He argued that all this required NATO should intensify partnership with Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia.

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Coming together fast, now that the US is gone.

• CIA Head Says US ‘Blindsided’ By Saudi-Iran Deal – WSJ (RT)

CIA Director William Burns told Saudi officials that the United States was caught off guard after the kingdom agreed to a normalization deal with Iran brokered by China, according to the Wall Street Journal. During an unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia this week, Burns “expressed frustration” with Riyadh and said Washington “felt blindsided” by its renewed diplomacy with both Iran and Syria, multiple unnamed sources told the Journal on Thursday. The foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia held talks in the Chinese capital on Thursday, where they discussed a number of issues related to the new initiative, including reopening embassies in both countries, designating ambassadors, and even a visit to Riyadh by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

After years of strife as regional adversaries, Tehran and Riyadh struck the normalization pact on March 10 following secret talks mediated by Beijing, agreeing to resume formal diplomatic relations after they cut ties in 2016. The deal marked a major diplomatic achievement for China and a significant shakeup for the geopolitics of the Middle East. Since the agreement was announced, top diplomats from Saudi Arabia and Iran have spoken on the phone at least three times, and hope to reach compromises on several outstanding issues – namely the war in Yemen, which has raged on for more than eight years and left hundreds of thousands dead. Tehran is also working to reestablish contacts with the United Arab Emirates, another Gulf monarchy long at odds with the Islamic Republic.

Earlier this week, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri said his country had appointed an ambassador to Abu Dhabi for the first time in nearly a decade. Riyadh is also reportedly seeking to reach a similar understanding with Syria, and hopes to invite President Bashar al-Assad for a visit later this year, according to Reuters. While the White House has welcomed the new diplomacy in public, Burns’ reported complaints to Saudi officials this week could highlight concerns over Beijing’s growing influence in the region. Tensions between Riyadh and Washington have also been on the rise since last year, when OPEC+ – a group of major oil exporters led by Saudi Arabia – opted to slash production. The move reportedly “angered” President Joe Biden, who claimed the cut would benefit Russia, another large energy exporter.

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It’s the Europeans who do not care (or understand?!)

• US Opposes NATO ‘Roadmap’ For Ukraine – FT (RT)

US President Joe Biden’s administration has reportedly opposed efforts by some European allies to give Ukraine a clear “roadmap” for joining NATO, urging partners to focus on providing short-term aid to Kiev. The US is siding with Germany and Hungary in resisting efforts from such allies as Poland and the Baltic states to offer Ukraine deeper ties with NATO and clear support for its future membership in the Western military bloc, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing four unidentified officials involved in the negotiations. The issue has been under debate this week at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, where alliance members are trying to lay the groundwork for the bloc’s leaders’ summit, which is scheduled for July in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Although NATO’s 31 members agree that membership can’t be offered to Ukraine in the short term – nor can it be seriously discussed amid the former Soviet republic’s current conflict with Russia – this week’s talks have exposed a clear divide over the group’s vision for Kiev’s postwar status, the FT said. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has warned that he will only attend the summit in Vilnius if he’s offered clear steps for Kiev’s ascension to NATO, such as security guarantees and deeper collaboration with the alliance. Bloc members agreed in 2008 that Ukraine would be allowed to join NATO at some point. Back then, the US was pushing for giving Kiev a clear timetable and an action plan for membership, the FT said, but France and Germany resisted on concerns that such a step would provoke Russia.

Diplomats attending this week’s talks haven’t been able to reach agreement on what Ukraine should be offered in a freshened statement on its NATO prospects. “We’ve got several weeks of hard negotiations ahead to close those gaps and craft a political outcome,” one official said. However, another noted, “The road [to Vilnius] is rocky.” Washington is concerned that deepening the alliance’s ties with Ukraine at this juncture would feed into Russian claims that the current crisis is a conflict between Moscow and NATO, the FT said. It also might spur Russia to escalate the conflict, possibly by deploying nuclear weapons. Russian officials have claimed that the US and its NATO allies promised after the Soviet Union’s collapse not to expand the bloc into Eastern Europe. Since then, the alliance has added 15 new members, all of which were former Soviet republics or part of Warsaw Pact nations.

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Two very different write-ups.

• ‘Secret’ NATO War Plan Leak Triggers Pentagon Probe – NYT (RT)

A leaked trove of classified documents outlining American and NATO war planning in Ukraine has sparked a US military investigation, the New York Times has reported. The briefing presentation slides, some marked “top secret,” show assessed troop strengths, timelines for arms shipments and ammunition expenditures, among other data. The files appeared on social media earlier this week, and while the source remains unclear, the leaks have set off alarms in the Pentagon, which has launched a probe to determine how the documents were obtained, the NYT reported on Thursday. “We are aware of the reports of social media posts and the department is reviewing the matter,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told the outlet.

Officials said they are working to have the material removed from the internet, but had not succeeded as of Thursday night. One of the documents marked “top secret” provides the “Status of the Conflict as of 1 Mar.,”suggesting the slides are several weeks old. Though they do not describe any specific battle plans, the files offer a glimpse into US intelligence assessments for Russian and Ukrainian troop levels, timetables for training and equipment deliveries, weather data, as well as ammunition expenditures – including for the US-supplied HIMARS platform. The Pentagon has not previously disclosed the rate at which Ukrainian forces are using munitions for the weapon. Some of the documents appear to have been altered, with multiple different versions circulating online showing wildly varying estimates for losses on both sides of the conflict.

Another file lists 12 new Ukrainian combat brigades – which are usually made up of 4,000 to 5,000 troops – noting that the US and NATO bloc are training and supplying nine of them. Of those, the document states that six would be ready by the end of March, and the remaining three by April 30. If genuine the documents represent one of the most significant intelligence breaches since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and come as Kiev is reportedly preparing a major counter-offensive against Russian forces. One of the documents shows two possible routes into the Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. It is unclear when the counter-attacks are set to begin, but Ukrainian Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov recently claimed that the two sides would fight a “final” and “decisive battle”sometime in the spring.

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Pentagon war plan documents for Ukraine leaked. Most interestingly casualty numbers on the Russian side are significantly lower and on the Ukrainian side much higher than official US numbers reported by the propaganda media. The US Govt clearly knows Ukraine is losing the war.

• US, NATO Plans On Preparing Ukrainian Offensive Leak On Social Media (Az.)

Classified war documents detailing secret American and NATO plans for building up the Ukrainian military ahead of a planned offensive were posted this week on social media channels, senior Biden administration officials said, Report informs referring to New York Times. The Pentagon is investigating who may have been behind the leak of the documents, which appeared on Twitter and on Telegram, a platform with more than half a billion users that is widely available in Russia. Military analysts said the documents appear to have been modified in certain parts from their original format, overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and understating estimates of Russian troops killed.

The modifications could point to an effort of disinformation by Moscow, the analysts said. But the disclosures in the original documents, which appear as photographs of charts of anticipated weapons deliveries, troop and battalion strengths, and other plans, represents a significant breach of American intelligence in the effort to aid Ukraine. Biden officials were working to get them deleted but had not succeeded so far. “We are aware of the reports of social media posts and the department is reviewing the matter,” said Sabrina Singh, the deputy press secretary at the Pentagon.

The documents do not provide specific battle plans, like how, when, and where Ukraine intends to launch its offensive, which American officials say is likely coming in the next month or so. And because the documents are five weeks old, they offer a snapshot of time – the American and Ukrainian view, as of March 1, of what Ukrainian troops might need for the campaign. For example, one of the slides said 16,000 to 17,500 Russian soldiers had been killed while Ukraine had suffered as many as 71,500 troop deaths. The Pentagon and other analysts have estimated that Russia has suffered far more casualties, with closer to 200,000 killed and injured, while Ukraine has had more than 100,000 killed and injured.

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“..expanding production may be easier said than done..”

• EU Plan For Ukraine Ammunition Stuck On Details – Politico (RT)

The “historic” agreement to deliver two billion euros ($2.14 billion) worth of artillery ammunition to the Ukrainian military is still being worked out, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing diplomats involved in the negotiations. Concerns over who will get the money are reportedly the main bone of contention. The plan, unveiled on March 20, envisioned the delivery of one million 155mm shells to Ukraine over the next 12 months. A package of one billion euros was earmarked for compensating EU members who would dip into their own stockpiles, and another billion for getting new shells made by military contractors, with orders organized and fast-tracked by the EU Defence Agency. The problem now is figuring out which contractors, according to the pro-NATO outlet.

France is reportedly insisting that only EU companies should be considered, but there is legal uncertainty as to who actually qualifies as an EU company. Greece and Cyprus are in alignment with the French position, which diplomats have attributed to a desire to avoid giving orders to Türkiye. Meanwhile, the European Commission also needs to “map out the capacity” of the bloc’s defense industry before finalizing the deal, as expanding production may be easier said than done. EU ambassadors who met on Wednesday weren’t able to make significant progress, several diplomats with knowledge of the negotiations told Politico. They did manage to finalize the text of the agreement to collect ammunition donations, however, which should be published next week.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell had proposed the ammunition plan, arguing in February that it was the most important issue. “If we fail on that, the result of the war is in danger,” he said at the time. The US, EU and NATO have all insisted they were not participants in the conflict, while also arguing that Ukraine must win and Russia “must lose.” Moscow has repeatedly warned the West to stop “stuffing” Kiev with arms and ammunition, arguing that they are only delaying the inevitable while risking open confrontation. Russia has already increased its own ammunition production, tripling the number of shells the US and EU plan to supply Kiev over a year-long period, President Vladimir Putin said last week.

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Look who we support…

• ‘Everything Russian’ Must Be Eradicated In Crimea – Zelensky Aide (RT)

Russian culture will be off-limits in Crimea if Ukraine regains control of the peninsula, Mikhail Podoliak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, has claimed. Podoliak said Kiev is planning on meting out legal punishments to Russian passport holders and other “traitors” living in the region. “As soon as we enter, we must eradicate everything Russian in Crimea,” Podoliak stated in an interview with Radio Liberty published on Wednesday. He argued that the predominantly Russian-speaking region should instead become part of the “Ukrainian cultural space.” Acknowledging that his views are among the most radical within the leadership in Kiev, Podoliak insisted that Crimean residents would not be able to read Russian literature or watch Russian movies, let alone speak Russian in public. Instead, the language would only be permitted in private, the official added.

According to Podoliak, those who refused to comply would have to leave. Locals would also face mass investigations and “legal punishments” for anyone who has switched from Ukrainian to Russian citizenship, as well as those deemed to be “collaborators and traitors” by the Ukrainian authorities.Podoliak argued that the process, which he described as “very powerful stabilization measures,” would be difficult. “We’re going to have to break it all down,” he said with respect to Crimea’s Russian identity. The presidential aide expressed confidence that Ukrainian forces would retake the peninsula within seven months, claiming that his outlook is “mathematically verified” and that Russia lacked the necessary resources to retain the region.

However, Podoliak did not rule out negotiations between Kiev and Moscow on Crimea, provided that the Kremlin first withdrew its troops from territory that Ukraine claims as its own. Crimea has been part of Russia since 2014, when residents voted overwhelmingly to reunify with Moscow soon after the Maidan coup in Kiev. There were fears among the ethnically Russian majority of the peninsula that Ukrainian nationalists who had come to power in Kiev would try to forcefully impose their language and culture on them. The peninsula was historically part of Russia since 1783, and was only transferred to Kiev’s administrative control by the Soviet authorities in 1954.

Orthodox

Mykolaiv

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She left the same day that Finland entered NATO… No coincidence.

• Finnish Government Led By Sanna Marin Submits Resignation (TASS)

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has submitted the resignation of her government to President Sauli Niinisto, according to the Yle broadcaster. Marin’s government is resigning following her party’s defeat in the recent parliamentary election. It will serve as an interim cabinet until the formation of a new government. The process will begin next week under the guidance of the conservative National Coalition Party that won the election. Finland held its parliamentary election on April 2. Marin’s Social Democratic Party came third, gaining 19.9% of the vote and taking 43 seats in parliament. The National Coalition Party won the election, gaining 20.8%, while the Finns Party was second with 20.1%. The new parliament will begin work on April 11. Marin announced at a press conference on April 5 that she would step down as leader of the Social Democratic Party by the fall, when the party’s new leadership was elected. She added that she would remain a member of parliament.

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“..Bragg simply stated that he was not required to state the crime in the indictment…”

• Bragg’s Case Against Trump: An Ed Wood Movie Come To Life (Turley)

“Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It’s about the big picture.” Thus did the title character of the movie, “Ed Wood,” explain why arguably the worst filmmaker of all time was unconcerned with obvious gaps in logic, or scenes where cardboard tombstones toppled in graveyard scenes. Wood said he relied on the “suspension of disbelief” of his horror-film fans. If there is an Ed Wood school of prosecution, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg could prove to be its most apt pupil. Indicting Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Bragg left out a small detail: The underlying felony Trump allegedly sought to conceal over and over. That, apparently, is left to the suspension of disbelief.

For many weeks, experts on both the left and the right expressed doubts that Bragg could charge Trump with falsifying business records, a misdemeanor with a now-expired two-year statute of limitation. To be able to file such a charge, Bragg would need to kick it up to a felony by alleging it was committed to conceal or further another crime — in this case, a federal campaign violation. The problem is that the Justice Department declined to bring such charges. The reason was likely due to a tiny problem: There is no campaign finance violation in Trump paying women to hush up alleged affairs. Moreover, even if there were a violation, Bragg is not a federal prosecutor. In other words, his case is as implausible as Wood’s cardboard tombstones.

When asked by reporters what crime was being referenced 34 times, Bragg simply stated that he was not required to state the crime in the indictment. Despite becoming the first prosecutor to charge a former president, Bragg felt no compulsion to explain the claim that kicked the misdemeanor up to a felony and allowed a longer statute of limitations. Bragg undoubtedly knew that New Yorkers would likely suspend disbelief when the name on the indictment was “Donald Trump.” After all, when Bragg ran for office, he was no more specific; he merely promised to bag Trump on some criminal charge. The actual crime would be named at a later date. Bragg also undoubtedly counted on Judge Juan Merchan suspending judicial disbelief by not asking for the full basis of the criminal charges.

Thus far, he appears to have been correct: Merchan set the next hearing for December, so Bragg has eight months to come up with an actual crime. Even if the judge ignores the glaring legal problems with this flawed indictment, he must decide where a trial should be held. The correct answer should be “Anywhere but Manhattan.” However, the judge is likely to deny that change of venue motion, and a denial would say a great deal about this case. Bragg’s cavalier attitude only magnifies the view that Manhattan is the wrong place for this trial. It is not simply that the district attorney ran on a pledge to indict this defendant. The problem is that he was elected on that pledge by the citizens of this district — the same citizens who would comprise the jury pool in Trump’s case.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1643999294532251649

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“..if New York courts nevertheless back this dodgy theory, it would show the rule of law is being tossed out the window to get Trump..”

• The Shambolic Criminal Case Against Donald Trump (NC)

In simple terms, Cohen paid $180,000 to get what were sometimes called “bimbo eruptions” paid off. The Statement of Facts is not clear as to whose idea it was,2 but the Trump Organization doubled the amount to be paid to Cohen so Cohen could characterize it as income, not a reimbursement, then added a $60,000 bonus. That $420,000 amount was then paid in 12 monthly installments. That was billed monthly as a payment against a retainer agreement, even though there was no retainer agreement. Trump then allegedly confirmed this arrangement in person. The indictment gets to 34 counts by taking each of monthly payments Trump made to Cohen and each of the related entries in Trump Organization records as a separate count. Some experts have suggested Trump’s lawyers will get them consolidated into fewer counts.

To get to a first degree falsification, there has to be an intent to commit or aid in or conceal the commission of another crime. Oddly, the Statement of Facts discusses Team Trump pressuring Cohen not to cooperate in a Federal investigation but does not talk about obstruction of justice…..presumably because a New York prosecutor does not have standing to pursue obstruction of justice in a Federal investigation. And that begs the question of why the Department of Justice didn’t go that route. It’s exactly the one used with Clinton in l’affaire Lewinsky, and has the advantage of being simple to explain and prove. The Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg also mentions tax fraud in passing. That seems odd since the “fraud” here involved choosing have Cohen report income he never had and therefore pay unnecessary taxes.

Perhaps the supposed fraud instead is having the Trump Organization treat all of the payments to Cohen as tax deductible, when if they were all to effect payoffs to help the Trump campaign, they were Trump Organization/Trump personal contributions to the Trump campaign and hence not tax deductible. Since these deductions would ultimately reduce New York State and New York City income taxes, it would seem to offer a clear path to tying the alleged records abuses to another fraud. But you’d expect to see that presented more clearly in both the indictment and the Statement of Facts if so. The Statement of Facts instead bangs on about the payoffs to American Media Inc. (AMI), the parent of National Enquirer, to kill the stories for the benefit of Trump’s election efforts, and depicts that as trying to illegally influence the election. As many readers know, there are a lot of problems with trying to make that the actual or intended crime that turns a second degree records violation into a first degree one.

The first is that the election laws in question are Federal, and a New York state prosecutor lacks standing to enforce Federal law. This is even a more questionable approach since not only did the Department of Justice not pursue this case, the Federal Election Commission didn’t issue a civil fine either. Put it anther way, if New York courts nevertheless back this dodgy theory, it would show the rule of law is being tossed out the window to get Trump. The second is that Federal law requires that for a payment to be an election law violation, it must be made for the sole purpose of influencing the election. Recall the John Edwards case. Some election supporters paid his pregnant paramour $1 million during the election. The jury acquitted Edwards on one count and deadlocked on five others, apparently because the Edwards team argued the payments were not made exclusively to keep her quiet so as to help the election, but also to hide it from his wife, who was fighting a fatal case of cancer. They also argued Edwards had no idea these payments could be construed to be campaign-related (the donors didn’t send these monies to the election organization). Even the section of Bragg’s Statement of Facts contends that the payments were not made solely but “principal purpose of influencing the election.”

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Or more.

• US Commercial Real-Estate Prices Could Tumble 40% (Az.)

Commercial real estate prices could plummet as much as 40% from their peak in a worse crash than the 2008 financial crisis, according to Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s chief investment officer, Report informs via the Market Insider. The grave outlook is based on a raft of headwinds buffeting the commercial real estate sector, including the work-from-home trend and higher interest rates making it harder for investors to refinance a mountain of looming debt. “MS & Co. analysts forecast a peak-to-trough CRE price decline of as much as 40%, worse than in the Great Financial Crisis,” Lisa Shalett said in the weekly Global Investment Committee note.

“More than 50% of the $2.9 trillion in commercial mortgages will need to be renegotiated in the next 24 months when new lending rates are likely to be up by 350 to 450 basis points,” she added. Shalett flagged an outsized risk to regional banks, given small and medium-sized banks hold 80% of US commercial real estate debt outstanding. High borrowing costs and tighter credit conditions caused by the banking turmoil could raise hurdles for big real estate investors as they seek to refinance a pile of loans. Nearly $450 billion in commercial real-estate debt is due to mature in 2023, according to data cited from Trepp by JPMorgan.

The Federal Reserve has raised benchmark interest rates to upwards of 4.75% from almost zero 12 months ago — the steepest jump in US borrowing costs since the 1980s. On top of that, hybrid and remote working trends since the breakout of COVID-19 have dampened consumer appetite for office spaces – and that’s weighing on real estate valuations. That could not only hurt building owners and their lenders, given their large loan exposure, but also “interconnected business communities, private capital funders and owners of any underlying securitized debt,” Shallet notes.

Read more …

 

 

 

 


Elasmotherium (“Thin Plate Beast”) is an extinct genus of rhinoceros endemic to Eurasia during the Late Pliocene through the Pleistocene, documented from 2.6 Ma to as late as 29,000 years ago in the Late Pleistocene

 

 

Crows

 

 


The Hubble Ultra Deep Field led to an estimate that the observable universe contained at least 200 billion galaxies. But a research from 2016 suggests that number is at least 10 times too low leading to a total of 2 trillion (2,000,000,000,000) galaxies: https://go.nasa.gov/3s40UOR

 

 

Dog stream

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 6 2023

Apr 062023
 
 April 6, 2023  Posted by at 8:08 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  75 Responses »


Paul Cézanne Forest 1902-04

 

• Kiev ‘Not Ready’ For New Offensive – Ex-Polish Army Commander (RT)
• Ukraine ‘Ready’ To Give Up Crimea, Says Zelensky Advisor (ZH)
• Ukraine Defense Minister: No Negotiations With Russia, War Ends This Year (Az.)
• Zelensky Vows ‘No Borders’ Between Ukraine And Poland (RT)
• Finland’s NATO Membership Aimed At Escalation With Russia – Philippot (TASS)
• Macron Warns China Against Supplying Russia With Weapons (TASS)
• NATO Chief Issues Warning To China (RT)
• Russia Demands Release Of Ukrainian Bishop (RT)
• France Braces For Further Protests on Thursday (RT)
• Ukraine Offers One Third Of Its Gas Storage To Europe For Next Winter (TASS)
• Saudis Aren’t Afraid Of US Anymore (Bhadrakumar)
• The Trump Case is a Test For the President And The Legal System (Turley)
• Trump Case Shows Divide Among US Elites, Political Crisis Near – Expert (TASS)
• Why the Panic Is Just Beginning (Rickards)
• Swiss Banks Faced Risk Of ‘Full-scale’ Deposit Run – Regulator (RT)
• Fully Vaxxed Lose 25 Years of Life Expectancy (Slay)

 

 


“Some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable” – Aldous Huxley

 

 

McCain

 

 

 

 

Harmeet

 

 

Mark Levin

 

 

Farage Giuliani

 

 

Pepe Escobar:
Saudi FM Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud and Iranian FM Hossein Amirabdollahian have held the first Saudi-Iran official meeting in seven years in…… Beijing. They are starting to bury trillions of Exceptionalist dollars spent on Divide and Rule.

 

 

 

 

“Zelensky is visiting Poland to prepare a “diplomatic coalition” for eventual peace talks with Russia..”

• Kiev ‘Not Ready’ For New Offensive – Ex-Polish Army Commander (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is visiting Poland to prepare a “diplomatic coalition” for eventual peace talks with Russia, retired Polish general Waldemar Skrzypczak has claimed. He argued that Kiev cannot achieve its aims on the battlefield, and will need Western support for negotiations with Moscow. Skrzypczak was speaking to the Rzeczpospolita newspaper on Wednesday, as Zelensky arrived in Warsaw to meet senior officials. The former commander of the Polish Land Forces rejected the idea that Ukraine should use Western weapons for a last-ditch offensive against Russia – a scenario reportedly being pressed upon Kiev by its foreign backers. “Pushing the Ukrainians into an offensive is unjustified at the moment, because they are not ready for it. Now it’s time for politicians,” Skrzypczak argued.

The retired general believes that “neither side has an advantage” on the battlefield and that there is “no chance of a military end to [the conflict].” The Polish government is among the most vocal supporters of Ukraine in its confrontation with Russia. Zelensky has traveled to the country to meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, among other officials. Warsaw has described the occasion as the first “official” visit by the Ukrainian leader since hostilities escalated in February 2022, even though Zelensky previously passed through Poland on his way to the US and the UK. According to Warsaw, the trip demonstrates Poland’s important international role. Publicly, the US and other Western nations have pledged to assist Ukraine “for as long as it takes” to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

Kiev has vowed not to negotiate with Moscow until Ukrainian forces have regained control of all its former territories, including Crimea. Moscow has repeatedly said it is open to talks with Kiev on condition that it recognizes “the reality on the ground.” That includes the new status of four former Ukrainian regions which voted overwhelmingly to join Russia last autumn. Skrzypczak, who resigned his command under then-President Lech Kaczynski in 2009 but went on to hold several roles in the Polish Defense Ministry, predicted that Ukraine’s chances of a military victory in the long run would be undermined by a dwindling level of foreign support. “The West is slowly getting tired of the war, and voters that support aiding Ukraine are getting smaller in numbers. That is why it is necessary to build a front of support for Ukraine so that it has a strong voice in future talks,” he explained.

Read more …

Tectonic plates are shifting.

• Ukraine ‘Ready’ To Give Up Crimea, Says Zelensky Advisor (ZH)

There has been much talk and reporting of the coming Spring counteroffensive by Ukraine forces, but with the fight for Bakhmut not going so well for Kiev, there’s also been talk of the need for compromise, at a moment Ukrainian casualties in the east are believed to be high. Last week we reported on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s voicing rare doubts concerning Bakhmut – as if preparing his people for news of a devastating defeat. And now, on Wednesday, the Financial Times is reporting the single most important development to come out of the conflict in a long time: Zelensky’s office says he’s ready to compromise on the future of the Crimean peninsula.

Naturally, the Ukrainians present themselves as speaking from a position of having the upper hand, which is the general tone of the remarks that Andriy Sybiha, who is deputy head of Zelensky’s office, gave to FT. Per the publication, “Kyiv is willing to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reach the border of the Russian-occupied peninsula” – which marks the “most explicit statement of Ukraine’s interest in negotiations since it cut off peace talks with the Kremlin last April.” “If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” Sybiha said, previewing his high hopes for an imminent counteroffensive.

He explained however that “It doesn’t mean that we exclude the way of liberation [of Crimea] by our army.” But given that Ukrainian forces are nearly completely surrounded in the strategic city of Bakhmut in Donetsk region, despite pouring in massive amounts of manpower and equipment, the whole notion of “liberation of Crimea” is a pipe dream. Western officials themselves have in many cases long acknowledged the extreme unlikelihood of any Ukraine attempt to take Crimea at reaching success. The FT report hints at this in the following: Sybiha’s remarks may relieve western officials who are skeptical about Ukraine’s ability to reclaim the peninsula and worry that any attempt to do so militarily could lead President Vladimir Putin to escalate his war, possibly with nuclear weapons. To date Zelenskyy has ruled out peace talks until Russian forces leave all of Ukraine, including Crimea.

All of this represents a public reversal of sorts from Zelensky’s prior hardened stance of seeking the return of every inch of Ukrainian territory. For example, last October while feeling emboldened after billions in defense aid was pledged from the US and Western allies, he declared in a nightly address, “We will definitely liberate Crimea.” “We will return this part of our country not only to the all-Ukrainian space, but also to the all-European space,” Zelensky had said, not for the first time. He also repeated the same as recently as Sunday. Interestingly, FT cites yet another high-ranking Western defense official who admits the near impossibility of Ukraine actually taking Crimea militarily:

Rear Admiral Tim Woods, the British defense attaché in Washington, said on Wednesday that Crimea would need “a political solution because of just the concentration of force that is there and what it would mean for the Ukrainians to go in there”. He added: “I don’t think there’s going to be a very quick military solution…hence we need to see what are favorable conditions for Ukraine to negotiate and I think Ukraine would be up for that.”

Milan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1643612335792087041

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“..The results of sociological surveys also show that the people of Ukraine do not want peace but victory..”

• Ukraine Defense Minister: No Negotiations With Russia, War Ends This Year (Az.)

Ukraine will not agree to peace agreements with the Kremlin regime and Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the Minister of Defense of the country Oleksii Reznikov, Report informs. According to him, the war may end this year: “The peace treaty with Russia is an exception. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would not sit down at the negotiating table with Putin. The results of sociological surveys also show that the people of Ukraine do not want peace but victory. Therefore, all our partners must understand: we will not compromise.” Reznikov said that the military-political leadership is ready for negotiations only under the conditions of Ukraine – no change in the position. The minister called the war in Ukraine the biggest war on the planet after the Second World War:

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“Seizing control of the western territories of modern Ukraine, the so-called Kresy [‘borderlands’ in Polish], is the coveted dream of the Polish nationalists..”

• Zelensky Vows ‘No Borders’ Between Ukraine And Poland (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky met his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda in Warsaw on Wednesday, during his first official visit to Poland since the beginning of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022. “You have stood shoulder to shoulder with us, and we are grateful for it,” Zelensky stated during the meeting, pledging “no borders in political, economic and – especially important – in historical terms” between the two countries. The Polish president, for his part, promised to continue supporting Kiev in the conflict, revealing that Warsaw was ready to send all its MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine “in the future.” Poland has previously pledged 14 of its Soviet-made jets.

“Today we are trying to get for Ukraine… additional guarantees, security guarantees, which will strengthen Ukraine’s military potential,” Duda said, adding that Kiev had been protecting the whole of Europe from what he called the threat of “Russian imperialism.” Poland has been one of Zelensky’s top allies, transferring assorted hardware to bolster the Ukrainian military, including tanks and self-propelled howitzers, as well as rallying international support for such deliveries. Moscow, however, has claimed Warsaw has an alternate agenda, accusing it of pushing Kiev into a military catastrophe in order to seize western Ukrainian lands.

On Tuesday, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, claimed that Poland’s military assistance to Ukraine was actually part of a secret land grab plan aimed at certain territories that historically belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which today are part of Ukraine. “Seizing control of the western territories of modern Ukraine, the so-called Kresy [‘borderlands’ in Polish], is the coveted dream of the Polish nationalists,” Naryshkin said, adding that Warsaw sees “the collapse of Ukrainian statehood after a military defeat as a condition for implementing this idea.” Over the course of the ongoing conflict, Naryshkin has repeatedly warned of the alleged Polish designs on Ukraine’s territory. Warsaw, however, has denied such claims, dismissing them as an information warfare operation.

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“NATO is an entity of American imperialism, which should have disappeared when the Cold War ended in the early 1990s.”

• Finland’s NATO Membership Aimed At Escalation With Russia – Philippot (TASS)

Finland’s accession to NATO is a provocation aimed at escalating the conflict with Russia, leader of France’s Les Patriotes (The Patriots) party Florian Philippot told TASS on Wednesday. “I view it as a provocation aimed at adding more fuel to the conflict with Russia,” Philippot said, commenting on Finland’s accession to the North Atlantic Alliance. “I consider this step to be inappropriate and aggressive,” the politician added. According to Philippot, “NATO is an entity of American imperialism, which should have disappeared when the Cold War ended in the early 1990s.” The French politician also called for France’s withdrawal from the North Atlantic Alliance.


In May 2022, Helsinki and Stockholm submitted their applications to join the US-led alliance but the process was blocked by Ankara who demanded that the two Nordic countries extradite people to Turkey suspected of terrorism and being involved in the 2016 coup, and bans on weapons supplies to Turkey should be lifted. In order to resolve these issues, Turkey, Finland and Sweden signed a memorandum listing specific steps that, according to Ankara, the two Nordic nations should take. Turkey’s parliament passed a bill ratifying a protocol on Finland’s NATO membership on March 30. On Tuesday, Helsinki officially became NATO’s 31st member.

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Imagine you’re invited to China and you start by insulting your host.

• Macron Warns China Against Supplying Russia With Weapons (TASS)

French President Emmanuel Macron said while visiting China that it was not in China’s interest to provide weapons to Moscow, Reuters reported on Wednesday, quoting Macron as saying. “China’s interest isn’t to have a lasting war,” Macron said, adding that should China send any arms to Russia, it “would be complicit in a breach of international law.” According to Agence France-Presse, the French president said that at a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping he was not going to threaten China with sanctions. On February 18, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that China was “strongly considering providing lethal assistance to Russia,” adding it might include ammunition and weapons.


In response, China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said that the Chinese government did not accept coercion or pressure on Chinese-Russian relations from the US in context of China’s alleged military assistance to Russia. On Wednesday, Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen traveled to China on a visit that will last until April 7. It is Macron’s first visit to China in 3.5 years, since he visited Beijing in the fall of 2019 during his first term in office. Macron plans to focus on the Ukraine conflict and the bilateral French-Chinese ties, especially in the economic sphere, in Beijing.

Read more …

More warnings…

“..And it props up Russia’s economy..”

• NATO Chief Issues Warning To China (RT)

NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg has urged China to halt its “growing alignment” with Russia, warning that any military assistance from Beijing to Moscow during the conflict in Ukraine would be a “historic mistake” with major consequences. Speaking after the conclusion of a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, Stoltenberg sounded alarms over Moscow’s friendly ties with the People’s Republic, suggesting Beijing could soon offer weapons to Russia despite its insistence that it has no plans to do so. “China refuses to condemn Russia’s aggression… And it props up Russia’s economy,” he claimed, adding “Allies have been clear that any provision of lethal aid by China to Russia would be a historic mistake, with profound implications.”

While the NATO head did not elaborate on those “implications,” Washington has previously threatened a response to Chinese military support, while the US Treasury has already moved ahead with sanctions for several China-based companies accused of supplying parts for drones allegedly used by Russian forces. Beijing has rejected any suggestion that it intends to supply weapons to Moscow, insisting it is “completely objective” toward the conflict while accusing US officials of spreading “disinformation” on the matter. Russia, too, has denied previous reports that it requested Chinese military gear. The two countries have nonetheless stepped up relations over the last year, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping vowing to “further deepen military mutual trust” after talks at the Kremlin last month. However, Putin has since stated that Russia is “not creating any military alliance with China,” despite their “cooperation in the sphere of military-technical interaction.”

Noting that the latest NATO meeting was largely focused on Ukraine, Stoltenberg went on to say that the alliance had agreed to create a “strategic multi-year assistance program” for Kiev. He voiced hopes that the project would “increase Ukraine’s interoperability with NATO, and to bring it up to NATO standards,” as well as assist the country “on its path to Euro-Atlantic integration.” During a press briefing after the first day of discussions in Brussels on Tuesday, Stoltenberg was asked when Kiev would be admitted into the bloc, but could not provide an answer, merely saying that NATO’s “position on membership is unchanged.” While the alliance first offered a seat to Ukraine back in 2008, it appears little progress has been made in the 15 years since, with one unnamed Western diplomat recently telling the Financial Times that NATO is simply “ignoring” Kiev’s membership application.

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“It also condemned President Vladimir Zelensky for claiming last week that Ukraine was a bastion of religious freedom “in our part of Europe.”

• Russia Demands Release Of Ukrainian Bishop (RT)

Russia has demanded the release of Metropolitan Pavel, a senior bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), stating that it is concerned about his wellbeing. Pavel was taken into custody last week as Kiev sought to oust UOC monks from the historic monastery which he heads. In a statement on Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it was angered by the Ukrainian government’s pressure to remove the UOC from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. It added that Moscow is worried about the monks and priests, who “face the threat of a physical and moral crackdown,” and claimed Pavel’s arrest was a prime example of religious persecution. The leading bishop is being held under house arrest “in electronic shackles,” the statement remarked. It also condemned President Vladimir Zelensky for claiming last week that Ukraine was a bastion of religious freedom “in our part of Europe.”

Russian diplomats branded the remarks “the pinnacle of cynicism.” “We demand the immediate release of Metropolitan Pavel and his medical treatment,” the Foreign Ministry said. Pavel was taken into custody last Saturday, after the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) accused him of inciting religious hatred and “justifying and denying Russian military aggression.” The court which ruled on his arrest was forced to interrupt proceedings when the senior cleric complained of health issues. Pavel was removed from Kiev and ordered to stay in a village 50km from the capital. The SBU has conducted raids on UOC churches and clerics, claiming to be looking for stockpiled weapons and evidence of treason. A report by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said last month that the actions “could be discriminatory,” prompting a rebuke from Kiev.

Days before his arrest, Pavel blamed Zelensky personally for the crackdown on the UOC, vowing that God “will not forgive this action, neither to you nor to your family.” The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Zelensky of insulting the UOC’s ruling council by refusing to meet them and ignoring millions of people who support the church in Ukraine and beyond. “The Kiev regime stubbornly ratchets up its policy of moral terror against citizens and the faithful,” it said. Moscow also reiterated its criticism of the US government for a failure to address the situation, claiming that this proved Washington cannot be an arbiter on religious freedom. US reports on the issue are “bogus propaganda and puny political hackery,” the Foreign Ministry asserted.

Orthodox

Read more …

While Macron is in China.

• France Braces For Further Protests on Thursday (RT)

French trade unions called for record turnout at protests on Thursday, after negotiations with the government over a controversial pension reform bill broke down. France has been consumed by protests and riots since President Emmanuel Macron’s government hiked the retirement age without a vote in parliament. Union representatives met with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Wednesday, warning beforehand that they would walk out if Borne refused to entertain the idea of bringing the retirement age for most workers back to 62 from 64. Borne refused, and the union representatives walked out, calling for strikes and mass demonstrations the following day.

“We again told the prime minister that the only democratic outcome could be the text’s withdrawal,” Cyril Chabanier, who heads the CFTC union, told reporters. “The prime minister replied that she wished to maintain the text, a grave decision.” “We decided to put an end to this useless meeting,” the leader of the CGT union, Sophie Binet, added. “The prime minister has chosen to send us back to the streets.” Borne passed the text in question last month, invoking special constitutional powers to enact the pension reform legislation without a parliamentary vote. Raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 has long been a project of President Emmanuel Macron, who described the move as a “just and responsible” way to keep France’s social security system afloat.

The bill’s passage triggered an immediate wave of demonstrations and riots, with the largest protest drawing more than a million people into the streets across the country. Marches in Paris and some other cities turned violent, with black-clad rioters setting fires, smashing storefronts, and hurling rocks at police. The union chiefs called for similar turnout on Thursday. “We have to continue mobilizing until the end, until the government understands there is no way out other than withdrawing this reform,” Binet told the AFP news agency. “We can’t move on to anything else until this reform is repealed.” The bill is currently being examined by France’s Constitutional Council, which will issue a verdict on its legality next week. While the council can strike down or amend parts of the text, it rarely tosses entire bills.

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Ha ha ha. I offer to store your Russian gas …..

• Ukraine Offers One Third Of Its Gas Storage To Europe For Next Winter (TASS)

Ukraine offered up to 10 billion cubic meters of its gas storage facilities to European countries, the Brussels-based Euractive portal reported on Wednesday, citing Alexey Chernyshev, Chairman of the Board of Naftogaz of Ukraine. “We want to offer our storages to Europeans <…>. “Right now, we are able to provide up to 10 bcm of storage,” Chernyshov said as quoted by the publication. According to the portal, he made such an offer during a discussion between representatives of Ukraine and the EU on the results of the first heating season in Europe without full-fledged supplies of Russian gas.


Chernyshev also said that Ukraine has the largest gas storage facilities in Europe, with a total volume of about 31 billion cubic meters. This, according to him, is more than enough for domestic consumption. “I can guarantee that I can rent this empty space to European countries that can store gas in Ukraine. And when they need it, they can get it back to Europe,” said the head of the company.

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“The Saudis are only doing what they need to do, and the White House has no say in the matter..”

• Saudis Aren’t Afraid Of US Anymore (Bhadrakumar)

All that the Western leaders can complain about is that the OPEC+ cut in oil output has come at an inappropriate time. But the woes of Western economies cannot be laid at the door of OPEC+ as there are inherent problems which are now coming to the surface. For instance, the large scale protests in France against pension reform or the widespread strikes in Britain for higher wages show that there are deep structural problems in these economies, and the governments seem helpless in tackling them. In geopolitical terms, the OPEC+ move came after a meeting between Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman in Riyadh on March 16 that focused on oil market cooperation. Therefore, it is widely seen as the tightening of the bond between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

In fact, in May, as the largest members of OPEC join Russia in its unilateral reduction, the balance of quotas and the ratio of market shares between and amongst the participants in the OPEC + deal will return to the level set when it was concluded in April 2020. The big question is, how Moscow might profit from the OPEC+ decision. The rise in crude oil prices particularly benefits Russia. Simply put, the production cuts will tighten up the oil market and thus help Russia to secure better prices for the crude oil it sells. Second, the new cuts also confirm that Russia is still an integral and important part of the group of oil producing countries, despite the western attempts to isolate it.

Third, the consequences of Sunday’s decision are all the greater because, unlike the previous cuts by the OPEC+ group at the height of the pandemic or last October, today, the momentum for global oil demand is up, not down — what with a strong recovery by China expected. That is to say, the surprise OPEC+ reduction further consolidates the Saudi-Russian energy alliance, by aligning their production levels, thus placing them on equal footing. It is a slap in the face for Washington. Make no mistake, this is another signal regarding a new era where the Saudis are not afraid of the US anymore, as the OPEC “leverage” is on Riyadh’s side. The Saudis are only doing what they need to do, and the White House has no say in the matter. Clearly, a recasting of the regional and global dynamics that has been set in motion lately is gathering momentum. The future of petrodollar seems increasingly uncertain.

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“If the New York bench retains any integrity, this case will be thrown out as legally improper..”

• The Trump Case is a Test For the President And The Legal System (Turley)

For months, many have raised objections to the effort of Manhattan District Attorney to use a flawed legal theory to essentially litigate a federal election violation that the Justice Department opted not to charge. This bootstrap theory has been widely criticized, but many in the media sought to cut off that debate by suggesting that Bragg might be basing his prosecution on some unknown crime. Last week, Michael Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis went as far to “warn all the pundits and everyone speculating…that there are lots of facts, lots of documents, lots of evidence of multiple crimes.” We now have the indictment, and it is basically what many of us anticipated. It is a series of stacked counts of falsifying business records for the purpose of influencing the election.

The indictment seems to address the lack of legal precedent with a lack of specificity on the underlying “secondary” felony. Bragg has done nothing more than replicated the same flawed theory dozens of times. This is where math and the law meet. If you multiply any number by zero, it is still zero. If the New York bench retains any integrity, this case will be thrown out as legally improper with an admonition to Bragg and his office for politicizing the criminal justice process. That, however, may be asking a lot of state judges who are elected on both the trial and appellate levels. They also may prove to be lawyers on the Wilde side.

The cost, however, to the legal system will be immense. In a single indictment, Alvin Bragg bulldozed any high ground that the Democrats had after January 6th. He has fulfilled the narrative of the Trump campaign by supplying a raw and undeniable example of the politicization of the legal system. What is most shocking is that this attack on the rule of law was met with the rapturous applause of many, including lawyers and legal pundits. They not only will ignore the affront to the integrity of our legal system, but celebrate its demise. Bragg himself threw a flag on the effort to indict Trump being pushed by a lawyer brought in as a special assistant district attorney for that purpose. Mark F. Pomerantz and his colleague Carey R. Dunne resigned — and their resignation letter was then leaked to an eager media.

Pomerantz then took a step that floored many of us: he wrote a tell-all book based on the still ongoing investigation. However, Pomerantz admits that career prosecutors balked at his radical proposals to find a crime — any crime — to nail Trump. That included an entirely bonkers money laundering charge against Trump where he would be the victim of an extortion effort. In his book, Pomerantz admits that “many of the lawyers were relentlessly negative.” Some prosecutors were clearly so upset by his efforts that they “defected” from the team. He also admitted that Bragg told him “that the consensus among the group of prosecutors with whom he had been speaking was not to go forward.”

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“..this case against the former American leader may ferment a further political crisis with dangerous consequences for the whole country..”

• Trump Case Shows Divide Among US Elites, Political Crisis Near – Expert (TASS)

The legal proceedings against former US President Donald Trump are a testament to the rift in the US establishment and this case against the former American leader may ferment a further political crisis with dangerous consequences for the whole country, the board chairman of the Foundation for the Development and Support of the Valdai discussion club, Andrey Bystritsky, told TASS on Wednesday. The expert drew attention to yesterday’s reports about Trump’s two-hour arrest in the United States and the charges brought against him on 34 counts of falsifying the Trump Organization’s financial statements.

“This is a really big event and a very dangerous one for the United States, because it signals a deep split within the establishment and growing friction therein,” he stressed. Notably, the campaign against Trump gained momentum after the former president publicly expressed his intention to run for the US presidency again in 2024. The analyst called this a “big challenge” and did not rule out that the legal proceedings against Trump would ferment a deep political crisis. “This crisis didn’t start yesterday. In all likelihood, it will grow deeper [against the backdrop of the Trump case]. Things will get dicey,” the expert concluded.

On Tuesday, Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying the business records of the Trump Organization to bury allegations of extramarital affairs with porn actress Stormy Daniels that arose during his first White House campaign in 2016. The falsification of financial statements as such does not carry a prison sentence, but it becomes an aggravating circumstance, if the forgery was committed to cover up another crime. According to the prosecution, Trump tried to cover up certain offenses committed during the 2016 campaign. This is the first case ever of criminal charges brought against a former US president. Trump was kept in custody for about two hours under US procedural law. After his release he flew from New York to Florida.

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“This could be the crisis where the panic moves from the banks to the dollar itself…”

“What’s going on is a crisis caused by a shortage of Treasury bill collateral to support derivatives positions and shrinking balance sheets as a consequence of the collateral shortage.”

• Why the Panic Is Just Beginning (Rickards)

[..] the 2008 crisis reached the acute stage on September 15, 2008, with the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers. But that crisis began in the spring of 2007 when HSBC surprised markets with an announcement that mortgage losses had exceeded expectations. It then continued through the summer of 2007 with the failures of two Bear Steans high-yield mortgage funds, and the closure of a Société Générale money market fund. The panic then caused the failures of Bear Stearns (March 2008), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (June 2008), and other institutions before reaching Lehman Brothers. For that matter, the panic continued after Lehman to include AIG, General Electric, the commercial paper market, and General Motors before finally subsiding on March 9, 2009.


Starting with the HSBC announcement, the subprime mortgage panic and domino effects lasted twenty-four months from March 2007 to March 2009. Averaging our two examples (1998, 2008) the average duration of these financial crises is about twenty months. This new crisis is one-month old. It could have a long way to run. On the other hand, this crisis could reach the acute stage faster. That’s because of technology that makes a bank run move at the speed of light. With an iPhone you can initiate a $1 billion wire transfer from a failing bank while you’re waiting in line at McDonald’s. No need to line up around the block in the rain waiting your turn. In addition, the regulatory response is faster because they’ve seen this movie before. That begs the question of whether regulators are out of bullets because they’ve already guaranteed almost everything so they don’t have more rabbits to pull out of the hat.

This could be the crisis where the panic moves from the banks to the dollar itself. If savers lose confidence in the Fed (we’re almost there) not only will the banks collapse, but the dollar will collapse also. At that point, the only solution is gold bullion. [..] Further evidence comes from the fact that no sooner was the Credit Suisse shotgun wedding completed than investors aimed their sights at Deutsche Bank, another perennial weak link in the chain. Who’s next? Barclays? Santander? We don’t know. Neither do regulators or investors. But we do know more failures are coming. By the way, this is not really a banking crisis even though it plays out in the form of bank failures. What’s going on is a crisis caused by a shortage of Treasury bill collateral to support derivatives positions and shrinking balance sheets as a consequence of the collateral shortage.


Why doesn’t the Treasury just issue, say, $2 trillion of new T-bills and let the primary dealers and Fed underwrite them with as much printed money as needed? One reason is that neither Jay Powell nor Janet Yellen understands what we just described. The other reason is that we’re up against the X-Date when the Treasury runs out of cash and can’t borrow more because of the debt ceiling. Is Congress ready to raise the debt ceiling? Nope. It’s the usual Democrat versus Republican game of chicken with no resolution in sight. So, we go from bank runs to a Treasury bill shortage to a debt ceiling standoff in no time. Do regulators and financial journalists understand this? No, they don’t know how to connect the dots. But you get it.

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36,000 jobs lost?!

• Swiss Banks Faced Risk Of ‘Full-scale’ Deposit Run – Regulator (RT)

The takeover of the troubled Credit Suisse by rival banking giant UBS has allowed Switzerland’s economy to avoid major problems, including deposit runs at other banks, national regulator FINMA claimed on Wednesday. FINMA and the Swiss central bank brokered the historic takeover for 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.3 billion) in a deal announced last month. As part of the transaction, the regulator ordered Credit Suisse to write down to zero some 16 billion Swiss francs ($17.6 billion) of its Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds – widely regarded as higher risk investments – with the aim of bolstering the bank’s capital and resolving its liquidity problems. According to FINMA CEO Urban Angehrn, the bankruptcy plan was “de-prioritized early on due to its high tangible and intangible costs.”

The chief executive pointed out that insolvency would have left the functional parts of Credit Suisse in operation as a Swiss-only bank, but one with a “damaged reputation.” A temporary takeover by the Swiss government would reportedly have exposed taxpayers to the risk of losses. “The parent bank Credit Suisse AG would have gone under – a Swiss bank with total assets of over 350 billion Swiss francs ($387 billion) and ongoing business also running into many billions,” Angehrn stated. “It is not difficult to imagine the disastrous impact the bankruptcy of a bank and wealth manager as large as Credit Suisse AG would have had on Switzerland’s financial center and private banking industry,” he explained. “Many other Swiss banks would probably have faced a run on deposits, as Credit Suisse itself did in the fourth quarter of 2022.”

The FINMA CEO went on to claim that “the damage to the Swiss economy, financial center and Switzerland’s reputation would have been enormous, with unquantifiable effects on tax revenues and jobs.” He also argued that the merger plan was ultimately favored both to stabilize Credit Suisse and to prevent a domino effect on the global banking sector. “The current fragile state of the financial markets due to the shift to monetary tightening in 2022, the uncertain economic outlook, the crisis at certain banks in the US and the whole geopolitical backdrop were also relevant to our decision,” Angehrn maintained. “There was a high probability that the resolution of a global systemically important bank would have led to contagion effects and jeopardized financial stability in Switzerland and globally.”

The US banking crisis exacerbated the troubles of Credit Suisse, which had been already battling a string of scandals, legal issues, and customer outflows. In addition, its biggest investor, Saudi National Bank, announced in March that it would not be able to provide financial assistance due to regulatory and statutory limits. Credit Suisse reported a 2022 net loss of 7.3 billion francs (nearly $8 billion) and warned that it would incur another “substantial” loss in 2023 before returning to profitability in 2024.

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If you claim stuff like this, you better be on very solid ground (I don’t think they are):

“..someone who’s had 4 or 5 shots and is 30 years old today can now expect to live to 55 at the oldest.”

• Fully Vaxxed Lose 25 Years of Life Expectancy (Slay)

Those who have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 with mRNA shots will lose 25 years of their life expectancy, a bombshell new study has revealed. Researchers analyzed government data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Cleveland Clinic Data, and insurance company risk assessment data. The analysis uncovered a disturbing trend showing life spans plummetting in those who had multiple doses of the shots. The latest Cleveland Clinic Data and the latest US data were analyzed by Josh Stirling, founder of Insurance Collaboration to Save Livess and former #1 ranked Insurance Analyst. Stirling’s study shows an incredibly disturbing trend. The damage to health caused by each vaccine dose does not lessen over time as it appears to continue indefinitely.

In fact, CDC All-Cause Mortality data shows that each vaccine dose increased mortality by 7% in the year 2022 compared to the mortality in 2021. Those who have had 5 doses were 35% more likely to die in 2022 than they were in 2021. If you have had one dose then you were 7% more likely to die in 2022 than you were in 2021. If you are unvaxxed then you were no more likely to die in 2022 than you were in 2021. The data shows that every year, excess deaths are soaring dramatically as all forms of mortality accelerate, despite the level of injections people take going down. The issue is not isolated to the United States, however, and is impacting nations all around the world. Recent government data out of Australia shows that the excess deaths in 2022 were 5162% higher than in previous years.

A year ago, doubly vaccinated Australians were 10.72x more likely to catch Omicron than the unvaxxed. Now they are 20 times more likely and the triply or more vaxxed are 35x more likely, as the latest NSW Health stats show. According to the study based on government data out of Cleveland, the average age of a man is around 80 years if he’s unvaxxed. Yet, the rate of vaxxed deaths is growing in comparison to unvaxxed. The study found that someone who’s had 4 or 5 shots and is 30 years old today can now expect to live to 55 at the oldest.

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125,000 years
https://twitter.com/i/status/1643534912501284864

 

 


Distortion in the Mercator map

 

 

These two snails live in different oceans, but their shell coils are identically inverted . Thatcheria mirabilis and Architectonica perspectiva fit together because their coils follow math rule known as Raup’s model

 

 

Heroine

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 23 3023

Mar 232023
 
 March 23, 2023  Posted by at 9:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


Gustav Klimt Pine forest I 1901

 

• In Moscow, Xi And Putin Bury Pax Americana (Escobar)
• Multipolarity Was Triggered By The 2003 US Invasion Of Iraq (Kneissl)
• Why Hypersonic Weapons Change Everything (Krainer)
• EU ‘Delusional’ In Its Push To ‘Decouple’ From Russia – Austrian FM (RT)
• Results Of Xi’s Visit To Russia Matter, Not Western Reaction – Kremlin (TASS)
• China Gives US Advice On Ukraine (ZH)
• West Wants Ukraine To Be Destroyed – Moscow (RT)
• West Brings Humankind Closer To Nuclear Armageddon – Antonov (TASS)
• UK’s Depleted Uranium Plan Threatens All Of Europe – Moscow (RT)
• Russia Calls On US Not To Escalate Situation (TASS)
• Russia, China Reject Import Of ‘Color Revolutions’ To Central Asia (TASS)
• Russia and China Sign Long-Term Nuclear Deal (RT)
• Macron Will Not Seek Re-election, Ready To Sacrifice His Popularity (TASS)
• US Trying To ‘Cover Up’ Nord Stream Sabotage Role – Seymour Hersh (RT)
• US Must Respond To Nord Stream Accusations – Mexican President (RT)
• Elon Musk Urges US To Guarantee All Bank Deposits (RT)
• Hunter Biden Used FBI Mole Named ‘One-eye’ To Tip Him Off To China Probes (NYP)

 

 

 

 

Nuland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tucker Moderna

 

 

Rand Paul Blinken

 

 

 

 

Gaddafi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1638532760477528064

 

 

 

 

 

 

IVM

 

 

 

 

Very few in the west have an overview of how the world changed last weekend.

“..the Russian position remains ironclad: demilitarization, Ukrainian neutrality, and enshrining the new facts on the ground. In parallel, the Russian Foreign Ministry completely ruled out a role for the US, UK, France, and Germany in future Ukraine negotiations: they are not considered neutral mediators.”

• In Moscow, Xi And Putin Bury Pax Americana (Escobar)

What has just taken place in Moscow is nothing less than a new Yalta, which, incidentally, is in Crimea. But unlike the momentous meeting of US President Franklin Roosevelt, Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in USSR-run Crimea in 1945, this is the first time in arguably five centuries that no political leader from the west is setting the global agenda. It’s Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin that are now running the multilateral, multipolar show. Western exceptionalists may deploy their crybaby routines as much as they want: nothing will change the spectacular optics, and the underlying substance of this developing world order, especially for the Global South. What Xi and Putin are setting out to do was explained in detail before their summit, in two Op-Eds penned by the presidents themselves. Like a highly-synchronized Russian ballet, Putin’s vision was laid out in the People’s Daily in China, focusing on a “future-bound partnership,” while Xi’s was published in the Russian Gazette and the RIA Novosti website, focusing on a new chapter in cooperation and common development.

Right from the start of the summit, the speeches by both Xi and Putin drove the NATO crowd into a hysterical frenzy of anger and envy: Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova perfectly captured the mood when she remarked that the west was “foaming at the mouth.” The front page of the Russian Gazette on Monday was iconic: Putin touring Nazi-free Mariupol, chatting with residents, side by side with Xi’s Op-Ed. That was, in a nutshell, Moscow’s terse response to Washington’s MQ-9 Reaper stunt and the International Criminal Court (ICC) kangaroo court shenanigans. “Foam at the mouth” as much as you like; NATO is in the process of being thoroughly humiliated in Ukraine.

During their first “informal” meeting, Xi and Putin talked for no less than four and a half hours. At the end, Putin personally escorted Xi to his limo. This conversation was the real deal: mapping out the lineaments of multipolarity – which starts with a solution for Ukraine. Predictably, there were very few leaks from the sherpas, but there was quite a significant one on their “in-depth exchange” on Ukraine. Putin politely stressed he respects China’s position – expressed in Beijing’s 12-point conflict resolution plan, which has been completely rejected by Washington. But the Russian position remains ironclad: demilitarization, Ukrainian neutrality, and enshrining the new facts on the ground. In parallel, the Russian Foreign Ministry completely ruled out a role for the US, UK, France, and Germany in future Ukraine negotiations: they are not considered neutral mediators.

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“..orientation comes from Orient.”

• Multipolarity Was Triggered By The 2003 US Invasion Of Iraq (Kneissl)

In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, there was a great deal of division among UN Security Council (UNSC) members. US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented questionable evidence of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, while the foreign ministers of Germany and France publicly opposed the aggression, for which they occasionally received applause in the Council. China and Russia, who vehemently opposed the war, began coordinating their decisions and responses, in part because of their respective oil interests in Iraq. This cooperation between Moscow and Beijing set the stage for a coordinated multilateral approach between the two nations. Both governments understood that a war would open Pandora’s box, leading to the collapse of Iraqi institutions and resulting in widespread regional disharmony.

Unfortunately, this is precisely what happened. The subsequent years saw weekly attacks, an expansion of Salafi terror groups like Al Qaeda, the rise of ISIS in 2014, and perpetual internal Iraqi conflict. Anyone familiar with the country‘s conditions was aware of the looming catastrophe when the illegal invasion of Iraq began on 20 March, 2003. Twenty years to the day, Chinese President Xi Jinping will embark on a three-day state visit to Moscow, and the focus will extend beyond bilateral energy relations, which have been a consistent priority since 2004. As previously stated in their joint declaration in Beijing in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart aim to coordinate their foreign policy and advance it together. Their discussions may also touch on the Ukraine dossier, although media expectations in the west may be overestimated.

It may be pure coincidence that the meeting coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Yet it also highlights how extensively Russian and Chinese strategies have intertwined over the past two decades. Today, increasingly, “orientation comes from Orient.” Cooperative geostrategic leadership and sound alternative propositions to resolve global conflicts are being shaped in Beijing and Moscow – because the old centers of power can offer nothing new. Twenty years after the US invasion of Iraq, a failed ‘war on terror,’ the proliferation of extremism, millions of dead and displaced in West Asia, and never-ending conflict, China and Russia have finally teamed up to systematically advance their view of the world, this time with more resolve and global clout.


Brzezinski 1997

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“Russia is the only country in the world that has deployment-ready hypersonic missiles – not one but three types..”

• Why Hypersonic Weapons Change Everything (Krainer)

It was in 2018 that Vladimir Putin took the stage to present Russia’s new hypersonic weapons. The term “hypersonic” refers to missiles that fly at speeds of 5 mach and higher. At the time, many in the west dismissed Putin’s claims and thought it was a bluff. We now know that he wasn’t bluffing. Russia is the only country in the world that has deployment-ready hypersonic missiles – not one but three types: Zircons, Kinzhals and Avantguards. Domazet explained why these weapons are radical game changers in warfare. Namely, in World War 1, tanks were the game changing military technology. Since World War 2, it’s been the air-force. Aircraft carrier strike groups have been an irresistible force wherever they travelled, dominating the seas ever since. But hypersonic precision missiles have rendered that force obsolete overnight.

The main military front in today’s global conflict, according to Domazet, are the Anti-Ballistic (ABM) batteries which the US has set up on the Poland-Romania axis, and the Russians on the North Pole-Kaliningrad-Crimea-Syria axis. These are defensive systems, conceived to intercept incoming nuclear missiles (though they can easily be converted to offensive nuclear missiles). However, today’s ABM systems are only effective against missiles flying at speeds up to mach 3.5 (3.5 x the speed of sound). Russia’s new Kinzhal missile flies at speeds of mach 12 to mach 15 and nothing in western defensive arsenals can stop its strike. During the war in Ukraine, Russia staged a stunning demonstration of its power.

The first Kinzhal strike, delivered one month after the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine, was perhaps the most significant: Russian forces targeted a large weapons depot in Ukraine which had been built during the Soviet times to withstand a nuclear strike. It was buried 170 meters (over 500 ft) underground and protected by several layers of armored concrete. The Kinzhal flies at altitudes of between 20 and 40 km, with a maximum range of 2,000 km. When above target, it dives perpendicularly and accelerates to 15 mach, generating enormous kinetic energy in addition to its explosive payload. That first strike with a single Kinzhal missile destroyed Ukraine’s nuke-proof underground weapons depot. This was a message for the west.

[..] Western intelligence estimated that Russia had some 50 Kinzhals at the start of the war in Ukraine, and thus far it has used only 9 of them. Last week, they fired six Kinzhals in a single salvo. That too, was a message. Here’s how Domazet explained it: United States have 11 aircraft carrier strike groups. Of these, fewer than half will be active at any one time (while others are in dock for maintenance, or in preparation). Firing six Kinzhals in one go is military-speak for, “we have the capability to sink ALL of your aircraft carriers at once.”

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“91% of Western companies are still in Russia and doing what is sensible: waiting, containment, ring fencing.”

• EU ‘Delusional’ In Its Push To ‘Decouple’ From Russia – Austrian FM (RT)

Russia will always remain important for Europe, Austria’s foreign minister told Reuters on Wednesday as he defended Raiffeisen Bank’s continued operations in the sanctioned country. Alexander Schallenberg made his comments after the US sanctions authority launched a probe into the Austrian lender over its business related to Russia last month. “Let’s get real,” he said. “91% of Western companies are still in Russia and doing what is sensible: waiting, containment, ring fencing.” Raiffeisen Bank International is Austria’s second-largest lender and, despite sanctions, still plays a critical role in the Russian economy.


It’s one of only two foreign banks on the Russian central bank’s list of 13 systemically important credit institutions. The other is UniCredit, a pan-European commercial bank. “To think that there won’t be Russia anymore and we can decouple in all areas is delusional,” Schallenberg told Reuters, adding that while Austria would loosen ties, this “can’t happen overnight.” Schallenberg also discouraged Europe from introducing further sanctions against Russia. “It is a very blunt weapon,” he said. “We’ve had massive sanctions packages. Give them time to work.”

Bulgaria

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“Dmitry Medvedev [..] pointed out that he was pleased that most Westerners were furious about Russia-China high-level talks..”

• Results Of Xi’s Visit To Russia Matter, Not Western Reaction – Kremlin (TASS)

It is the results of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia that matter, not the Western coverage that was predictably hostile, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday. “Undoubtedly, the most important thing is not the West’s reaction after all, but the results of these talks that have taken place. The main thing is the results of the state visit itself,” the Kremlin spokesman said. “As for the reaction of the Western countries, it is practically on all issues nothing but unfriendly and deeply hostile, this is not a secret to anyone. The coverage of this important visit is not an exception,” Peskov stressed.


Chinese President Xi Jinping was on a state visit in Russia from March 20 to 22. On Monday, he had a tete-a-tete informal meeting with Putin, which lasted for 4.5 hours. On Tuesday, the Chinese leader met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and then arrived in the Kremlin for official talks with Putin. The leaders signed two joint statements after the talks. They both pointed out that the talks were successful. Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, who was part of the expanded circle of Russian delegates at the talks, pointed out that he was pleased that most Westerners were furious about Russia-China high-level talks.

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“..contrary to popular assumptions in the West, the global community stands by China on the side of diplomatically pursuing peace.”

• China Gives US Advice On Ukraine (ZH)

Putin had told Xi that the peace plan “correlates to the point of view of the Russian Federation”; but the message out of Biden officials was “don’t be fooled” as it’s all about Moscow seeking to “freeze the war on its own terms,” in the words of Secretary of State Blinken. Also on Tuesday, NSC spokesman John Kirby said China is not an impartial mediator and that China “keeps parroting the Russian propaganda”. On Wednesday the Chinese foreign ministry hit back, charging that Washington is “adding fuel to the fire” of the conflict by its “continuous supply” of weapons to the battlefield. Spokesman Wang Wenbin was asked directly about Kirby and Blinken’s comments from the day prior.

“The US side claims that China’s stance isn’t impartial. But is it impartial to continuously supply weapons to the battlefield? Is it impartial to constantly escalate the conflict? Is it impartial to allow the effects of the crisis to spill over globally?” Wang said. “We advise the American side to rethink its own stance on the Ukraine issue, turn away from the erroneous path of adding fuel to the fire, and stop shifting the blame to China,” he added. The spokesman further insisted Beijing has “no selfish motives on the Ukraine issue, has not stood idly by… or sought profit for itself,” but that “what China has done boils down to one thing, that is, to promote peace talks.” He went on to assert that contrary to popular assumptions in the West, the global community stands by China on the side of diplomatically pursuing peace. According to a transcript:

“On the Ukraine issue, voices for peace and rationality are building. Most countries support easing tensions, stand for peace talks, and are against adding fuel to the fire. This is also China’s position. President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia is a journey of friendship, cooperation and peace. It has been warmly received internationally. We call on the US to reflect on its own role in the Ukraine issue, stop fueling the flames, and stop deflecting the blame on China.”

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“..if London follows through with its plans, then “Russia will be forced to react accordingly, bearing in mind that the collective West has already started to use weapons with a nuclear component.”

• West Wants Ukraine To Be Destroyed – Moscow (RT)

The British government’s plans to send depleted uranium shells to Kiev for use in the conflict with Moscow show that Western claims of caring about peace and the future of Ukraine are lies, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. Speaking to Radio Sputnik on Wednesday she insisted that the statement by London is a sign of the “absolute recklessness, irresponsibility and impunity” of the US and Britain when it comes to international affairs. She stressed that munitions containing depleted uranium are not only more powerful and have greater penetrating ability, but they also contaminate the soil with radiation, delivering lasting damage to the environment and affecting many generations of people living in the area.

“Everything that we hear from those countries [the US and UK] about peace, the settlement of the conflict, the future of Ukraine, the well-being of the Ukrainian people – it’s all a lie, falsehood and absolute disorientation of the international community. In reality, the goal is completely different,” Zakharova said. After the UK announced plans to supply armor-piercing depleted uranium shells to the Kiev government, “there can’t be any doubts that we’re talking about is the strongly pronounced intention of the collective West, headed by the US and Britain, to see Ukraine completely destroyed,” she stressed. On Monday, Annabel Goldie, the UK Minister of State for Defense, said that “alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armor-piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium.”

According to the official, such ammunition should be sent to Kiev because it is “highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armored vehicles.” The announcement by Goldie is “yet another British provocation,” which is aimed at escalating the conflict in Ukraine to a new level, Zakharova said. It’s no coincidence that it was made during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, which were focused on international stability and the Chinese peace initiative for Ukraine, she suggested. The rounds containing depleted uranium are actually “weapons of mass destruction with a nuclear component,”the spokeswoman insisted, adding that “the WMD issue is part of Anglo-Saxon logic of destabilizing the global international situation.” She recalled how Washington’s unsubstantiated claims that the government of Saddam Hussein had been in possession of weapons of mass destruction became a pretext for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

She also noted that NATO had used munitions with depleted uranium during its bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. “Some 15 tons of depleted uranium 238” were dropped on Yugoslav territory back then, and Serbia is still suffering from the fallout, reporting record numbers of some forms of cancer, Zakharova added. After the announcement of the deliveries of shells with depleted uranium to Ukraine, “we have no grounds anymore to doubt in principle who stands behind the activation, the launch of the conflict in Ukraine in all its phases. It is certainly the NATO-centric collective West, which is headed, in the first place, by the US and UK,” she insisted. Speaking about the issue on Tuesday, President Putin warned that if London follows through with its plans, then “Russia will be forced to react accordingly, bearing in mind that the collective West has already started to use weapons with a nuclear component.”

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“There is a continuous flow of lethal weapons to Ukraine, which are used to annihilate civilians, residential areas, schools, hospitals, kindergartens..”

• West Brings Humankind Closer To Nuclear Armageddon – Antonov (TASS)

Western countries led by the US have decided to bring the humankind to the brink of a nuclear Armageddon, Russia’s Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said in Washington on Wednesday. He was responding to statements by US officials that depleted-uranium munitions are a standard type of weapons that’s been used for decades and doesn’t pose any heightened risk. “Commenting on this kind of nonsense is really hard. US officials have reached a new low with their irresponsible statements. There is a continuous flow of lethal weapons to Ukraine, which are used to annihilate civilians, residential areas, schools, hospitals, kindergartens,” Antonov said, according to a statement from the embassy.


“It seems that the enlightened West, led by Washington, has irrevocably decided to bring humanity to a dangerous line, beyond which a nuclear Armageddon is looming ever more distinctly.” According to a statement published on Monday, UK Minister of State for Defense Annabelle Goldie wrote in response to an inquiry from a member of the House of Lords that the British government would send Ukraine munitions containing depleted uranium and featuring enhanced effectiveness against armored vehicles. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia will have to react appropriately to the fact that the “collective West begins using weapons with a nuclear component.”.

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“..depleted uranium munitions, which can contaminate the battlefield and cause health risks for generations to come..”

• UK’s Depleted Uranium Plan Threatens All Of Europe – Moscow (RT)

The British decision to supply depleted uranium munitions to Kiev is part of a dangerous trend that makes the Ukraine conflict a threat to the whole of Europe, Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin has warned. “The war to the last Ukrainian could become a war to the last European,” the politician said in a social media post. Numerous Russian officials have claimed that Kiev’s Western backers are prepared to sacrifice every Ukrainian for their geopolitical interests. Volodin argued that Kiev’s acquisition of depleted uranium munitions, which can contaminate the battlefield and cause health risks for generations to come, could become a stepping stone to even more dangerous weapons. The next step “could be the use of a dirty bomb by the Kiev regime or the deployment of a tactical nuclear weapon,” added Volodin.

President Vladimir Putin expressed concern about the British decision earlier this week, warning that Russia “will be forced to react accordingly, bearing in mind that the collective West has already started to use weapons with a nuclear component.” The Russian military claimed last October that two organizations in Ukraine had been given instructions to build a so-called ‘dirty bomb’, using materials that Kiev has had access to since it was part of the Soviet Union. The Russian Defense Ministry provided a list of locations in Ukraine where nuclear fuel and nuclear waste is present. A dirty bomb has a conventional explosive core surrounded by a radioactive jacket, and when detonated, it causes serious contamination.

Kiev denied the allegations and invited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, to inspect several of its atomic facilities, including the Eastern Mineral Enrichment Plant in Dnepropetrovsk Region and the Institute for Nuclear Research in the Ukrainian capital. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi reported in November that monitors found no evidence of undeclared activities at those two locations or a third site, a rocket-building plant in the city of Dnepr. The British government announced on Monday that it will send Ukraine armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium, alongside Challenger 2 main battle tanks that had already been promised.

Lukashenko
https://twitter.com/i/status/1638487524862459904

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“They consider supplying the Kiev regime with even more lethal, longer-range, modern sophisticated systems. Thus, the United States once again shows itself as a party directly involved in the conflict..”

• Russia Calls On US Not To Escalate Situation (TASS)

Russia urges the United States not to continue down the path of escalation, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Wednesday, commenting on the US Congress’ calls to supply Kiev with cluster munitions. “We call on the US side not to escalate,” he said, answering a question from TASS. The senior diplomat also pointed out that the US once again proved its direct involvement in the Ukrainian crisis by supplying Kiev with more and more lethal weapons. “They consider supplying the Kiev regime with even more lethal, longer-range, modern sophisticated systems. Thus, the United States once again shows itself as a party directly involved in the conflict,” the diplomat said.


Ryabkov pointed out that the US Congress didn’t even realize “what consequences such an initiative could lead to for the security of the US-led NATO and for any chances of potentially normalizing relations with Washington.” The Politico newspaper reported earlier that four high-ranking Republicans in the US Senate and the House of Representatives sent US President Joe Biden a letter, urging the American leader to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions.

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“The sides are ready to strengthen mutual coordination to support Central Asian countries’ efforts to ensure their sovereignty and national development..”

• Russia, China Reject Import Of ‘Color Revolutions’ To Central Asia (TASS)

Russia and China reject attempts to organize “color revolutions” and foreign interference into domestic affairs of Central Asian countries, according to the joint statement signed by Russian and Chinese Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, after their talks in Moscow on Tuesday. “The sides are ready to strengthen mutual coordination to support Central Asian countries’ efforts to ensure their sovereignty and national development. They reject attempts to import ‘color revolutions’ and foreign interference into regional affairs,” the statement reads. The two leaders also lauded the positive contribution of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to regional security and the potential of cooperation between the CSTO and China to ensure peace and stability in the region.

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“China already operates five Russian nuclear reactors and currently has four more under construction..”

• Russia and China Sign Long-Term Nuclear Deal (RT)

Russia and China are deepening their partnership in nuclear energy and will draw up a roadmap for cooperation in developing so-called fast-neutron reactors for decades to come, Russia’s state-run nuclear energy giant Rosatom announced on Wednesday. According to the company, the comprehensive program lays the ground not only for bilateral cooperation, but will essentially influence the shape of the global nuclear energy sector. The document signed between Rosatom and the China National Nuclear Corporation covers “key areas” and is focused on expanding current cooperation as well as launching new projects “related to fast-neutron reactors, the production of uranium-plutonium fuel and the management of spent nuclear fuel.”


The announcement of a long-term nuclear deal came among a raft of agreements presented during a three-day visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow. China already operates five Russian nuclear reactors and currently has four more under construction, which makes Russia the largest nuclear supplier to the country. Last year, Rosatom launched the construction of the Xudabu-4 reactor and the Tianwan-8 reactor in the Jiangsu province in eastern China. The reactors will be powered by third-generation pressurized water reactor technology supplied by Rosatom, with operations set to begin between 2026 and 2028, according to the agreement. The cost of construction at each site is estimated to be $1.7 billion.

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He should just leave.

• Macron Will Not Seek Re-election, Ready To Sacrifice His Popularity (TASS)

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday against the backdrop of the pension reform unfolding in the country that he was ready to sacrifice his popularity for France’s interests as he did not intend to be re-elected. “I am not going to do another term, I cannot do it according to the Constitution. Between the opinion polls and the interests of the country I will choose the latter,” he told the TF1 and France-2 TV channels in an interview. “If I have to face unpopularity, I am ready for it,” he added. The head of the state admitted that he had a responsibility to “settle the understandable anger”, however, he pointed out that this anger should not turn into violence, which he said was unacceptable.


“Rallies, the participants of which show protest – this is legal. But its legality should not exceed the legality of democratic decisions, which come to life through the decisions of the people’s deputies,” Macron said. A draft pension reform to raise the retirement age in France from 62 to 64 years was presented in January. This initiative sparked rallies and strikes across the country. On March 16, the head of the French cabinet, Elisabeth Borne, used her constitutional powers and announced that the bill would be adopted without a vote in the National Assembly (the lower house of parliament). This decision sparked a new wave of rallies, which often ended in clashes with the police.

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Hersh’s newest is behind a paywall.

• US Trying To ‘Cover Up’ Nord Stream Sabotage Role – Seymour Hersh (RT)

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh claims the US intentionally provided false stories to the media to cover up Washington’s involvement in the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline. In a post on his Substack blog, the veteran reporter claims the CIA was tasked with preparing a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence to provide the American and German press with an “alternative version” of the Nord Stream 2 explosions. “In the words of the intelligence community, the agency was ‘to pulse the system’ in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipeline’s destruction,” Hersh wrote, citing an anonymous source with access to diplomatic intelligence. He noted that the CIA had completed its task and, with the help of Germany, planted stories in the New York Times and German weekly Die Zeit. These referred to a supposed “ad hoc ‘off the books’ operation” carried out by a “pro-Ukrainian group,” which allegedly used a luxury sailing yacht to plant explosives on the Nord Stream pipelines.


“It was a total fabrication by American intelligence that was passed along to the Germans, and aimed at discrediting your story,” a source within the American intelligence community reportedly told Hersh. “The disinformation professionals inside the CIA understand that a propaganda gambit can only work if those on receiving are desperate for a story that can diminish or displace an unwanted truth. And the truth in question is that President Joe Biden authorized the destruction of the pipelines,” he added. In February, Hersh published a bombshell report on last September’s Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipeline blasts, accusing Washington of orchestrating the attack. The White House denied responsibility. Last week, several Western media outlets claimed the culprits may have been linked to Ukraine. Moscow dismissed the reports as “a coordinated media hoax campaign.”

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“the US has “never been ones to indicate that we are the government of the world or some kind of edict like that.”

• US Must Respond To Nord Stream Accusations – Mexican President (RT)

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has argued that the US should respond to allegations that it sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines. The remarks came as the Mexican leader hit out at Washington following criticism of his country. “If we are talking about acts of violence, how is it that an award-winning journalist in the United States claims that the US government sabotaged the gas pipeline from Russia to Europe?” Lopez Obrador asked during a press conference on Tuesday. The Mexican president was referring to claims by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh that the Biden administration blew up the Nord Stream pipelines linking Russia and Germany last year. Lopez Obrador’s remarks came as part of a rebuttal to accusations of “violence” by Mexican authorities, made in an annual human rights report issued by the US State Department this week.

The report alleged “significant human rights issues” in Mexico and cited “credible reports” of unlawful or arbitrary killings by the police, as well as torture and forced disappearances. Lopez Obrador rejected the findings as “lies,” and noted Washington’s own list of alleged wrongdoings. According to the Mexican president, that includes the US extradition demands against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who remains in detention in the UK. In addition, Lopez Obrador pointed to failed American efforts to halt the opioid crisis plaguing the country, which caused over 71,000 deaths in 2022 alone from fentanyl-linked overdoses and drug poisonings. The Mexican leader went on to argue that “lying” and “politicking” is in Washington’s nature, and asserted that the US “do[es] not want to change, so they believe they are the government of the world, and they only see the speck in someone else’s eye and not the beam in their own.”

State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel responded to Lopez Obrador’s remarks by insisting that the US has “never been ones to indicate that we are the government of the world or some kind of edict like that.” Patel suggested that the Mexican police, military, and other government structures were responsible for serious acts of corruption and unlawful killings, which is why these issues were highlighted in the State Department report. Lopez Obrador, however, has repeatedly insisted that there is an “anti-Mexico” conservative element within the US government that is trying to inflame tensions between the two countries. “Mexico is safer than the United States,” Lopez Obrador insisted earlier this month.

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“..Moody’s downgraded its outlook for the US banking system from ‘stable’ to ‘negative,’ citing the “rapidly deteriorating operating environment.”

• Elon Musk Urges US To Guarantee All Bank Deposits (RT)

Elon Musk has proposed a solution to the current banking crisis in the US. The government must do away with the current $250,000 insurance cap on all deposits to stop panicking clients from withdrawing their money, the Tesla CEO wrote in a Twitter post on Tuesday. His comments come in response to a media report that US officials are studying ways to temporarily insure deposits beyond the current limit, without having to get approval from Congress. “Absolutely required to stop bank runs,” Musk wrote. The banking crisis began in the US earlier this month with the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a major US lender focused on the tech and startup sectors. Over 92% of deposits in the bank were uninsured and the lender was shut down by regulators after massive deposit outflows.

SVB’s failure caused the closure of another lender, Signature Bank. Panicked customers have withdrawn tens of billions of dollars in cash from the smaller banks and placed them with bigger lenders. The billionaire entrepreneur and head of Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX, first proposed the idea last week. “FDIC needs to change to unlimited coverage to stop bank runs… Right now,” he wrote on March 18. The government has guaranteed all deposits of SVB and Signature Bank customers. However, according to a recent study, nearly 200 American banks are facing similar risks. SVB, like many other banks, had invested billions in US government bonds when interest rates were at near-zero and suffered losses when the Federal Reserve hiked them in a bid to curb inflation.

The failures of SVB and Signature Bank sent ripples across the entire US banking industry. Many other financial institutions have seen their stocks plunge, with the six largest Wall Street banks losing around $165 billion in market capitalization, or some 13% of their combined value. Last week, credit ratings agency Moody’s downgraded its outlook for the US banking system from ‘stable’ to ‘negative,’ citing the “rapidly deteriorating operating environment.”

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“..Ye offered Hunter $1 million to be his “private counsel” and flew to China, leaving his wife, daughter, son, mother, and nanny in his $50 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West. He was detained in Shanghai three months later and disappeared.”

• Hunter Biden Used FBI Mole Named ‘One-eye’ To Tip Him Off To China Probes (NYP)

Hunter Biden had an FBI mole named “One-Eye” who tipped off his Chinese business partners that they were under investigation, according to an Israeli energy expert arrested in Cyprus last month on gunrunning charges. The House Oversight Committee is investigating the explosive claims by Dr. Gal Luft, a former Israel Defense Forces lieutenant colonel with deep intelligence ties in Washington and Beijing, who says he was arrested to stop him from revealing what he knows about the Biden family and FBI corruption — details he told the Department of Justice in 2019, which he says it ignored. Luft, 56, first made the claims on Feb. 18 on Twitter, after being detained at a Cyprus airport as he prepared to board a plane to Israel.

“I’ve been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the U.S. The U.S., claiming I’m an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic. I’ve never been an arms dealer. “DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim, and Hunter Biden. “Shall I name names?” Luft remains in jail awaiting extradition to the US over what he says are trumped-up charges of arms trafficking to China and Libya, and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Through his American lawyer, Robert Henoch, Luft said he tried four years ago to inform the DOJ that Chinese state-controlled energy company CEFC had paid $100,000 a month to President Biden’s son Hunter and $65,000 to Joe’s brother Jim, in exchange for their FBI connections and use of the Biden name to promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative around the world.

Luft learned about the scheme through his own relationship with Hunter’s Chinese business partners, Patrick Ho and Ye Jianming, the chairman of CEFC. From 2015 to 2018, Luft organized international energy conferences in partnership with Ho’s think tank, the nonprofit China Energy Fund Committee (CEFC-USA), a front organization for Ye’s CEFC. Ye confided to Luft that Hunter had an informant in the FBI “or formerly of the bureau, extremely well placed, who they paid lots of money to [provide] sealed law enforcement information,” says Henoch. The FBI mole was called “One-Eye.” “One-Eye” told Ye that the Southern District of New York was investigating him and/or Ho in late 2017, and that “an Asian, an African, and a Jewish guy” were named on a sealed indictment, says Henoch. Soon after that tipoff, Ye offered Hunter $1 million to be his “private counsel” and flew to China, leaving his wife, daughter, son, mother, and nanny in his $50 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West. He was detained in Shanghai three months later and disappeared.

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Kubrick

 

 


The giant Pacific octopus is the largest octopus in the world: the largest individual on record weighed an impressive 270 kg and measured 9 m across in length. Along with 8 arms, an octopus also has 3 hearts and 9 brains

 

 

Dead leaf

 

 


Every row, left to right:
Eastern box turtle
Pancake tortoise
Bell’s hingeback tortoise
Radiated tortoise
Florida box turtle
Burmese star tortoise
Spotted turtle
Bourret’s box turtle
European pond turtle

 

 

Owls
https://twitter.com/i/status/1638248451367399435

 

 


Jonathan is 189 years old

 

 


Jacanas are colorful water birds with long legs and incredibly long toes/claws. The super-long toes spread the bird’s weight over a large area. This allows them to walk across floating vegetation, especially lily pads. This is a baby Jacana

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 11 2023

Mar 112023
 
 March 11, 2023  Posted by at 9:43 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  54 Responses »


Edward Hopper The barber shop 1931

 

• Banking Rout Rattles Global Markets (RT)
• The Real-World Impact Of SVB’s Failure (ZH)
• The US Opts For Ham Handed Political Gestures (Larry Johnson)
• US Must Pull Troops Out Of Syria, Stop Marauding – China (TASS)
• Russia And China Dominate Washington’s Mindset (Gupta)
• Moveable Multipolarity in Moscow: Ridin’ the ‘Newcoin’ Train (Escobar)
• Pope Francis Sees Countries’ ‘Imperial Interests’ In Ukraine Conflict (TASS)
• West Was Seeking Pretext To ‘Get Its Claws Into’ Russia – Lavrov (TASS)
• Lavrov: Western Media Version Of Nord Stream Events ‘Incoherent Babble’ (TASS)
• CIA Issued Advance Nord Stream Warning To Allies – WSJ (RT)
• Everything, All at Once (Kunstler)
• Lavrov Likens Protests In Georgia To 2014 Kiev Coup (RT)
• Irish MEP Blasts West’s ‘Criminal’ Approach To Ukraine (RT)
• Borrell: EU To Increase Financial & Military Support To Ukraine (Az.)
• France’s First Lady Fails In Transgender Lawsuit (RT)

 

 

 

 

Nap/Macgregor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arestovich

 

 

 

 

Shaman

 

 

 

 

And nobody saw anything coming?

• Banking Rout Rattles Global Markets (RT)

European and Asian stock markets plummeted on Friday, following a rout in US equities amid liquidity concerns in the banking sector. The meltdown was triggered by US bank SVB Financial, known as Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which plunged 60% on Thursday after revealing that it needed to raise more than $2 billion in capital to offset losses from bond sales. The announcement rocked financial stocks, with Euro Stoxx Banks index on Friday on pace for its worst day since June, led by a decline of more than 8% for Deutsche Bank. Societe Generale, HSBC, ING Group and Commerzbank all tumbled more than 5%. Asian stocks suffered their worst day in five months, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index plummeting 3% on losses in heavyweight technology stocks. The Shanghai Composite dropped 1.4%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 1.67%.

Investors started offloading US bank stocks on Thursday after SVB, a major lender to the tech industry, announced aggressive measures to support its balance sheet. The bank had reportedly been forced to sell all of its available-for-sale bonds at a $1.8 billion loss as its startup clients withdrew deposits. The news, which follows the collapse of the crypto-focused bank Silvergate, led to another wave of deposit withdrawals, people familiar with the matter told CNBC. All of this led to the four largest US banks – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup – seeing their stock prices lose a cumulative $52 billion in a single day.

SVB, which had a market value of $16.8 billion to end last week, was worth $6.3 billion as of Thursday. “The issues at SVB have been like a cold shower and with the Fed having just countenanced the idea of faster hikes once again, the potential for a very unhappy equity market should the jobs data surprise on the upside is very real indeed,” James Athey, investment director at global investment company Abrdn, told Bloomberg. “It has always been the case that the sort of hikes we have seen from the Fed were going to cause problems somewhere,” he added.

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FDIC guarantees up to $250k. Over 90% of SVB accounts held more than that. “About 37,000 customers accounted for nearly $157 billion or 74% of the bank’s assets with an average account size of over $4 million….at the end of 2022, 87% of the bank’s $173 billion in deposits were uninsured.”

Trying to find some stuff in between all the graphs ad stats. Here’s two threads ZH picked up on:

• The Real-World Impact Of SVB’s Failure (ZH)

Brad Hargreaves explains in a brief thread how SVB’s closure & receivership is going to have a massive impact on the tech ecosystem. “SVB was not just a dominant player in tech but were highly integrated in some nontraditional ways. A few things we’ll see in the coming days / weeks… One, SVB was incredibly integrated into the lives of many founders. Not just their startup’s bank & lender, but also provided personal mortgages and other financial services. A whole mess for FDIC (or the eventual buyer) to unwind. Two, any “uninsured” balances at SVB – those above $250K – are in jeopardy. FDIC plans to pay them out “as it sells the assets of SVB”. Lots of startups exclusively banked with SVB as *this was a covenant of their debt*!

CEOs yesterday faced a hard choice: Pull your deposits and go into default on your venture debt or risk losing everything if the bank failed. Many chose to hold tight as SVB’s outright failure seemed outlandish. Now they may not be able to make payroll next week. Unpaid wages pierce the corporate veil, so boards are *incredibly* sensitive to employing workers they may not be able to pay. Expect mass layoffs later today, Monday at latest. And given the weak fundraising environment, a number of startups have been reliant on venture lenders – e.g., SVB – not aggressively pursuing amortization of debt or triggering default for covenant foot faults (e.g., cash balances). How will the FDIC handle this? Mass defaults?

Having run a startup through the GFC, this is the first thing I’ve seen since that is even vaguely reminiscent of that time. Total clusterfuck. One more thing: SVB also offered *wealth management services* to many of its founders. So your corporate lender, corporate bank, personal mortgage lender, and family’s wealth manager is… all one bank, which is now in FDIC receivership. Fun. JPow got his fucking debt crisis alright.”

[..] Garry Tan, the CEO of YCombinator echoes what we said just two days ago, namely that “this is an *extinction level event* for startups and will set startups and innovation back by 10 years or more” and warns that “30% of YC companies exposed through SVB can’t make payroll in the next 30 days.”

“The most important thing the FDIC and the US Government can do right now is *make the receivership as short as possible* There are thousands of US startups that banked at SVB, often as their *sole bank*. $250K per account is not going to last long. The #1 pressing issue for these startups is *payroll* – you can’t have people work if you can’t pay them. This means mass furlough. It might mean thousands of startups die before the FDIC gets through its receivership process and releases the funds. From what I hear, there are venture debt options coming from providers like Brex, but we’re going to need *a lot* of options in order to avoid a mass shutdown of all American startups in the next few weeks.

This is an *extinction level event* for startups and will set startups and innovation back by 10 years or more. BIG TECH will not care about this. They have cash elsewhere. All little startups, tomorrow’s Google’s and Facebooks, will be extinguished if we don’t find a fix. 30% of YC companies exposed through SVB can’t make payroll in the next 30 days. If you or your company are affected, I recommend that you reach out to your local congressman to get this on their radar TODAY. Now.

Pomboy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1634364937072959492

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50 feet is a nice sized boat. But how do you get 6 people to sit and sleep on it, along with tons of equipment?!

• The US Opts For Ham Handed Political Gestures (Larry Johnson)

In theory, a covert operation is supposed to be elegant, sophisticated and smart. But that is not the case with the United States these days. Ham-fisted and clumsy are more apt descriptors. Yesterday’s simultaneous release of a new account of who destroyed the Nordstream pipeline in the New York Times, Die Zeit and a London paper placing the blame on shadowy pro-Ukrainians was not a coincidence. This was a coordinated information operation and the media reaction to this news is quite telling. The same news outlets that strenuously ignored Sy Hersh’s explosive, detailed revelation that it was a U.S. operation with help from Norway stumbled over themselves to breathlessly report that an unidentified pro-Ukrainian group was the guilty party.


Bavaria Cruiser 50 – Sailing yacht Andromeda. Image: Spiegel

Die Zeit provided the most hilarity with their fantastic tale of six people on a private yacht carrying out the deed. Looks to me like Die Zeit was channeling a Gilligan’s Island episode. We had Ginger and Mary Ann, accompanied by the Professor, the Skipper, Thurston Howell and Gilligan. They set to sea with a 1000 pounds of high explosive and used their snorkel gear to plant the charge. I bet you it was Ginger and Mary Ann who planted the bomb, of course, was built by the crafty Professor. Take a look at Moon of Alabama’s detailed breakdown of the nonsense:


“No. You do not dive down to 80+ meter for an industrial size job, involving the placement of hundreds of pounds of explosives in eight individual charges on very sturdy pipelines, from a sparsely manned boat. Such deep dives require special gases, special breathing equipment, special training, a decompression chamber for emergencies and lots of well trained people to maintain all that stuff. All three articles neglected to point out that you cannot dive in regular scuba gear to 200 feet in an arctic sea. You need a dry suit (as my friend Mark says, you look like the Stay Puft marshmallow man). That suit requires some specialized support equipment that does not fit on a yacht. This is a desperate, juvenile attempt to shift the blame from the United States. I cannot wait to see what happens when Sy drops a new story on Nordstream.”

A competent intelligence service would have prepared a detailed story that was plausible and contained enough details to create doubt in the minds of those who accepted Sy’s account. Instead of releasing the same skimpy story in three different media outlets on the same day, the release should have been spread out over a few days or a week. This bungled attempt to shift the blame to Ukraine is just one more piece of evidence that America does not have a competent intelligence service.

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China yesterday brokered a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia. China wants the fighting to stop, to safeguard the Belt and Road.

• US Must Pull Troops Out Of Syria, Stop Marauding – China (TASS)

China calls on the US to withdraw its troops from Syria and to stop plundering that country, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a news briefing on Friday. “The United States has illegally intervened in military activities related to the Syrian crisis, which has led to the death of a large number of innocent civilians and a serious humanitarian disaster,” Mao said. “We call on the United States to sincerely respect the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of other countries, and to immediately stop its illegal military presence and marauding in Syria,” she said. Mao called on the US authorities to lift “illegal unilateral sanctions” against Syria and to stop actions that aggravate the humanitarian situation in the country.


According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, during the years of the Syrian crisis in the country at least 350,000 people have lost their lives to the military conflict, and 14 million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. The House of Representatives of the US Congress on Wednesday failed to pass a resolution according to which the Washington administration should withdraw all US troops from Syria. The initiative was introduced in February by Republican Matt Gaetz, from Florida. He stressed that Congress had not given permission to use US forces in combat operations on Syrian territory. On March 4, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, visited Syria, where he claimed that the US military presence in the country was of critical importance to the security of both the United States and its allies.

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“The China-Russia axis is the biggest cause for concern for Washington because of “their shared threat perceptions of the US”..”

• Russia And China Dominate Washington’s Mindset (Gupta)

A top US intelligence official has expressed concern that the Chinese government – under its powerful President Xi Jinping, who started his historic third term this week – could emerge as the most potent force on the global stage in alliance with Russia to weaken Washington’s influence. Earlier this week, Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence in the administration of US President Joe Biden, appeared before a Senate committee to present the annual threat assessment report. Asia Editor Joydeep Sen Gupta decodes the key pressure points of the report, which identifies Beijing as a ‘near-peer competitor’ in a changing world order, The report dwells on China-Russia bonhomie as one of the high points of the annual review, which seldom gets a makeover from year to year.

Significantly, the section on China is much more elaborate this year than in recent times. It reinforces the Biden administration’s growing focus on Asia’s biggest economy, which is seen as punching above its weight in its bid to challenge the US’ military might. The report makes reference to China’s “capability to directly attempt to alter the rules-based global order in every realm and across multiple regions,” while acknowledging Beijing’s exalted status. The report identifies Beijing as a “near-peer competitor” for its ability to threaten its neighbors (read India). Simultaneously, it takes note of Russia’s “unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine” that “has emerged as a defining characteristic of the current era.” The China-Russia axis is the biggest cause for concern for Washington because of “their shared threat perceptions of the US” in diverse fields largely pertaining to defense and security.

Haines singles out the Ukraine conflict “as a tectonic event that is reshaping Moscow’s relationships with the West and China,” and warns of potential conflict between Russia and the West that may lead to dire consequences. However, the report strikes a contradictory note when it cites Moscow’s dwindling influence because of a “range of constraints,” despite noting its prowess in military, security, malign influence, cyber, and intelligence tools. Russia’s interests in the oil-and-natural resources-rich Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for “military access rights and economic opportunities” at Washington’s expense finds special mention. It also names the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, and Syria in the Levant, where Russia “will present itself as an indispensable mediator and security partner.”

It predicts that both Russia and Iran will improve their “bilateral economic and defense cooperation” in a bid to circumvent Western sanctions. Similarly, it rings alarm bells regarding Russia’s overtures in Latin America in “countries that Moscow sees as key players or close partners, including Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela” to amplify its influence. “Russia will continue to use energy as a foreign policy tool to try to coerce cooperation and weaken Western unity on Ukraine,” the report says.

The focal point of the report is China’s strengthening of its military and its expanded operations in the Indo-Pacific region, which is being countered by a grouping consisting of the US, Japan, Australia, and India known as the Quad. A substantial part of the report is devoted to the Chinese Communist regime’s efforts to press Taiwan on unification and whether Beijing will attack the island nation. The Chinese military, according to the report, is working towards meeting Xi’s goal – to become powerful enough by 2027 to ward off any US-led intervention in the event of an armed conflict over Taiwan. It warns that China will avoid signing nuclear arms agreements with either the US or Russia because of an inadequate arsenal that needs to be modernized.

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As the west loses itself, the south is taking shape.

• Moveable Multipolarity in Moscow: Ridin’ the ‘Newcoin’ Train (Escobar)

[..] please allow me to introduce one such technical blueprint for the newcoin. Let me start by saying that it should be partially (I suggest a share of at least 40% of value) backed by gold, for reasons that will soon become clear. The remaining 60% of the newcoin would be composed of the basket of currencies of the participating countries. Gold would provide the “external money” anchor to the structure and the basket of currencies element would allow the participants to retain their sovereignty and monetary flexibility. There would clearly be a need to create a Central Bank for the newcoin, which would emit new currency. This Central Bank could become a counterparty to cross-swaps, as well as provide clearing functions for the system and enforce the regulations. Any country would be free to join the newcoin on several conditions.

First, the candidate country needs to demonstrate that it has physical unencumbered gold in its domestic storage and pledge a certain amount in exchange for receiving corresponding amount of newcoin (using the 40% ratio mentioned above). Economic equivalent of this initial transaction would be a sale of the gold to the “gold pool” backing the newcoin in exchange for proportional amount of the newcoin backed by the pool. The actual legal form of this transaction is less important, as it is necessary simply to guarantee that the newcoin that is being emitted is always backed by at least 40% in gold. There is no need to even publicly disclose the gold reserves of each country, as long as all participants can be satisfied that sufficient reserves are always present. An annual joint audit and monitoring mechanism may be sufficient.

Second, a candidate country would need to establish a gold price discovery mechanism in its domestic currency. Most likely, one of the participating precious metals exchanges would start physical gold trading in each of the local currencies. This would establish a fair cross-rate for the local currencies using “external money” mechanism to set and adjust them over time. The gold price of the local currencies would drive their value in the basket for the newly-emitted newcoins. Each country would remain sovereign and be free to emit as much of local currency as they choose to, but this would eventually adjust the share of their currency in the newcoin’s value. At the same time, a country would only be able to obtain additional newcoin from the central bank in exchange for a pledge of additional gold. The net result is that the value of each component of newcoin in gold terms would be transparent and fair, which would translate into the transparency of newcoin’s value as well.

Finally, emissions or sales of newcoin by the central bank would be allowed only in exchange for gold for anyone outside the newcoin zone. In other words, the only two ways external parties can obtain large amounts of newcoin is either receiving it in exchange for physical gold or as a payment for goods and services provided. At the same time, the central bank would not be obliged to purchase newcoin in exchange for gold, removing the risk of the “run on the bank.”

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“The pontiff has repeatedly said that his visit to Kiev, on which the Ukrainian authorities have been insisting, is only possible if he is also able to make a trip to Moscow.”

• Pope Francis Sees Countries’ ‘Imperial Interests’ In Ukraine Conflict (TASS)

Pope Francis believes that “the imperial interests” of various countries are shining through in the Ukraine conflict, the Vatican News writes, citing the pontiff’s interview for the Italian Swiss Radio and Television. “In a little over a hundred years, there have been three world wars: in 1914-1918, in 1939-1945, and this one, which is a world war. It started in bits and pieces and now no one can say it is not worldwide. The great powers are all caught up in it. The battlefield is Ukraine. Everyone is fighting there,” Pope Francis said, as cited by the Vatican News. “There are imperial interests there, not only of the Russian empire, but of empires elsewhere. It is typical of the empire to put nations in second place,” he added.


The pope confirmed his readiness to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, “an educated man.” Pope Francis noted that right after the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, he went to the Russian Embassy at the Holy See to say that he was willing to go to Moscow if the Russian authorities gave him “a window to negotiate.” “[Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov wrote to me, saying thank you but now is not the time,” Pope Francis said. The pontiff has repeatedly said that his visit to Kiev, on which the Ukrainian authorities have been insisting, is only possible if he is also able to make a trip to Moscow. He previously echoed this sentiment on his way back from an apostolic journey to Africa in early February. The pope said at that time that he was open to meet with the presidents of both Ukraine and Russia. Pope Francis has met with Putin before, with the Russian leader’s last trip to the Vatican taking place in July 2019.

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“..the West is loath to listen to Russia’s criticism of its attempts to “live at the expense of others” in the post-colonial era.”

• West Was Seeking Pretext To ‘Get Its Claws Into’ Russia – Lavrov (TASS)

The West was looking for some sort of pretext to “get its claws into” Russia after Moscow had come to be seen as too independent a player in the international arena, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. “[The West] was waiting for a pretext to get its claws into Russia. They were waiting for a chance to do this because they had begun to see Russia as too independent a player, which, if perhaps not building up as much economic power as China or India, was nevertheless among the leading world economies and holds rather weighty moral and political stances in the international arena, advocating from a position of justice on those issues that are of critical importance for the developing countries,” he said in an interview with the “Bolshaya Igra” (“The Great Game”) public affairs program on Russia’s Channel One television. According to the top Russian diplomat, the West is loath to listen to Russia’s criticism of its attempts to “live at the expense of others” in the post-colonial era.

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“We had no plans. They had plans – to abandon Russian gas. They survived the winter, but how much did it cost the government and the taxpayers? They are not very eager to tell..”

• Lavrov: Western Media Version Of Nord Stream Events ‘Incoherent Babble’ (TASS)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the latest reports in the Western media about the alleged involvement of a “Ukrainian oligarch” in the explosions on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines “incoherent babble.” “When they threw in the last wave of stories in the American and to some extent in the German press regarding a new version [about the causes of the emergency on gas pipelines] – about “the Ukrainian oligarch, who had better confess himself,” [and that they] “did not want to talk about Ukraine’s involvement, because it could spoil German-Ukrainian relations” and all that jazz: this is incoherent babble,” he said. In an interview with “The Great Game” program on Channel One, the Russian top diplomat noted that even if one accepts the rationale about the “Ukrainian fingerprint” mentioned in the media, it will raise some questions in Germany.

“The burghers will wonder: why do I need this Ukraine at all, if they blow us up, whoever he (the saboteur – TASS) may be – an agent of Kiev, paid for by someone from abroad, or just a lone ranger, why do I need to send Leopards there, why do I need to admit this country into NATO?” Lavrov said. “Yes, now [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz is boasting: “We survived the winter, Russia’s plan did not work.” We had no plans. They had plans – to abandon Russian gas. They survived the winter, but how much did it cost the government and the taxpayers? They are not very eager to tell,” Lavrov said. He also called the coverage of the incident in the Western media frivolous, citing as an example their information about the establishment of a “Ukrainian connection” in the emergencies on the gas pipelines.

“There was information in the Wall Street Journal, if I’m not mistaken, where they said that back in June and July, the CIA warned the secret services of Germany and other European countries about a “Ukrainian trail” for the plot. And in September, after the attack took place, The Times said that a week after the explosion it was established that the trail was Ukrainian. So, in June they warned that there would be [a Ukrainian trace] and in September it was established that it was. Anyway, they look at it in a very juvenile way, not the way an adult should,” he concluded.

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What Lavrov talked about.

• CIA Issued Advance Nord Stream Warning To Allies – WSJ (RT)

The CIA warned allies in the EU about a potential attack by a pro-Ukrainian group on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing intelligence officials. According to the report, around June and July of last year, the CIA informed Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and other European agencies that three Ukrainian nationals were trying to rent out ships in states around the Baltic Sea, including Sweden, in preparation to target the pipelines, which were eventually attacked in September. As early as one month after the blasts, CIA Director William Burns and the White House’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, were said to have been considering the possibility that Kiev had orchestrated the sabotage on the route built to deliver Russian gas to Germany.

The report comes after the New York Times cited US officials on Tuesday as saying that an unidentified “pro-Ukrainian group” may have carried out the bombing. The WSJ said this assessment by US intelligence officials “isn’t definitive” and that they claimed they saw “no indication” that the alleged perpetrators had ties to the Ukrainian government. German news organizations reported this week that investigators were looking at a yacht operated by a Polish-based company that was “apparently” owned by two Ukrainians, in a possible connection with the sabotage. The German authorities later confirmed that they had searched the vessel in January, but did not disclose details about any items seized.

The new reports about alleged Ukrainian involvement contradict last month’s investigation by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, who cited a source as claiming that the bombing was carried out by the US with help from Norway. The US and Ukraine have both denied any involvement, and the White House dismissed Hersh’s claims as “utterly false.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested on Wednesday that the reports about a Ukrainian link were an attempt to divert attention from the real perpetrators and absolve NATO countries. “Obviously, this is a coordinated media hoax campaign,” Peskov said. Moscow has argued that the West is not really interested in a comprehensive international investigation of the incident.

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..But waitagoshdarnminnit!..

• Everything, All at Once (Kunstler)

The defining moment of the week was the White House ceremony with Dr. Jill Biden and her side-piece, Tony Blinken, presenting an International Women of Courage award to Ms. Alba Rueda of Argentina, a biological man. But, of course! Kisses all around. Mattias Desmet, author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism, pointed out some time ago that a psychotic political regime would require the people to swallow ever-greater absurdities as things played out in its death-wish drive toward national nullity. But was that little scene more absurd than the regime’s campaign in Ukraine to do… uh, to do what, exactly? To punish Vladimir Putin, or something like that. Or is it nuclear war they’re really after? A war, they’re telling themselves, that we would surely win, as if being a continent-sized ashtray is winning.

Meanwhile, our Intel Community has discovered that it was… well might have been… Ukraine, after all, who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines — with help from some outside parties (namely, America’s Intel Community). But waitagoshdarnminnit! How does that get anybody off-the-hook for the costly caper? NATO supposedly backs Ukraine, right? And Germany is the European leader of NATO, right? So you’re telling me Ukraine blew up a systemically-important asset of a leading country that supports Ukraine? Something doesn’t add up in that-there rebus puzzle. I’ll spare you the mental labor. The US Spook Industrial Complex is just laying another trip on you. And the “you” includes poor bamboozled Germany, led by arguably the biggest sap ever elected by a supposedly advanced nation, Olaf Scholz, whose name will evermore ring through history as a synonym for “chump.”

Sooner or later, one or both of the following must happen: the German people will dump this chump and / or his replacement will find a way to bow out of Germany’s commitment to America’s foolish proxy war against Russia, leading post-haste to the disintegration of NATO, and leaving America’s army of vaccine-injured transsexuals to reconquer the Donbas and Crimea, led by Tony Blinken in an off-the-shoulder cocktail dress. Anyway, by the time that hallucination comes to pass, all the other things that are happening at once will be so vividly in America’s face that the epic sleepwalk of the Walking Woke ends with a jolt like unto a cattle prod upside the brain-pan. For instance, the implosion of our financial markets along with a sudden, shocking expiration of the US dollar as a credible currency. The mighty “woosh” heard from sea to shining sea will be the sound of capital going up in a vapor. The event will halt all that jabber about debt ceilings, budgets, and billions for Ukraine. A nauseated silence spreads across the land. Then, what?

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“A whole range of European nations have much more strict regulations in this field..”

• Lavrov Likens Protests In Georgia To 2014 Kiev Coup (RT)

The massive protests Georgia has been facing over the past week closely resemble the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. Backed by external powers, these protests are just another plot attempt, he told the ‘Great Game’ show on Russia’s Channel 1. Over the last week, thousands of people have gathered by the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi in order to protest a bill that would have required individuals and organizations with foreign funding to register as “agents of foreign influence.”The demonstrators hit the streets after the bill, which was introduced by the ‘Georgian Dream’ party, passed its first reading. The protests quickly spiraled out into clashes with the police in which several officers were injured and dozens of demonstrators were detained.

“[That] closely resembles Kiev’s ‘Maidan’ [coup],” Lavrov said, adding that, “There is no doubt that … the bill was nothing but a pretext for essentially launching a coup attempt.” According to the minister, the bill introduced by the Georgian lawmakers “pales” in comparison to how noncommercial organizations are regulated in the US, France, or Israel. The protests in Georgia have been “orchestrated” from abroad, the Russian minister believes, adding that their real goal is to create another “irritating” situation on Russia’s borders. In pursuing its goals, the West is attempting to sacrifice Georgia’s national interests and close economic ties with Russia, he added. Lavrov also blasted the EU over what he called a “hypocritical” stance on the issue. “A whole range of European nations have much more strict regulations in this field,” the minister insisted, adding that EU top diplomat Josep Borrell still claimed “without batting an eye” that the Georgian bill “contradicts European values” and deprives Georgia of the prospect of joining the bloc.

“The hypocrisy is obvious,” the minister added. Earlier this week, Borrell’s office issued a statement that blasted the bill as “incompatible with EU values and standards” and going “against Georgia’s stated objective of joining the European Union.” The statement also warned of “serious repercussions” for relations between Tbilisi and Brussels if the bill was passed. The Russian minister also pointed out the striking differences in how the EU and the US treated the protests in Georgia and Moldova. While backing demonstrations in Tbilisi, Washington and its allies still condemned similar actions in Moldova, which saw months of protests over a surge in cost of living and energy prices, Lavrov said. His words came as Georgian MPs have rejected the controversial bill during the second reading, despite it being previously withdrawn by its authors. The procedure was necessary for it to be officially squashed. The nation’s authorities have also announced they would be releasing all of the people who had been detained during the protests.

Korybko
https://twitter.com/i/status/1633813474139619330

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“The Global South is not on board with helping this proxy war persist, because it makes no sense..”

• Irish MEP Blasts West’s ‘Criminal’ Approach To Ukraine (RT)

Irish MEP Mick Wallace has condemned the EU’s continued military support for Kiev, saying Brussels is not taking the option of peace talks seriously and arguing that Ukraine is being “sacrificed” for the geopolitical “obsessions” of the US. During a speech in the European Parliament, a clip from which Wallace posted to Twitter, he insisted that the EU, led by Washington, was refusing to “take the option of Peace seriously” amid the ongoing conflict with Russia. Instead, Wallace said, the EU was standing by and watching “the slaughter and devastation” continue. “The Global South is not on board with helping this proxy war persist, because it makes no sense,” Wallace said, adding that it is “increasingly clear that Ukraine is being sacrificed for the obsessions of the US establishment.”

The Irish MEP said the only people benefiting from the conflict were “weapons manufacturers and Western corporations,” which he claimed were “buying up Ukraine now for a pittance.” “The Russian invasion is criminal, but the manner in which the West has been dealing with this has also been criminal,” he concluded. Russia has repeatedly said it is open to talks with Ukraine if its leaders accept what the Kremlin calls the “reality on the ground,” referring to the status of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, which voted to join Russia in public referendums last autumn. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has floated a ten-point “peace formula” that would require Moscow to withdraw all of its troops from the territory Kiev claims as its own. However, Russia has rejected that proposal as unrealistic.

A 12-point peace plan put forward by China was met with a cool response from the West, with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg saying Beijing does not have “much credibility” in the issue. US State Secretary Antony Blinken, however, admitted that the plan included some “positive elements.” Last week, Wallace also called the September 2022 sabotage of the Russian-German Nord Stream pipelines “a premeditated terrorist attack on critical European infrastructure.” Fellow Irish MEP Clare Daly said it was “jaw-dropping” that the EU was not investigating potential US and Norwegian links to the attack after a report by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh alleged Washington was behind the sabotage.

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Sanctions failed. Here’s what’s next: your money.

• Borrell: EU To Increase Financial & Military Support To Ukraine (Az.)

The EU has nearly exhausted its options for punitive measures against Russia and the bloc’s attention needs to shift to financial and military support for Ukraine, the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview, Report informs. “There is not much more to do from the point of view of sanctions, but we can continue to increase financial and military support,” Borrell told EURACTIV in Stockholm, following a meeting of EU defense ministers. “It would be strange that one year after the invasion began, there would be much more options left. We have been using our step-by-step process, and we have been incremental – maybe sometimes too incremental,” he added. Over the past year, the EU has approved 10 rounds of sanctions against Moscow meant to make financing the war more difficult and starve Russia of tech equipment and spare parts for arms to be used against Ukraine.


“But indeed, one year after the invasion, we’re getting to the end of the ladder,” Borrell admitted when asked about the next potential steps the bloc could take in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The answer is always the same – to continue supporting Ukraine. Ukraine needs a lot of money just to keep the machinery working, a state at war has a lot of financial needs – this will require a lot of effort from our side – so sanctions and military support are not everything.”. Borrell said battlefield operations were “up to Ukraine to decide” but Europe’s responsibility “is to support them, also by providing arms and ammunition.”

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Crazy story competition.

“France’s first lady is actually her own transgender brother..?!

• France’s First Lady Fails In Transgender Lawsuit (RT)

A Paris judge has thrown out Brigitte Macron’s case against two women who claimed in a YouTube show that France’s first lady is actually her own transgender brother. President Emmanuel Macron’s wife had a case for public defamation, but not for invasion of privacy and violation of image, the judge ruled. The video, posted on December 10, 2021, advanced a “completely outlandish” theory that Brigitte Macron was actually the trangender identity of her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux. The video received hundreds of thousands of views, and the transgender rumor trended on Twitter for several days. The first lady filed a lawsuit in February 2022, almost two months after the video was posted, claiming it violated her “right to image” and invaded her brother’s privacy.

The hours-long video described the surgeries Macron allegedly underwent, denied she had given birth to three children, and publicized personal information about Trogneux, according to the lawsuit. The video was also said to have used “retouched, enlarged and recolored”photographs. Brigitte Macron’s separate lawsuit against the two women, for public defamation, was actually filed two weeks earlier, on January 31, 2022. That case is still pending. The first lady’s official biography says she was born Brigitte Marie-Claude Trogneux to a family of chocolatiers from Amiens. She married a banker named Andre-Louis Auziere in 1974 and had three children. In 1993, when she was 40 and teaching at La Providence Jesuit high school in Amiens, she met Emmanuel Macron – who was 15 at the time, and a classmate of her daughter Laurence.

Brigitte divorced Auziere in 2006 and married Macron in 2007. She is widely reported to have been key to his victory in the 2017 presidential election. Macron had planned to create an official “first lady” position for Brigitte using the American model, complete with a budget and staff, but changed his mind after popular backlash. The transgender rumor about the first lady appeared ahead of France’s 2022 presidential elections and quickly gained traction online. Macron ended up easily winning re-election.

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Capuchin bird

 

 

Robin Hood

 

 


Father and son

 

 

Elephant feet

 

 

Tarantula
https://twitter.com/i/status/1634130152622895108

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 20 2023

Jan 202023
 
 January 20, 2023  Posted by at 10:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  127 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Portrait of his father 1628-29

 

• Russian Orthodox Church Issues Apocalyptic Warning (RT)
• Going, Going, Gone: Fiddling While the West Burns (Batiushka)
• World Economic Forum Wants You to Trust Them (ET)
• ‘Russiagate’ Is Dead, But Social Media Control Is Here To Stay (Livshitz)
• Global South: Gold-Backed Currencies To Replace The US Dollar (Escobar)
• Economist: Turkey Could Be On ‘Brink Of Dictatorship’ (K.)
• Over 1 Million Workers Hit French Streets Against Macron’s Pension Reform (ZH)
• How A Corrupt FBI Could Save Joe Biden In Classified-Docs Scandal (Bovard)
• CDC Knowingly Left Serious Adverse Events Off Post-Vaccination Surveys (ET)
• How the CDC Became the Speech Police (Soave)
• Safety Signals for Heart, Blood, Reproduction in Yellow Card Vaccine Data (DS)
• Fauci Lied; 120,000 US Children Died (Exp.)
• Twitter Files Show Authoritarian “Cult Of Identity” Controls The Media (Gurri)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Nixon (Must see)
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616322813794680832

 

 

 

 

Our Birthright

 

 

Mike Rowe We’re at war with the things we need

 

 

MSM Pfizer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616157050912014337

 

 

Watters

 

 

 

 

“We pray to the Lord so that he enlightens those madmen and helps them understand that any desire to destroy Russia will mean the end of the world..”

• Russian Orthodox Church Issues Apocalyptic Warning (RT)

Any attempts to destroy Russia could spell disaster for the entire world, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, warned on Thursday. Speaking after a religious service marking the Orthodox Christian holiday of Epiphany, the primate claimed that both the international community and Russia are facing “very huge threats.” According to Patriarch Kirill, the root of the problem is that some “madmen” believe that Russia, which “has powerful weapons and is populated by extremely strong people… who had never given in to an enemy and had always emerged victorious, could be defeated under the current circumstances.” Neither would it be possible to “impose on them certain values that cannot even be called values, so that they would be like everyone else and obey those who have the power to control most of the world,” he noted.


“We pray to the Lord so that he enlightens those madmen and helps them understand that any desire to destroy Russia will mean the end of the world,” he added. The Patriarch’s remarks echo a statement by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday, who warned the countries that want to see Moscow defeated in Ukraine that nuclear powers such as Russia had “never lost a major conflict on which their fate depended.” Should such a nation lose a conventional war, such an outcome could trigger a nuclear conflict, he added. Earlier this month, the head of the Russian Church appealed to both Moscow and Kiev’s forces to establish a truce in the run-up to and during Orthodox Christmas on January 7 to give the faithful a chance to attend religious services. Hours later, the proposal was supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered Moscow’s troops to stand down for 36 hours. The ceasefire, however, was rejected by Kiev, with Ukrainian officials dismissing the offer as “hypocrisy” and a military ruse.

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“Europeans hate their elites. The spoilt elites may tell their peoples: ‘Let them eat cake’. But they have forgotten that what the people want is bread.”

• Going, Going, Gone: Fiddling While the West Burns (Batiushka)

Let us not forget that the conflict in the Ukraine is about the struggle of the United States to maintain its dinosaur’s status as the world’s last superpower. More exactly, it is about America’s attempt to destroy China as a rival. For since China, allied with Russia, is unbeatable, China has to be attacked through Eurasian Russia. In this crazed neocon video-game fantasy, the USA has overlooked Western Europe. In one sense that is understandable, since its leaders are just a pack of mindless Pavlovian dogs, intent on copying their master in Washington – and a pile of dollars greatly helps their salivating capacity for imitation. However, the US mistake is as usual to look only at its puppets. This was the same mistake as in Baghdad and Kabul, or for that matter in Tehran and Saigon, not to mention in Manila and a host of capitals in Latin America. Appoint an English-speaking yes-man, give him a Swiss bank account full of dollars and a US passport, ensure he has control over the capital and its TV and radio station and then you will control the whole country. Only Hamid Karzai didn’t and you won’t either.

Western Europe, the EU and the UK, with a few other bits and pieces, is also inhabited by 500 million people (the other 50 odd million belong to the elite). Some, especially from the elites, live in the capitals. The vast majority do not live there and generally despise those who do live in the capitals. Ask a Frenchman what he thinks of ‘les sales parisiens’ (filthy Parisians), ask a Romanian what he thinks of the elite in Bucharest, a Pole what he thinks of those in Warsaw or an Englishman what he thinks of Londoners. If you don’t believe me, ask Macron in France. Alternatively, ask any Frenchman what he thinks of France’s real rulers – the grossly overpaid super-elite in Brussels. The English hated them so much, they had Brexit. A lot of Germans, who by a huge majority never wanted to give up the Deutschmark, got quite jealous of that, even though the incompetent and perfidious British elite totally mishandled the Brexit negotiation process.

If in Western Europe, the vast majority don’t like their leaders, they will eventually – even the passive British – get rid of them and they will appoint leaders whom Washington does not like, Le Pen, Farage etc. Remember Orban? He is already in power, as is Erdogan (though he is in Turkey). The Ukrainian conflict is already reshaping Europe’s totally outdated (1945) security architecture and forcing a reconfiguration. The realignment will not be in Washington’s favour. Demonstrations against NATO are already starting in various European countries. But what is more likely to topple the US puppet elite is strikes and protests. Europeans hate their elites. The spoilt elites may tell their peoples: ‘Let them eat cake’. But they have forgotten that what the people want is bread.

Once Western Europe, including even the UK, has gone, the end of the short unipolar era will be here. The domino effect, from Kiev to Dublin, is surely only a matter of time. Remember the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989? Within twenty-five months the whole of the Soviet Eastern European Empire fell, one country after another, until in December 1991, the Soviet Union itself fell. Berlin to Vladivostok. Well, the time is now up for the American Empire in its turn. It will also fall, and for the same reasons. The SU (Soviet Union) went. So will its reverse, the US (United States). Red stars, white stars, they have both had their time. Keep your eyes on Western Europe.

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Could have fooled me….

• World Economic Forum Wants You to Trust Them (ET)

One of the central themes of the World Economic Forum summit this week is “restoring trust”; this initiative comes at a moment when progressive corporate organizations such as the WEF are being scrutinized for violating U.S. antitrust laws. A WEF panel discussion called “Disrupting Distrust” featured speakers from Mastercard, the United Way, and Consumers International, as well as communications consultant Richard Edelman. It proceeded under the slogan: “Trust is at the heart of meaningful multi-stakeholder cooperation … Yet levels of distrust are higher than ever.” The panel was hosted by Kathleen Kingsbury, an opinion editor at The New York Times.

The discussion opened with a report from Edelman’s Annual Edelman Trust Barometer, which found that trust in government had declined substantially, leaving corporations as the most trusted institutions in society. Edelman also warned of a “growing mass class divide” in public opinion. The divergence of public opinion started in 2013 in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, he said, and it has now “metastasized” to three-quarters of the countries in the world. Helena Leurent, director of Consumers International, said “economic pain” is the top issue causing mistrust. “The consumer is embattled,” she said, citing dramatic increases in food and fuel prices over the past two years. “The cost of living is the body blow.” “I find a lot of irony in this,” Joel Griffith, research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times.

“The energy crisis that we’re facing now across the world is a problem that by and large has been caused by the 50-plus world leaders that are gathered there, because almost in lockstep these world leaders, from [President Joe] Biden, to the European Union leaders, to our counterpart in Canada, have declared a long-term war on fossil fuels,” Griffith said. “They’ve created this energy crisis, they’ve created the inflation crisis, created the rising price trajectory, and they are not acknowledging responsibility.” Another topic on the trust agenda was what Edelman called the “battle for truth.” Rather than what had previously been the “Moses model,” in which truth is handed down from higher institutions to the masses, Edelman said, “now trust is local, in my employer and in my company and my CEO.” Speaking for The New York Times, Kingsbury said that “in journalism, we struggle with an issue of a lack of trust … particularly in our expertise.”

Tucker WEF
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615896188573700096

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“the relationship between the number of posts from Russian foreign influence accounts that users are exposed to and voting for Donald Trump is near zero..”

• ‘Russiagate’ Is Dead, But Social Media Control Is Here To Stay (Livshitz)

Donald Trump’s time as president was dominated by years of mainstream news headlines declaring that his unexpected victory was attributable to Saint Petersburg’s Internet Research Agency (aka ‘The Russian IRA’). The company reportedly corralled online networks of bots and trolls that perpetuated pro-Trump propaganda in a bid to get the outsider elected at the Kremlin’s request. This narrative quickly became widely accepted among US liberals, and remains entrenched today – but a new study decisively shows it to be false. The paper, published in the respected academic journal Nature, investigates the exposure of Twitter users to alleged activity on the social media platform by the IRA during the 2016 US election, “and its relationship to attitudes and voting behavior.”

The study’s findings speak for themselves. For example, 70% of purported IRA-connected posts during that campaign were seen by just 1% of the network’s users, “who strongly identified as Republicans.” Coverage of these posts was moreover “eclipsed by content from domestic news media and politicians.” The academics also found “no evidence of a meaningful relationship” between exposure to these tweets, and “changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.” Alleged IRA posts seen on Twitter by users were “overshadowed – by an order of magnitude – by posts from national news media and politicians.” For every four IRA tweets published in the last month of the 2016 election campaign, 106 per day from national news media and 35 per day from US politicians were seen on average. In other words, 25 times and nine times more posts respectively.

The academics also probed whether there was any connection between exposure to alleged IRA posts and “changes in respondents’ positions on salient election issues” and political polarization, surveying them on “eight major policy issues salient during the election, and respondents’ self-reported political ideology.” They bluntly concluded that there were not “statistically significant relationships between exposure on any of the issue-based and polarization outcomes.”
Extensive data-based analyses were also conducted to “examine the relationship between exposure to Russian foreign influence accounts and vote choice.” Again, the conclusion couldn’t be more damning – “the relationship between the number of posts from Russian foreign influence accounts that users are exposed to and voting for Donald Trump is near zero (and not statistically significant).”

RFKjr
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615834413149065218

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“..India’s purchases of Russian crude have increased year-by-year by a whopping factor of 33..”

• Global South: Gold-Backed Currencies To Replace The US Dollar (Escobar)

First: One of the key take aways from the World Economic Forum annual shindig in Davos, Switzerland is when Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan, on a panel on “Saudi Arabia’s Transformation,” made it clear that Riyadh “will consider trading in currencies other than the US dollar.”So is the petroyuan finally at hand? Possibly, but Al-Jadaan wisely opted for careful hedging: “We enjoy a very strategic relationship with China and we enjoy that same strategic relationship with other nations including the US and we want to develop that with Europe and other countries.”

Second: The Central Banks of Iran and Russia are studying the adoption of a “stable coin” for foreign trade settlements, replacing the US dollar, the ruble and the rial. The crypto crowd is already up in arms, mulling the pros and cons of a gold-backed central bank digital currency (CBDC) for trade that will be in fact impervious to the weaponized US dollar. The really attractive issue here is that this gold-backed digital currency would be particularly effective in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Astrakhan, in the Caspian Sea. Astrakhan is the key Russian port participating in the International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC), with Russia processing cargo travelling across Iran in merchant ships all the way to West Asia, Africa, the Indian Ocean and South Asia.

The success of the INSTC – progressively tied to a gold-backed CBDC – will largely hinge on whether scores of Asian, West Asian and African nations refuse to apply US-dictated sanctions on both Russia and Iran. As it stands, exports are mostly energy and agricultural products; Iranian companies are the third largest importer of Russian grain. Next will be turbines, polymers, medical equipment, and car parts. Only the Russia-Iran section of the INSTC represents a $25 billion business. And then there’s the crucial energy angle of INSTC – whose main players are the Russia-Iran-India triad. India’s purchases of Russian crude have increased year-by-year by a whopping factor of 33. India is the world’s third largest importer of oil; in December, it received 1.2 million barrels from Russia, which for several months now is positioned ahead of Iraq and Saudi Arabia as Delhi’s top supplier.

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He’s been in charge for 20 years already.

• Economist: Turkey Could Be On ‘Brink Of Dictatorship’ (K.)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or rather his shadow, has made the cover of this week’s issue of the Economist in a decidedly unflattering way, as a leader that has taken his country “to the brink of disaster.” As the introduction to the financial paper’s report on the state of the country ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections states, “Mr Erdogan’s behavior as the election approaches could push what is today a deeply flawed democracy over the edge into a full-blown dictatorship.” The Economist says Erdogan’s now 20-year-old reign was initially beneficial to Turkey: he mended the economy, neutralized the country’s meddling generals and secured, in 2005, the formal opening of accession talks to the EU, while putting his islamist agenda, which had alarmed the long-dominant secularist heirs to Kemal Ataturk, the Turkish Republic’s founder, mostly to the side.

But, as the paper points out, “the longer Mr Erdogan has been in power, the more autocratic he has grown.” Moving on from Prime Minister to President, he turned that mostly ceremonial post into a really powerful one in the service of an autocracy. “Approaching his third decade in power, he sits in a vast palace snapping orders at courtiers too frightened to tell him when he is wrong. His increasingly eccentric beliefs swiftly become public policy,” the article says. Erdogan once likened democracy to a tram journey: when you reach your destination, you get off. His treatment of mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, whom the Economist calls the “most plausible rival” for the presidency is indicative. A 2-year prison term and a ban from politics for calling election officials who had annulled his first election “idiots” have taken Imamoglu out of the presidential race if the conviction is not annulled or overturned and have cast doubt that the election will be fair or free, the Economist says.


Internationally, Erdogan could cause trouble for Greece and Cyprus by “foment[ing] fiercer territorial quarrels; he could “create further confusion and strife in Syria”; he could “allow the 5m migrants and refugees in Turkey to set sail for southern Europe.” And he could continue to block the accession of Finaland and Sweden into NATO. Yet, the Economist contends, Erdogan cannot afford to make a total break with the West, because he needs investments and he needs armaments. But, the article argues, it is time for a firmer stance by western powers, beginning with the US. “Mr Erdogan is a bully who sees timidity as a reason to press his advantage and toughness as an incentive to mend fences,” the Economist says.

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“On Thursday the walls of the Élysée palace must tremble..”

• Over 1 Million Workers Hit French Streets Against Macron’s Pension Reform (ZH)

President Macron’s retirement and pension reform program has unleashed the expected mass demonstrations, strikes, and likely soon to be riots on the streets of France. The much anticipated reform bill headed through parliament will see the official retirement age rise by two years, from the age of 62 to 64. And just like that, it’s popping off… as French authorities brace for more chaos in the coming weeks. Previously, the unions promised the “mother of all battles”. As a result, public transport has seen significant disruptions in service, while many schools are already closed, amid some 200+ well-attended protests all across France on Thursday. Various forms of public transport were brought to a standstill in Paris, Toulouse, Marseille, Nantes and Nice, due to the strikes, and the Eiffel Tower was closed to visitors as well as the protests spread.

Eight major unions had designated Thursday the “first day of strikes and protests” – with promises of many more to come. France’s education ministry said that over 40% of primary school teachers, as well as one-third of high school teachers are participating in the strikes, forcing many to close their doors for the day, and possibly weeks ahead. French rail authority SNCF reported a “severe disruption” across the country, with metro lines in the capital having to implement partial closures. “On some rail lines, as few as one in 10 services were operating, while the Paris metro was running a skeleton service,” BBC reported. A reported over one million people total are believed to have participated in Thursday’s protests and strikes, according to the unions, which plan to keep up the intense pressure until Macron’s bill is defeated.

Likely the demonstrations will get more and more radical and violent, as French protests tend to go… All the country’s unions – including so-called “reformist” unions that the government had hoped to win to its side – have condemned the measure, as have the left-wing and far-right oppositions in the National Assembly. “On Thursday the walls of the Élysée palace must tremble,” Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel said on Tuesday.In many places, crowds clashed with police, who deployed riot control measures including tear gas and batons, as they struggled to clear streets against vastly superior numbers.

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“It looks bad — but the FBI got Hillary out of a worse legal tar pit.”

• How A Corrupt FBI Could Save Joe Biden In Classified-Docs Scandal (Bovard)

The White House is being whipsawed by the discovery of secret documents from President Joe Biden’s vice presidency recklessly stored around his garage, his Delaware house and his rented Washington office. The appointment of a special counsel to investigate Biden’s classified-document violations could imperil the president’s survival. But Biden may be saved by the charades the FBI concocted to rescue Hillary Clinton. But breaking news Tuesday night revealed the investigation may already be turning into a farce. Amazingly, the Justice Department is permitting Biden’s personal lawyers to control the evidence — without the FBI. Federal law penalizes the removal or mishandling of classified documents via “gross negligence” by up to 10 years in prison.

The number of clearly marked confidential documents discovered on Biden’s turfs is up to 20 — all of which were supposedly “inadvertently misplaced” (for at least six years), per White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. It looks bad — but the FBI got Hillary out of a worse legal tar pit. Clinton’s presidential campaign was roiled by the disclosure she’d used an insecure private email server to handle top-secret documents while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. In 2015, the FBI Counterintelligence Division opened a criminal investigation of the “potential unauthorized storage of classified information on an unauthorized system.” The FBI treated Clinton and her coterie like royalty worthy of endless deference, according to a 2018 report by the Justice Department inspector general.

The FBI agreed to destroy the laptops of top Clinton aides after a limited examination of their contents (including a promise not to examine any post-Jan. 31, 2015, emails or content). When BleachBit software and hammers were used to destroy email evidence under congressional subpoena, the FBI treated it as a harmless error. The IG criticized federal investigators for relying on “rapport building” with Team Hillary instead of using subpoenas to compel the discovery of key evidence. The IG recommended possible disciplinary penalties for five FBI employees who sent blatant anti-Trump texts (some of those agents later staffed special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Donald Trump). FBI investigators shrugged off every brazen deceit they encountered.

The IG report quoted an unnamed FBI agent responding to a fellow agent’s question on how an interview went with a witness who worked with the Clintons at their Chappaqua residence: “Awesome. Lied his ass off. Went from never inside the scif [sensitive compartmented information facility for classified documents] at res [residence], to looked in when it was being constructed, to removed the trash twice, to troubleshot the secure fax with HRC a couple times, to everytime there was a secure fax i did it with HRC. Ridic.” The agency waited until the end of the investigation in July 2016 to question Clinton and refused to videotape that crucial interview. Bizarrely, the FBI planned to absolve her “absent a confession” by Clinton during the interview, the IG report noted.

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“Updated versions of the protocol list the same 15 adverse events. None of the conditions were included in the actual surveys.”

• CDC Knowingly Left Serious Adverse Events Off Post-Vaccination Surveys (ET)

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) didn’t include serious adverse events like heart inflammation on post-vaccination surveys even though the agency knew the issues could be linked to COVID-19 vaccines, documents show. Even before the surveys were rolled out in December 2020 after the first vaccines were authorized, the CDC knew that myocarditis—a form of heart inflammation since confirmed as being caused by the Pfizer and Moderna shots—and other serious adverse events were of “special interest” when it came to the vaccines, according to a newly disclosed version of the protocol for the survey system. The Nov. 19, 2020, protocol for V-safe, the survey system, lists myocarditis, stroke, death, and a dozen “prespecified medical conditions.”

The protocol was obtained by the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), a nonprofit that seeks transparency around health information. All of the conditions can cause severe symptoms. V-safe is a system of surveys that was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to monitor vaccine safety. It was developed and is managed by the CDC. Updated versions of the protocol list the same 15 adverse events. None of the conditions were included in the actual surveys. Respondents could check boxes if they experienced certain symptoms, but only 10 lower-level problems such as fever and nausea were listed as options.

“It’s deeply troubling that the CDC would construct V-safe in a manner that does not permit it to be able to easily assess the rate of harm from adverse events the CDC had already identified as potentially being caused by these products,” Aaron Siri, a lawyer representing ICAN, told The Epoch Times. “This calls into question what the CDC was really trying to accomplish with V-safe. Was it trying to assess the actual safety of these products? Or was it trying to design a system that would be more likely to affirm its previous public pronouncements regarding the safety of these products?”

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“We’ve never had a situation where the federal government at very high levels is coordinating or coercing social media to do its bidding in terms of censoring people.”

• How the CDC Became the Speech Police (Soave)

Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s most prominent authority on COVID-19, had his final White House press conference two days before Thanksgiving 2022. The event served as a send-off for the longserving director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who was finally stepping down after nearly four decades on the job.Ashish Jha, the Biden administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, hailed Fauci as “the most important, consequential public servant in the United States in the last half century.” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre described him as a near-constant “source of information and facts” for all Americans throughout the pandemic.

Indeed, the U.S. public’s understanding of COVID-19—its virality, how to prevent its spread, and even where it comes from—was largely controlled by Fauci and bureaucrats like him, to a greater degree than most people realize. The federal government shaped the rules of online discussion in unprecedented and unnerving ways. This has become much more obvious over the past few months, following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Musk granted several independent journalists access to internal messages between the government and the platform’s moderators, which demonstrate concerted efforts by various federal agencies—including the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and even the White House—to convince Twitter to restrict speech. These disclosures, which have become known as the Twitter Files, are eye-opening.

But Twitter was hardly the only object of federal pressure. According to a trove of confidential documents obtained by Reason, health advisers at the CDC had significant input on pandemic-era social media policies at Facebook as well. They were consulted frequently, at times daily. They were actively involved in the affairs of content moderators, providing constant and ever-evolving guidance. They requested frequent updates about which topics were trending on the platforms, and they recommended what kinds of content should be deemed false or misleading. “Here are two issues we are seeing a great deal of misinfo on that we wanted to flag for you all,” reads one note from a CDC official. Another email with sample Facebook posts attached begins: “BOLO for a small but growing area of misinfo.”

[..] Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, professors of medicine at Stanford University and Harvard University, respectively, have claimed that social media platforms repeatedly muzzled their opposition to lockdowns, mask requirements, and vaccine mandates. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a public interest law firm that has joined the lawsuit, thinks the federal government’s campaign to squelch contrarian coronavirus content was so vast as to effectively violate the First Amendment. “What’s at stake is the future of free speech in the technological age,” says Jenin Younes, the group’s litigation counsel. “We’ve never had a situation where the federal government at very high levels is coordinating or coercing social media to do its bidding in terms of censoring people.”

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“..many adverse events will go unrecorded, and this becomes more likely the longer the delay between treatment and the associated adverse reaction.”

• Safety Signals for Heart, Blood, Reproduction in Yellow Card Vaccine Data (DS)

The strength of the C-19VYC reporting scheme is that it is capable of generating an enormous amount of valuable information about adverse reactions to the experimental COVID-19 vaccines. Reports of suspected adverse reactions can be submitted not only by physicians but also by the recipients of the vaccines themselves, providing valuable feedback to the MHRA based on first-hand experience. This inclusive aspect of the C-19VYC reporting scheme has proved very successful, with nearly half a million adverse event reports submitted, roughly one for every hundred recipients of the COVID-19 vaccines in the U.K. Despite this strength in terms of quantity of data, the C-19VYC reporting scheme has a number of serious weaknesses related to the nature of the data collected.

These weaknesses place limits on the scheme’s ability both to detect and to measure safety signals. The first problem is that the scheme does not identify or include a control group of individuals, who have not taken the vaccine, against which to compare those who have. Other major weaknesses are that reporting is passive rather than planned and takes place at a single point in time. Thus, reporting relies on the sufferer of the adverse reactions or his or her physician making the connection between the vaccine treatment and the adverse reaction. As a consequence, many adverse events will go unrecorded, and this becomes more likely the longer the delay between treatment and the associated adverse reaction. Reporting rates of adverse reactions are also likely to represent only a fraction of actual cases because physicians or recipients may have too little time to fill out the onerous paperwork, may not have knowledge of the Yellow Card scheme, or may be unwilling to countenance the idea of harms resulting from a medication in which they have placed trust.

As well as being low, reporting rates are expected to vary substantially between different sectors of the population. Experience shows that females post roughly three times more adverse event reports than males, and the reporting rate for adverse reactions varies with age, dropping off in the elderly population where adverse reactions may be obscured by multiple forms of pre-existing chronic illnesses. In addition, reporting rates are likely to vary with the severity of the adverse reaction. Individuals are far more likely to have the motivation and tenacity to file a report if their adverse reaction is severe than if it is mild. On the other hand, if the adverse event results in death, grieving friends or relatives may be too preoccupied to file a C-19VYC report.

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“..nearly half a million children and young adults died within a year of his fateful announcement with over 118,000 of those deaths suspected to be due to the Covid-19 vaccine..”

• Fauci Lied; 120,000 US Children Died (Exp.)

Time and time again throughout 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci, stood at the podium, the bright lights of the cameras blinding him as he faced the nation. With a steady hand, he held up a vial of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, promising it would be the key to protecting America and its children from the “deadly” Covid-19 disease supposedly ravaging the country. But little did the public know, the truth about the Covid vaccine’s safety had been buried deep within Fauci’s own lies and deceit and confidential U.S. Government and Pfizer documents. Fauci used propaganda, lies and manipulation to coerce parents into getting their children vaccinated.

But the weight of the lives lost has quickly come crashing down on him and the nation, as a secret Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report has revealed that nearly half a million children and young adults died within a year of his fateful announcement with over 118,000 of those deaths suspected to be due to the Covid-19 vaccine’s dangerous side effects. The CDC report should spark widespread outrage and be on the front page of every single major newspaper. But instead, it has been and will continue to be met with a deafening silence. Despite the staggering death toll the report will be buried and swept under the carpet.

The mainstream media, consumed with working overtime to distract the public with propaganda on the war in Ukraine, alleged climate change and the cost of living crisis, has paid and will pay no attention to the devastating consequences of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s deception. The public wil continue to be kept in the dark, and the U.S. Government will move quickly to cover up its own involvement in the tragedy. With Dr Fauci quietly announcing his “retirement” in August 2022. It’s all business as usual and simply just another day at the office. But it is also a shocking failure of transparency and accountability, and the people of the United States should be forever haunted by the lives lost due to the Covid-19 vaccine scandal.

Read more …

“If Elon Musk successfully purchases Twitter, it could result in World War 3 and the destruction of our planet..”

• Twitter Files Show Authoritarian “Cult Of Identity” Controls The Media (Gurri)

Only yesterday, Elon Musk was a hero to progressives. He had made the electric car sexy and organized a migration to Mars to save humanity from the coming ecological apocalypse. Musk voted for Barack Obama twice and for Biden once. When he offered to purchase Twitter on April 14 of last year, he clearly believed he was reconnecting progressivism to its liberal roots. “For Twitter to deserve public trust it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally,” he said. Famously, Musk characterized himself as “a free speech absolutist.” But elites took that for a declaration of war and changed their tightly synchronized minds about the man. Twitter in the hands of Musk was “dangerous to our democracy,” said Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren.

“If Elon Musk successfully purchases Twitter, it could result in World War 3 and the destruction of our planet,” wrote David Leavitt. The White House expressed newfound concern about “the power of large social media platforms … over our everyday lives … tech platforms must be held accountable for the harm they cause.” Before Musk’s takeover, Twitter management had gone on record stating, “We do not shadow ban [i.e., secretly block users]. And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.” Thanks to Twitter’s internal emails and messages released by Musk, we now know both claims were false. “Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users,” wrote journalist Bari Weiss. The targets were offenders against elite orthodoxy—a conservative activist, a right-wing talk show host, and a Covid-dissenting doctor, among others.

In December, Musk invited Weiss, Matt Taibbi, and Michael Shellenberger to examine the company’s internal Slack messages and emails. Taibbi and Weiss are fierce critics of establishment media; Shellenberger is a strong anti-establishment voice on energy and homeless policy. All are, in Weiss’ phrase, “politically homeless,” neither right nor left, but tend to write about aspects of the struggle between the elites and the public. Taibbi, Weiss, and Shellenberger are clear thinkers and good writers but two traits, in my opinion, separate them from the pack: independence and integrity. Musk could have bought himself a passel of hired hacks who would have churned out whatever spin he wished. With these three authors, he gave up control over the Twitter Files output in exchange for their ironclad credibility.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Lavrov
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616066295719677954

 

 

 

 

GoreWEF
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615808847544999941

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1616132119549329408

 

 

Fetch
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615833809077010432

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1613580927946592258

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle January 10 2023

Jan 102023
 
 January 10, 2023  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


Dorothea Lange White Angel Bread Line, San Francisco 1933

 

• No One Doing ‘Enough’ For Ukraine, Foreign Minister Says (RT)
• ‘We Are Facing The Entire NATO In Ukraine’ Kremlin Says (ZH)
• UK Mulls Unprecedented Arms Supplies To Ukraine (RT)
• What Is Ukraine Hiding In The Bakhmut Salt Mines? (Larry Johnson)
• Biden’s Existential Angst In Ukraine (Bhadrakumar)
• Poll Reveals How Turks Feel About Russia (RT)
• Macron Talks Of ‘Putin’s Paradox’ (RT)
• Insurrection Anybody? (Kunstler)
• What Did Our Speaker Thing Get? (Denninger)
• GOP Moving Forward With Biden Probes (RT)
• Classified Documents Found At President Biden’s Think Tank (ZH)
• From the Twitter Files (Berenson)
• The CDC Appears to be Removing VAERS Records (GR)
• Are COVID Boosters Behind Increase in Cancer Among Younger Adults? (CHD)
• Germany Wants to Cancel Its Vaccine Deal (NC)

 

 


CIA back in 2008. Leaked by @wikileaks

 

 

Normal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..And don’t forget to sponsor our oligarchs’ luxurious lifestyle in Europe!”

• No One Doing ‘Enough’ For Ukraine, Foreign Minister Says (RT)

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has urged Kiev’s “partners” to continue funneling military aid into the country, claiming that “no one has done enough” to help the nation yet. “Ukraine is grateful to partners for their military aid, but we should remain honest with one another: No one has done enough as long as Russian boots remain on Ukrainian ground. Arming our country for victory is the shortest way to restoring peace and security in Europe and beyond,” he tweeted on Monday. The bold statement did not escape the attention of Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, who delved into Kuleba’s thread to mock his rallying call and suggest that Kiev had different goals in mind. “Translation from Ukrainian: We have squandered our army again, give us more arms, and we will continue to pretend that we are fighting Russia on our own. And don’t forget to sponsor our oligarchs’ luxurious lifestyle in Europe!” he wrote.

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“The sooner the people of Ukraine realize that the West is using them to wage a war on Russia, the more lives will be saved..”

• ‘We Are Facing The Entire NATO In Ukraine’ Kremlin Says (ZH)

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev has issued ultra-provocative words claiming that it’s not fundamentally Ukraine that Russia is at war with, but that the Russian military is facing all of NATO inside Ukraine. “The events in Ukraine aren’t a clash between Moscow and Kiev. It’s a military confrontation of NATO, first of all the US and Britain, with Russia. Fearing a direct engagement, NATO instructors push Ukrainian men to certain death,” he said in a fresh interview with state-owned newspaper aif.ru. Patrushev continued by describing Russia’s military as geared toward seeking to “free its regions from occupation and must put an end to the West’s bloody experiment to destroy the fraternal people of Ukraine.” “We are not at war with Ukraine because we can’t have hatred for ordinary Ukrainians by default,” he stressed. He then presented Russian and Ukrainian heritage as closely bound up together, according to state media:

“Get this: the Ukrainian language is one of the official languages in Crimea. Ukrainian cultural centers, Ukrainian folk song and dance groups continue to exist in many cities. A considerable number of people in the south of the Far East regard Ukrainian culture as their own, given a large proportion of migrants from the times of Stolypin,” he said, referring to Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister of the Russian Empire in the early 1900s, who oversaw a resettlement policy. “The sooner the people of Ukraine realize that the West is using them to wage a war on Russia, the more lives will be saved,” Patrushev added. “Many have realized that long ago, but they are afraid to say that publicly out of fear of reprisals. It’s not a part of the West’s plans to save someone’s life to the detriment of its enrichment and other ambitions. Even so, the Americans, the British and other Europeans often create an illusion that they protect civilization from barbarians.”

He then referenced the ongoing Western backed attempts of Kiev to make Russian language and culture illegal, which directly impacts millions in the region: “all this story with Ukraine was engineered by Washington to rehearse the technologies of dividing a people that’s one and sow discord,” he said. Meanwhile, there’s a growing move among leading NATO countries to begin transferring Western tanks and troop carriers to the Ukrainian battlefield. Starting last week, France began leading the way, resulting in a fierce response from the Kremlin… But following this warning that a “red line” has been crossed, the Biden administration approved sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and now Britain is the next to be mulling tanks for Ukrainian forces, as Sky News reports Monday:

The UK is considering supplying Ukraine with British tanks for the first time to fight Russia’s invading forces, Sky News understands. Discussions have been taking place “for a few weeks” about delivering a number of the British Army’s Challenger 2 main battle tank to the Ukrainian armed forces, a Western source with knowledge of the conversations said. A Ukrainian official was cited in the report as saying that the UK sending tanks would in turn “encourage others to give tanks.” President Zelensky during his December in-person address to US Congress mentioned that his country is in dire need of tanks, and he’s specifically multiple times asked Washington for M1 Abrams tanks.

The US has still remained reluctant, however, largely on fears that too much heavy weaponry too fast would lead to direct NATO-Russia confrontation, ostensibly at least. But based on the words of Russian Security Council Secretary Patrushev, it seems Russia increasingly sees military confrontation with NATO as already happening. After all, the massive loss of Russian troops in the Makiivka barracks attack was reportedly accomplished with US-supplied HIMARS missile systems.

Read more …

Black hole.

• UK Mulls Unprecedented Arms Supplies To Ukraine (RT)

Britain may soon announce a delivery of ten Challenger II tanks to Kiev, Sky News reports citing both Ukrainian and UK sources. While symbolic, the first-ever delivery of Western-made battle tanks is meant to encourage the US and Germany to do the same, the outlet said. PM Rishi Sunak’s government has been discussing the possibility for “a few weeks,” according to the outlet, which suggested some kind of official announcement might be made on January 20, when the US-led ‘Contact Group’ for arming Ukraine is scheduled to meet.= One source said the UK “might offer around ten” tanks, described as “enough to equip a squadron.” While nowhere near enough to turn the tide of the conflict, the move could push other Western countries past the line they have been unwilling to cross.

France, the US and Germany have pledged increasingly heavier armor to Ukraine, but drew the line at sending main battle tanks, which Kiev is desperate for. “It will be a good precedent to demonstrate [to] others – to Germany first of all, with their Leopards… and Abrams from the United States,” a Ukrainian source told Sky. Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov laid out this very tactic to the US outlet Politico last October. Last week, Reznikov told Ukrainian TV that his country is “carrying out NATO’s mission” by shedding blood, so it is the West’s responsibility to provide the weapons.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said in December that Moscow wasn’t fighting the Ukrainian military so much as the entire West, noting that Kiev had received around $97 billion in military aid in 2022. Russia has repeatedly warned the West that this is only prolonging the conflict and may escalate into direct confrontation. The US and its allies have insisted they are not involved, but continued ramping up weapons shipments to Ukraine. Last month, Ukraine’s top general told The Economist that his army needed at least 300 tanks and 700 infantry fighting vehicles. As of August 2020 – when it was rumored the entire armored corps might be scrapped as “obsolete” – the British Army had around 220 Challengers and 388 Warrior IFVs.

The BBC reported in mid-December that Sunak was looking for an accounting of all the aid the UK had sent to Ukraine, citing anonymous sources inside Whitehall who were working with Kiev to push back on this. The British defense ministry would neither confirm nor deny Sky’s rumor about the tanks, telling Sky only that they have provided “over 200” armored vehicles to Ukraine so far. However, reports of pending weapons shipments are routinely leaked to the media ahead of time. US outlets talked about the dispatch of Bradley IFVs a week before President Joe Biden confirmed it in a passing comment. The official announcement came just a day later.

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Great story.

• What Is Ukraine Hiding In The Bakhmut Salt Mines? (Larry Johnson)

The prolonged battle for Bakhmut is portrayed in the press as a symbol of Russian weakness. I know that many Westerners have scratched their heads and wondered why such a fierce battle is being waged over this particular piece of territory. The answer, I believe, lies below the surface of Bakhmut/Soledar in the Soledar Salt Mines (aka Artyomsol Salt Mines). The Salt mine is a monster, with a 125 miles of tunnels. Take a look at these images:

Evgeny Prigozhin, the creator of the Wagner Group offered the following update on the situation in Bakhmut and mentions the Salt mines in passing: “Bakhmut is the central point of the Eastern Front and a serious logistics center. And our task there is to die as little as possible, and to destroy the enemy as much as possible. Bakhmut’s feature is in its unique historical and geographical defense capabilities, which include, first, the division of the city into several parts by water barriers. Secondly, the neighborhood of Bakhmut is a complex of settlements that create a unified defense system. Thirdly, this is a unique landscape, ravines and heights, which are natural tunnels. And the icing on the cake is the system of Soledar and Bakhmut mines, actually a network of underground cities. In which there is not only a cluster of people at a depth of 80-100 meters, but also tanks and infantry fighting vehicles move. And stockpiles of weapons have been stored since the First World War “(c) Prigozhin

I think there is more going on underground than salt-mining. It is a secure warehouse for Ukraine’s military equipment. The blog ScoopTrade provides a great overview: Prior to the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, Artyomsol was the largest enterprise for the extraction and sale of table salt in Central and Eastern Europe. It consists of five salt mines, which are located within the city limits of Soledar and Praskovievka: mines No. 1, No. 3, No. 4, No. 7 and the Volodarsky mine. They are interconnected by rail and road, as well as a developed system of underground communications, which, after the outbreak of hostilities, were improved by the military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Artemsoli salt mine system is already being used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine as an underground fortress. Ammunition depots, quarters for personnel, and in some places even hangars for equipment are equipped at great depths.

And “get” them from the surface is almost impossible. Underground communications are also used by Ukrainian military personnel to move between positions, and the approaches and some entrances to the mines are mined and ready to be blown up. In terms of difficulty for the assault, the Artemsol mines can easily compete with the famous Azovstal in Mariupol. This helps explain why Ukraine is pouring shrinking manpower into the meat grinder battle on the surface. It is a critical facility. However, is it possible that Ukraine has stored evidence of its bioweapons program in the mines? This is more than a key transportation/logistics hub. Curiously, an anonymous White House official this week began pushing the line that Prighozin, who is a Chef, is just interested in getting control of the salt mine financial benefits (and maybe for its culinary quality):

“The United States is of the view that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is the founder of Russia’s most powerful mercenary group, is interested in taking control of salt and gypsum from mines near the Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut”, a White House official said on Thursday. There are indications that monetary motives are driving Russia’s and Prigozhin’s “obsession” with Bakhmut, the official added. Prigozhin is the owner of private Russian military company Wagner Group. I think there is more to this than just trying to hang on to a profitable natural resource. Ukraine is not fighting a desperate battle and sacrificing thousands of its troops just to protect a lucrative spice. What do you think?

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“A steady Russian build-up in Belarus is underway. The S-400 and Iskander missile systems have been deployed there. A NATO (Polish) attack on Belarus is no longer realistic.”

• Biden’s Existential Angst In Ukraine (Bhadrakumar)

The bipartisan consensus in the Beltway on the United States being the ‘indispensable’ world power is usually attributed to the neocons who have been the driving force of the US foreign and security policy in successive administrations since the 1970s. The op-end in the Washington Post on Saturday titled Time is not on Ukraine’s side, coauthored by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in George W. Bush presidency and Defence Secretary Robert Gates (who served under both Bush and Barack Obama), highlights this paradigm. Rice and Gates are robust cold warriors who are enthusiastic about NATO’s war against Russia. But their grouse is that President Biden should ‘dramatically’ step up in Ukraine. The op-ed harks back to the two world wars that marked the US’ ascendance as world power and warns that the US-led ‘rules-based order’ since 1990 — code word for US global hegemony — is in peril if Biden fails in Ukraine.

Rice and Gates indirectly acknowledge that Russia is on a winning streak, contrary to the western triumphalist narrative so far. Evidently, the expected Russian offensive ahead is rattling their nerves. Equally, the op-ed is contextual to American politics. The House speaker stalemate and its dramatic denouement in a bare-knuckle political fight among Republicans presages a dysfunctional Congress between now and 2024 election. Kevin McCarthy, who had former president Donald Trump’s backing, finally won but only after making a series of concessions to the populist wing of the GOP, which has weakened his authority. The AP reported, “Fingers were pointed, words exchanged and violence apparently just averted… It was the end of a bitter standoff that had shown the strengths and fragility of American democracy.”

[..] The op-ed appeared on the day after the January 5 joint statement by Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz underscoring their ‘unwavering solidarity’ with Ukraine. Under immense pressure from Biden, Germany and France caved in last week to provide Ukraine with Infantry Fighting Vehicles. Scholz also agreed that Germany will supply an additional Patriot air defense battery to Ukraine. (A top SPD politician in Berlin has since voiced reservations.) On the same day as the op-ed appeared, Pentagon arranged, unusually for a Saturday, a Press briefing by Laura Cooper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia. Cooper stated explicitly that the war in Ukraine threatens the US’ global standing: “From an overall strategic perspective, it is hard to emphasise enough the devastating consequences if Putin were to be successful in achieving his objective of taking over Ukraine. This would rewrite international boundaries in a way that we have not seen since World War II. And our ability to reverse these gains and to support and stand by the sovereignty of a nation, is something that resonates not just in Europe, but all around the world.”

[..] As for the war, the tidings from Donbass are extremely worrisome. Soledar is in Russian hands and the Wagner fighters are tightening the noose around Bakhmut, a strategic communication hub and lynchpin of Ukrainian deployments in Donbass. On the other hand, contrary to expectations, Moscow is unperturbed about sporadic theatrical Ukrainian drone strikes inside Russia. The Russian public opinion remains firmly supportive of Putin. The commander of the Russian forces, Gen. Sergey Surovikin has prioritised the fortification of the so-called ‘contact line,’ which is proving effective against Ukrainian counterattacks. Pentagon is unsure of Surovikin’s future strategy. From what they know of his brilliant success in evicting NATO officers from Syria’s Aleppo in 2016, siege and attrition war are Surovikin’s forte. But one never knows. A steady Russian build-up in Belarus is underway. The S-400 and Iskander missile systems have been deployed there. A NATO (Polish) attack on Belarus is no longer realistic.

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They want both Russia and NATO.

• Poll Reveals How Turks Feel About Russia (RT)

Turkish people overwhelmingly see Russia in a positive light and want their nation to have a good relationship with the country, a recent poll has indicated. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed across 24 Turkish provinces at the end of last year asserted to pollster Gezici that Russia was friendly towards Türkiye while less than a quarter (24.2%) believed Russia to be hostile. The results were reported on Saturday by the TV channel Ulusal Kanal. An overwhelming 72.8% of Turks said the two nations should have a good relationship, while 62.6% said Russia was making a positive contribution to the Turkish economy.

The news outlet suggested that the attitude contrasted to how Turks felt about the US, stating that the perception of Washington in the country took a turn for the worse after the attempted military coup in 2016. “We can say that the people are more distant from the West and have more confidence in the Russians,” Murat Gezici, the president of the polling agency, said, as quoted by Ulusal. Türkiye joined NATO in 1952 and has the second-largest standing army among members, after the US. However, ties between the two nations have been worsening over the years. Among other things, Washington punished Ankara for its 2017 decision to buy Russian-made S-400 long-range anti-aircraft missiles. The US kicked Türkiye out of its F-35 fighter jet program in retaliation.


The rift was highlighted last year by Ankara’s refusal to join Washington’s drive to impose sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, with the Turkish government choosing to play the role of mediator instead. The predominant public opinion in Türkiye is in favor of the neutrality policy and also rejects Washington’s claim that the Russian attack against its neighbor was unprovoked. A May survey by the consultancy MetroPOLL showed that just 33.7% of Turks blamed Moscow for the conflict, compared to 48.3% who pointed the finger at Washington and NATO. Nevertheless, Turks remain supportive of the US-led bloc, according to the same poll, with almost 60% favoring their nation’s continued membership in it.

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Macron admitting he cannot speak for himself.

• Macron Talks Of ‘Putin’s Paradox’ (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not an “unpleasant” man, Emmanuel Macron has said, but even that cannot be an excuse for launching a “war” on Ukraine. The French president made the bizarre remark as he made an appearance on Saturday at Les Rencontres du Papotin, a TV program hosted by a group of journalists with autism. Macron was grilled by journalists on assorted issues, including his ties with Putin. “When you meet him like that, he’s not unpleasant. That’s the paradox,” Macron stated, adding that “there is nothing to justify starting a war.” The French president also expressed his view of the roots of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, alleging that the true goal of Putin was the restoration of the Russian “empire.” Macron, however, did not elaborate on how exactly the ongoing hostilities might help achieve this alleged goal.


“Basically, he launched this war to recover territories and to extend Russia’s perimeter to the empire that once existed. He took a very heavy responsibility for himself, his people, obviously for the people of Ukraine, and for us all. This is how I see things,” Macron said. The president also warned about giving in to the misconception that the Russian troops were somehow on the verge of defeat in Ukraine. While those forces have sustained certain casualties, Macron asserted, Kiev’s forces were nowhere near achieving a battlefield victory. Macron has taken a somewhat ambiguous stance over the course of the ongoing conflict. He himself has repeatedly underscored the need to engage in talks with Russia. At the same time, Paris followed the collective West in its anti-Russian movement and has actively supported Kiev, pledging a new batch of wheeled tanks for Ukrainian troop forces just last week.

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“Stick around in ’23, unless the spike proteins have got your number. It’s going to be a humdinger of a year.”

• Insurrection Anybody? (Kunstler)

[.] the US Swamp endured a rebellion in the House of Representatives last week. The 20-odd reps who revolted against Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker — Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and others — sought written guarantees — which they won – to prevent such legislative insults as the passage of a 4000-page omnibus spending bill that nobody could possibly read prior to voting, along with many Swamp-draining changes in rules. One rule change makes it much easier to remove Speaker McCarthy from leadership if he reneges on any of his agreements. The House can now proceed to multiple inquiries into the vast matrix of rot, malice, and deceit that has set the federal government at war against its own citizens.

One example of this despotic malice, of course, is the open border with Mexico that has enabled millions of unvetted migrants to enter the USA illegally with the federal immigration apparatus recruited (also illegally) to disperse them all over the country. “Joe Biden” traveled down to the border last weekend in a pretend show of concern for the disorder the stage-managers behind him have instigated there. They stupidly took him for a photo op to one of the few places on the border where he wouldn’t have to actually witness mobs crossing the Rio Grande: a stretch of wall that his predecessor, Mr. Trump, built. Hey, no unsightly foreign riffraff cluttering up the picture there!


Before long, the House is going to impeach Mr. Biden over this fiasco and quite a few other matters. He may not be convicted in the Senate, with its slim Democratic Party majority, but they will be compelled to hold a trial, at least, where a lot of dirty laundry will get aired, and pressure will mount for the old grifter to resign. Ms. Harris is sworn in and five minutes later suffers a “nervous collapse” that the public is not informed about. It sets off a wild series of events around the selection of a new vice-president — Barack or Michelle Obama? — that could burn the whole joint down. Stick around in ’23, unless the spike proteins have got your number. It’s going to be a humdinger of a year.

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“..if you’re a member you must be there to either vote or count in a quorum.”

• What Did Our Speaker Thing Get? (Denninger)

Don’t kid yourselves folks, there were substantive changes that came out of the US House speaker “fight.” This came across my feed before the final votes, so I can’t vouch for it. But enough of it was leaked that I suspect its real, and any attempt to not follow through by McCarthy is likely to lead to an endless set of motions to vacate the chair, which is a privileged motion and stops all other activity in the chamber until disposed of. McCarthy really didn’t want that threshold to be one Representative, but absent agreement he was not going to be Speaker and it was quite-clear as the days wore on that those who were opposed were not going to bend no matter how much he yelled or threatened them. He had no choice but to consent. That request is not radical; it in fact is how The House has run for most of the last hundred years.

It exists for the specific purpose of putting a stop to the Speaker abusing his or her position in that if you run crap like refusing to allow floor amendments the Representative(s) that you anger can tie the chamber up in knots until you cut it out. The Speaker, in short, is not King yet that is exactly how it has been treated since the 2016 elections. Pelosi turned that into an art form; exactly zero non pre-screened amendments were allowed to be offered on the floor during her tenure. She’s not alone; Ryan did the same sort of thing and the reason the “one vote motion” rule was killed when Pelosi got the gavel was that members of the House repeatedly attempted to eject him from the chair for doing it. Restoring that capacity is absolutely a good thing. The House is a body of 435 members and in order to represent the people members must be able to proffer both legislation and amendments. If you cannot do so without the prior approval of one person then there is no representation of the people at all; we have what amounts to a monarchy in the US House.


Legislation can be forced onto the floor for vote out of committee by a discharge petition (although it takes a supermajority to do it) but if you can’t offer amendments then half the process is absolutely held hostage to the whim of one individual. This should have never been allowed in the first place and it was the big sticking point with McCarthy. He didn’t give this up willingly so we shall see whether he actually conceded to the point of view or whether he “conceded” only until he could find a weapon with which to politically kill his opponents. The other changes are just as real but secondary. I find nothing objectionable in any of them but as I noted I would have insisted on more: Legislation barring Executive-declared emergencies of any sort beyond 72 hours past when the House and Senate can convene (whether they actually do) and a bar via rules change on remote appearance and proxies; if you’re a member you must be there to either vote or count in a quorum.

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Burisma.

• GOP Moving Forward With Biden Probes (RT)

Now in control of the House, Republicans are pushing forward with probes into President Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings in Ukraine and China, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee has said. Big Tech ‘censorship’ of the Hunter Biden laptop story will also be under the spotlight. Rep. James Comer told NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday that the chamber now controlled by Republicans will thoroughly examine the Biden family’s “influence peddling” and “shady business dealings” abroad. “We’re not investigating Hunter Biden, we’re investigating Joe Biden,” the Kentucky lawmaker insisted, adding that Americans “need to know what is allowable and what isn’t allowable with respect to foreign adversarial intervention among family members of presidents of the United States.”

Comer argued that the only people who see the investigations as partisan are “the media and the hardcore Democrats.” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan will also chair a new Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which would look at the role government agencies like the DOJ and FBI played in suppressing reporting on the Hunter Biden story. The New York Post’s reporting on Biden junior’s mislaid laptop – which revealed information about his business relationships in China and Ukraine – was heavily censored on social media ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Files released by new Twitter CEO Elon Musk in December appeared to confirm that FBI officials pressured the platform’s staff to classify the story as a foreign-influence operation.


In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Jordan promised to investigate “vigorously” and “aggressively” to expose “every single bit of it.” The Ohio Republican previously requested information from Big Tech companies on their alleged “collusion with the Biden administration to censor conservatives.” The probe will also look for any evidence of government pressure to quash debate on controversial issues like the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. GOP sources told Axios that the new committee will demand copies of White House emails, memos and other communications with Big Tech platforms. The White House has dismissed the probes as “pointless political stunts,” and accused the GOP of failing to work with the administration “to take on the issues Americans care about like tackling inflation.”

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“..$54.6 million in Chinese donations after the Biden Center was announced in 2016..”

• Classified Documents Found At President Biden’s Think Tank (ZH)

Classified documents from Joe Biden’s tenure as Vice President were found in early November at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, CBS News reports, citing two sources with knowledge of an inquiry launched by Attorney General Merrick Garland. The investigation into the roughly 10 documents will be conducted by the US Attorney in Chicago (shocking!), according to the sources. The classified material was identified by personal attorneys for Mr. Biden on Nov. 2, the day before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president confirmed. The documents were discovered when Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.,” Sauber said in a statement to CBS News. The documents were contained in a folder that was in a box with other unclassified papers, the sources said. The sources revealed neither what the classified documents contain nor their level of classification. A source familiar told CBS News the documents did not contain nuclear secrets. -CBS News

Remember when the DOJ raided former President Trump and made a huge deal about classified documents having been commingled with not-classified documents? Pepperidge Farm remembers. According to Sauber, the White House counsel’s office notified the National Archives on the same day the material was discovered, after which the Archives took possession the next morning. “The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” said Sauber. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.” In charge of the investigation is John Lausch, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who will seek to determine how the classified material ended up at the Penn Biden Center (which received $54.6 million in Chinese donations after the Biden Center was announced in 2016).

Biden irresponsible

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No, Alex/Elon, we want the Fauci files, not some Gottlieb drivel. You can do that later.

• From the Twitter Files (Berenson)

On August 27, 2021, Dr. Scott Gottlieb – a Pfizer director with over 550,000 Twitter followers – saw a tweet he didn’t like, a tweet that might hurt sales of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines. The tweet explained correctly that natural immunity after Covid infection was superior to vaccine protection. It called on the White House to “follow the science” and exempt people with natural immunity from upcoming vaccine mandates. It came not from an “anti-vaxxer” like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but from Dr. Brett Giroir, a physician who had briefly followed Gottlieb as the head of the Food & Drug Administration. Further, the tweet actually encouraged people who did not have natural immunity to “Get vaccinated!” No matter. By suggesting some people might not need Covid vaccinations, the tweet could raise questions about the shots.


Besides being former FDA commissioner, a CNBC contributor, and a prominent voice on Covid public policy, Gottlieb was a senior board member at Pfizer, which depended on mRNA jabs for almost half its $81 billion in sales in 2021. Pfizer paid Gottlieb $365,000 for his work that year. Gottlieb stepped in, emailing Todd O’Boyle, a top lobbyist in Twitter’s Washington office who was also Twitter’s point of contact with the White House. The post was “corrosive,” Gottlieb wrote. He worried it would “end up going viral and driving news coverage.” I found the email in a search of records I ran at Twitter last week – part of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” effort to raise the veil on censorship decisions Twitter made before Musk bought the company in October.

Pfizer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1612474690978684934

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“Dr. Ealy stresses he’s “triple-checked this,” and he stands by the allegation that the agency is removing or obfuscating records.”

• The CDC Appears to be Removing VAERS Records (GR)

Dr. Henry Ealy is the Founder & Executive Community Director for the Energetic Health Institute. He holds a Doctorate in naturopathic medicine and has been at the tip of the spear on the Grand Jury front — taking action to bring forth a Grand Jury investigation of the CDC for allegations of criminal data fraud and willful misconduct. “You mentioned that V-Safe should be added to VAERS, but only 4% of V-Safe [adverse events have been] added. Can you explain what that means to people and why it matters?” asked Dr. Wolf. Dr. Ealy explained, “VAERS is designed specifically for medical professionals and people alike to report, ‘Hey, I got hurt.’ And when enough people have gotten hurt for officials to look at it and say, ‘Hey, this product isn’t safe; it’s got to come off the market.’ V-Safe was created (by the CDC) to also do something similar to that — and to make that process a little bit easier. You don’t need as much information to record a report in V-Safe.”

By streamlining the process, the CDC got inundated with adverse event reports from the Covid-19 shot. Out of the 10,108,273 individual users, 800,000 had an adverse event — or about 1 in 13. And of those 800,000 V-Safe reports, only 30,492 have been logged into VAERS. Dr. Ealy continues, “In V-safe, there have been over 800,000 reports of injury. And the deal was that in V-Safe, every single report of injury was supposed to also then subsequently have a VAERS report associated with it. So that means all 800,000 should be in VAERS. But unfortunately, or by design — however you want to look at it — only just over 30,000 of those 800,000 have been recorded in VAERS. So what that means is that fewer than 4% of the records in V-Safe have actually been reported in VAERS as they were supposed to be done.”


“What a sneaky way to basically sweep almost 800,000 adverse events under the rug,” remarked Dr. Wolf. “Adverse events, hospitalizations, permanent injuries, deaths — compromises [the] dataset,” replied Dr. Ealy. “That’s so disgusting!” exclaimed Dr. Wolf. To add insult to injury, not only are the bulk of V-Safe reports not making their way to VAERS, but Dr. Ealy suspects that VAERS reports are being removed. Specifically, he notes that between September 2022 and December 2022, the CDC has removed at least 32,844 records of injury related to the following conditions: myocarditis, pericarditis, and heart inflammation. What were 45,388 reports three months ago has now inexplicably dropped down to 12,544. Dr. Ealy stresses he’s “triple-checked this,” and he stands by the allegation that the agency is removing or obfuscating records.

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“Research shows the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein obliterates 90% of the DNA repair mechanism in lymphocytes, white blood cells that help your body fight infection and chronic disease, including cancer.”

• Are COVID Boosters Behind Increase in Cancer Among Younger Adults? (CHD)

Data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database — historically one of the most well-kept and most heavily relied upon medical databases in the world — showed that, compared to the previous five-year averages, cancer among Department of Defense personnel in 2021 skyrocketed. Overall, cancers tripled among servicemen and their family members after the rollout of the COVID-19 shots. Breast cancer went up 487%. Exploding cancer rates are also seen elsewhere. One of the first to warn that the shots might cause cancer was Dr. Ryan Cole, a pathologist who runs his own pathology lab. He suspects the shots accelerate already existing cancers by way of immune dysregulation. He noticed that cancers that were previously well-controlled would suddenly grow out of control and rapidly lead to death once they got the COVID-19 jab.

Swedish pathologist, researcher and senior physician at Lund’s University, Dr. Ute Kruger, has also observed an explosion in rapidly advancing cancers in the wake of the COVID-19 shots. For example, she’s noticed: • Cancer patients are getting younger — The largest increase is among 30- to 50-year-olds. • Tumor sizes are dramatically larger — Historically, 3-centimeter tumors were commonly found at the time of cancer diagnosis. Now, the tumors they’re finding are regularly 4 to 12 centimeters, which suggests they’re growing at a much faster rate than normal. • Multiple tumors in multiple organs are becoming more common. • Recurrence and metastasis are increasing — Kruger points out that many of the cancer patients she’s seeing have been in remission for years, only to suddenly be beset with uncontrollable cancer growth and metastasis shortly after their COVID-19 jab.


These “turbo-cancers,” as Kruger calls them, cannot be explained by delayed cancer screenings due to lockdowns and other COVID-19 restrictions, as those days are long gone. Patients, despite having access to medical screenings as in years past, are showing up with grossly exacerbated tumor growths, and she believes this is because the cancers are being “turbo-charged” by the mRNA jabs. Disturbingly, as detailed in “How Cancer Deaths From the COVID Jabs Are Being Hidden,” analysis of U.S. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report data suggests the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been filtering out and redesignating cancer deaths as COVID-19 deaths since April 2021 to eliminate the cancer signal. The signal is being hidden by swapping the underlying cause of death with the main cause of death.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1612664071408726017

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The fallout of the secret/lost Bourla/von der Leyen deal.

• Germany Wants to Cancel Its Vaccine Deal (NC)

“Too many doses, billions in costs – the government wants to cancel the vaccine deal.” So reads the headline of an article published by Die Welt on Dec. 31, 2022. According to the article, there are currently more than 150 million surplus vials in the government’s central warehouse — and no end in sight to the deliveries. The government now wants to cancel or reduce the additional orders made through the EU Commission for 2023 and 2024. Germany’s Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach — who just a few months ago proposed taking Germany’s vaccine passport restrictions to a whole new level — is taking flak as allegations mount that he reordered a huge new batch of the vaccines despite growing stockpiles amid slumping demand for the boosters.

More information seeped out earlier this week, in response to a freedom of information act request made by the right-wing populist political party Alternative for Germany (AfD). According to a later piece in Die Welt, Germany’s government is actually sitting on a stockpile of over 30 million unused doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. But it is also on the hook for a total of 375 million doses of the Pfizer BioNtech COV-19 vaccine, of which 212 are yet to be delivered [machine translated]: “There is a surplus of around 32 million vaccine doses in the federal central warehouse. The federal government is also obliged to purchase around 375 million doses of the Corona vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer. But what happens to the surplus vaccine doses?”

Germany has committed to buy around 375 million doses of the Corona vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer. This emerged from a response by the federal government to a request from the AfD parliamentary group, which the Bundestag published on Tuesday. Accordingly, as of November 30, 2022, the Federal Republic was contractually obliged to purchase around 283 million doses. In addition, there is a purchase obligation “for a further” 92.4 million. The government did not provide any information about the price per dose. This is subject to contractual confidentiality and may not be made public. Both Pfizer BioNtech and the European Commission, which negotiated the EU’s bulk purchase of COVID-19 vaccines, have agreed to keep schtum about the price of the vaccines, as well as a whole host of other details enclosed within the vaccine contracts. Those contracts are now the subject of an investigation by Europe’s Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO).

Both the EU Court of Auditors and the EU’s ombudsman Emily O’Reilly have raised serious questions about the preliminary negotiations that took place between Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in the lead up to the EU’s biggest vaccine procurement deal. Both von der Leyen and the Commission she heads have refused to disclose the content of her communications with Bourla. Signed in May 2021, the resulting deal was for the acquisition of up to 1.8 billion doses of the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine. Although the EU has not disclosed how much it paid for the vaccines, credible estimates have surfaced that place the price per shot at around €20. According to sections of the vaccine contracts seen by the Financial Times, the price for the vaccines in the EU’s biggest vaccine contract was €19.50 a pop — a 26% markup on the initial price (€15.50) paid in late December 2020.

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Fraiman
https://twitter.com/i/status/1612352266228441094

 

 

 

 

 

 

A while

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 2 2022

Dec 022022
 
 December 2, 2022  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  55 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Female bust 1943

 

• All NATO Countries Agree On ‘Need’ For Ukraine Membership – Minister (RT)
• US Poised To ‘Dramatically Expand’ Training Of Ukrainian Forces (ZH)
• Zelensky Adviser: ‘13,000 Ukrainian Soldiers Killed’ (Telegraaf)
• Eastern Ukraine Had Good Reason To Join Russia (Kovalik)
• EU Has No Legal Way To Seize Russian Assets – EU Officials (RT)
• Operation Gladio: NATO’s Secret War for International Fascism (Chung)
• EU Respects China’s Sovereignty – European Council President (RT)
• Macron Warns US Climate Plan May ‘Fragment The West’ (RT)
• Dutch Farmers to Rutte: Go to Hell (Celente)
• WH Press Secretary Called Out For Saying Biden Has Visited Border (JTN)
• The European Union Moves Toward a Possible Ban of Twitter (Turley)
• Elon Musk Declares ‘Cancel Culture Needs To Be Canceled’ (Fox)
• Activists and Pundits Target Justice Barrett as “Religious Extremist” (Turley)
• Three COVID-19 Questions Dr. Fauci Needs To Answer (Kory)

 

 

 

 

@jack
https://twitter.com/alx/status/1598329040393437185

 

 

 

 

Straight
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598235853603864576

 

 

 

 

Tucker Heavy D

 

 

Tucker Max Keiser
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598521626420707329

 

 

 

 

The need for WWIII.

• All NATO Countries Agree On ‘Need’ For Ukraine Membership – Minister (RT)

There is a consensus within NATO that Ukraine needs to become a member of the bloc, Ukrainian Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishina claimed on Thursday. Budapest’s objections to Kiev’s participation – due to a dispute over ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine – will be overcome by “political instruments,” she added. “We have made progress on the question of getting closer to NATO,” Stefanishina said at a security forum in Kiev. “At the most recent ministerial summit in Bucharest, all 30 member states agreed on the need to offer Ukraine membership.” “NATO members confirmed that the alliance door is open to Ukraine,” Stefanishina continued, arguing that this was a “new powerful signal” that shows “no one fears pressure from Russia.”

Hungary continues to object to Ukraine’s participation in NATO’s official meetings, but this has “become a problem” for the bloc, the minister told her audience in Kiev. NATO is now using “all political instruments of pressure to convince Hungary to abandon the blockade,” the minister said. She did not elaborate on the form that such pressure might take. On Wednesday, the EU announced it would withhold billions in funding to Hungary until it complies with 27 “essential milestones” laid out by Brussels. The money includes pandemic relief and “cohesion” funds intended to level social inequalities in the bloc. Hungary certainly appeared skeptical towards Ukraine’s membership in NATO at the Bucharest summit, with Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto arguing that a country could only join the bloc if it “does not threaten but strengthens the security of existing members.”

Szijjarto has also reiterated that Budapest would “not agree to a formal meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission until the Hungarians of Transcarpathia have their rights restored.” “We cannot and do not want to retreat from this position,” he added, explaining that while Budapest has not raised the issue since the conflict in Ukraine escalated in February, it has not forgotten about it either.

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And the need for MORE WWIII.

• US Poised To ‘Dramatically Expand’ Training Of Ukrainian Forces (ZH)

As if the Pentagon and US intelligence hadn’t already escalated its presence enough inside Ukraine, given there are already literally a small contingent of “boots on the ground” – as we detailed last month, CNN is now reporting that the Biden administration is considering “dramatically” increasing its training of Ukrainian forces. The proposal would involve US advisers training “much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics” at American installations in Germany, and perhaps other locations in Europe, according to the new report. CNN begins by reporting that “The Biden administration is considering a dramatic expansion in the training the US military provides to Ukrainian forces, including instructing as many as 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers a month at a US base in Germany, according to multiple US officials.”

“If adopted, the proposal would mark a significant increase not just in the number of Ukrainians the US trains but also in the type of training they receive,” the report continues, also noting that this far “only a few thousand” Ukrainian soldiers have been trained on specific US-provided weapons systems. According to further details in CNN: “Under the new program, the US would begin training much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics, including how to coordinate infantry maneuvers with artillery support – “much more intense and comprehensive” training than Ukraine has been receiving in Poland or the UK, according to one source briefed on the proposal.”

This is a significant statement given the ongoing British program at multiple UK bases is large in size. However what’s being mulled by the Pentagon would see some 15,000 Ukrainians trained by the United States every six months. Multiple US officials have meanwhile projected they expect the war could take years before there’s a final ceasefire and resolution. The UK’s own infantry training program for Ukraine forces has a stated goal of training at least 10,000 Ukrainian troops. The Kremlin for its part has warned repeatedly of such deepening Western involvement which clearly is now going far beyond just weapons shipments. Russia this week walked away from New START nuclear arms reduction treaty negotiations with the US while citing its growing involvement in backing Kiev as a major reason for halting resumption of talks.

Maersheimer The west is playing Russian roulette in Ukraine.

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Google translation. This is why Ursula had to be “corrected”. Zelensky will never admit 100,000 deaths.

So now we have Ursula at 100,000, Russia at 200,000+, and Zelensky at 10-13,000, with Ukraine also saying 100,000 Russia deaths. Take your pick.

• Zelensky Adviser: ‘13,000 Ukrainian Soldiers Killed’ (Telegraaf)

In the war between Russia and Ukraine, 10,000 to 13,000 soldiers have died on the Ukrainian side, Mykhailo Podolyak reports in conversation with the Ukrainian TV channel Channel 24. Podolyak is an adviser to President Zelensky. His statements have not yet been officially confirmed from Kiev. Ukraine regularly provides figures on the number of Russian soldiers killed, but the figures on the number of casualties on the Ukrainian side have always been shrouded in fog. Earlier this week, Kiev reacted furiously to a statement by the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. She stated that 100,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed since the start of the war. After the criticism, she went back on her words by saying that she was talking about dead and injured. According to Podolyak, the number of civilian casualties is ‘considerable’. The BBC reported in June that the number of civilian casualties was around 3,600. That number is probably much higher now.

Read more …

“In present-day Ukraine, “there are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.”

• Eastern Ukraine Had Good Reason To Join Russia (Kovalik)

Once a Pittsburgh sister city also known for its steel industry, Donetsk, and the greater Donbas region in which it is located, has been at war since 2014. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, 14,000 people died in this conflict, even before Russia began its military operations in February. I’ve just returned from there. Before Russia’s intervention, the conflict had been between the people of that region and the government in Kiev, after an unconstitutional coup took 2014. This coup, known as “Maidan,” was — as then US Ambassador to Ukraine Victoria Nuland explained in a recorded telephone conversation — managed by the United States. The coup brought to power a pro-Western, anti-Russian, government, which contained elements which were far-right and even Nazi.

The best known element, as the Nation Magazine reported in 2019, is the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has been part of Ukraine’s National Guard since 2014. Its commander Andriy Biletsky once wrote that Ukraine’s mission is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” As The Nation explained, the Azov Battalion is not merely Nazi in theory, but also in practice. In present-day Ukraine, “there are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.” The American press wrote about this sporadically before this year. Now the press does backflips to obscure and deny this reality.

However, the people of Donetsk, who have lived this reality now for almost nine years, are very clear that all of this is real. Indeed, I met people in Donetsk (some quite elderly) who volunteered back in 2014 to defend their land and their people from the Kiev government’s aggression. Much of the government views the predominantly ethnic Russian people of the Donbas as inferior beings whose language and culture, including the Russian Orthodox Church, should be eradicated. I actually traveled to Donestk in a vehicle laden with clothes destined for a Russian Orthodox monastery in Donetsk that is constantly being shelled by the Kiev government. These monks now live in underground rooms beneath the increasingly-destroyed monastery.

The people I met in Donetsk view their struggle as a fight against fascism. As one told me, there is a saying in Donetsk which goes, “First Stalingrad, now Stalino.” (Stalino was the former name of Donetsk.) Stalingrad, was where the Nazis were finally forced to retreat from Russia. The people of Donetsk are now dedicated to doing the same to the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. And yes, despite how inconvenient to Americans it may be to accept this, they see Russia as their ally in this struggle.

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“..in most member states seizing frozen assets is only legally possible when there is a criminal conviction..”

• EU Has No Legal Way To Seize Russian Assets – EU Officials (RT)

EU officials have said they cannot legally confiscate Russian assets that have been frozen as part of Western sanctions, however, they hope to set up an international court to prosecute Russian officials for the military operation in Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. According to European Commission officials, the international principle of state immunity doesn’t allow the executive body to appropriate the assets of the Russian Central Bank, but lawmakers have proposed that EU member states and their allies create a fund to manage the liquid assets and lay aside profits from those investments for the reconstruction of Ukraine. According to the commission, Brussels has no current figures on the amount of Russian Central Bank assets that bloc countries hold or what proportion is in liquid assets such as cash.


According to the Kremlin, around $300 billion in reserves held abroad have been frozen since March, along with billions more belonging to Russian businesses and individuals. The legality of using Russian state and private assets to fund Ukraine has been under discussion for several months, but the bloc’s desired mechanism is not easy to implement, as in most member states seizing frozen assets is only legally possible when there is a criminal conviction. Meanwhile, Washington is facing its own challenges when it comes to using of Russian funds. Treasury and Justice Department officials have reportedly asked lawmakers to develop new legislation to expand their powers, not just to freeze, but to seize the assets. US officials told the journal that the administration is constrained in what it can do until that new authority is introduced.

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Fascism was always the defense against communism. Pity there’s no more communism. What to do now?

• Operation Gladio: NATO’s Secret War for International Fascism (Chung)

With the end of the Second World War, there appeared an almost instantaneous agreement among the Western European nations the need to defend their sovereignty against the rise of Soviet communism. Ironically the solution to this was the idea of a ‘New World Order’[1] for Europe. The Fifth Column was sold as a communist one, and thus the need to work with ‘former’ Nazis and fascists was justified to secure the European civilization from the threatened invasion by the ‘Asiatic hordes.’ Of course, the common people were not notified of this decision to reunite with the fascists; that not even before the end of the Second World War, there were discussions of aligning with the fascists to secure what was to be the ‘New World Order’.

To ensure that Europe would stand strong, it seemed only logical that it should form a European unity, able to collectively use their resources and military in a coordinated defense against this looming “Asian threat”. It would be interesting, that many nations who treated the army of Hitler with seeming indifference up to the very moment of invasion, would now trumpet loudly the need to prepare for war on all fronts (economically, culturally, politically, militarily including paramilitary) against the Eastern barbarians, and Mosley had positioned himself at the forefront of this clarion call.

In his The World Alternative (1936) Mosley wrote: “We must return to the fundamental concept of a European Nation which animated the war generation of 1918.” In reference to the openly pro-fascist former British Prime Minister Lloyd George’s (1916-1922) War Cabinet. When the Axis began losing crucial battles in 1943, this only intensified Europeanism as the new order’s last line of defense that would be entrusted to the younger generation. On November 14th, 1944 Mussolini proposed in the Verona programme “a European Community, with a federation of all nations and the development of Africa’s natural resources.”[2]

Stephen Dorril writes in his book Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British fascism:[3] “The Eastern Front was transformed into the ‘European Front’ as Europe’s defence became a supra-national moral obligation. The Waffen SS assumed the role of Europe’s army and its struggle to hold back the Bolsheviks from overrunning the West invoked an embryonic Europeanism, which became a central myth of post-war Fascism. Neo-Fascist thinker Maurice Bardeche wrote that ‘the Defense of the West has remained in the memory, and this is still the chief meaning of fascist ideas’.”

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Xi correctly views Michel as an absolute nobody.

• EU Respects China’s Sovereignty – European Council President (RT)

European Council President Charles Michel on Thursday assured Chinese President Xi Jinping that the EU respects China’s sovereignty and will not interfere in its domestic affairs. Michel, who arrived in Beijing at the invitation of President Xi, discussed China-Europe ties and regional and global issues with the Chinese president during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday morning. “EU sticks to strategic autonomy, upholds one-China policy, respects China’s sovereignty and will not interfere in China’s domestic affairs,” state-run Global Times quoted Michel as telling Xi during the meeting.


“EU is willing to strengthen communication with China on better coping with the energy crisis and climate change,” he added. President Xi welcomed the visiting European Council president and said his visit reflects the EU’s goodwill to develop ties with China. Xi said that it is in the common interest of China, Europe, and the international community to keep China-Europe ties forward.

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Macron found out the plan too late.

• Macron Warns US Climate Plan May ‘Fragment The West’ (RT)

A new US incentive scheme to subsidize local electric car makers risks driving a wedge between Western countries, French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Wednesday amid looming fears of a trade war between America and Europe. Speaking at the French embassy in Washington, Macron said the scheme would have a negative impact on Europe by making it less attractive for businesses to invest in the continent’s economy. The US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offers $391 million of incentives to promote clean energy, including support for electric vehicle manufacturers.“The choices of the past few months, in particular the IRA, are choices that will fragment the West,” he said, adding that the EU and the US need “to co-ordinate and re-synchronize our policy agendas.”

Macron described the economic plan as “super aggressive” towards European companies during a meeting with US lawmakers from both main parties, according to an unnamed Reuters source.“You will perhaps fix your issue, but you will increase my problem,” he added, as quoted by AFP, warning that the US incentive could “kill a lot of jobs.”Meanwhile, on Wednesday, when asked about European concerns about the act, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed it “presents significant opportunities for European firms as well as benefits to EU energy security,” adding that “this is not a zero-sum game” for the US, and Washington seeks a “constructive path of engagement” with the EU on the matter.

In recent months, the Inflation Reduction Act has been a particularly thorny subject in transatlantic relations, with various EU leaders arguing that it discriminates against Europeans as it could give American electric vehicle manufacturers an advantage over their EU counterparts in the lucrative US market. While the EU and US are attempting to resolve their differences, Bernd Lange, the chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, warned that when the scheme enters in force in several weeks, it will be too late for the parties to negotiate any changes to the legislation. He added that, should this happen, the EU would likely lodge a lawsuit against Washington with the World Trade Organization.

Read more …

Trying to find this in the Dutch press. Not much. Yesterday at some point they said the farmers had gone home. And in the southern province of Limburg 25 farmers were bought out for €47 million.

I’m still not sure at which point the nitrogen narrative became so fashionable. Other than the EU made it illegal. Or was that the WEF?

• Dutch Farmers to Rutte: Go to Hell (Celente)

Dutch farmers are fighting for their lives, but don’t expect to see any mention about their struggle with government oppression in the Western media. Videos emerged on social media Thursday that showed Dutch farmers riding in tactors and clashing with police to rail against the country’s decision to make good on its threat to enforce the EU climate law that has sparked protests for months. These farmers say these demands will essentially eliminate any chance that they have of making a living. The Netherlands, a country of just about 17 million residents, is the world’s second-largest agricultural exporter after the U.S. At issue are the projected effects of climate legislation which by 2030 would force Dutch firms to cut national nitrogen emissions by 50 percent and up to 95 percent in certain areas. Cows and fertilizers have both been targeted as main sources of emissions being effectively outlawed.


Under the plan, the Dutch government said it would be willing to buy 3,000 of the farms that it considers to be “peak polluters,” The Guardian reported. The government said the hope is to reduce “ammonia and nitrogen oxide emissions that are illegal under EU law.” Christianne van der Wal, the country’s nitrogen minister, told the farmers, “There is no better offer coming.” She said compulsory purchases would be made with “pain in the heart”, if necessary, The Telegraph reported. Mark Rutte, the prime minister has said if there are not enough farmers who sell their businesses, then the government may have to force some of them out of business, Bloomberg reported. One Twitter user posted a video that claimed to show police using an excavator to forcefully remove a protesting tractor driver. “Dutch police attack farmers by trying to destroy their tractors…while those who stand in their way are beaten and arrested. Fighting the Great Reset was never going to be easy,” the post read.

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Blatant. Apparently they think they can get away with it.

• WH Press Secretary Called Out For Saying Biden Has Visited Border (JTN)

Twitter users and elected officials called out White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for incorrectly saying President Joe Biden visiting the border. Fox News reporter Peter Doocy brought up the border Wednesday during a press briefing where he asked Jean-Pierre when the president would be visiting the southern border. “We know the president’s never been down to the border. The possible next speaker says that he wants [Biden] to go with him. So, is he going to?” Doocy asked. “He’s been there. He’s been to the border. And since he took office,” Jean-Pierre answered. Doocy asked a follow-up question about when specifically Biden visited the border, but the press secretary ignored his question and moved on, according to Fox News.


Many twitter users including Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw correct Jean-Pierre, noting that Biden has not visited the border at all during his time as president. “Narrator: President Biden has not been to the border,” Crenshaw tweeted. Former California Senate candidate James Bradley also called the press secretary out on this statement. “Karine Jean-Pierre FACT CHECK: Joe Biden has NOT been to the southern border HE OPENED since he has been president,” Bradley tweeted. According to Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy the only time Biden has conceivably “been to the border” was during a very brief 2008 drive-by when he landed at El Paso airport and rode in a motorcade to the suburb of Las Cruces, with the route hugging the U.S.-Mexico border for a few minutes.

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“Allow the public to see not just communications on censorship (including subjects beyond Hunter Biden) but how Twitter may have used verification, throttling, algorithms, or other methods to control speech.”

• The European Union Moves Toward a Possible Ban of Twitter (Turley)

The anti-free speech movement in the United States has shifted to Europe to do what the government cannot do in this country: force the censorship of dissenting viewpoints. It is, therefore, little surprise that Nina Jankowicz, the short-lived “disinformation czar” at Biden’s Department of Homeland Security, has now registered as a foreign agent with a European group pushing censorship. The vehicle for this effort is also not surprising. For years, some of us have denounced the EU’s efforts to pass the Digital Services Act, a roadmap for state censorship on the Internet. It is the Western embrace of Chinese style speech controls on the Internet. The chief censor in the West has been Breton, who has shown open contempt for free speech values.

Breton has made no secret that he views free speech as a danger coming from the United States that needs to be walled off from the Internet. He previously declared that, with the DSA, the EU is now able to prevent the Internet from again becoming a place for largely unregulated free speech, which he referred to as the “Wild West” period of the Internet. It is a telling reference because the EU views free speech itself as an existential danger. They reject the notion of free speech as its own protection where good speech can overcome bad speech. That is viewed as the “Wild West.” Musk has indicated that he will try to comply with the EU demands but that “there is still huge work ahead.” I have previously suggested that, if Musk is forced to comply with EU censorship rules, he should post a warning to the citizens of these countries that they are being given state-controlled information under mandatory censorship laws.

However, in the United States, Musk should hold the line in his restoration of free speech and release the record on the company’s past censorship efforts. Musk has forced people to take side in this existential free speech fight. The public has responded by signing up in record numbers. It is time for the public to see the truth about the years of election manipulation and viewpoint discrimination. So, open the files. Allow the public to see not just communications on censorship (including subjects beyond Hunter Biden) but how Twitter may have used verification, throttling, algorithms, or other methods to control speech. The company does not have to release codes or potentially damaging information to reveal the back channel communications, deliberations, and targeting choices. By embracing total transparency, Musk can force the EU and other companies to face the ugly realities of censorship. Let them take ownership of censorship as the public demands both transparency and accountability.

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“..most Americans are not interested in the culture war and how it is a small percentage driving this friction.”

• Elon Musk Declares ‘Cancel Culture Needs To Be Canceled’ (Fox)

Twitter users rejoiced on Wednesday when CEO Elon Musk declared that “cancel culture needs to be canceled.” Musk tweeted, “Cancel culture needs to be canceled!!” in response to a clip from CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” The CNBC host Joe Kernen spoke to AEI president emeritus Arthur Brooks about criticism Musk has faced since his acquisition of Twitter. Kernen observed how the country is being torn into two, and the two sides are moving “further apart.” “We are so far apart on how we view the world, Arthur. Is this Twitter’s fault in the first place?” he asked. Brooks responded that most Americans are not interested in the culture war and how it is a small percentage driving this friction.


“Three percent of your employees are activists instead of working, and they’re blowing up your Slack channel right now demanding that you get involved in a culture war and make political statements. Don’t do it!” Brooks warned viewers. “The rest of your employees are feeling bullied as well. Their co-workers are being bullied by these activists, it’s time for us to say ‘I will not be conscripted into America’s culture war!'” He continued, “We don’t hate each other in this country-I’ve got the data Joe. Ninety-three percent of Americans say they hate how divided we’ve become as a country, those other 7% that doesn’t hate it, those are the activists saying if you buy a Tesla it means that somehow you believe in hate speech, it’s completely absurd, and it’s total bullying.”

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598271337704759296

Read more …

They won’t leave it alone. And it’s not about her. It’s still about Trump.

• Activists and Pundits Target Justice Barrett as “Religious Extremist” (Turley)

Justice Amy Coney Barrett is facing increasing calls to recuse herself from a major Supreme Court case due to her religion. These absurd demands say less about the ethics of Barrett than the bias of her critics, who have waged an unrelenting and vicious campaign against the jurist and her family. At issue is 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis’ Dec. 5 argument. Even before the court granted review, I noted it could be one of the most important free-speech cases in history. It involves a web designer who declines jobs for same-sex marriages over her religious beliefs. Liberal academics and pundits have decried Barrett’s participation in the case because she has been part of the Christian group People of Praise, which holds traditional views of marriage and homosexuality.


The media are quoting former members calling themselves “survivors” saying the group holds views that make it impossible for her to judge the case fairly. Impossible, that is, if Barrett is willing to discard every principle of legal and judicial integrity she has maintained her entire career. Justices routinely rule for individuals or groups that they find objectionable and even sinful. That is what jurists do when they take an oath requiring blind and equal justice. While some have called for all the conservative justices to recuse themselves, the focus has been on Barrett. A petition with thousands of signatures declares, “Barett’s [sic] extremist religious views should have disqualified her from serving on the Supreme Court at all; but when it comes to this case in particular, it is obvious that she is far too biased to issue an impartial ruling and must recuse herself.”

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I think I prefer having Fauci shut up. Other than in a court of law.

• Three COVID-19 Questions Dr. Fauci Needs To Answer (Kory)

The incoming House Republican majority would be wise to shed light on Fauci’s efforts to undermine the practice of medicine during the pandemic. Here are three specific areas worthy of investigation. First, get to the bottom of the mask masquerade. During his final press conference, Fauci stressed the importance of facial accessories by cracking a joke about “looking terrific.” Early in the pandemic, he was singing a different tune, acknowledging in private emails, “the typical mask you buy at a drug store is not really effective at keeping out a virus.”


Less than a year later, Fauci was calling double masking “common sense.” Even last week while sitting for a deposition brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, Fauci implored a court reporter to don a mask after sneezing – despite not being able to name a single study supporting their use. This in November 2022, more than two months after President Joe Biden declared the pandemic “over.” Second, explore Fauci’s constant shifting of the goalposts with COVID-19 vaccines. Alongside Biden, Fauci has become the face of the vaccine push. In fact, his parting words were a final plea to “get your updated COVID-19 shot.” Never did he offer a shred of remorse for all his failed claims about the efficacy of the vaccines.

Malhotra

In December 2020, Fauci marveled at the purported 90% efficacy rate of the Pfizer vaccine, heralding the development as “just extraordinary.” As the pandemic wore on and “breakthrough cases” became the new norm, Fauci shifted to, “even if a vaccine fails to protect against infection, it often protects against serious disease.” In May 2021, he referred to vaccinated people as “dead end to the virus.” Today, as Fauci continues his push for more and more boosters unabated, even the New York Times is publishing stories carrying headlines such as, “Will Covid Boosters Prevent Another Wave? Scientists Aren’t So Sure.” Vaccinated Americans accounted for a majority of COVID-19 deaths for the first time in August. Making matters worse was Fauci’s relentless disinformation campaign against the use of safe, effective re-purposed generic drugs in favor of high-priced, patented pharmaceutical products.


Fauci dismissed critics as opponents of science, even at one point claiming to represent science itself. Yet when data have countered his preferred narrative, science has faced no greater foe than Dr. Anthony Fauci. For example, Fauci denigrated ivermectin, a readily available over the counter drug that has proven effective as a covid-19 treatment, despite his and the media’s constant citing of less than five of the 93 controlled trials in order to claim that ivermectin is ineffective. Ditto with Hydroxychloroquine, labeled as “dangerous” with “toxic” side effects, according to Fauci, who has provided no evidence to support his claims despite an even larger evidence base in support. Or fluvoxamine, another cost-effective generic drug that decreased COVID-19 hospitalizations and death in randomized-controlled trials published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Lancet.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Lions reunite
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598063802637234176

 

 

 

 

Toy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598023185009893376

 

 


“These are baby stingrays. They look like aliens stuck in ravioli.”

 

 

Baby falcons

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle November 23 2022

Nov 232022
 
 November 23, 2022  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn The spectacles seller 1624

 

• Is NATO Falling Apart? (Saker)
• Is Washington’s Dangerous Ukraine Boondoggle Starting to Unravel? (Ron Paul)
• Emmanuel Macron: “We Need a Single Global Order” (SN)
• Scholz Names Reason Behind European Economy Downturn (RT)
• Up To Three Million Ukrainians Will Migrate In Winter – WHO (RT)
• Russia Threatens To Cut Gas Exports Due To Ukraine’s Theft (RT)
• CIA Reveals Plan For Disgruntled Russians (RT)
• App Store ‘Gatekeepers’ Could Deplatform Twitter Itself (SN)
• Stop COP (Hunziker)
• Biden Officials Off The Hook For Deposition In Social Media Censorship Case (PM)
• Greek Food Prices Consistently Higher Than EU (K.)
• Special Counsel vs Trump ‘Tool to Attack a Political Enemy’: FBI Veteran (ET)
• FDA Social Media Posts On Covid Under Legal, Medical Scrutiny (JTN)
• Sometimes I feel I Am Damaged for Life: Woman Injured by Pfizer Vaccine (CHD)
• New WHO Pandemic Treaty In Final Stages, Would Overrule US Constitution (NN)

 

 

Marc Elias is the top Hillary lawyer.

 

 

 

 

Terry Duffy

 

 

 

 

Macgregor-Ukraine is about to be annihilated

 

 

 

 

 

 

“NATO can’t defend ANY of its members against a truly modern military..”

• Is NATO Falling Apart? (Saker)

[..] let’s imagine that Russia would really strike some target inside Poland (which is what the Ukies claimed, as did the Poles until Uncle Shmuel told them to cool it). What would happen next? Does anybody still remember what happened when Erdogan flew to Mons to beg for NATO protection against Russia (following the downing of a Russian Su-24 over northern Syria by a joint US-Turkish operation, possibly executed without Erdogan’s knowledge, at least that was his claim). What did NATO promise or give the Turks? Absolutely *nothing* (other than “consultations”). Now the Poles might be delusional enough to think that a US President might order a retaliatory attack on Russia if Russia strikes Poland, but those of us who know the USA and its ruling elites know that this is nonsense.

Why? Simply because a US/NATO counter-strike on Russian forces would result in an immediate Russian response. And then what? The truth is very stark in its simplicity: • The US/NATO do not have the manpower or firepower needed to take on Russia in a conventional combined arms war. • Any use of nuclear weapons will result in an immediate retaliation most likely resulting into a unwinnable full-scale nuclear war. • So here is the deal: whether western politicians understand that or not, military professionals all know the truth – NATO can’t defend ANY of its members against a truly modern military. Why? Let’s look at what capabilities the US/NATO truly have:

• The USN has a superb submarine force (both SSNs and SSBNs) capable for firing large numbers of relatively obsolete cruise missiles (and plenty of SLBMs) •A still very capable, if rather old, nuclear triad •A quantitative (only!) conventional advantage over Russia • Superb (but very vulnerable!) C4ISR capabilities • A printing press allowing for the quasi infinite printing of dollars • A comprador elite ruling over all the NATO/EU countries • The most formidable propaganda machine in history. So what does NATO lack to be a credible military force? Obviously, “boots on the ground”. And I don’t mean a few subunits from the 101st or 82AB or US special forces or even a so-called “armored brigade” which, in reality, lacks adequate TO&E to qualify as such. I am talking about a “land warfare” force capable of fighting a modern and extremely determined enemy.

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“.. this is the clearest public example of the Biden Administration’s acceptance that it has a “Zelensky problem.”

• Is Washington’s Dangerous Ukraine Boondoggle Starting to Unravel? (Ron Paul)

Last week the world stood on the very edge of a nuclear war, as Ukraine’s US-funded president, Vladimir Zelensky, urged NATO military action over a missile that landed on Polish soil. “This is a Russian missile attack on collective security! This is a really significant escalation. Action is needed,” said Zelensky immediately after the missile landed. But there was a problem. The missile was fired from Ukraine – likely an accident in the fog of war. Was it actually a Russian missile, of course, that might mean World War III. But Zelensky didn’t seem to be bothered by the prospect of the world blown up, judging from his reckless rhetoric. While Zelensky has been treated as a saint by the US media, the Biden Administration, and both parties in Congress, something unprecedented happened this time: the Biden Administration pushed back.

According to press reports, several Zelensky calls to Biden or senior Biden Staff went unanswered.When US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan finally returned Zelensky’s call, he is reported to have said, “tread carefully” on claims Russia was behind the missiles landing in Poland. The Biden Administration went on to publicly dispute Zelensky’s continued insistence that Russia shot missiles into NATO-Member Poland. After two days of Washington opposition to his claims, Zelensky finally, sort of, backed down. We’ve heard rumors of President Biden’s frustration over Zelensky’s endless begging and ingratitude for the 60 or so billion dollars doled out to him by the US government, but this is the clearest public example of the Biden Administration’s acceptance that it has a “Zelensky problem.” Zelensky must have understood that Washington and Brussels knew it was not a Russian missile. Considering the vast intelligence capabilities of the US in that war zone, it is likely the US government knew in real time that the missiles were not Russian.

For Zelensky to claim otherwise seemed almost unhinged. And for what seems like the first time, Washington noticed.As a result, there has been a minor – but hopefully growing – revolt among conservatives in Washington over this dangerous episode. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene introduced legislation demanding an audit of the tens of billions of dollars shipped to Ukraine – with perhaps $50 billion more in the pipeline. The resolution currently has eleven co-sponsors. Rep. Matt Gaetz has publicly stated that he would not vote for one more dollar for Ukraine. Others, like US Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), have gone even further. In a recent Tweet Rep. Gosar called US support for Ukraine a “corrupt money-laundering operation.” As the fallout from the recent collapse of the FTX crypto exchange points to possible political corruption, his claims may prove to be accurate.

[..] When the Ukraine war hysteria finally dies down – as the Covid hysteria died down before it – it will become obvious to vastly more Americans what an absolute fiasco this whole thing has been. Hopefully Republicans will accelerate that process when they take the House in January. It cannot come too soon!

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1) I thought we were in a garden, not a jungle?!

2) There will be a global order, and you won’t be in it.

• Emmanuel Macron: “We Need a Single Global Order” (SN)

During a speech at the Apec summit in Bangkok, where world leaders gathered, French President Emmanuel Macron called for a “single global order.” Macron made the comments while discussing the power interests of Russia and China and the threat of war. “We are in a jungle and we have two big elephants trying to become more and more nervous,” he said.“If they become very nervous and start a war, it will be a big problem for the rest of the jungle. You need the cooperation of a lot of other animals, tigers, monkeys and so on,” added Macron.“Are you on the U.S. or the Chinese side? Because now, progressively, a lot of people would like to see that there are two orders in this world. This is a huge mistake, even for both the U.S. and China.” “We need a single global order,” he concluded.


Macron’s words are sure to confuse the ‘fact checker’ industry, which continues to insist that claims about the ‘New World Order’ or one world government are a baseless conspiracy theory. Indeed, much hilarity ensued last week when it was revealed that Google-owned YouTube had effectively fact-checked a video published by ‘The World Government Summit 2022’. In the video, the host of a panel discussion asks H.E. Dr. Anwar bin Mohammed Gargash, Diplomatic Advisor to the UAE President, “Are you ready for a new world order?” Underneath the video is a fact check box about the ‘New World Order’ which links to a Wikipedia article that states, “The New World Order (NWO) is a conspiracy theory which hypothesizes a secretly emerging totalitarian world government.” The tone of the article debunks the notion that there is a move towards a ‘New World Order’, despite the panelists at the World Government Summit openly discussing that very agenda.

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It was China all along…

• Scholz Names Reason Behind European Economy Downturn (RT)

Neither the Covid-19 pandemic nor Russia’s offensive against Ukraine has played a pivotal role in bringing about the current economic downturn in Europe, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has argued. He attributed it to growth in Asia instead, warning that there likely will not be a return to the good old days in the foreseeable future.Speaking on Tuesday at an economic summit in Berlin organized by Suddeutsche Zeitung, Scholz said that, for years, countries in North America and Europe had enjoyed a combination of stable growth, low inflation and high employment rates. This, however, according to the chancellor, was an “economic exception” that cannot be expected to last any longer.

“Russia’s war [against Ukraine] and the economic consequences of the [Covid-19] pandemic may have expedited” the end of this era, the politician opined. He hastened to add, however, that “they were not the trigger for it.” Scholz went on to explain that, for decades, countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia have mainly been viewed as a source of cheap goods for the European, American and, increasingly, the Chinese markets. But in the meantime the same Asian nations experienced an explosive increase in the number of people belonging to the middle class. Those individuals’ purchasing power rose accordingly. This, the German chancellor postulated, is what has led to growing inflation elsewhere.

He noted that, at the same time, this is a major story of success enabled by globalization. He also warned against deglobalization, calling on Germany and other European nations to embrace more trade with emerging economies, “of course, [trade] by fair rules. “An increasingly multipolar word is arranging itself right now, fundamentally anew,” a development which is best seen in South-East Asia, Scholz argued. He hastened to reassure German businesses that they have nothing to fear, as their goods will remain in high demand in this new world and they only stand to gain more.

Speaking of the current energy crisis in his country, Scholz accused Russia of weaponizing gas exports, adding that Germany had made a mistake in relying too much on one supplier. He vowed that Berlin will never repeat this, going forward, meaning that dependence on China will have to be reduced as well. Germany, he said, needs to look for new suppliers and markets for its goods. The chancellor promised to make sure Europe’s economic powerhouse sees itself through the coming winter.

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Peace talks now. But not on Zelensky’s terms.

• Up To Three Million Ukrainians Will Migrate In Winter – WHO (RT)

This winter may be a “life-threatening” experience for “millions” of Ukrainians, Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Europe, has warned. Up to three million Ukrainians are expected to migrate “in search of warmth and safety,” Kluge said on Monday during a press conference in Kiev. “We expect 2–3 million more people to leave their homes in search of warmth and safety. They will face unique health challenges, including respiratory infections such as Covid-19, pneumonia and influenza, and the serious risk of diphtheria and measles in under-vaccinated populations,” Kluge stated.

Those who remain at home will likely be forced to opt for “alternative heating methods,” the official said, warning that doing things “like burning charcoal or wood, or using generators fueled by diesel, or electric heaters” carry health risks as well.They include “exposure to toxic substances that are harmful for children, older people and those with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions, as well as accidental burns and injuries,” he said.The ongoing conflict is also taking a heavy toll on the mental health of Ukrainians, according to Kluge. Some 10 million of them are already “at risk of mental disorders such as acute stress, anxiety, depression, substance use and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD,” the official said.

According to the latest UN figures, more than 7.8 million refugees from Ukraine have migrated to Europe amid the conflict between Moscow and Kiev that broke out in late February. Some 4.7 million of them have been registered for Temporary Protection or similar national protection schemes across the EU. A sizable portion of the refugees, however, have gone to Russia, with more than 2.8 million recorded in the country.

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Again: peace talks now.

• Russia Threatens To Cut Gas Exports Due To Ukraine’s Theft (RT)

Russia’s energy giant Gazprom said on Tuesday that Ukraine was diverting natural gas supplies transiting to Moldova, and the company has threatened to curtail deliveries through a key pipeline in response. “The volume of gas supplied by Gazprom to the ‘Sudzha’ gas measuring station (GMS) for transit to Moldova via Ukraine exceeds the physical volume transmitted at the border of Ukraine with Moldova,” Gazprom’s statement read. Moldova paid for some November gas supplies on Monday, according to Gazprom, which said that Kiev had kept 52.52 million cubic meters of gas meant for Moldova on its territory.


The Russian energy company further warned that if the transit imbalance persists then it would begin slashing gas supply to the Sudzha GMS for transit via Ukraine from 10 am (7am GMT) on November 28, “in the amount of the daily underderlivery.” The Sudzha transit line through Ukraine remains the only route to supply Russian gas to western and central European countries after the Nord Stream network was damaged by a suspicious explosion in September. Meanwhile, land-locked Moldova, which has been suffering massive blackouts lately, has called for international assistance as soaring energy costs and skyrocketing inflation are set to put a huge strain on consumers in one of Europe’s poorest countries. According to the French Foreign Ministry, support is all the more important as Moldova is facing an unprecedented energy crisis as winter approaches.

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“He described the conflict as a massive failure for Moscow and said it presented opportunities for Western intelligence agencies to recruit disaffected Russians.”

• CIA Reveals Plan For Disgruntled Russians (RT)

The CIA is interested in recruiting Russians “disgusted” with the conflict in Ukraine, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. The claim was made by deputy director of operations David Marlowe during a recent meeting at a Washington-area think-tank. “We’re looking around the world for Russians who are as disgusted with that as we are,” Marlowe reportedly said, referring to the current events in Ukraine. “Because we’re open for business.”Marlowe spoke “before a select audience of university faculty and staff” at George Mason University’s Hayden Center in Arlington, Virginia. The “CIA at 75” event was his first public appearance since he took office in June 2021, according to the WSJ. Though the event was held last week, the Hayden Center made the video of it public on Monday.

CIA Deputy Director for Analysis Linda Weissgold, described as responsible for producing finished intelligence reports for President Joe Biden and the rest of the US leadership, was also on the panel, along with the agency’s one-time acting director Michael Morrell. Appointed by current CIA Director William Burns, Marlowe is an Arabic speaker whose expertise is in the Near and Middle East. According to him, Russian President Vladimir Putin “squandered” all of his power and influence by “invading” Ukraine in February. He described the conflict as a massive failure for Moscow and said it presented opportunities for Western intelligence agencies to recruit disaffected Russians.

The announcement follows several instances during which Western intelligence agencies have tried to approach Russian personnel serving abroad, according to Moscow. Last month, Moscow summoned the Dutch ambassador over reports that a British spy had tried to recruit a Russian military attache in The Hague. Earlier this year, the Kremlin denounced US attempts to suborn Russian diplomats as “very impudent behavior” and “unacceptable.” The Hayden Center was set up in 2017 by the retired US Air Force General Michael V. Hayden, several months after he became a CNN contributor. Hayden ran the National Security Agency (NSA) between 1999-2005 and the CIA from 2006-2009, through such controversies as waterboarding torture of terrorism suspects and warrantless mass surveillance of Americans.

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What are the odds of Musk setting up his own app store?

• App Store ‘Gatekeepers’ Could Deplatform Twitter Itself (SN)

App store ‘gatekeepers’ Apple, Google Play and Amazon could all decide to deplatform Twitter itself following new owner Elon Musk’s commitment to free speech, according to a report. Speculation over app stores potentially targeting Twitter intensified after Apple executive Phil Schiller deactivated his Twitter account for no apparent reason days after Donald Trump was restored to the platform. Twitter users also noticed that the official Apple account itself had apparently removed all of its tweets, although it was later revealed that this was nothing new. According to a report by Fast Company, “Musk is playing a dangerous game that could spell game over for the platform he just bought” by his supposed failure to moderate impose stringent moderation.

“Musk’s platforming of hateful content could get Twitter itself deplatformed,” writes Clint Rainey, adding that the company could be on a “collision course” with app store “gatekeepers.” Rainey and his ilk are mad that Musk has culled the number of “moderators employed to track harmful content and enforce Twitter’s rules against it.” Showcasing again how journalists now weaponize their platforms to try to chill free speech, Fast Company contacted Apple, Google and Amazon to ask them if they planned to deplatform the Twitter app itself, but none responded. The article notes how both Parler and Truth Social were at one stage banned from app stores before they were forced to agree to more draconian moderation policies.

While it’s incredibly unlikely that the Twitter app itself would ever be deplatformed, the ‘gatekeepers’ could follow the example of advertisers by putting pressure on Musk to impose tighter censorship, therefore derailing the billionaire’s stated goal to “free the bird” and restore true freedom of speech. Given that Apple is also likely to take a large cut of Twitter’s new $8 subscription service, a financial motive is also in place to maintain a good relationship with Musk. Much of the hysteria seems to be based around Musk allowing accounts that had been unfairly banned or suspended on the platform, such as those operated by the Babylon Bee and Jordan Peterson, to return. Trump himself returning to the platform, despite insisting he has no plans to actually use his account again, has also instilled terror into censorious leftists who fear they are losing power over the ability to shut down adversarial voices.

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What I wrote almost 7 years ago: CON21. Nothing has changed, let alone improved.

• Stop COP (Hunziker)

Fossil fuel interests have taken over climate talks. The acronym COP for “Conference of the Parties” should be changed to “Continue Oil Production.” Eighteen of the twenty companies that sponsored UN climate talks at the make-believe Egyptian resort Sharm El-Sheikh either directly support or partner with oil and gas companies. Global Witness/London identified at least 636 fossil lobbyists at COP27. What are fossil fuel lobbyists doing at a climate conference? According to Pascoe Sabido of Corporate Europe Observatory/Brussels: “These findings underline the extent to which this COP has never been about the climate. It’s been about rehabilitating the gas industry and making sure that fossil fuels are on the agenda.

This is part of the bigger problem which is linked to the overall corporate capture of the U.N. climate talks… We need to kick the big polluters out.” (Source: Fossil Fuel-Linked Companies Dominate Sponsorship of COP27, DeSomg, Nov. 16, 2022) Of course, fossil fuel interests sponsor big pavilions, like showtime at Las Vegas conventions. Dubai’s racy, futuristic colorful pavilion was a standout as an effective ploy to convince the world of their serious intentions for net zero. Oh, please! Hopefully, a massive worldwide movement to Stop COP28 Dubai can effectively reverse the embarrassment of holding next year’s COP in the kingdom of oil. It’s an insult to climate scientists. Is Saudi Arabia next?

Adding insult to even the remotest idea of holding further COPs, COP 27 was a virtual disaster. “Indeed, the real legacy of COP27 could well be exposing the climate summit for what it has become, a bloated travelling circus that sets up once a year, and from which little but words ever emerge… in the course of 27 COPs, there has never been a formal agreement to reduce the world’s fossil fuel use.” (Source: Bill McGuire, professor emeritus, Geophysical & Climate Hazards, UCL, The Big Takeaway From COP27? These Climate Conference Just Aren’t Working, The Guardian, Nov. 20, 2022).

Hopefully, a movement to stop COPs altogether will emerge from the shadows of backroom and boardroom negotiations resembling fraternity initiations of naive pledges turned into nincompoops. COP is that ridiculous and overly expensive as well as duping the public into thinking something constructive is happening. Stop COP! According to Bill McGuire: “Some old hands have labelled it (COP27) the worst COP ever, and I doubt many would argue… it is becoming increasingly difficult to view these events as anything other than photo opportunities for presidents and prime ministers who turn up simply to make the world think they care… hijacking by the fossil fuel sector, and failure, year on year, to do the job they were set up to do, surely means that COP is no longer fit for purpose.”

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Fauci and Psaki are still due. For now.

• Biden Officials Off The Hook For Deposition In Social Media Censorship Case (PM)

On Monday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked deposition requests handed down to three officials in the Biden administration, overruling Louisiana District Judge Terry Doughty, who had originally placed the order. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly, and White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty had all been slated to provide depositions in an ongoing lawsuit alleging that the administration worked hand-in-hand with social media companies to censor certain points of view.As the New York Post reports, in their decision, the panel of judges stated that they would be staying the depositions “pending further consideration” from Doughty and the district court.

“Before any of the depositions may go forward,” they argued, “the district court must analyze whether the information sought can be obtained through less intrusive, alternative means, such as further written discovery or depositions of lower-ranking officials.” They went on to point out that the Biden administration “has already produced extensive written discovery,” and that in his ruling, Doughty gave Easterly and Flaherty the choice to send their inferiors to depose in their place. Thus, they argued, it is now Doughty’s burden to prove why the government’s request to find alternative means is unreasonable. “It is not enough,” they continued, “that these officials may have ‘personal knowledge’ about certain communications. That knowledge may be shared widely or have only marginal importance in comparison to the ‘potential burden’ imposed on the deponent.”

As the New York Post reports, while the court’s ruling may lead to Murthy, Easterly, and Flaherty not having to give depositions, there are a number of other officials listed in the lawsuit that are still slated to take the stand, including Dr. Fauci and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. If Doughty is not able to defend his position, however, their depositions may be overturned as well. The lawsuit, which was filed by attorneys general Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Jeff Landry of Louisiana in May, alleged that the Biden administration had colluded with big tech to suppress debate over topics like Covid-19, election integrity, and the Hunter Biden laptop story.

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What I keep a close eye on. Minimum wage is way below most EU countries, but prices are higher.

• Greek Food Prices Consistently Higher Than EU (K.)

The turbulence in energy prices and other commodities like cereals and grains brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may have exacerbated the inflationary crisis for almost 12 months now, but for many years in Greece, the cost of food and other necessities has not been in line with the purchasing power of the country’s citizens. Despite the recession-induced fall in consumption, this discrepancy remained even during the 10-year financial crisis, with the so-called internal devaluation only having an impact on wages, pensions and incomes in general, but not prices. More recently, Greece’s gross domestic product per capita in purchasing power standards in 2021 was 65% of the average for the European Union, placing it second to last behind Bulgaria.

The main reasons cited for this imbalance are Greece’s significant reliance on imports for primary and secondary materials, the market’s small size, which does not favor price competition from suppliers who are both Greek and foreign, and numerous “blurred” areas in supplier-retailer relationships that still exist despite the issue being raised by the Competition Commission and by government announcements. Therefore, it is seen as little coincidence that during this most recent crisis, food inflation in Greece has consistently been higher than in the eurozone from last November to August, with the gap even widening by 3.8 percentage points.This is taking place in addition to the difference that frequently exists in absolute prices of similar products in Greece and other European countries.

Tellingly, Greece is more expensive compared to countries where the purchasing power is higher (such as Germany and France). With regard to the issue of dependence on basic raw materials, the example of bread and a range of foodstuffs with flour as the basic raw material is a telling one. Bread is produced from flour, mainly from soft wheat, a product that is grown to a very small extent in Greece, unlike durum wheat, which is mainly used for pasta. As a result, Greece covers only 10% of its needs for soft wheat from domestic production and imports the rest. Indicatively, until the beginning of the war in Ukraine, 30% of Greece’s needs were covered by imports from Russia and Ukraine.

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“They really haven’t articulated facts which justified the appointment of any kind of counsel..”

• Special Counsel vs Trump ‘Tool to Attack a Political Enemy’: FBI Veteran (ET)

In appointing a special counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump, the Justice Department (DOJ) has turned its law enforcement apparatus into a “tool to attack a political enemy,” according to FBI veteran Marc Ruskin. During a Nov. 18 announcement in Washington, Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, tasked former DOJ prosecutor Jack Smith with overseeing investigations related to Trump’s handling of classified records and parts of the probe into the events surrounding Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has denied wrongdoing and characterized Garland’s move as a “horrendous abuse of power” and the “latest in the long series of witch hunts.” The timing of the appointment is significant, Ruskin said, noting how it dovetailed with pledges by House Republicans to investigate President Joe Biden and his administration once the GOP takes control of the House in January. “Using the legal system in baseless investigations and prosecutions has been a hallmark of the anti-Trump campaign since before 2016,” Ruskin, who served 27 years with the FBI and is a contributor for The Epoch Times, said in an interview.

Ruskin believes that the special counsel investigation serves a particular purpose. “It’s an old trick,” he said. “They’ll be hoping to divert attention from the congressional investigations and focus instead on a baseless special counsel investigation, because there’s no question that the legacy media is going to jump on board and give this front page attention, while the investigations being conducted by Congress will either be ignored or relegated to the back of the newspaper.” U.S. Code 28 CFR Section 600.1 prescribes that the DOJ should appoint a special counsel in an investigation in which there is a conflict of interest or other extraordinary circumstances, under which it would be in the public interest for an outside special counsel to step in. During the Nov. 18 press conference, Garland described the appointment of Smith—a registered independent—as a matter of public interest, citing Trump’s presidential candidacy and Biden’s interest in entering the race.

Ruskin, however, didn’t feel convinced that there were sufficient grounds to warrant such a move. “They really haven’t articulated facts which justified the appointment of any kind of counsel,” he said. Some Trump critics have argued that the special counsel appointment suggests that the DOJ is intent on bringing the case to indictment. Ruskin dismissed this claim as “a fabrication in order to justify a difficult-to-justify investigation.” “The argument is the old ‘where there’s smoke there must be fire’ reasoning, which is fallacious reasoning,” he said. “It’s a fallacy which has been propagated in order to justify what is arguably a politically motivated investigation seeking to create an advantage for the Democratic Party in the upcoming elections.”

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The FDA now says it was “only a suggestion”. Weasels.

“The judge suggested it was “common sense that it would be predictable that state boards would react to statements by the FDA” by investigating doctors who prescribe ivermectin for COVID.”

• FDA Social Media Posts On Covid Under Legal, Medical Scrutiny (JTN)

The FDA’s Twitter habits are getting scrutiny in court and from medical professionals as the feds seesaw between walking back their once-confident COVID-19 assertions and making sweeping new claims without providing evidence.Having long ago conceded that COVID vaccines can’t stop viral transmission and that assertions to the contrary by President Biden among others were based on “hope” rather than science, the feds are now downplaying the influence of their social media to escape liability for allegedly violating statutory limits by interfering in medical judgments. At the same time, over the past two months, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf has gone on a spree of evidence-free tweets about bivalent boosters and oral antivirals, such as Pfizer’s rebound infection-prone Paxlovid, prompting exasperation from leading doctors.

The FDA’s “social media statements … are what bother me the most,” U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown said in a hearing this month on the government’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit by three doctors who claim the agency’s false portrayals of ivermectin have harmed their ability to treat patients and threatened their licenses. The June lawsuit cited the FDA’s multiple tweets characterizing the antiparasitic, whose inventors won a Nobel Prize in 2015, as a livestock treatment that was dangerous for humans, as well as other statements falsely suggesting off-label treatments were dangerous rather than routine. Justice Department lawyer Isaac Belfer emphasized that the social media statements were “written in informal conversational language” and constitute “non-binding recommendations” that doctors and consumers were free to ignore.

Brown responded that they lacked “qualifier statements” on ivermectin’s human uses and the drug’s FDA authorization. He questioned whether “the purpose of those statements [was] really to advise patients not to self-medicate with ivermectin,” as the feds claim. FDA emails show the agency celebrating the virality and media coverage of its “You are not a horse” tweet, its most viewed ever, which linked to an agency webpage referring to “multiple” reports of people who took the livestock version and required medical attention. The page starts with a photo of a horse and a warning that it’s “highly dangerous” to use medicine not authorized to treat COVID. The judge suggested it was “common sense that it would be predictable that state boards would react to statements by the FDA” by investigating doctors who prescribe ivermectin for COVID.

The FDA separately warned the Federation of State Medical Boards and National Association of Boards of Pharmacy about ivermectin between its August 2021 and April 2022 “horse” tweets. Less than two weeks after Brown’s warning to the FDA about careless tweets, Califf went beyond crediting his recovery from his first known COVID infection to his “up to date” vaccination and course of Paxlovid, which was only tested in unvaccinated patients. In a meandering tweet thread, the commissioner also cited unspecified “preliminary epidemiological findings” that “point to the distinct possibility of the bivalent vaccines and antivirals reducing risk of long Covid.” Johns Hopkins medical professor and National Academy of Medicine member Marty Makary and University of California San Francisco epidemiologist Vinay Prasad accused Califf of making statements that pharmaceutical companies themselves can’t legally make.

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“Blood pressure spikes, elevated heartbeats, dizziness, nausea, heat on chest and pain, hot feet and cold hands, weird head pressure, shortness of breath, neck pain, back pain, extreme fatigue, a numb left hand, mild numbness on left side of face with random twitching, confusions, heart palpitations, eye blurriness, jaw tightness and gum pain.”

• Sometimes I feel I Am Damaged for Life: Woman Injured by Pfizer Vaccine (CHD)

Ortiz, now 54 years old, is a mail carrier in Arlington, Texas. In an exclusive interview with The Defender, she described her initial injuries and ongoing symptoms. She provided extensive documentation to corroborate her claims. Ortiz described what happened when she got the vaccine — and how the pharmacist who administered it reacted:“I felt waves of heat in my body and felt as if I was going to faint. I did not faint. But I immediately felt that my life was in danger, something was really wrong with me.” She asked the pharmacist what would happen if she were allergic to the vaccine, and did he have an EpiPen, Ortiz said. The pharmacist said he did. “But when I was lying on the floor, all he did was call the ambulance,” she said.

Ortiz may have sustained an immediate adverse event following her vaccination, but her symptoms were far from fleeting. She told The Defender she experienced: “Blood pressure spikes, elevated heartbeats, dizziness, nausea, heat on chest and pain, hot feet and cold hands, weird head pressure, shortness of breath, neck pain, back pain, extreme fatigue, a numb left hand, mild numbness on left side of face with random twitching, confusions, heart palpitations, eye blurriness, jaw tightness and gum pain.” Her symptoms led to several visits to the emergency room and significant lost time at work, which put her career at risk. “I missed work for over three months and ended up at the emergency room five times,” said Ortiz.

“When I returned to work, I [was] approved for a very easy route at the post office. It is mostly curbside. And thank God, otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to do the route.” However, even with a less challenging route, Ortiz still faced significant difficulties, she said: “There were many times, while driving to work, that I felt sick and ended up at the hospital or going back home. It caused me to leave work many times. “There was one time that I pushed myself to work with the weird head pressure and confusion and eye blurriness, and I ended up rear-ending a vehicle on my route.”Similar to the experience of several other vaccine injury victims who recently spoke to The Defender, Ortiz described multiple doctors’ visits, during which doctors usually dismissed her concerns that the COVID-19 vaccination caused her health problems.

“I’ve been to many doctors but all the tests are okay,” said Ortiz. “Many doctors would insist that the vaccine does not cause what I was suffering [from].” Ortiz described taking a battery of exams, including “[an] EKG, CT scan, x-rays, a brain MRI, lumbar MRI, a stress test, tons of lab tests, aldosterone/renin activity, a transthoracic echocardiogram, urinary fractionated metanephrines, duplex abdomen complete, and an EEG.”Even after all of these tests, said Ortiz, “All the doctors told me that the Pfizer vaccine” did not cause her injuries. Instead, they blamed “anxiety” for her symptoms. “When I look at a lot of my medical records, I was surprised how in so many pages they didn’t even mention the vaccine, just that I am there, in the ER, for high blood pressure.” She described one particularly disheartening experience with one of her doctors: “My family doctor pretty much was annoyed with me. She refused to run any tests for me. “I had to beg her to check my vitamin D levels because of the extreme fatigue. She acted as if I was not insured and was begging for free services.”

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Dr. Richard Urso shared this, asking: “Is this nonsense true or is it hyperbole?”

• New WHO Pandemic Treaty In Final Stages, Would Overrule US Constitution (NN)

Today we bring you a truly bombshell interview and critical story about the WHO’s new pandemic treaty which is specifically written to overrule the United States Constitution and all domestic laws in every nation, worldwide. How do we know this? Because treaty expert Dr. Francis Boyle studied the proposed treaty language and lays it all out in today’s hard-hitting interview (see below). He’s the author of the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, and an expert in reading and writing treaties. And today, he issues his strongest warning yet made public.

Dr. Boyle is the author of a recent book entitled, “Resisting Medical Tyranny,” and in today’s interview, he openly warns that this new WHO treaty — dubbed “WHO CA+” — is designed to unleash a global medical dictatorship that would overrule your local doctors, hospitals and clinics, forcing them to follow WHO directives on things like masks, quarantines, social distancing and economic lockdowns. In essence, the new WHO pandemic treaty turns the entire world into a China-style medical police state where sovereign nations, states and individuals themselves have no recognized health freedom rights whatsoever.

Digital gulag

Stated another way, if Biden signs this treaty, what China did to its own people during COVID lockdowns will soon be coming to America. Joe Biden reportedly intends on signing this treaty as quickly as possible, once the final language is completed. And from that day forward, governments around the world merely need to unleash their own cooked-up biological weapons on their own people to set the provisions of this treaty into motion. Dr. Boyle specifically told me in the interview that governments are unleashing “Nuremberg-level crimes against civilians,” and that this new WHO treaty grants genocidal governments the “teeth” they need to lock down, imprison or exterminate their own populations.

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Garland Nixon was suspended for this tweet.

His comment on the suspension: “Change Blinken to Putin and change Palestinians to Ukrainians and it gets boosted by Twitter instead of censored.”

 

 

 

 

Puppies
https://twitter.com/i/status/1595197053042393088

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 24 2022

Oct 242022
 
 October 24, 2022  Posted by at 8:31 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  55 Responses »


Paul Gauguin A seashore 1887

 

• Russia Says Kyiv Preparing False Flag “Dirty Bomb” Detonation In Ukraine (EWN)
• Kiev Denies Moscow’s ‘Dirty Bomb’ Allegations (RT)
• US Rejects Russia’s Allegations Of Kyiv’s Preparations To Use Dirty Bomb (Az)
• Macron Calls For Peace On Ukraine’s Terms (RT)
• ‘Dancing On Edge Of Volcano’ With Ukraine – Sarkozy (RT)
• Scholz and Von der Leyen Want A Marshall Plan For Ukraine (NOS)
• 101st Airborne Deployed to Ukraine’s Border ‘Ready To Fight Tonight’ (Antiwar)
• Weaponized Governmental Failure: A Primer (McKay)
• On Going Seriously Boom (Fred Reed)
• Musk Blasts ‘Hypocritical’ WaPo
• EU Displays ‘Height Of Hypocrisy’ – Russia (RT)
• Germany Should Go Back To Buying Gas From Russia – Saxony PM (RT)
• Energy Costs Will Bankrupt 90% Of English Schools (RT)
• Blocking Judicial Review Of A Half-trillion Tuition Giveaway (Turley)
• A Closer Look at the Covid Mortality Rate (Miller)
• A Pulse Check Of Australia As We Exit The Pandemic (news.com.au)

 

 

A Russian source whose name escapes me right now.

 

 

Quadruple

 

 

 

 

Gonzalo

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shoigu has allegedly also held multiple calls with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin. No details were revealed.

• Russia Says Kyiv Preparing False Flag “Dirty Bomb” Detonation In Ukraine (EWN)

UPDATE 4.44 pm (October 23) – Russian state-controlled media outlet TASS has reported that Russia’s Defence Minister Shoigu spoke to Britain’s Ben Wallace about Kyiv’s plans to detonate a “dirty bomb” in Ukraine as a false flag operation to “increase anti-Russian rhetoric.” The Russian Defence Ministry told reporters on Sunday, October 23 revealed that Shoigu spoke to Wallace via a phone call to discuss the situation in Ukraine and discuss “possible dirty bomb provocations by the Ukrainian armed forces”. The ministry said: “On 23 October 2022, Russian Defence Minister Army General S.K. Shoigu and British Defence Minister B. Wallace. The situation in Ukraine was discussed. “Sergey Shoigu conveyed to his British counterpart his concerns about the possibility of provocations by Kyiv using a dirty bomb.” Earlier, it was reported by the state-owned media outlet RIA that the UK was also involved in the process with regard to “the possible transfer of nuclear weapon components to the Kyiv authorities.”

ORIGINAL 8.33 am (October 23) – According to “credible sources in various countries – including Ukraine”, Kyiv is reportedly preparing a false flag attack on Ukraine involving the detonation of a so-called “dirty bomb” or a low-yield nuclear weapon, as reported by RIA on Sunday, October 23. The source reportedly told the Russian news outlet that the “purpose of the provocation is to accuse Russia of using weapons of mass destruction in the Ukrainian theatre of war and thereby launch a powerful anti-Russian campaign in the world aimed at undermining Moscow’s credibility.” RIA also said that according to its information, the management of the Eastern Mining and Processing Combine, located in the city of Zheltiye Vody, Dnipropetrovsk Region, as well as the Kyiv Institute for Nuclear Research, have been instructed by top Ukrainian officials to produce the “dirty bomb”, which is believed to be in its final stages.

The news outlet said that the UK is also involved in the process with regard to “the possible transfer of nuclear weapon components to the Kyiv authorities.” It added that if the provocation succeeds then “most countries will react extremely harshly to the ‘nuclear incident’ in Ukraine and as a result, Moscow will lose the support of many of its key partners, while the West will once again try to raise the issue of stripping Russia of its permanent UN Security Council membership status and increase anti-Russian rhetoric.”

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Linking Russia to nukes is a popular pastime.

• Kiev Denies Moscow’s ‘Dirty Bomb’ Allegations (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has denied Moscow’s allegations that Kiev was preparing a false-flag attack with the use of a “dirty bomb,” and has pointed the finger at Russia instead. Zelensky was commenting on what he called “a phone carousel” by the Russian Defense Minister: on Sunday, Sergey Shoigu shared with his French, Turkish and British colleagues his concern over “possible provocations by Ukraine using a ‘dirty bomb.’” Russian state news agency RIA Novosti earlier reported that the goal of such a provocation would be to accuse Moscow of using weapons of mass destruction in a ploy to “launch a powerful anti-Russia campaign”. In a video address on social media, Zelensky claimed that “wherever Russia has brought death and degradation,” Ukraine is “returning a normal life.”

“And there’s only one subject who can use nuclear weapons in our part of Europe, and this subject is the one who ordered comrade Shoigu to call somewhere,” the Ukrainian leader said. So-called “dirty bombs” use conventional explosives along with radioactive material. While it could not rival a nuclear warhead in terms of power, such a device could disperse a radiation cloud around a radius of several kilometers from its explosion. Zelensky expressed confidence that “everyone understands” who is “the source of everything dirty that can be imagined in this war” and called on the world to react “in the toughest possible way” when it comes to “another escalating step” by Russia.

Earlier on Sunday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba also commented on Moscow’s allegations, saying that “Russian lies” about a “dirty bomb” “are as absurd as they are dangerous.” “Firstly, Ukraine is a committed NPT (non-proliferation treaty) member: we neither have any ‘dirty bombs’ nor plan to acquire any. Secondly, Russians often accuse others of what they plan themselves,” the minister said. According to the British Defense Ministry’s readout of the conversation between its head, Ben Wallace, and his Russian counterpart Shoigu, the Russian minister “alleged that Ukraine was planning actions facilitated by Western countries, including the UK, to escalate the conflict in Ukraine.” Wallace “refuted these claims” and warned Shoigu that “such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation,” the ministry said.

Earlier, in an interview with Deutsche Welle, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that any use of nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine will lead to “severe consequences” for Moscow, but refused to reveal details on these. At the same time, he said that the risk of such a Russian attack remains low. Numerous Russian officials have been insisting that the country wasn’t threatening anybody with nukes and have pointed to Russia’s military doctrine, which states that nuclear weapons may only be used if such arms or other weapons of mass destruction are being deployed against the state, or if it is faced with an existential threat from conventional arms.

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Take a look at John McCain’s view of Blinken.

• US Rejects Russia’s Allegations Of Kyiv’s Preparations To Use Dirty Bomb (Az)

US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to reaffirm the United States’ steadfast support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. “Secretary Blinken expressed to Foreign Minister Kuleba that the United States rejects Russian Defense Minister Shoygu’s transparently false allegations that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory and that the world would see through any attempt by Russia to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation,” Price said.

 

 

McCain ..”Not only unqualified but one of the worst […] Mr Blinken has been a foreign policy advisor to VP Biden since his days in the Senate [but] Mr Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy issue”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1584250474131517440

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Translation: Macron wants the war to continue indefinitely.

Second translation: The loser takes it all.

• Macron Calls For Peace On Ukraine’s Terms (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Sunday for a peace deal in Ukraine, but insisted that Kiev will dictate the terms of such an agreement. The Ukrainian government, however, has repeatedly ruled out any compromise with Moscow. Speaking at a peace conference organized by a Catholic charity in Rome, Macron said that while “calls for peace might seem…like a betrayal” of Ukraine, the “international community” will one day support a negotiated settlement between Kiev and Moscow, the Associated Press reported. However, peace cannot be “captured by Russian power,” Macron added. “We want the Ukrainian people to decide at a certain point…the moment and the terms of peace.” The French president has expressed this same sentiment already, declaring earlier this summer that “Ukraine will decide when the conditions are met to build peace.”

The leaders of the US, UK, and NATO have issued similarly-worded statements while continuing to bankroll and arm Ukraine’s military, and France, along with the other members of the G7, has pledged to maintain this support for “as long as it takes.” Ukraine’s terms, however, will likely preclude any settlement in the near future. President Vladimir Zelensky has pledged not to negotiate with Russia as long as Vladimr Putin remains in power, signing a decree earlier this month forbidding talks with the Russian president. Zelensky has also promised to seize the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye, which acceded to membership of the Russian Federation following referendums last month. Additionally, the Ukrainian leader has vowed to capture Crimea, which joined Russia following a referendum in 2014.

Not only would an assault on these territories present a formidable military challenge for Zelensky’s forces, a full-scale attack on Russian land would invite Moscow to retaliate with “all the means available” to it, Putin cautioned in a recent speech. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was more blunt when he warned Kiev in July that an attack on Crimea would trigger “Judgement Day” for Kiev. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has warned the UK, France, and other Western powers that it believes Ukraine is preparing to detonate a so-called “dirty bomb” in a bid to frame Russia and escalate the conflict to the point of NATO intervention. While British Defense Minister Ben Wallace refuted these claims and intimated that London’s support for Ukraine would continue, he said after the call that the UK “stands ready” to “de-escalate this conflict.”

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Sarkozy does a lot better than Macron.

• ‘Dancing On Edge Of Volcano’ With Ukraine – Sarkozy (RT)

It’s high time for the EU to abandon its emotionally driven policies on Ukraine and start talking about achieving peace, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has suggested. In an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche on Saturday, Sarkozy criticized Brussels for its involvement in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has included sweeping sanctions on Moscow, weapons deliveries to Kiev, and calls for a military solution to the crisis. “The European Commission is primarily an administrative body. Moreover, I still haven’t understood under which article of the European treaties [the body’s president Ursula] von der Leyen justifies her competence in the field of arms purchases and foreign policy,” he said.

“The only thing the Europeans are hearing now is more and more billions of euros being spent on the purchase of weapons. More weapons, more deaths, more war,” the 67-year-old politician added. The EU’s policy regarding the conflict in Ukraine is driven by “miscalculation, exaltation, anger, superficial reactions,” and because of this “we’re dancing at the edge of a volcano,” said Sarkozy, who was the president of France between 2007 and 2012. The bloc was right to condemn Russia and show solidarity with Ukraine, but it also needs to exercise “composure” and work to prevent the escalation of the conflict, he added. “It’s high time for serious initiatives to be taken to start talking about the future and peace.”

Sarkozy also criticized Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky for signing a decree earlier this month, which officially made it “impossible” for him to hold talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Such a stance amounted to “demanding a regime change in Moscow,” the veteran politician pointed out. “I consider this to be a dangerous leap into the unknown, although it’s understandable that it’s difficult for the Ukrainian president to talk to Putin,” he said. Moscow, which has repeatedly invited Kiev to come to the negotiating table in recent months, has blamed the Ukrainian side for undermining any potential for a peaceful settlement of the crisis.

It has also repeatedly condemned the deliveries of weapons to Zelensky’s government by the US, EU, UK and some other countries, arguing that they won’t change the outcome of the conflict, but will prolong the fighting and increase the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. Zelensky previously set out the only conditions under which negotiations with Russia would be possible: “They can return our territory back to us if they want negotiations. They must withdraw from our territory and leave us our land within the internationally recognized borders of 1991. And then we will say in what format and with whom we are ready to talk.”

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Google translate. I think this will be costed at $349 billion, the amount George Webb has been mentioning all along. He connects it to Kolomoisky, who is Zelensky’s puppeteer, and to an Israel pipeline.

• Scholz and Von der Leyen Want A Marshall Plan For Ukraine (NOS)

Ukraine’s reconstruction requires a strategy similar to the Marshall Plan after World War II. That write the German Chancellor Scholz and President von der Leyen of the European Commission in an opinion piece in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. According to the two politicians, supporting Ukraine is also in the interest of the European Union. “Ukraine also defends the international rule-based order, the basis of our peaceful coexistence and well-being worldwide,” they write. “So if we support Ukraine, we are building our future and that of our common Europe.” Scholz and von der Leyen call rebuilding the Russian-invaded country a lengthy task that must begin now. “While one has to be careful with historical comparisons, this is nothing less than a Marshall Plan for the 21st century.”

With the Marshall Plan, European countries received money, goods, raw materials and foodstuffs from the United States between 1948 and 1952. This was done in the form of loans and gifts. It was an initiative of the then US Secretary of State Marshall of State. The timing of Scholz and Von der Leyen’s plea is not coincidental. A conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine begins today in Berlin, which includes representatives from German and Ukrainian business. The summit will be opened by Scholz and Ukrainian Prime Minister Shmyhal. On Friday, von der Leyen announced that the European Union wants to support Ukraine with 1.5 billion euros every month next year. EU finance ministers have yet to work out the details of that new aid.

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“The 101st has not deployed to Europe since the last world war. ”

• 101st Airborne Deployed to Ukraine’s Border ‘Ready To Fight Tonight’ (Antiwar)

The White House has deployed thousands of American soldiers just miles from Ukraine to prepare for war, according to CBS News. Officers speaking with the outlet revealed they were there for combat against Russia. Brigadier General John Lubas confirmed nearly 5,000 troops from the 101st Airborne recently joined the 100,000 American soldiers already deployed to Europe. Lubas described his troops as being on “full deployment,” and they are preparing to fight Russian soldiers in Ukraine. “This is not a training deployment, this is a combat deployment for us. We understand we need to be ready to fight tonight,” he said. CBS Reporter Charlie D’Agata was embedded with the American forces as they conducted military drills – at a forward operating base – within four miles of Ukraine’s border.

The 101st Airborne is engaged in joint exercises with Romanian forces, simulating Ukrainian soldiers’ combat against Russian troops. Colonel Edwin Matthaidess said his forces have been “closely watching” the Russian soldiers, “building objectives to practice against” and conducting war games that “replicate exactly what’s going on” in Ukraine. CBS News reported, “[Russia’s] goal is to cut off all Ukrainian access to the sea, leaving the country and its military forces landlocked.” CBS News did not provide a source for that assertion. The Kremlin has publicly said its war goal is limited to eastern Ukraine. Lubas declared the division was “ready to defend every inch of NATO soil.” However, Moscow has never threatened to invade a NATO country. Ukraine is not a NATO member.

When President Zelensky said Ukraine should be allowed into the North Atlantic alliance last month, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg rejected Kiev’s proposal. The 101st Airborne is a light infantry division. It carries the nickname the “Screaming Eagles” as the Pentagon utilizes the 101st as a force that can deploy around the world within hours. Lubas described his division as bringing a “unique capability, from our air assault capability… We’re a light infantry force, but again, we bring that mobility with us, for our aircraft and air assaults.” Romanian Major General Lulian Berdila told CBS News that the presence of American troops was reminiscent of WWII, “The real meaning for me, to have the American troops here, is like if you were to have allies in Normandy before any enemy was there.” The 101st has not deployed to Europe since the last world war.

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“Middle-class voters tend to choose to live in places where they can expect to get actual value out of their tax dollars..”

So you fail them on purpose.

• Weaponized Governmental Failure: A Primer (McKay)

Let’s call it Weaponized Governmental Failure. It’s the single most explicative factor in the breakdown of American political consensus in the 21st century, even though it’s been around since the latter part of the 20th century. The simple definition of Weaponized Governmental Failure is this: it’s the deliberate refusal to perform the basic tasks of urban governance for a specific political purpose. The crime and the graft and the potholes and the bad drainage, not to mention the spotty trash collection or nonexistent snow shoveling, aren’t incompetence. In fact, none of what you see in the American public sector is incompetence. The people responsible for it are quite highly educated and well-trained in their craft. You just need to understand what their craft is. It’s a choice to do a poor job with the more mundane tasks of running a city, and an educated and purposeful choice at that.

If you do those things effectively, after all, what you will get is middle-class voters moving in. Middle-class voters tend to choose to live in places where they can expect to get actual value out of their tax dollars — good roads, safe streets, functional drainage, decent schools, a friendly business climate, and a growing economy, among other things — and those things are hard to produce when you govern the way the Left does. Put a different way, middle-class voters are a pain in the ass. They want lots of things that make for unrewarding grunt work for a mayor, and a Democrat blowhard like a Mitch Landrieu or Ted Wheeler of Portland would rather spend his time on vacuous cultural aggressions like “social change” and offering wealth redistribution and excuses for the bad personal habits that cause so many people to be poor.

Not to mention tilting at bronze statues of better men long dead and nearly forgotten as a means of “making a difference.” For a Landrieu, or a Kwame Kilpatrick, Marion Barry, Bill de Blasio, or Lori Lightfoot, it is no great loss if those middle-class voters declare themselves fed up and decamp to the suburbs. Their exodus simply makes for an electorate that is a lot less demanding and easier to control. That “white flight” is a feature. It’s not a bug. And it isn’t all that white either. Those suburbs the folks are leaving for? Their minority population share usually increases as their population does. Why do you think that is? Simple: the black middle class has no more use for these woke urban Democrats than the white middle class does. And it’s quite a mutual sentiment, to be sure.

The urban socialist Left wants a manageably small core of rich residents and a teeming mass of poor ones, and nothing in between. That’s what Weaponized Governmental Failure produces, and it’s a wide-scale success. New Orleans votes 90 percent Democrat. Philadelphia is 80 percent Democrat. Chicago is 85 percent. Los Angeles? Seventy-one percent. None of those cities will have a Republican mayor or city council again, or at least not in the foreseeable future.Because there are very few middle-class voters left in the cities.

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“What would happen in, say, New York City even if, improbably, it were not bombed? ”

• On Going Seriously Boom (Fred Reed)

A modern country is a system of systems of systems, interdependent and interconnected—water, electricity, manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, transportation, pipelines, and complex supply chains. These are interconnected, interdependent, and rely on large numbers of trained people showing up for work. Modern warheads are not the popgun squibs of Hiroshima. Talking of repair any time soon after the nuclear bombing of a conurbation is foolish because the city would have many hundreds of thousand of dead, housing destroyed, massive fires, horrendously burned people with no hope of medical care, and in general populations too focused on staying alive to worry about abstractions like supply chains.

The elimination of transportation might cause more death than the bombs. Cities, suburbs, and towns cannot feed themselves. They rely on a constant, heavy influx of food grown in remote regions. This food is shipped by rail or truck to distribution centers, as for example Chicago, whence it is transshipped to cities like New York. Heavy megatonnage on Chicago would disrupt rail lines and trucking firms. Trains and trucks need gasoline and diesel which come from somewhere, presumably in pipelines. These, broken by the blast, burning furiously, would take time to repair. Time is what cities would not have. What would happen in, say, New York City even if, improbably, it were not bombed?

Here we will ignore the likelihood of sheer, boiling panic and resultant chaos on learning that much of the country had been flattened. In the first few days there would be panic buying with shelves at supermarkets being emptied. Hunger would soon become serious. By day four, people would be hunting each other with knives to get their food. By the end of the second week, people would be eating each other. Literally. This happens in famines.Most things in America rely on electricity. This comes from generating plants which burn stuff, usually natural gas or coal. These arrive on trains, which would not be running, or in trucks, not likely to be running. They depend on oil fields, refineries, and pipelines unlikely to function.

All of the foregoing depend on employees continuing to go to work instead of trying to save their families. So—no electricity in New York, which goes dark. This means no telephones, no internet, no lighting, and no elevators. How would this work out in a city of high rises? Most people would be nearly incommunicado in a lightless city. Huge traffic jams would form as people with cars tried to leave—to go where?—as long as gasoline in the tank lasted.Where does water come from in New York? I don’t know, but it doesn’t flow spontaneously to the thirtieth floor. It needs to be pumped, which involves electricity, from wherever it comes from to wherever it has to go. No electricity, no pump. No pump, no water. And no flushing of toilets. River water could be drunk, of course. Think of the crowds.

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“The Washington Post is solely owned by Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos, who also owns Blue Origin, a private spaceflight firm in direct competition with SpaceX.”

• Musk Blasts ‘Hypocritical’ WaPo

Elon Musk called the staff of the Washington Post “such hypocrites,” after the newspaper – which proclaims that “democracy dies in darkness” – ran a series of highly critical articles on him. One referred to the SpaceX CEO as a “security risk.” While it was Bloomberg that first reported the possibility that the federal government may investigate Musk’s companies after the billionaire made them “uncomfortable” with his remarks on Ukraine, the Washington Post fired off a salvo of fiercely critical articles on the SpaceX CEO on Saturday. One piece described how lawmakers in Washington allegedly consider Musk “too powerful and increasingly reckless,” partly over his since-abandoned demand that the government reimburse him for providing Starlink internet access to Ukraine for free.

An op-ed suggested that Musk’s Twitter musings on resolving the Ukraine conflict peacefully should make him “a person of interest to security hawks,” and another opinion piece slammed the supposed lack of “discipline and respectability” in Musk’s personal life. One of Musk’s Twitter followers called the newspaper out for its editorial line. “‘Democracy dies in darkness,’ their slogan says, but instead, ‘democracy dies when influential people use journalism to protect powerful interests while deceptive[ly] claim they are protecting common people’s interests,’” the commenter wrote. “Exactly,” Musk replied on Sunday. “WaPo are such hypocrites.”

Already under fire from the liberal media for his planned buyout of Twitter, Musk angered lawmakers in Washington and Kiev when he proposed a peaceful settlement to the Ukrainian conflict that would involve Ukraine abandoning its claim to Crimea. With one Ukrainian diplomat telling Musk to “f**k off” and US Senator Lindsey Graham proposing that the government pull subsidies to Tesla in response, the Washington Post declared that the tycoon’s “ego” put Ukraine’s “war efforts” in jeopardy. The Washington Post is solely owned by Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos, who also owns Blue Origin, a private spaceflight firm in direct competition with SpaceX. The two firms have competed for federal contracts, with Bezos’ company having a lawsuit against NASA dismissed last year, after the agency awarded a lunar lander contract to SpaceX.

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” The European Union has lost the moral right to speak about war crimes because, for eight years, it has turned a blind eye to the killing of civilians, women and children during the shelling of the Donbass by the regime in Kiev.”

• EU Displays ‘Height Of Hypocrisy’ – Russia (RT)

The European Union doesn’t have the right to accuse Moscow of committing war crimes in Ukraine because the bloc has spent years ignoring the suffering of civilians in Donbass, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said. Russia’s statement came after EU’s main decision-making body, the European Council, condemned Moscow on Friday for “indiscriminate” missile and drone attacks on civilian targets in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine, adding that there was “growing evidence” of war crimes against Ukrainians. In a response released on Saturday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova rebuffed the accusations as “the height of hypocrisy.”

The European Union has lost the moral right to speak about war crimes because, for eight years, it has turned a blind eye to the killing of civilians, women and children during the shelling of the Donbass by the regime in Kiev. Zakharova further accused the European bloc of “covering up Kiev’s criminal actions.” She argued that, instead of seeking a peaceful solution, the EU has been “senselessly investing significant sums into prolonging the fighting.” The spokeswoman also claimed that Ukrainian soldiers who receive Western training and weapons are targeting civilians.

Russia stepped up strikes on Ukraine this month, hitting many thermal power plants and power lines across the country, among other targets. President Vladimir Putin said the intensification was a retaliation against “terrorist attacks” on Russian soil, including a truck bombing that had recently damaged a strategic bridge connecting the Crimean Peninsula with Russia proper. Kiev has not confirmed its involvement in the bridge attack, but several top officials and government agencies openly celebrated the bombing. President Vladimir Zelensky later accused Russia of killing civilians on purpose during its renewed strikes on Ukrainian territory.

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And soon. Start peace talks to save your economy.

• Germany Should Go Back To Buying Gas From Russia – Saxony PM (RT)

Germany needs to get back to purchasing gas from Russia as soon as the conflict in Ukraine ends, the prime minister of the German eastern state of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, said on Saturday. His nation would still need “pipeline gas” from Russia, the official believes. “When the war is over, we should use gas from Russia again,” Kretschmer told the German tabloid Bild’s weekend edition when asked what he would say to people demanding the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline be commissioned. Nord Stream 2 was one of the two pipelines designed to deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany via a route along the bed of the Baltic Sea. The project was shelved in late February as Germany halted its certification process when Russia recognized the two Donbass republics as independent.

Kretschmer believes Germany would need the Russian gas pipeline infrastructure to be fully restored if it seeks to ensure sufficient energy supply. He was asked if he believes the two Nord Stream pipelines damaged in an alleged act of sabotage in late September would be repaired. “We will need pipeline gas and that is only possible with functioning pipelines,” he told Bild. Russia should not be the only energy supplier for Germany in the future, the prime minister said, adding that Berlin should also secure long-term gas contracts with the US, Qatar and other Arab nations, as well as “develop our own gas [fields] in the North Sea.” His words came amid an acute energy crunch in Germany as the EU has been striving to wean itself off Russian energy supplies. Brussels’ sanctions policy against Moscow has so far brought more ill than good to Germany, Kretschmer believes.

An economic “tsunami is building up now,” the state leader warned. According to him, entrepreneurs in Saxony face a “dramatic” struggle “for survival” and many of them “are about to give up” in a matter of “weeks, not months.” Kretschmer also said that the federal government relief measures had not yet been properly implemented, while Berlin’s energy saving tips only “get people annoyed.” The prime minister also called for a speedy diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict, adding that the EU should team up with the US, China, India and Japan to stop the war. At the same time, he said there was “not a single reason why Ukraine should give up even one square meter of its territory.”

Russia must also compensate for all the damage the conflict dealt to Ukraine, he added. Four former Ukrainian regions – the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye regions – were officially declared part of Russia in early October, after voters in those territories overwhelmingly supported the move in referendums. Kiev and Western nations, including Germany, declared the votes a “sham” and continue to view the territories as part of Ukraine.

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Homeschooling?!

• Energy Costs Will Bankrupt 90% Of English Schools (RT)

Schools in England are struggling to pay their electricity and heating bills, and 90% will run out of money next year, the Observer reported on Saturday. With the cost of living crisis forcing some schoolchildren to go hungry, the government plans to cut spending across all departments. The National Association of Head Teachers told the newspaper that 50% of their schools will be in deficit this year, with the figure rising to 90% by next September. Power and heating bills at some schools have risen from £26,000 a year to £89,000 ($100,609), the report stated. On top of this increase, schools are having to fund a 5% teachers’ pay rise announced this summer. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is expected to announce spending cuts to all departments, including education, at the end of the month.

Several school trusts told the newspaper that they are eating into their cash reserves to keep their buildings heated and their teachers paid. However, “there comes a point where we simply run out of money,” said Garry Ratcliffe, whose trust runs three primary schools in Kent. Furthermore, Ratcliffe said he’s seen an increase in the number of families unable to pay their own bills or feed their children. “Families who have never required support before are coming to us,” he said. “There is a great sense of shame for the dad who works every hour he can but still has to walk into school and ask for help.” A survey released last week by Chefs in Schools found that 83% of teachers reported children coming to school hungry because their parents were unable to afford food. Nearly a quarter said that children at their schools skipped lunch “due to poverty.”

Energy costs and inflation – which had been creeping upwards since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic – have skyrocketed since the UK decided to cut itself off from Russian fossil fuels. Outgoing Prime Minister Liz Truss exacerbated the economic crisis with a disastrous ‘mini-budget’ last month that crashed the British pound, and attempted to blame Britain’s economic woes on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Responding to The Observer’s latest report, a Department of Education spokesperson took a similar tack, blaming the “cost pressures” on schools on “international events,” and promising to offset the costs via an energy relief scheme.

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“No vote of Congress — just hundreds of billions of dollars written off by Biden, as if he is an American tsar.”

• Blocking Judicial Review Of A Half-trillion Tuition Giveaway (Turley)

In a speech at Delaware State University on Friday, President Biden was positively exuberant as he announced that he had prevailed in asserting unilateral authority to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in tuition loans. He declared that “just yesterday, a state court and the Supreme Court said, ‘No, we’re on Biden’s side.’” Some of us immediately noted that these were actually federal judges and they did not rule that he has this authority but that the other parties in two cases did not have legal standing to challenge his authority. Indeed, one of those Biden “supporters” was Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who simply denied an emergency application to the court. If it seems unlikely that Barrett is now “on Biden’s side,” it is because the claim is perfectly delusional.

No one could possibly read these decisions as even remotely supporting Biden’s claim to have virtually absolute authority to give away roughly $500 billion owed to the American people shortly before a critical midterm election. Within a few hours of Biden’s boast, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit enjoined the lower court. However, even the Eighth Circuit will not decide whether to be “on Biden’s side” but only whether six states have the constitutional right to bring any challenge as a matter of legal standing. Even the trial judge said the merits of the challenge raised “important and significant” concerns about Biden exceeding his authority.

Overwhelming constitutional concerns are raised by this massive election-year giveaway. Biden simply announced that he would forgive up to $10,000 in student loan debt for borrowers earning less than $125,000 annually; those who received Pell grants could receive up to $20,000 in relief; couples can qualify despite a joint annual income of $250,000. No vote of Congress — just hundreds of billions of dollars written off by Biden, as if he is an American tsar.

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“..the initial WHO estimates were off by 99% for 94% of the world’s population..”

• A Closer Look at the Covid Mortality Rate (Miller)

The median infection fatality rate for those aged 0-59 was 0.035%. This represents 86% of the global population and the survival rate for those who were infected with COVID pre-vaccination was 99.965%. For those aged 0-69, which covers 94% of the global population, the fatality rate was 0.095%, meaning the survival rate for nearly 7.3 billion people was 99.905%. Those survival rates are obviously staggeringly high, which already creates frustration that restrictions were imposed on all age groups, when focused protection for those over 70 or at significantly elevated risk would have been a much more preferable course of action. But it gets worse. The researchers broke down the demographics into smaller buckets, showing the increase in risk amongst older populations, and conversely, how infinitesimal the risk was amongst younger age groups.

They added that “Including data from another 9 countries with imputed age distribution of COVID-19 deaths yielded median IFR of 0.025-0.032% for 0-59 years and 0.063-0.082% for 0-69 years.” These numbers are astounding and reassuringly low, across the board. But they’re almost nonexistent for children. Yet as late as fall 2021, Fauci was still fear-mongering about the risks of COVID to children in order to increase vaccination uptake, saying in an interview that it was not a “benign situation:” “We certainly want to get as many children vaccinated within this age group as we possibly can because as you heard and reported, that this is not, you know, a benign situation.” It’s nearly impossible for any illness to be less of a risk, or more “benign” than a 0.0003% risk of death.

Even in October 2021, during that same interview with NPR, Fauci said that masks should continue on children as an “extra step” to protect them, even after vaccination:And when you have that type of viral dynamic, even when you have kids vaccinated, you certainly – when you are in an indoor setting, you want to make sure you go the extra step to protect them. So I can’t give you an exact number of what that would be in the dynamics of virus in the community, but hopefully we will get there within a reasonable period of time. You know, masks often now – as we say, they’re not forever. And hopefully we’ll get to a point where we can remove the masks in schools and in other places. But I don’t believe that that time is right now.

Nothing better highlights the incompetence and misinformation from Dr. Fauci than ignoring that pre-vaccination, children were at vanishingly small risks from COVID, that vaccination uptake amongst kids was entirely irrelevant since they do not prevent infection or transmission, and that mask usage is completely ineffective at protecting anyone. Especially for those who didn’t need protection in the first place. The CDC, “expert” community, World Health Organization, media figures — all endlessly spread terror that the virus was a mass killer while conflating detected case fatality rates with infection fatality rates. Yet now we have another piece of evidence suggesting that the initial WHO estimates were off by 99% for 94% of the world’s population.

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Things that don’t rhyme:

“..37 per cent said they had not taken any vaccine..”

“..Only 35 per cent out of more than 45,000 people said they were vaccinated..”

“..more than 20 million Australians have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, or more than 95 per cent of the over-16 population..”

• A Pulse Check Of Australia As We Exit The Pandemic (news.com.au)

Today Covid has become an afterthought for many. We no longer have to isolate after a positive test, masks are rarely seen – even on flights. And the tense — and at times explosive — conversations between friends and family members over issues like vaccines are largely behind us. But we want to know how you feel as Australia emerges from the pandemic. Take our poll and see how the rest of the country views what we’ve been through and where we sit today.

After a day of voting, each question has received more than 42,000 responses, ranging up to more than 50,000. The results are striking. More than half of respondents either said they regret getting vaccinated, or were unvaccinated and happy with their decision. Only 35 per cent out of more than 45,000 people said they were vaccinated and would make the same decision again. Not a single person said they were unvaccinated and regret the decision. One fifth of respondents said they had received two doses of a vaccine, 26 per cent had three and 16 per cent had four shots, while 37 per cent said they had not taken any vaccine.

According to Health Department data, more than 20 million Australians have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, or more than 95 per cent of the over-16 population. An overwhelming majority of respondents said they were no longer concerned about Covid and no longer wore masks in public settings. Half of respondents said they caught Covid, with 6 per cent of those catching it more than once, while 40 per cent said they never did. Meanwhile, more than two thirds of respondents said Australia‘s leaders had been too heavy-handed in the pandemic response, 25 per cent said they did they best they could, and 8 per cent said as well as any other country.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yottabyte
https://twitter.com/i/status/1584197056406892544

 

 

 

 

Battery

 

 


Changing of the guards, Parliament building, Syntagma square, Athens

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 24 2022

Sep 242022
 
 September 24, 2022  Posted by at 7:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  71 Responses »


Joan Miro Montroig, la iglesia y el pueblo 1918

 

• 4 Ukrainian Regions Vote In Referendums On Joining Russia (ZH)
• Historic Context Of The Referenda In Ukraine (MoA)
• Von der Leyen’s Warning Message To Italy Irks Election Candidates (Pol.eu)
• Reaping the Whirlwind (Scott Ritter)
• Talks With Ukraine Necessary – Kremlin (RT)
• Hungary Explains ‘Red Line’ For Russia Sanctions (RT)
• Sanctions On Russia Lead To More Ship Emissions, Says Cargill (ZH)
• Macron Suggests Covid As Reason For Ukraine Conflict (RT)
• I Know What I’d Do In Putin’s Shoes – Jordan Peterson (RT)
• US Military Bought Tool That Can See 93% Of Internet Traffic – Senator (RT)
• “Joe Biden’s” Last Stand (Kunstler)
• Biden Family Worked to Sell American Gas to China (ET)
• Who Controls Those Who Control Us? (Ugo Bardi)
• Judge Orders NYPD Union Members Fired Over Vax Mandate Reinstated (YP)
• The Vaccine Narrative Is as Leaky as the Vaccines (Thakur)

 

 

 

 

Normalizing myocarditis
https://twitter.com/i/status/1573134151376687104

 

 

 

 

Clay Travis

 

 

 

 

 

 

This map makes very clear what’s at stake: all of southeast Ukraine. Things will escalate on Tuesday at the latest.

• 4 Ukrainian Regions Vote In Referendums On Joining Russia (ZH)

On Friday Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine kicked off voting in referendums on joining the Russian Federation, according to announcements by a series of separatist leaders, in the biggest political development on the ground thus far in the seven-month long invasion. These ‘popular referendums’ are taking place in four areas of Ukraine in the east and south, namely the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, and in large parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – despite these not yet being under full Russian military control. The voting is expected to continue over a period of five days.

In total the four regions make up nearly 20% of Ukraine’s territory, and signals huge escalation given this week President Vladimir Putin vowed to use “all the means at our disposal” – including the potential of nuclear arms – to defend Russia’s “territorial integrity”. Of course, by bringing whole swathes of Ukraine into Russia, Putin effectively issued a ‘by all means’ declaration for military defense of these territories. The Ukrainian presidency’s office denounced the move as illegal and a “propaganda show”, saying, “Today, there is no legal action called a ‘referendum’ in the occupied territories.” According to a statement by Zelensky adviser Mykhailo Podolyak: “There is only – 1. [A] Propaganda show for z-conscription. 2. The territory of Ukraine that needs an immediate release,” he added, citing the “Z” letter and symbol that has become synonymous with Russia’s offensive.

Ukraine’s Western backers have also dismissed the voting as a “sham” – even as there’s widespread acknowledgement the results will likely be overwhelming in favor of joining Russia, given these are by and large places of a concentrated pro-Kremlin and Russian speaking population (especially among those Ukrainians who’ve remained there under Russian occupation). Western pundits are also seeing the move toward annexation as an act of desperation, following Ukrainian forces’ largely successful counteroffensive which has threatened Moscow’s grip on the east in particular. But officials from the two breakaway republics in the Donbas in particular have pointed to years of shelling and atrocities conducted by Ukraine’s military and nationalist militias such as Azov battalion.

According to international figures, some 14,000 people had died in total among both sides of fighting in what was essentially a localized civil war since even before the current conflict, since 2014. The Ukrainian government has all along initiated polices in attempts to stamp out Russian language and culture.

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And this map shows the context of “historical” Ukraine.

“..one of the first laws implemented by the new government removed the Russian language from official use. Instead of overcoming the differences between its people it only sealed the predominant split in Ukraine..”

• Historic Context Of The Referenda In Ukraine (MoA)

Voting for membership in the Russian Federation has started in four oblast of Ukraine: “Russian proxy officials in four regions — Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, and Kherson and Zaporizka in the south — earlier this week announced plans to hold referendums over four days beginning on Friday. Russia controls nearly all of two of the four regions, Luhansk and Kherson, but only a fraction of the other two, Zaporizka and Donetsk. Ukrainian officials have dismissed the voting as grotesque theater — staging polls in cities laid to waste by Russian forces and abandoned by most residents.” President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ukraine’s allies for their steadfast support and said “the farce” of “sham referenda” would do nothing to change his nation’s fight to drive Russia from Ukraine.

The Ukrainian regime has resorted to pure terrorism to prevent the votes from happening: “Ukrainian partisans, sometimes working with special operations forces, have blown up warehouses holding ballots and buildings where Russian proxy officials preparing for the vote held meetings. Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that they are engaged in a campaign to assassinate key Russian administration officials; more than a dozen have been blown up, shot and poisoned, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials.” Such behavior by the Zelenski regime against its still Ukrainian compatriots will only encourage the people in the four oblast to vote for an alignment with Russia. The propaganda in the ‘west’ will declare that the vote is irregular and that the results, likely to be pro-Russian, will be fake.

[..] In 2014, after the violent fascist coup in Kiev, one of the first laws implemented by the new government removed the Russian language from official use. Instead of overcoming the differences between its people it only sealed the predominant split in Ukraine. The election promise of the current Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelenski to make peace with the Russia aligned rebellious Donbas region by adhering to the Minsk 2 agreements was rewarded with a large share of southeastern votes for his presidency. However, after having been threatened with death by fascists, Zelenski has made a 180 degree turn and has since posed as Ukrainian nationalist. In consequence he has lost all support in southeastern Ukraine.

The southeastern parts of today’s Ukraine have for centuries been part of the central Russian empire. They were only attached to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine under Lenin’s rule in 1922 and, in the case of Crimea, in 1954 under Nikita Khrushchev who himself had grown up in the Donbas region. A likely high turnout and majority vote for membership in the Russian Federation will only correct the historic misalignment created by those illogical transfers.

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She is unelected. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t understand.

• Von der Leyen’s Warning Message To Italy Irks Election Candidates (Pol.eu)

Italian politicians asked European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen not to intervene in domestic politics after she warned that Europe has “the tools” to deal with Italy if things go in a “difficult direction.” During a conference on Thursday at Princeton University, an attendant pointed out to von der Leyen that “figures close to Putin” were among candidates for the upcoming legislative election on Sunday. “We’ll see,” she replied. “If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools.” This is a clear reference to the ability of the European Commission to cut funds allocated to member countries when they are deemed to be violating the rule of law. Last week, the Commission proposed to cut €7.5 billion of funds allocated to Hungary.

Von der Leyen’s remark came just a day before Italy’s campaign goes quiet for the weekend, and has provoked the ire of multiple candidates during their final stretch. “What is this, a threat? This is shameful arrogance,” tweeted Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s far-right League party. He asked von der Leyen to “respect the free, democratic and sovereign vote of the Italian people.” He also said on Italian TV that “if anyone in Brussels thinks of cutting the funds that belong to Italy, because the League wins the elections, then we have to rethink this Europe,” adding that “this is institutional bullying.”

Italy is the biggest beneficiary of the Next Generation EU fund, a package of grants and loans to tackle the economic challenges after the COVID-19 pandemic. Even Matteo Renzi, the EU-friendly, liberal leader of the Italia Viva party, asked von der Leyen “not to enter into Italian affairs in the slightest.” “I’m sure she will clarify her sentence,” said a more lenient Enrico Letta, who leads the center-left democratic party. He assured Italian voters that “there is no blackmail from the EU.”

Ursula

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“..a post-SMO military operation will be one configured to destroy an active threat to Mother Russia itself..”

• Reaping the Whirlwind (Scott Ritter)

Putin’s decision to order a partial mobilization of the Russian military, when combined with the decision to conduct the referendums in the Donbass and occupied Ukraine, radically transforms the SMO from a limited-scope operation to one linked to the existential survival of Russia. Once the referenda are conducted, and the results forwarded to the Russian parliament, what is now the territory of Ukraine will, in one fell swoop, become part of the Russian Federation — the Russian homeland. All Ukrainian forces that are on the territory of the regions to be incorporated into Russia will be viewed as occupiers; and Ukrainian shelling of this territory will be treated as an attack on Russia, triggering a Russian response.

Whereas the SMO had, by design, been implemented to preserve Ukrainian civil infrastructure and reduce civilian casualties, a post-SMO military operation will be one configured to destroy an active threat to Mother Russia itself. The gloves will come off. The U.S. and NATO, having committed to a program designed to defeat Russia via proxy, must now decide whether they continue to follow through with their political and material support for Ukraine and, if so, to what extent. Does the goal remain the “strategic defeat” of Russia, or will the aid be tailored simply to assist Ukraine in defending itself? These are two completely different goals.

One allows for the continued attrition of any Russian force that seeks to project power from Russian territory into Ukraine but, in doing so, respects the reality, if not the legitimacy, of the Russian incorporation of the Donbass and southern Ukrainian territories under occupation into the Russian Federation. The other continues to sustain the current policy of the Ukrainian government and its Western allies of evicting Russia from the Donbass, occupied Ukraine and Crimea. This means attacking Mother Russia. This means war with Russia. For its part, Russia considers itself already to be in a war with the West. “We are really at war with…NATO and with the collective West,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a statement that followed Putin’s announcement regarding partial mobilization.

“We mean not only the weapons that are supplied in huge quantities. Naturally, we find ways to counter these weapons. We have in mind, of course, the Western systems that there exist: communication systems, information processing systems, reconnaissance systems, and satellite intelligence systems.” Put in this context, the Russian partial mobilization isn’t designed to defeat the Ukrainian military, but to defeat the forces of NATO and the “collective West” that have been assembled in Ukraine.

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“But, as we have already said, we do not see any prerequisites for the negotiation process..”

• Talks With Ukraine Necessary – Kremlin (RT)

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are needed, but there are no signs that such a dialogue could resume in the near future, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. He also pointed out that Kiev backed out of talks with Moscow months ago. Speaking to reporters, Peskov was asked whether Moscow believes that talks with the government in Kiev are warranted under the current conditions. The Kremlin spokesman signaled that dialogue is “of course needed.” “And it is needed to achieve our goals. But, as we have already said, we do not see any prerequisites for the negotiation process,” he stated. Peskov went on to say that Russian President Vladimir Putin has already explained that “Ukraine left the negotiations several months ago.”

The Russian leader, he added, also offered the reminder that various Kiev officials had signaled that they “intend to solve their problems on the battlefield.” “You know very well how our president reacted to this,” he said. On Wednesday, Putin announced a partial mobilization in which 300,000 reservists will be called up to take part in the conflict with Ukraine. The move came a day after the two Donbass republics and the Russian-controlled Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions decided to hold referendums over September 23-27 on whether to unite with Russia. Russia has repeatedly said that it is ready to talk with Ukraine, but insisted that it isn’t interested in “a meeting for the sake of the meeting.”

Moreover, earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that Moscow had never dismissed the idea of peace talks, warning, however, that “the longer this process is delayed, the harder it will be to reach an agreement.” Meanwhile, in late July Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said Kiev refused to negotiate with Moscow, claiming that Russia would not stop until it gets “smashed.” The last time Russia and Ukraine sat down at the negotiating table was in late March. At that time, the two parties were discussing a draft peace agreement that would have made Ukraine a neutral state in exchange for security guarantees given by major world powers. Later, however, Kiev ended the talks after accusing Russian troops of having committed war crimes, an allegation that Moscow has vehemently denied.

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Energy. Simple as that.

• Hungary Explains ‘Red Line’ For Russia Sanctions (RT)

Hungary is against imposing new sanctions on Moscow, especially in the energy sector, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday after meeting his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. According to the minister, energy sanctions are “a clear red line” for Hungary as Europe is grappling with soaring gas prices. “Our position is very clear. We see no reasonable reasons to discuss a new package of sanctions, especially when it comes to energy,” Szijjarto said on Friday, RIA Novosti reports. The pair met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. According to a Hungarian outlet Index, he added that “this is a clear red line for us. We do not want the Hungarian people to pay a price for a war they have nothing to do with,” referring to the ongoing hostilities between Russia and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Szijjarto signaled that Hungary doesn’t plan to shun any debate on the new sanctions package, but it “wouldn’t consent to anything that is contrary to our national interests.” The minister also addressed the criticism he may face for holding talks with Lavrov, highlighting the fact that peace “will not come without dialogue.” If there are no negotiations, “the world will face even more serious consequences”, he said. Szijjarto warned that the European economy is heading into recession. In recent months, Europe has been plagued by an energy crisis, which was largely caused by skyrocketing natural gas prices due to sanctions the EU has imposed on Russia.

Hungary is heavily dependent on Moscow for energy and gets around 80% of its gas from Russian energy giant Gazprom and while Russia has cut off a number of countries from gas supplies, in late August, Hungary signed a deal with Moscow for additional deliveries on top of the already agreed volumes. On Wednesday, following Moscow’s bid to support referendums in the two Donbass republics and Russian-controlled Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions on joining Russia, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the bloc had made a “political” decision to slap new sanctions on Moscow. The exact nature of the restrictions, however, is so far unclear.

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“.. the whole strong climate action EU has been promoting to decarbonize its grid to save the planet is at risk of unraveling this winter.”

• Sanctions On Russia Lead To More Ship Emissions, Says Cargill (ZH)

The unilateral sanctions that Western countries slapped Moscow with are igniting even more man-made carbon-dioxide emissions from the shipping industry as Europe rejiggers energy supply chains away from Russia by sourcing energy products from far away. Jan Dieleman, Cargill Inc.’s head of ocean transportation business, told Bloomberg that European importers are hiring tankers for long-distance hauls of energy products from countries halfway around the world. If it weren’t for the sanctions, natural gas and other refined energy products would flow via pipelines from Russia to Europe. But since Europe is hellbent on rapidly shifting its entire energy supply chain away from Russia. EU importers are hiring tankers to source liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Asia.

In a recent note, we outlined the insanity behind the EU’s panic buying of LNG from China. It’s so idiotic because China is just reselling Russian LNG… Dieleman said higher fuel costs for vessels mean ship operators are switching to dirtier-burning fuels like diesel or crude oil on these long-haul trips. Meanwhile, EU countries are aggressively restarting fossil fuel power plants ahead of what could be a very dark and cold winter. Some governments have even asked residents to burn firewood to heat their homes as the energy crisis could induce rolling blackouts during peak demand hours. So the whole strong climate action EU has been promoting to decarbonize its grid to save the planet is at risk of unraveling this winter.

The very fact that Europe has to source LNG from Asia on longer routes while vessels burn dirtier fuel is entirely hypocritical to the bloc’s stance about saving the planet. For some context, shipping is responsible for almost 3% of man-made carbon-dioxide emissions.

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Ha ha ha! You sure it’s not the vaccines?

• Macron Suggests Covid As Reason For Ukraine Conflict (RT)

Russian foreign policy regarding Ukraine is dictated by the whims of President Vladimir Putin rather than rational thinking, his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, has claimed. Macron speculated about Putin’s mindset and the reasons he ordered Russian troops to enter Ukraine in late February, during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday. “I have no rational explanation. I think this is a series of resentment, this is a strategy of hegemony in the region, and I would say this is a post-Covid-19 consequence, isolation,” he said. The French leader argued that when Putin “decided to launch his war on 21 February, I think he made the first mistake, a huge one. And he decided to put Russia in a situation indeed to be the new imperial country and to launch a colonial war.”


On February 21, Putin signed orders recognizing the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as sovereign states. Moscow pledged troops to defend the two Donbass republics, and called on Kiev to withdraw its forces from the territory they claimed as their own, which the Ukrainian government refused to do. Russia launched its military campaign against Kiev on the 24th. The hostilities followed decades of Russian complaints over NATO expansion in Europe, which the US and its allies pushed forward with in spite of their promises to not do so, made to the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev.

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“..we can’t say ‘no’ to Putin because we sold our soul for his oil and gas..”

• I Know What I’d Do In Putin’s Shoes – Jordan Peterson (RT)

Popular conservative political commentator Jordan Peterson has tried to get into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s head and predict how Russia’s conflict with the West in Ukraine will unfold. Peterson said that if he were the Russian president he would leave the EU without energy supplies in the winter. “I know what I’d do in his shoes,” he said on the Piers Morgan Uncensored show on Thursday. “I’d wait till the first cold snap and shut off the taps.” Peterson was referring to supplies of Russian natural gas to EU nations. He argued that Moscow indirectly warned that a full shutdown would happen when Russian gas giant Gazprom started curtailing deliveries through the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, citing maintenance issues.

The political commentator declined to endorse a notion popular in the West that Putin resembles Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin in his thinking, calling the claim “foolish” and not backed by any actual evidence. Putin “is a lot more like everybody else than anyone thinks,” Peterson argued. He added that “there is a bit of Hitler and Stalin in everyone,” before going into an explanation of how accepting government-imposed lies under pressure was part of human nature. “The totalitarian state is actually the grip of the lie. And people would certainly go along with that. We’ve seen this emerge with [the] cancel culture. It’s like ‘Lie! Or else!’,” he said. He mocked the idea that Ukraine and its Western backers could “win” against Russia as “naïve.” “I just don’t understand that. What do you mean we are going to win? What are we going to win exactly?” he demanded.

The Russian government, Peterson believes, would consider simply devastating Ukraine an acceptable outcome, if no better alternative can be achieved. And the West would not be able to stop it due to Russia’s role as a global supplier of energy, he argued. “We can’t win against Vladimir Putin in any way because you cannot win against someone you cannot say ‘no’ to. Period. And we can’t say ‘no’ to Putin because we sold our soul for his oil and gas,” he said. “And we did that to elevate our moral stature in relation to ‘saving the planet.’ And here we are, facing a very dire winter, hoisted on the petard of our very own foolishness and moral presumption,” he added. Peterson was referring to the concern that humanity was facing an existential threat due to climate change, a threat that he believes to be exaggerated.

The unintended consequences of the West’s conflict with Russia are a far more imminent and real threat to humans, he pointed out, as “the World Bank already estimated that we’ve put 350 million people into what they call ‘food insecurity’.” “But the planet has too many people on it anyway, so, you know… It’s just poor people,” he added. Peterson is a Canadian psychology professor who rose to international prominence over his commentaries on various contemporary issues, such as transgender acceptance policies in the West, the role of Christianity in cultures originating in Europe, and geopolitical conflicts. His YouTube channel has over 5.5 million subscribers

Peterson

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No surprise, but now it has a name.

• US Military Bought Tool That Can See 93% Of Internet Traffic – Senator (RT)

Multiple branches of the US military have bought access to “petabytes” of American citizens’ private internet use data via a tool called Augury, giving them access to an almost omniscient set of data points, including an individual’s email communications, browsing history, and other behaviorally identifying information, all on demand and without a warrant, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) claimed in a letter to the Office of the Inspector General on Wednesday. The senator asked the OIG to investigate the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department’s purchase and use of any such records, citing a report his office received from a military whistleblower regarding the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) buying and using netflow data from data broker Team Cymru.

Netflow data includes proprietary information normally available only to internet service providers, and is likely being provided without the informed consent of those providers – let alone judicial authorization. Wyden’s own investigation of the whistleblower’s claim appeared to reveal that US Cyber Command, the Army, FBI, and Secret Service had also purchased the company’s data sets. An investigation by Motherboard found they paid a total of $3.5 million to use Team Cymru’s tool Augury, which allegedly can access 93% of internet traffic. It uses a technology called packet capture data (PCAP), which one cybersecurity technology professional referred to as “everything… there’s nothing else to capture except the smell of electricity.”

A spokesman from the Navy Office of Information told Motherboard that “The use of net flow data by NCIS does not require a warrant,” claiming the agency had not used netflow for criminal investigation purposes – only for “various counterintelligence purposes.”The other agencies which reportedly purchased Augury did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment. For their part, Team Cymru has insisted its tool “is not designed to target specific users or user activity. The platform specifically does not possess subscriber information necessary to tie records back to any users.” However, previous studies have shown that relatively few data points are needed in order to de-anonymize individuals in a database, meaning that even the “limited sampling of the available data” it allows may be enough to unmask an individual – and gain access to the totality of their online existence.

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“They engineered the 2014 coup in Kiev that ousted the elected president, Mr. Yanyukovich, to set up a giant grifting parlor and international money-laundromat.”

• “Joe Biden’s” Last Stand (Kunstler)

Let us agree that the place called Ukraine was never any of America’s business. For centuries we ignored it, through all the colorful cavalry charges to-and-fro of Turks and Tatars, the reign of the dashing Zaporozhian Cossacks, the cruel abuses of Stalin, then Hitler, and the dull, gray Khrushchev-to-Yeltsin years. But then, having destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and sundry other places all on a great hegemonic lark, the professional warmongers of our land and their catamites in Washington made Ukraine their next special project. They engineered the 2014 coup in Kiev that ousted the elected president, Mr. Yanyukovich, to set up a giant grifting parlor and international money-laundromat. The other strategic aim was to prepare Ukraine for NATO membership, which would have made it, in effect, a forward missile base right up against Russia’s border. Because, well, Russia, Russia, Russia!

An early beneficiary of these arrangements, you might recall, was one Hunter Biden, the drug-addicted, sex-obsessed, no-account son of Barack Obama’s no-account vice-president then known simply as Joe Biden sans quote-marks — because in 2014, he was a closer approximation of a real person than is sadly now the case. In fact, he was known as “The Big Guy” among Hunter’s business coterie (though listed as “Pedo Peter” on Hunter’s speed-dial). After the 2014 coup, and for years beyond, Hunter pulled a steady revenue stream out of Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings, a natgas distributor (among other things), serving as a know-nothing, no-show board member. When this monkey business came to the attention of President Trump, and he made a telephone inquiry about it, he was instantly beset by swarms of DC swamp vermin hoisting writs of impeachment.

Fast forward through the past eight years and you have Kiev’s persecution of the Russian-speaking Donbas provinces, the constant shelling and harassment by Banderite Nazis. Between that and the ever more strident urgings for Ukraine to join NATO, President Putin of Russia, Russia, Russia apparently had enough. In February of this year, he started the Special Military Operation to put an end to these hostilities. By April, when whole battalions of Ukrainian Nazis had been exterminated, a call to peace talks was issued by Mr. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. This was shot-down without ceremony by “Joe Biden” (that is, by the junta behind him). The genius strategists in Foggy Bottom aimed to “weaken” Russia.

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Under the carpet.

• Biden Family Worked to Sell American Gas to China (ET)

The Biden family was selling U.S natural gas to China long before Joe Biden became president, who was aware of how his son Hunter Biden was making the sale possible, according to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, citing documents and information provided by a whistleblower. Hunter Biden had a Chinese Communist Party member as his assistant while dealing with the Chinese side for the shipping of American natural gas to China in 2017, and the Biden family was promising business associates that they would reap rewards once Biden became president, said Comer in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dated Sept. 20.

“The President has not only misled the American public about his past foreign business transactions, but he also failed to disclose that he played a critical role in arranging a business deal to sell American natural resources to the Chinese while planning to run for President,” Comer wrote. Joe Biden, Comer said, was a business partner in the arrangement and had office space to work on the deal, and a firm he managed received millions from his Chinese partners ahead of the anticipated venture. While part of what Comer stated had previously been reported in the news, the letter, citing whistleblower testimonies, as well as emails, a corporate PowerPoint presentation, screenshot of encrypted messages, and bank documents that committee Republicans obtained, provides a more complete picture suggesting Biden’s knowledge and involvement in the plan from at least 2017.

From 2017 to 2021, the Bidens promised business associates that Joe Biden would run for president in 2020 and those who worked with them from 2017 onward would “reap the rewards in a future Biden administration,” according to Comer’s recount of a whistleblower testimony to Oversight Committee Republicans. “As America now struggles in an energy crisis, it is critical to understand why the Biden family was selling American energy reserves to the Chinese, if that is affecting President Biden’s decision making today, and why President Biden has never disclosed his relationship with the Chinese to the American public,” Comer wrote to Yellen.

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History lesson.

• Who Controls Those Who Control Us? (Ugo Bardi)

It never was a secret that Benito Mussolini started his political career as a shill for the British secret services. His task was pushing Italy to join the allies in World War One. Recent data show that, in 1917, he was still being paid by the British M15 to the tune of 100 pounds per week, a respectable sum at that time. We don’t know what role the British Services had in Italy in the events after the end of WW1, but it is likely that they continued to support Mussolini, directly or indirectly. The British wanted a stable Italy that they saw as a staunch ally and a barrier against the ambitions of rival powers in the Mediterranean sea. Italy had played that role from when it had been created as a unified state, in 1861, with the help and financing of the British.

Italy was friendly to Britain, yes, but not a disinterested friend. Italians wanted something in exchange for their friendship, and they had it in the form of coal. Italy had no significant coal reserves, it was fully dependent on imports. It was British coal that had created the Italian industrial economy, from the early 1800s onward. That created a relationship between the two countries that many defined as a true brotherhood (fratellanza). But things changed in 1913, when Britain went through its “peak coal.” Production stopped increasing and was disrupted by strikes and social unrest. Britain still had enough coal for its internal needs, but exports were affected. This was especially bad for Italy, which saw a precipitous drop in coal imports after the end of WWI. At that time, the change of mood toward the British in Italy was palpable.

D. H. Lawrence reports in his “Sea and Sardinia,” published in 1921, how insulting the “English” was a common subject of conversation among Italians. Now, put yourself in the shoes of someone who managed the British secret services in the early 1930s. It must have been clear to them that there was a problem with Italy. An enormous problem. Germany’s coal production was still increasing and Germany could easily supply 100% of Italy’s needs. Then, Italy and Germany were natural allies. Germany had no direct strategic interests in the Mediterranean sea, while Italy could use Germany’s support to become the leading Mediterranean power. By taking control of the Suez Canal, Italy could effectively kick Britain out of the Mediterranean: truly a disaster for the British Empire. (Italy actually tried to do exactly that in 1940).

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“To be unequivocally clear, this Court does not deny that at the time it was issued the vaccine mandate was appropriate and lawful..”

• Judge Orders NYPD Union Members Fired Over Vax Mandate Reinstated (YP)

In a major victory for members of the NYPD’s largest police union, a judge ruled Friday cops who were fired for not getting vaccinated against the coronavirus have to be reinstated. In the stunning decision, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank wrote that the city’s vaccine mandate on the Police Benevolent Association was invalid “to the extent it has been used to impose a new condition of employment” on the union. The mandate was also invalid because it issued enforcement beyond “monetary sanctions” prescribed in the law, Frank wrote — ordering that all PBA members put on leave or canned be reinstated.

It would be a “gross overstatement” of the city’s Department of Mental Health and Hygiene to say it could enforce the vaccine mandate through termination, unpaid leave or suspension, Frank said. “To be unequivocally clear, this Court does not deny that at the time it was issued the vaccine mandate was appropriate and lawful,” the ruling stated. But the city hadn’t “established a legal basis or lawful authority for the DOH to exclude employees from the workplace and impose any other adverse employment action as an appropriate enforcement mechanism of the vaccine mandate.”

Any new condition of employment would have to be included in a collective bargaining agreement between a labor union and the city, the judge wrote. Frank is the same judge who recently ruled to toss the city Department of Education’s budget. [..] The ruling is the second big blow against the Big Apple’s COVID-19 measures in a week, after a Manhattan judge ruled last week an NYPD cop who sued over the mandate couldn’t be fired for refusing to get jabbed. Brooklyn cop Alexander Deletto, 43, should be allowed to keep his job after the city offered no explanation why it rejected his request for a religious exemption.

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“..governments don’t ban products merely because they are not beneficial. Bans apply only to products that inflict harms. So the unstated reality is the benefit: harm ratio is no longer favorable.”

But that’s only in Denmark?!

• The Vaccine Narrative Is as Leaky as the Vaccines (Thakur)

Let’s start with two simple questions. If regulators had the information available to them of the leakage between Covid-19 vaccine efficacy rates in controlled trials and their effectiveness in the real world, would they still grant emergency use authorization? Would their legal framework permit them to do so? Remember, all laws serve a dual purpose. On the one hand, they are permissive and enabling, granting powers to do certain things. On the other, they are limiting and restrictive, ring-fencing what may lawfully be done even by the state. Second, is Denmark being ruled by an anti-vaxxer government and health authority? From July 1 Denmark, which has an excellent health infrastructure including data collection, banned under-18s from being vaccinated and in mid-September the ban was extended to boosters for under-50s, other than in exceptional circumstances for immunocompromised and high-risk individuals in both cases.

The explanation offered by the health authorities is interesting both for what they said and what they did not say. They anticipate a rise in Covid-19 infections over autumn and winter and “aim to prevent serious illness, hospitalisation and death.” This risk applies to 50-year olds and above and not those younger. Because the vaccines are not meant to prevent infection, they will no longer be offered to the under-50s. However, governments don’t ban products merely because they are not beneficial. Bans apply only to products that inflict harms. So the unstated reality is the benefit: harm ratio is no longer favorable. The really interesting question therefore is: why don’t they say so? The empirical data from around the world demonstrates negligible to negative vaccine effectiveness for healthy under-50s and greater risk of serious adverse events. Denmark’s decision marks official if implicit acknowledgment that harms are greater than benefits.

The lockdowns across the Western world remain, to me, inexplicable and baffling. The abandonment of a century’s worth of cumulative scientific knowledge and global and national pandemic preparedness plans were based neither on new science nor emerging data. Rather, they were based firstly on apocalyptic modelling using flawed assumptions and secondly on dubious data from China whose authoritarian policies played to innate instincts in our own health bureaucrats and politicians, cheered on by the mainstream media. In a further nod to anti-scientific groupthink conformism, critical and contrarian voices within the health and political establishments were silenced and exorcised. Outside government, they were vilified and expelled from the public square in active collusion with the social media tech giants.

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