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Debt Rattle February 3 2025

Feb 032025
 
 February 3, 2025  Posted by at 11:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  63 Responses »


Jean Metzinger Soldier playing chess 1915

 

• Musk Claims USAID Funded Bioweapon Research (RT)
• USAID Tried To Block DOGE Audit (RT)
• Trump’s Dismantling Of USAID A Seismic Shift In America’s Role In The World (ZH)
• Panama Will Not Renew “Silk Road” Deal With China After Rubio Visit (ZH)
• John Brennan’s Protests to Trump Lifting his Security Clearances are Absurd (AmG)
• Military Strikes On Cartels Inside Mexico “On The Table”: Hegseth (MN)
• Tariffs Could Cause ‘Some Pain’ – Trump (RT)
• Trump’s Big Stick Strategy Will Make America Respected Again (Vasile)
• European Leaders Will ‘Wag Tails’ For Trump – Putin (RT)
• EU Incapable Of Helping End Ukraine Conflict – AfD Leader (RT)
• Zelensky: Trump Talking To Putin About Ukraine Without Us ‘Very Dangerous’ (ZH)
• Zelensky Has No Idea Where Most Of ‘$200 Billion’ In US Aid Went (RT)
• Arab Nations Reject Trump’s Idea To Relocate Gaza Population (RT)
• Musk Urges Astronauts To Lead Mars Investigation (RT)
• Rosatom’s Quantum Breakthrough Set to Transform AI, Healthcare and More (Sp.)
• CBS To Provide Unedited Version Of Harris ‘Word Salad’ Interview (RT)
• Exhausted Media Begs Trump To Take A Day Off (BBee)

 

 

 

 

JD
https://twitter.com/i/status/1885894662369530009
https://twitter.com/i/status/1886077857274712318

Leavitt

DOGE

Cher
https://twitter.com/i/status/1885772428573319518

 

 

 

 

Gold

Mafia

FAFO
https://twitter.com/i/status/1885772683414999371

Tucker JFK

 

 

 

 

USAID was never an aid agency, that’s just a clever CIA disguise to wrap its front in. Full name is US Agency for International Development.

It’s over now. Trump will either kill it or make it part of the State Dept. Musk: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die..”

• Musk Claims USAID Funded Bioweapon Research (RT)

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has accused the US Agency for International Development (USAID) of financing bioweapon research, including projects that allegedly led to the emergence of Covid-19, branding the agency a “criminal organization.” Musk’s comment came in response to a post from user @KanekoaTheGreat on Sunday, which claimed that USAID had funneled $53 million to EcoHealth Alliance. The post alleged that these funds were used to support gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, potentially leading to the creation of Covid-19. “Did you know that USAID, using YOUR tax dollars, funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people?” Musk wrote.

Musk did not elaborate on the allegations, but the post he was responding to further asserted that “the CIA’s deception regarding COVID-19 origins becomes much clearer when considering USAID’s long history of serving as a CIA front organization.” “USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk wrote in another post, replying to a video about the alleged USAID involvement in internet censorship and “rogue CIA work.” EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based nonprofit organization, has been at the center of controversy due to its collaborations with China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. The organization has denied that its work involved gain-of-function research, but in May 2024, the US Department of Health and Human Services suspended all federal funding to EcoHealth Alliance, citing concerns over the organization’s oversight of high-risk experiments and failure to report research activities promptly.

The CIA believes it is “more likely” that Covid-19 originated from a lab-leak incident rather than a natural source, the agency’s spokesman said last month after the confirmation of John Ratcliffe as CIA director. US President Donald Trump’s nominee, Ratcliffe, has been a vocal supporter of the lab-leak version, calling it “the only theory supported by science, intelligence, and common sense.” Following the confirmation, Ratcliffe also said the CIA’s assessment of Covid’s origins would be a “day-one thing for me.” USAID has a history of funding global health initiatives, including the PREDICT program, which aimed to identify viruses with pandemic potential and ran from 2009 to 2020 in partnership with EcoHealth Alliance. In 2021, USAID launched a $125 million follow-up program known as the Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens – Viral Zoonoses – but it was shut down prematurely in 2023.

Russia has repeatedly raised concerns about the network of biological research laboratories supported by the Pentagon and other US agencies around the globe, particularly in Ukraine and other countries near its borders, alleging that these facilities are involved in bioweapon research. Reporting about US biolab activities was one of the main priorities of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the Russian military’s top official on the hazards posed by weapons of mass destruction. He was murdered along with his assistant in Moscow in December in the bombing attack allegedly ordered by Kiev. In its latest reports, the Russian Defense Ministry has drawn attention to the transfer of unfinished Ukrainian projects to post-Soviet states and Southeast Asia, and said that Africa has now become a focal point of interest for the US government, which views the region as an unlimited natural reservoir of dangerous pathogens and a testing ground for experimental medical treatments.

The US Department of Defense has acknowledged providing support to some laboratories in Ukraine, but insisted that these efforts are focused on preventing the outbreak of infectious diseases and developing vaccines, and that the laboratories are owned and operated by their respective countries, not by the United States. Western officials have consistently dismissed Moscow’s investigations as disinformation aimed at discrediting “legitimate” public health initiatives. Moscow and Beijing have nevertheless demanded greater transparency from the US regarding its military biological activities. Last year, the two countries agreed to unite against biological security threats and strengthen the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC).


https://twitter.com/i/status/1886167348282863630

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It’s easier to just not see the mission Trump and Musk are on.

• USAID Tried To Block DOGE Audit (RT)

Two senior security officials with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have reportedly been placed on leave by President Donald Trump’s administration after attempting to prevent an audit by the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. A team of DOGE inspectors sought to review “classified material in restricted areas” at USAID on Saturday but were stopped by security officials, AP reported on Sunday. The inspectors allegedly lacked the necessary security clearance, and USAID security was “legally obligated” to deny them access to the requested data, the news agency claimed. “No, they tried to lie to cover up their corruption,” Musk wrote on X, dismissing allegations that the team lacked security clearance. Katie Miller, who serves on an advisory board for DOGE, also said that “no classified material was accessed without proper security clearances.”

Eventually, the inspectors gained access to the requested materials, including personnel records and “intelligence reports,” according to AP. Meanwhile, the USAID officials, identified as John Vorhees and his deputy Brian McGill, were placed on leave. The DOGE has yet to publish any details of its review of USAID activities, but Musk had already attacked the agency in a series of fiery posts on Sunday. “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die,” Musk said, accusing the agency of “paying media organizations to publish their propaganda,” and even using US taxpayer dollars to fund “bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people.” Over the weekend, the official USAID website went offline, and its X account disappeared amid reports that the White House considered merging the agency into the US Department of State.

The DOGE was created by President Donald Trump as a presidential advisory commission dedicated to reducing government spending. Its goal is to cut at least $1 trillion in federal spending by July 2026. In late January, the DOGE claimed that it had already cutting federal spending by $1bn per day. It had allegedly saved over $1 billion solely by eliminating contracts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Musk’s department has also been granted full access to the US Treasury Department’s payment system, which is considered sensitive and was previously restricted to a small group of career civil servants.

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“..many allies as well as an assortment of US-backed ‘opposition groups’ will feel completely abandoned.”

• Trump’s Dismantling Of USAID A Seismic Shift In America’s Role In The World (ZH)

The most consequential decision and executive order which came within the opening days of President Donald Trump’s administration has without doubt been his “reevaluating and realigning US foreign aid” — which sent shockwaves through Washington especially given federal funding has been cut to USAID in a shock blow to the agency. But it is also having a massive ripple effect throughout the world. Some foreign powers will welcome the news, while many allies as well as an assortment of US-backed ‘opposition groups’ will feel completely abandoned.

This has meant that pro-Western media outlets, NGOs, and ‘soft power’ organizations are in panic mode. This has basically overnight shutdown a multi-billion dollar regime change apparatus which pushed or often imposed American interests throughout the globe, especially in the very vulnerable Third World, as well as former Soviet satellite regions. The way this works on a practical, on the ground level is detailed in the well-known book Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man. As for Trump’s apparent efforts to dismantle the powerful USAID agency, we compiled some of the best current analysis from around the web outlining the huge significance of this move, which is nothing less than a historic reset (and we say a very welcome reset) of Washington’s relations with the rest of the world.

We’re looking at a seismic shift in the US’s relationship with the world, via Arnaud Bertrand:
1) The US is dismantling its foreign interference apparatuses (like USAID )
2) Marco Rubio stating that we’re now in a multipolar world with “multi-great powers in different parts of the planet” and that “the postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us.”
3) The tariffs on supposed “allies” like Mexico, Canada or the EU: This is the US effectively saying “our attempt at running the world is over, to each his own, we’re now just another great power, not the ‘indispensable nation’.” It looks “dumb” (as the WSJ just wrote) if you are still mentally in the old paradigm but it’s always a mistake to think that what the US (or any country) does is dumb.

Hegemony was going to end sooner or later, and now the U.S. is basically choosing to end it on its own terms. It is the post-American world order – brought to you by America itself. Even the tariffs on allies, viewed under this angle, make sense, as it redefines the concept of “allies”: they don’t want – or maybe rather can’t afford – vassals anymore, but rather relationships that evolve based on current interests. You can either view it as decline – because it does unquestionably look like the end of the American empire – or as avoiding further decline: controlled withdrawal from imperial commitments in order to focus resources on core national interests rather than being forced into an even messier retreat at a later stage.

In any case it is the end of an era and, while the Trump administration looks like chaos to many observers, they’re probably much more attuned to the changing realities of the world and their own country’s predicament than their predecessors. Acknowledging the existence of a multipolar world and choosing to operate within it rather than trying to maintain an increasingly costly global hegemony couldn’t be delayed much further. It looks messy but it is probably better than maintaining the fiction of American primacy until it eventually collapses under its own weight. This is not to say that the U.S. won’t continue to wreak havoc on the world, and in fact we might be seeing it become even more aggressive than before.

Because when it previously was (badly, and very hypocritically) trying to maintain some semblance of self-proclaimed “rules-based order”, it now doesn’t even have to pretend it is under any constraint, not even the constraint of playing nice with allies. It’s the end of the U.S. empire, but definitely not the end of the U.S. as a major disruptive force in world affairs. All in all this transformation may mark one of the most significant shifts in international relations since the fall of the Soviet Union. And those most unprepared for it, as is already painfully obvious, are America’s vassals caught completely flat-footed by the realization that the patron they’ve relied on for decades is now treating them as just another set of countries to negotiate with.

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Got to love it: “John Bolton and John Brennan have been permanently banned from government buildings.”

• Panama Will Not Renew “Silk Road” Deal With China After Rubio Visit (ZH)

The Trump administration is not messing around. Let’s review. In the past thirteen days;
• Border crossings are down 94% after Trump declared a national emergency and sent US troops to the southern US Border .
• Special Envoy Ric Grenell flew down to oil-rich Venezuela, got 6 hostages freed (that Biden didn’t even care to check up on), and convinced Maduro to accept tens of thousands of migrants we’re about to deport.
• Trump halted almost all foreign aid for 90 days, including to Ukraine, while each program undergoes review to make sure they align with the new agenda.
• Elon Musk’s DOGE descended upon the US Treasury and revealed that we’ve been ‘auto paying’ all sorts of bad actors, including terrorist groups. DOGE then kicked the door down at Deep State slush fund USAID, where employees were placed on paid leave last week for trying to circumvent Trump’s orders, causing a massive Democrat freakout.
• Trump just slapped tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico for failing to control the flow of illegal immigration and fentanyl.
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a worldwide cable announcing the end of DEI policies within State, prioritizing American interests, and told his Chinese counterpart that America is done kowtowing. See below for more!

And now, Rubio has convinced Panama not to renew its deal with China’s Belt and Road economic program, after applying pressure to the Panamanian government to immediately take steps to address US concerns over Chinese businesses operating ports near the canal – which President Trump says represents a threat to US national security. “Trump has made a preliminary determination that the current position of influence and control of the Chinese Communist Party over the Panama Canal area is a threat to the canal,” said US State Department spox Tammy Bruce. Trump had also refused to rule out the use of military force over Panama, while US officials said in a senate hearing last week that fines and restrictions on Panamanian-flag vessels entering US ports could be imposed due to the dispute over the canal.

Now, Secretary of State Rubio has convinced Panama to reverse course on their deal with China – with President Jose Mulino making an announcement following a “respectful and cordial” meeting with Rubio in which Panama also agreed to expand a July MoU so that Venezuelans, Colombians and Ecuadoreans can be returned from the perilous Darien Gap at U.S. cost, through an airstrip in Panama, Reuters reports. According to the PanAm Post, Panama will not renew the memorandum of understanding on the “Silk Road” signed with China. “We are going to study the possibility of whether it can be finished earlier or not. I think it is due for renewal in one or two years,” said Molino.

As one ZH reader, the esteemed Pooper Popper, noted earlier today…
• All federal prosecutors handling January 6th cases fired, computers locked and marched out of their offices by security.
• David Sundberg, the FBI Assistant Director at the helm of the January 6th investigations, has been fired.
• 20 leaders of FBI field offices have been escorted out of FBI buildings around the country
• The 51 intelligence officers who spread misinformation about Hunter Biden’s laptop and interfered in elections are now banned from entering federal properties.
• Federal employees are now required to return to the office, with non-compliance leading to termination.
• John Bolton and John Brennan have been permanently banned from government buildings.
• Jarold Harold Rogers has been indicted for compromising U.S. trade secrets to China.
• Ban on all use of pronouns in government communications.
• All 2 million Feds sent a resignation offer. At this rate both Canada and Greenland will be US territories by the end of the month.

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Trump wasn’t going to ask Brennan’s advice. Now he knows.

• John Brennan’s Protests to Trump Lifting his Security Clearances are Absurd (AmG)

Former CIA Director John Brennan is angry that President Trump signed an executive order last week lifting his security clearances. The president took this action because Brennan was one of 51 former intelligence officers who meddled in the 2020 presidential election by signing a letter they knew falsely claimed a damaging press story about a laptop owned by President Biden’s son Hunter was Russian disinformation.Brennan indignantly asserted in an MSNBC interview that President Trump’s action was “bizarre” and said he misrepresented the laptop letter, claiming that based on their intelligence experience, the signatories were “deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.” Brennan also said he needs to hold security clearances as a former intelligence officer so administration officials can consult with him on national security matters.

Brennan’s objections are absurd and justify the President’s executive order. Brennan’s claims defending the laptop letter are patently false. The 51 former intelligence officers did not sign the letter as a well-intentioned initiative to warn the American people about a possible Russian attempt to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. They knew this wasn’t true. We know this because one of the principal organizers of the letter, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, testified during an investigation by the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees about the letter’s purpose:“There were two intents. One intent was to share our concern with the American people that the Russians were playing on this issue, and two, it was to help Vice President Biden.” The House investigation also found that the letter signers were informed “of the intent of the statement prior to its publication, writing that the statement was meant to insulate Vice President Biden from serious electoral vulnerabilities created by his family’s influence peddling activities.”

This means there can be no doubt the laptop letter was an attempt by the 51 former intelligence officers to misuse their intelligence careers to provide political cover for Biden from damaging information that could have cost him the election. They knowingly misled the American people to give Biden a talking point to discredit the laptop story during the final presidential debate, held on October 22, 2020. There can be no doubt John Brennan knew about all of this. Brennan also made the preposterous argument that he only held security clearances as a former CIA officer so he could be a resource for the U.S. government. He said in an MSNBC interview: “The only reason I still had a clearance, as I have had for years since leaving government service, was for the benefit of the government. It was to facilitate classified discussions, should the CIA or any agency need to consult with me or other former directors and members of the intelligence community.”

I don’t doubt that the deeply incompetent Biden administration sought counsel on classified national security matters from disgraced former intelligence officers like John Brennan. However, there is zero chance that anyone in the second Trump administration will ever consult someone like Brennan on any issue. Brennan omitted the real reason he and most other laptop letter signers held security clearances after they left their intelligence jobs—to make money. High-level security clearances can be very lucrative for former U.S. government employees because they enable them to obtain highly paid contracts and jobs with defense firms and Beltway consulting companies that do business with intelligence and defense agencies. After intelligence officers retire, many retain their security clearances and return to their old offices as highly paid contractors.

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Better if Mexico does it, but it doesn’t.

“The military is orienting, shifting toward an understanding of homeland defense on our sovereign territorial border.”

• Military Strikes On Cartels Inside Mexico “On The Table”: Hegseth (MN)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Announced Friday that all options, including military strikes against cartels on Mexican soil are “on the table.” Hegseth asserted that nothing is out of the question “if we’re dealing with what are designated to be foreign terrorist organizations who are specifically targeting Americans on our border.”The development comes after Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office to designate “cartels and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations.” The order stated that “The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.”

Hegseth urged “We’re finally securing our border. We’ve been securing other people’s border for a very long time. The military is orienting, shifting toward an understanding of homeland defense on our sovereign territorial border.” “That is something we will do and do robustly. So we’re already doing it,” Hegseth continued, adding “Should there be other options necessary to prevent the cartels from continuing to pour people gangs and drugs and violence into our country — we will take that on.” “So the president will make that call. I’ll work with him in that decision making process. Ultimately, we will hold nothing back to secure the American people,” he emphasized.

While campaigning, Trump repeatedly vowed to use the military against the cartels, suggesting that special forces could be deployed in Mexican territory. Border czar Tom Homan also recently stated that Trump intends to “use the full might of the United States Special Operations to take ’em out,” and “ take ’em off the face of Earth.” During a recent discussion with Joe Rogan, former Green Beret Evan Hafer, noted that if Trump does decide to go to war with the cartels he could opt to use Delta Force and Seal Team 6 to destroy them. “These dudes are not going to understand what the fuck is going on,” Hafer promised, adding “They are in for a world of ultra violence they’ve never actually felt before… we could just kind of like erase the problem in about two years. It’d be gone.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1858851449725153571

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“WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE – AND THE RESULTS WILL BE.”

• Tariffs Could Cause ‘Some Pain’ – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has acknowledged that Americans could feel “some pain” from newly imposed tariffs on foreign trading partners, but insisted the measures were necessary to restore economic strength. He also warned that further tariffs could be levied on the European Union and possibly the UK if trade practices are not addressed. The latest tariffs, which take effect on Tuesday, include a 25% duty on all goods from Canada and Mexico, with a 10% tariff applied specifically to Canadian energy exports. Imports from China will also face a 10% tariff. “WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” Trump wrote in all caps on Truth Social on Sunday. “IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE – AND THE RESULTS WILL BE.”

Commenting on Canada’s retaliatory measures, announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump suggested the possibility of imposing steeper levies. “If they want to play the game, I don’t mind. We can play the game all they want,” he told reporters upon landing at Joint Base Andrews from Florida. In a separate social media post, Trump renewed his call for Canada to become a US state, arguing that “without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable country.”Addressing potential import taxes on the EU, Trump stated that with a trade deficit of $350 billion, “something is going to take place there.” He did not specify a timeline but suggested action was likely “pretty soon.”

He also called the UK “out of line” but expressed confidence that the situation “can be worked out.” Canada and Mexico have already responded to last week’s tariff announcement. Trudeau has imposed a 25% levy on US goods, including alcohol and cosmetics, and warned of further countermeasures. Mexico has also signaled it will implement retaliatory tariffs and promote domestic products in response to Washington’s policies. Meanwhile, China has announced “corresponding countermeasures” and plans to file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization.

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“The Inconvenient Truth: Tariffs Are Effective..”

• Trump’s Big Stick Strategy Will Make America Respected Again (Vasile)

Under Biden, South and Central American countries had a free pass to send their citizens, freed criminals, and other migrants to America’s doorstep without repercussions. For the past four years, the Biden administration wrote a blank check to allow any and all migrants into our nation, without even a background check. This has led to a swelling of migrant gangs such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, which has been busy at work committing violent crime – including murders and rapes – on American soil. Thanks to Biden’s “humanitarian policy,” countries like Venezuela have emptied their prisons and have encouraged migrants to pass through with the promise of attaining the “American dream” in the form of free cell phones, food, and even housing at the expense of the American taxpayer. There’s one issue: Trump is back.

With U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramping up deportation efforts of violent illegal aliens, the countries which for so long have benefited from the Democrats’ open-border approach are now forced to address the migrant crisis and take back the citizens they’ve abandoned time and time again. Colombia’s Petro is one of the first to actively resist Trump’s efforts to repatriate Colombian citizens, announcing: “From today on, Colombia is open to the entire world, with open arms.” Petro also tweeted out: “The U.S. cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals,” and “We are the opposite of the Nazis.” Trump responded, declaring that an immediate 25% tariff on “all goods” coming into the States from Colombia will be enacted; in one week’s time, the tariff would be raised to 50%.

Petro responded in the like, announcing his own 25% tax on American goods, if Trump keeps to his word: “Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world.” Despite Petro’s poetic declarations, it appears he is all bark and no bite; within 24 hours of sparring with President Trump, Petro bent the knee and agreed to take in America’s deportation flights, ensuring that Colombia will, “facilitate the dignified return of the compatriots who were to arrive in the country this morning from deportation flights … [th]is measure responds to the Government’s commitment to guarantee decent conditions.” In fact, Trump’s tariff threat was so effective, Petro quickly agreed to all of Trump’s terms regarding facilitating deportation efforts; so much for being “open to the entire world.”

Petro even offered his own presidential plane to pick up migrants in Honduras in a good faith effort not to disrespect American sovereignty again. This nimble victory on migration policy isn’t just a nod to how effective Trump’s diplomatic strategy is on the world’s stage. It also highlights a fear establishment politicians and the legacy media have been dreading: Protectionism works. While the talking heads of CNN, CNBC, NBC and others are quick to fear-monger and forecast the potential price hikes associated with hypothetical tariffs on foreign goods, they conveniently ignore one important aspect of announcing tariffs: leverage. For the past four years, America has been the world’s laughing-stock. Under Biden, we have experienced war in Ukraine, renewed Chinese efforts to invade Taiwan, the funding of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and blatant spying on American soil.

The world has taken American for granted, betting on a weak and ineffective commander in chief to do their bidding and continuously fund their morally questionable policies. With Trump back in the picture, the threat of tariffs shows that America means business after four long years of inept (and absent) leadership. While academics, “classical liberals,” and politicians decry Trump’s use of tariffs as “anti-democratic,” they fail to address tariffs in action. Trump needed only to voice the possibility of tariffs if Colombia did not take back its own citizens. Petro knows better than to spar head-to-head with Trump, as do most other world leaders; the threat of tariffs is sufficient to get countries to step in line. No actual tariffs need to be put in place if American foreign policy is respected. Colombia is the textbook case: Trump rescinded his order after Petro conceded.

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Europe has no leaders.

• European Leaders Will ‘Wag Tails’ For Trump – Putin (RT)

The EU has always taken its political cues from Washington and will continue doing so with Donald Trump in office, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Despite some EU leaders actively opposing Trump’s election, the newly inaugurated president “will restore order” and bring the bloc to heel “quite quickly,” Putin believes. The Russian president made the remarks on Sunday in an interview to Russia-1 TV journalist Pavel Zarubin. It has been decades since Europe last had strong politicians capable of forming opinions independently from Washington, Putin said, referring to the era of former French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder.

However, in recent years, the EU’s policies have been steered by “political small fries” who lack education and ability, Putin asserted. He noted that these individuals have “happily carried out any order from the president in Washington under Biden,” but “got confused when Trump suddenly won” the November election. “They just don’t like Trump, they actively fought him, interfered in political life, in the US election… Trump has different ideas about what is good and what is bad, including in gender policy, in some other issues, and they don’t like it,” Putin said. He believes, however, it won’t be long until the EU once again follows orders from Washington.

“I assure you, Trump, with his character and persistence, will restore order quite quickly. And all of them, you’ll see, soon all of them will stand at the master’s feet and gently wag their tails,” Putin argued. Many European leaders expressed concerns about Trump’s potential return to the White House throughout the presidential race last year, alarmed by his “America First” protectionist rhetoric, threats to impose tariffs on EU goods, criticism of the bloc’s low contribution to NATO defense spending, and calls to change course on the Ukraine conflict, among other things. After congratulating Trump on his election victory in November, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were nevertheless quick to call on the bloc to act in a united manner in the face of Trump’s return to office.

So far, Trump’s executive actions have not directly targeted the EU. However, this past week he reaffirmed his intention to place “substantial” tariffs on goods from the bloc. Brussels has pledged to respond to these actions “in a proportionate way,” while French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou last week called on the bloc to stand up to Trump and his policies or face being “crushed.” “The US has decided to embark upon an extremely domineering form of politics… and if we don’t do anything, our fate is very simple – we will be dominated. We will be crushed. We will be marginalized,” Bayrou stated.

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Any time the “extreme right” makes this much sense is a good time.

• EU Incapable Of Helping End Ukraine Conflict – AfD Leader (RT)

Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, has said that the EU and Germany in particular are unable to assist in finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict due to being run by incompetent politicians. The AfD wants peace between Russia and Ukraine and is “committed to negotiations,” Weidel said during a campaign event in the town of Neu-Isenburg in central Germany on Saturday. She stressed that Trump “was the only one who actually spoke about peace during his election campaign” last year. “I personally have great hopes that the US, together with Russia, will end this terrible war as quickly as possible,” the AfD co-leader stressed.

According to Weidel, the EU, and Germany in particular, are “unfortunately no longer capable” of delivering peace because “we only have this small group of politicians sitting up there, who do not understand what they are actually talking about. They do not have the training; they do not have the experience.” Berlin should have started “to fight for peace immediately” after the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022 and hold talks with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky but failed to do so, she argued.

When German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock “refuses to shake hands… that is not how serious foreign policy works,” the AfD co-leader stressed. She appeared to have been referring to when Baerbock refused a handshake with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at a G20 summit in 2023. After his inauguration last week, Trump, who had repeatedly promised to quickly end the fighting between Moscow and Kiev if elected, said he was ready to meet Putin “any time” to find a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict.

The Kremlin replied by saying that the Russian president is also willing to talk to his US counterpart, but stressed that Moscow has not yet been approached by Washington about arranging contact between the two leaders. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated on Thursday that Trump believes that the fighting “needs to end now. It needs to end to a negotiation.” The AfD, which was established in 2013 and is known for its hardline anti-immigration stance, is currently polling around 20%, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) at 16% but behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at 31%. The German federal election is scheduled to take place on February 23.

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“Zelensky is essentially urging Trump to stand fast on the demand that Ukraine be invited into NATO. Of course, such a scenario could easily trigger WW3.”

• Zelensky: Trump Talking To Putin About Ukraine Without Us ‘Very Dangerous’ (ZH)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that Russia and the United States are already talking about how to wind down the Russia-Ukraine war and this is “very dangerous” without Ukraine’s direct input. He said in an Associated Press interview published Saturday, “They may have their own relations, but talking about Ukraine without us — it is dangerous for everyone.” Zelensky issued this assessment the day after the Trump White House confirmed that discussions at a “general level” are happening with Moscow and that an in-person meeting between presidents will take place ‘soon’. According to an AP summary of Zelensky’s words: “Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Zelenskyy said Russia does not want to engage in ceasefire talks or to discuss any kind of concessions, which the Kremlin interprets as losing at a time when its troops have the upper hand on the battlefield.

He said U.S. President Donald Trump could bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the table with the threat of sanctions targeting Russia’s energy and banking system, as well as continued support of the Ukrainian military. “I think these are the closest and most important steps,” he said in the interview in the Ukrainian capital that lasted for more than an hour.” Zelensky did express openness to eventually entering negotiations with Putin, despite current active legislation which forbids entering direct communication with Moscow so long as Putin is head of state. But he emphasized Trump and Kiev should be on the same page first. “I believe that, first and foremost, we (must) hold a meeting with him, and that is important. And that is, by the way, something that everyone in Europe wants,” Zelensky said, describing this would be based on “a common vision of a quick end to the war.”

But importantly, Zelensky defines a key part of this ‘common vision’ as a path to NATO membership. “I really believe that these are the cheapest security guarantees that Ukraine can get, the cheapest for everyone,” he said. Putin has rejected this as a non-starter, and Trump too knows that negotiations would never get off the ground if this is held to. Zelensky continued, after the conversation with Trump, “we should move on to some kind of format of conversation with Russians. And I would like to see the United States of America, Ukraine and the Russians at the negotiating table. … And, to be honest, a European Union voice should also be there. I think it would be fair, effective. But how will it turn out? I don’t know.”

He warned against allowing Putin to take “control” of the war of the narrative, but the reality on the ground especially in the east strongly suggests this has already happened. Zelensky said “It will be a signal that it is not for Russia to decide who should be in NATO and who should not, but for the United States of America to decide. I think this is a great victory for Trump.” Zelensky is essentially urging Trump to stand fast on the demand that Ukraine be invited into NATO. Of course, such a scenario could easily trigger WW3.

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I think he got his share.

• Zelensky Has No Idea Where Most Of ‘$200 Billion’ In US Aid Went (RT)

Washington has provided Kiev with just over $75 billion in military and other types of assistance, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has claimed, adding that he has no idea where US President Donald Trump’s estimate of $200 billion originated or where it could have vanished. Trump, who has been highly critical of his predecessor Joe Biden’s generosity toward Ukraine, has argued that NATO states and the EU should “equalize” their contributions with Washington’s support. “We are in there for $200 billion more than the EU. I mean, what are we, stupid?” Trump said last month. US Vice President J.D. Vance referenced the figure as early as last July, saying, “We have now spent $200 billion. What is the goal? What are we trying to accomplish?”

In an interview with AP published on Sunday, Zelensky insisted that Ukraine never received even half of that sum. “When it is said that Ukraine received $200 billion to support the army during the war – that’s not true. I don’t know where all that money went. Perhaps it’s true on paper with hundreds of different programs – I won’t argue, and we’re immensely grateful for everything. But in reality, we received about $76 billion. It’s significant aid, but it’s not $200 billion,” Zelensky said. Since 2022, the US Congress has authorized roughly $175 billion for Ukraine, but a significant portion of that funding has reportedly gone to American industries and various US government activities related to the conflict. According to Germany’s Kiel Institute, as of October 2024, the US had allocated approximately $92 billion in financial and military aid to Ukraine, while EU countries and the UK had allocated $131 billion.

Zelensky also insisted that he has seen little actual cash, as more than $70 billion of the aid came in the form of direct military assistance. “There are also many other humanitarian programs I’m uninformed about, except for knowing of their existence. Perhaps the US president’s administration will audit these programs and find additional billions, but I don’t know where those funds went,” he said. Among his first actions upon returning to office, Trump suspended US foreign aid for 90 days to review its alignment with his administration’s objectives, vowing to put “America first.” The cut affected many Kiev-related initiatives, particularly those funded by grants from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Over the weekend, USAID’s official website went offline, and its X account disappeared, amid reports that the White House was considering merging the agency into the State Department. The newly created US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, has reportedly sent inspectors to audit USAID’s activities. “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die,” Musk wrote on Sunday. In a brief comment the same day, Trump also criticized the agency as being “run by a bunch of radical lunatics and we are getting them out.”

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“..achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, based on the two-state solution..”

• Arab Nations Reject Trump’s Idea To Relocate Gaza Population (RT)

A group of Arab nations has spoken out against the suggestion by US President Donald Trump that Palestinians from Gaza should be relocated to neighboring Egypt and Jordan. Trump claimed last week that Gaza has been turned into “literally a demolition site” by the fighting between Israel and Palestinian armed group Hamas, and that the best solution is to “just clean out that whole thing.” He vowed to “get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing [for Gaza’s population of 2.3 million] in a different location where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change.” According to the US president, the relocation “could be temporary” or “long term.”

Following a meeting of top diplomats in Cairo on Saturday, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority, and the Arab League issued a joint statement, saying they “firmly rejected… the displacement of Palestinians through direct expulsion or coerced migration.” These actions would “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples,” the statement read. The Arab nations said they are looking forward to working with Trump to “achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, based on the two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinians.

They also called on the international community to assist with a comprehensive reconstruction plan for Gaza to make sure that the Palestinians remain there. Last week, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi stressed that the relocation of Palestinians “cannot ever be tolerated or allowed.” Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, also expressed his country’s “firm and unwavering” opposition to the move. Shortly after the escalation between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, the previous administration of US President Joe Biden suggested that Egypt should take in the Palestinians from Gaza, but the Arab nations rejected the idea.

Around 47,500 Palestinians have been killed and over 111,500 wounded during the 15 months of Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to the latest data from the enclave’s Health Ministry. UN data suggests that 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the fighting. Israel began its military operation in Gaza in response to a cross-border raid by Hamas, in which around 1,200 people died and 250 others were taken prisoner. A US-brokered ceasefire is currently underway between Israel and Hamas, with prisoner exchanges ongoing. The Israeli authorities say that 79 hostages still remain in Gaza, 35 of whom are presumed dead.

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An adventure.

• Musk Urges Astronauts To Lead Mars Investigation (RT)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has called for astronauts to be sent to Mars to investigate a peculiar square structure observed on the planet’s surface that has recently generated much public discussion. On Friday, Musk responded to a post on X by podcast host Joe Rogan, who shared images from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor showing a square-like formation on Mars. “We should send astronauts to Mars to investigate!” the US-based billionaire wrote. The photo was captured back in November 2001 but has recently gone viral on social media. The square formation has sparked discussions about its origin, with some speculating about it being artificial in nature.

However, similar formations have been observed on Mars before. For example, the “Face on Mars” in the Cydonia region, initially thought to be artificial, was later shown through higher-resolution imaging to be a natural landform. Such interest in anomalies on the Martian surface aligns with Musk’s long-standing ambition to colonize the planet. He has previously emphasized the importance of making life multiplanetary, stating that becoming a spacefaring civilization is essential for the future of humanity. SpaceX has been actively developing its Starship spacecraft, which is designed to carry both crew and cargo to far-flung destinations including Mars.

In December, Musk set a potential timeline for his company’s space missions to the Red Planet. “Uncrewed Starships landing on Mars in 2 years, perhaps with crewed versions passing near Mars, and crewed Starships heading there in 4 years are all possible,” he wrote on X. He has also stated that he would want to see “direct, rather than representative, democracy” on Mars if it’s ever settled by humans. He has previously outlined plans to send a million people to Mars by 2050 using a fleet of Starships. US President Donald Trump announced in his inaugural address plans to send American astronauts to Mars, stating: “We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”

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Change the world.

• Rosatom’s Quantum Breakthrough Set to Transform AI, Healthcare and More (Sp.)

A quantum research project conducted under the auspices of the Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom is poised to cement Moscow’s place as one of world’s technological powerhouses. Russia’s development of 50-qubit ion-based and rubidium neutral atom quantum computers in 2024 marks a key step in its quantum project roadmap. The next phase is going to be unveiled in Moscow on February 8. Russia’s accomplishments were made possible by a unique team of researchers and engineers of over 1,000 specialists, including about 600 scientists. By 2030, Rosatom intends to build a viable quantum industry in Russia, which entails industrial-scale manufacturing of quantum computers.

Quantum computing is expected to benefit Russia in the following areas:
• Healthcare and pharmaceuticals: development of new medicines thanks to the ability to model complex molecules, and prediction of future epidemics.
• Transportation and logistics: charting optimal transport routes and prevention of traffic congestion.
• Financial sector: minimization of risks and more accurate evaluation of credit ratings of various entities.
• Artificial intelligence: boosting machine learning, image recognition and data processing capabilities of AIs.

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So last year.

• CBS To Provide Unedited Version Of Harris ‘Word Salad’ Interview (RT)

CBS News has agreed to provide the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with the unedited version of its controversial interview with former Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The interview is at the center of US President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit alleging that the network deceptively edited the interview to benefit Harris in the run-up to the 2024 election. The scandal erupted in October when CBS aired two versions of the interview with Harris. A preview version that aired on ‘Face the Nation’ included a question about the Middle East conflict, to which Harris gave a long and convoluted answer. The other full-length version shown on ‘60 Minutes’ featured a much clearer and more concise answer.

Just days ahead of the election, Trump lodged a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS, calling the interview “word salad” and accusing the network of “deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news.” The action also claims that CBS tried “to tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party.” On Wednesday, as part of the legal proceedings, the FCC, under Trump appointee Brendan Carr, sent a letter to CBS requesting the “full, unedited transcript and camera feeds” of the Harris interview. On Friday, CBS agreed to hand over the data, stating, “We are working to comply with that inquiry as we are legally compelled to do.”

The network has admitted that it edited the Harris interview, but dismissed claims that it attempted to doctor it. “Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response. When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point,” CBS said. However, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing sources, that CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, is discussing a potential lawsuit settlement with Trump’s legal team. Some executives reportedly believe that the deal could improve the chances of obtaining regulatory approval for Paramount’s planned merger with Skydance Media, which falls under the FCC’s purview. The potential deal has reportedly caused concern among CBS reporters, with one unnamed correspondent telling CNN that “Trump’s lawsuit was a joke, but if we settle, we become the laughingstock.”

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It’s my turn now.

• Exhausted Media Begs Trump To Take A Day Off (BBee)

Only one week into the new administration and struggling to keep up with the constant flow of things being accomplished, the exhausted news media collectively begged President Donald Trump to take a day off. Journalists and broadcasters who are not used to working quite this hard urgently asked Trump’s staff if they could please ask him to just pause for one single, solitary day. “Please… please… just let up for a second,” said a visibly disheveled Jake Tapper. “The executive orders, the trips to disaster-ravaged areas of the country, the manhandling of foreign leaders and making them do things that help the United States… it’s impossible to keep up this pace. We’re not used to working this much. Why is a president doing so much anyway?”

Other members of the media were just as adamant that Trump needed to take a day off. “What, he’s just going to keep, like… doing stuff? Like every day?” asked CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan. “I’m starting to wonder if Trump knows anything about being president. He clearly doesn’t if he thinks it’s okay to be accomplishing important tasks every day. He should be taking our well-being into account. We’re not used to this. All the… working.” At publishing time, several members of the White House press pool had reportedly been rushed to the hospital to be treated for exhaustion after passing out from being overworked.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Baron
https://twitter.com/i/status/1886223104919339078

 

 

Get rich

 

 

Mammogram

 

 

Eagle
https://twitter.com/i/status/1885995199010152795

 

 

Chains

 

 

Anemone

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 7 2024

Oct 072024
 
 October 7, 2024  Posted by at 8:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  77 Responses »


Francisco Goya Fire at night 1793-94

 

• Trump Promises To Reach Mars (RT)
• Harris Calls for Backup: Obama Joins Struggle to Keep Campaign Afloat (Sp.)
• Milton Strengthens to Hurricane, DeSantis Preps Gulf Coast (ET)
• “We Lose Total Control”: Clinton Continues Her Censorship Campaign (Turley)
• RFK Jr. Focused on America’s Chronic Disease Problem (ET)
• Biden Urges Congress to Replenish Disaster Relief Funding (ET)
• Slovak PM Fico Pledges To Block Ukrainian NATO Membership (RT)
• Zelensky Rules Out ‘Bargaining’ With Russia (RT)
• Khamenei’s Lebanese Red Line (Rizk)
• Israel Won’t Last Long – Khamenei (RT)
• 4 in 5 Gaza Mosques, All 3 Churches Devastated in Israel Bombing Campaign (Sp.)
• ‘America is Partner and Financier of Israel’s Crimes’ – Houthi Leader (Sp.)
• Medvedev Calls for ‘Sinking’ of Great Britain (RT)
• Julian Assange’s Oct. 1 Address with Comment by Paul Craig Roberts (PCR)

 

 

 

 

Trump Elon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1842701203630690680

 

 

Grace of God

 

 

Rally

 

 

Star Spangled

 

 

Discover

 

 

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1842674700323021299

 

 

Walz

 

 

Biden immigrants

 

 

US child trafficking

 

 

Shah
https://twitter.com/i/status/1842829985754521677

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We’re gonna win, and he’s gonna reach Mars by the end of our term, which is a big thing, before China, before anybody. My money’s on that guy [Musk].”

• Trump Promises To Reach Mars (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has pledged to “reach Mars” before the end of his term in office, should he defeat Vice President Kamala Harris next month. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will lead the mission, Trump declared. Musk joined Trump for a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday evening. During the event, which took place at the site of Trump’s attempted assassination in July, the 45th president issued a series of familiar campaign promises – vowing to close the US southern border, end the Ukraine conflict, and lower energy prices and inflation – as well as a pledge to reach the Red Planet before 2028. ”We will lead the world in space exploration,” he told the audience. “We will reach Mars before the end of my term.” “Elon promised me that he was going to do that,” Trump continued, before turning to Musk and asking “I don’t know, can you do that?”

“We’re gonna win, and he’s gonna reach Mars by the end of our term, which is a big thing, before China, before anybody. My money’s on that guy [Musk].” During his first term in office, Trump issued a series of space-related executive orders and policy directives. He tasked NASA in 2017 with leading “the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations,” and in 2019 established the US Space Force as the sixth branch of the country’s military, leading opponents to accuse him of militarizing space. Musk, who endorsed Trump’s campaign earlier this summer, has promised for years to make humanity a “multiplanetary” civilization. However, he blames excessive government regulation for delaying his planned colonization of Mars.

Last month, Musk claimed that his SpaceX reusable ‘Starship’ rocket would be ready for uncrewed flights to Mars within two years, and crewed flights two years later. After the Federal Aviation Administration denied SpaceX permission to test the rocket before November due to environmental concerns, Musk took to his X platform to complain that “we will never get humanity to Mars if this continues.” “Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware,” SpaceX wrote in a statement at the time. “This should never happen and directly threatens America’s position as the leader in space.” During his first term, Trump pushed the idea of cutting two government regulations for every new one enacted. If elected again, he has promised to go further, telling the New York Economic Club last month that he would “eliminate a minimum of 10 old regulations for every one regulation” imposed.

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“..some Democrats, including a few of Harris’ staff, were concerned that the vice president was not holding enough campaign events..”

• Harris Calls for Backup: Obama Joins Struggle to Keep Campaign Afloat (Sp.)

Former President Barack Obama is stepping in to save the day, as he’ll start hitting the campaign trail for Vice President Kamala Harris starting October 10, according to ABC News. Obama will help Harris in her campaign through election day, his speeches are planned in key swing states, the first of which will be Pennsylvania, a senior member of Harris’ campaign told the broadcaster. Earlier, NBC News reported that some Democrats, including a few of Harris’ staff, were concerned that the vice president was not holding enough campaign events, which could cost her the election. The US presidential election will take place on November 5. The Democratic Party will be represented by Vice President Kamala Harris, and the Republican Party by former President Donald Trump.

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“Milton has intensified into a category 1 hurricane. [..] ..expected to make landfall on Wednesday on the Gulf Coast of Florida as a Category 3 major hurricane..”

• Milton Strengthens to Hurricane, DeSantis Preps Gulf Coast (ET)

Milton has intensified into a category 1 hurricane. According to the 2 p.m. ET advisory from the National Hurricane Center on Sunday, Milton was about 815 miles west-southwest of Tampa, Florida. It is expected to make landfall on Wednesday on the Gulf Coast of Florida as a Category 3 major hurricane. Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis said earlier on Sunday that the state is preparing for the storm and that the top priority is round-the-clock debris cleanup from Hurricane Helene, which hit only 10 days ago. “This is all hands on deck to get that debris where it needs to be,” he said during a press conference at the state’s emergency operations center on Oct. 6. A tropical storm warning has been issued for Mexico’s Celestún to the Caribbean’s Cabo Catoche, while a tropical storm watch is in effect for east of Cabo Catoche to Cancún. Hurricane and storm surge watches could be required for for portions of Florida later Sunday.

When DeSantis gave his briefing, the tracks predicted landfall on Madeira Beach in Pinellas County, and he warned that along with the intense winds, storm surge damage could exceed that of Helene. “Most of the Big Bend is uninhabited,” he said. “When you’re talking about Tampa Bay, and you talk about what even 10 feet of storm surge would do in an area that has, I mean, the Greater Tampa Bay Area has millions of people. “That is just a level of damage, I think, that would far exceed the damage that was done in the Big Bend.” DeSantis and Kevin Guthrie, executive director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, announced plans underway to stage resources in the Tampa Bay area. They said they are prepared for the possibility of Tampa Bay landfall and a storm track that runs along the I-4 corridor across the state, causing debris, significant power outages, and infrastructure damage.

“The State Emergency Response Team planning section has been working this particular scenario, as well as other scenarios, for at least two weeks now,” Guthrie said. “So that’s what’s making us very effective in the response before hurricane season ever began. Our team knew to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.” High-water vehicles have been sent to Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties. A Hillsborough County fire station received 400 feet of flood protection systems, and another 1,800 feet will be distributed to wastewater facilities, pump stations, and a hospital in Hillsborough and Manatee counties. DeSantis also recalled members of Florida’s State Guard, National Guard, Fish and Wildlife, Highway Patrol, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who were deployed to help North Carolina and Tennessee recover from Helene, along with all necessary equipment to respond to Milton.

“I have the State Emergency Response Team preparing for the largest evacuation that we have seen, most likely since 2017 hurricane Irma,” Guthrie said, urging Floridians to finalize their hurricane plans as soon as possible. Guthrie added that the Florida Department of Emergency Management has “thought through a lot of contingencies,” including providing emergency fuel and EV charging along evacuation routes, as well as identifying every potential housing location, which his division calls “a refuge of last resort.” Meanwhile, debris cleanup remains a top priority across the Gulf Coast before tropical storm conditions return. In his Oct. 5 executive order declaring a state of emergency for 35 counties—now amended to 51—the governor ordered all disaster debris management sites and landfills in all Helene-impacted counties to remain open for 24-hour operations.

Gulf

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“..Clinton will hopefully continue to face “a long and difficult road to getting anything done” in limiting the free speech of her fellow citizens.”

• “We Lose Total Control”: Clinton Continues Her Censorship Campaign (Turley)

Hillary Clinton is continuing her global efforts to get countries, including the United States, to crackdown on opposing views. Clinton went on CNN to lament the continued resistance to censorship and to call upon Congress to limit free speech. In pushing her latest book, “Something Lost and Something Gained,” Clinton amplified on her warnings about the dangers of free speech. What is clear is that the gain of greater power for leaders like Clinton would be the loss of free speech for ordinary citizens. Clinton heralded the growing anti-free speech movement and noted that “there are people who are championing it, but it’s been a long and difficult road to getting anything done.” She is right, of course. As I discuss in my book, the challenge for anti-free speech champions like Clinton is that it is not easy to convince a free peope to give up their freedom.

That is why figures like Clinton are going “old school” and turning to government or corporations to simply crackdown on citizens. One of the lowest moments came after Elon Musk bought Twitter on a pledge to restore free speech protections, Clinton called upon European officials to force Elon Musk to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). This is a former democratic presidential nominee calling upon Europeans to force the censorship of Americans. She was joined recently by another former democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, who called for government crackdowns on free speech. Other democrats have praised Brazil for banning X. For her part, Clinton praised the anti-free speech efforts in California and New York and called for the rest of the country to replicate the approach of those states.

Clinton added a particularly illuminating line that said the quiet part out loud. This is all about power and the fear that she and others will “lose control” over speech: “Whether it’s Facebook or Twitter or X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don’t moderate and monitor the content we lose total control and it’s not just the social and psychological effects it’s real harm, it’s child porn and threats of violence, things that are terribly dangerous.” Clinton continues to offer a textbook example of the anti-free speech narrative. While seeking sweeping censorship for anything deemed disinformation, Clinton cites specific examples that are already barred under federal law like child porn.

Despite the amplified message on sites like CNN, most citizens may not be as aggrieved as Clinton that she and her allies could “lose total control” over the Internet. The greater fear is that she and her allies could regain control of social media. The Internet is the single greatest invention for free speech since the printing press. That is precisely why figures like Clinton are panicked over the inability to control it. If citizens remain true to their values and this indispensable right, Clinton will hopefully continue to face “a long and difficult road to getting anything done” in limiting the free speech of her fellow citizens.

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“I prayed to God every day for the past 19 years that America’s health crisis would be solved for the next generation..“

• RFK Jr. Focused on America’s Chronic Disease Problem (ET)


Rescue the Republic rally in Washington on Sept. 29, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu.

As the dust settles on his White House bid, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is focusing on his initiative, Make America Healthy Again, with the goal to turn around what he calls a chronic disease epidemic in the United States. Kennedy suspended his independent presidential campaign on Aug. 23 and threw his support behind former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee. Trump has promised to appoint Kennedy to a health-related role in a potential second term. Kennedy told The Epoch Times in September that ending his presidential campaign was a difficult decision, but it was a “necessary step” to achieving his mission. “I prayed to God every day for the past 19 years that America’s health crisis would be solved for the next generation,“ he said. ”That is a major reason why I ran for president.” Kennedy’s campaign platform focused on fighting “corporate capture of government agencies” and ending the chronic disease epidemic.

An environmental lawyer and founder of Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy believes one issue impacts the other. U.S. corporations, Kennedy said, have made America the sickest country in the world. “We enriched these corporations and their captive agencies. And now they want to go and commoditize all of the things we value in our lives,” he said on a soggy afternoon on Sept. 30. Kennedy was among the keynote speakers at Rescue the Republic, a day-long rally that brought 6,500 supporters of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement to the National Mall in Washington. Little will change until the corporate capture of government agencies is removed, he said. “The FDA, USDA, and CDC are all controlled by giant or private corporations. Their function is no longer to improve and protect the health of Americans. Their function is to advance the mercantile and commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry that has transformed them and the food industry that has transformed them into sock puppets,” he said at the event.

At an earlier address in Washington, Kennedy said the state of health care should be measured by patient outcomes, including chronic illness, childhood obesity, and life expectancy. He pointed out that the United States is significantly behind other countries with smaller economies, such as Italy, which has a higher life expectancy and spends less on health care. “Today, we are an average of six years behind our European neighbors. Are we lazier and more suicidal than Italians or is there a problem with our system? Are there problems with our incentives? Are there problems with our food?” Kennedy said. He said the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, has contributed to the nation’s health care crisis by driving up insurance premiums and “making health care the largest driver of inflation while American life expectancy plummets.” Since the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy has been an outspoken critic of how elected officials and public health leaders managed the crisis.

The United States had one of the worst COVID outcomes in the world with deaths, he said. “Our health leaders said that COVID was a pharmaceutical deficiency. This was a lie. We have the highest chronic disease rate on earth.” Two-thirds of U.S. adults suffer from chronic health issues, Kennedy noted, and 74 percent are overweight or obese. “When my uncle was president [1961-63], about 1 percent of the children in this country had a chronic disease. That number may be as high as 60 percent in America today,” he said. He sees the chronic disease epidemic among American children as a form of abuse. “Children are the most precious assets that we have in this country. How can we let this happen to them? How can we call ourselves a moral nation, the most exemplary democracy in the world, if we are treating our children like this?” He said diseases that once mostly impacted the elderly are now increasingly common among children.

“About 18 percent of American teens now have fatty liver disease,” Kennedy stated. “When I was a boy, this only affected late-stage alcoholics who were elderly. Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the young and old. Young adult cancers are up 79 percent, and 1 in 4 American women is on antidepressant medication. Forty percent of teens have a mental health diagnosis; 15 percent of high schoolers are on Adderall. No other country has anything like this.” Ultra-processed foods are a primary culprit in the medical crisis impacting the young, he said. “Seventy percent of American children’s diet is now ultra-processed, which means industrial, manufactured in a factory.” He said these ultra-processed foods have chemicals that didn’t exist a century ago and are partly responsible for the rise in diseases in all ages.

Read more …

Now when the money runs out Congress is to blame. That was easy…

• Biden Urges Congress to Replenish Disaster Relief Funding (ET)

President Joe Biden urged Congress on Friday to expedite funding for the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) disaster loan program, warning that it will run out of money within weeks amid ongoing recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. In a letter to Congress on Oct. 4, Biden warned that the SBA’s disaster loan program will run out of funding “in a matter of weeks and well before the Congress is planning to reconvene.” “I warned the Congress of this potential shortfall even before Hurricane Helene landed on America’s shores,” the president stated, adding that he had requested more funding for SBA “multiple times” in the past months. “Small businesses and individuals in affected areas depend on disaster loans as a critical lifeline during difficult times,” he said. “The Congress must act to restore this funding.” The president did not specify the amount needed to replenish the disaster loan program.

The SBA offers low-interest loans to businesses, homeowners, and renters affected by declared disasters. Its loan program provides affected homeowners with up to $500,000 to repair their primary residence, and up to $2 million for businesses to cover disaster-related losses. In his letter, Biden stated that while the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster relief fund has sufficient resources to meet its immediate needs for Hurricane Helene response efforts, it could face a shortfall by the end of the year. FEMA and the Department of Defense have been carrying out “critical life-saving and life-sustaining missions” due to impacts from Hurricane Helene, which made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Sept. 26. Biden said that FEMA will continue to perform its missions “within present funding levels” but urged Congress to provide additional resources. “Without additional funding, FEMA would be required to forego longer-term recovery activities in favor of meeting urgent needs,” the president stated.

Biden traveled to North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia this week to tour areas severely impacted by the storm, which caused heavy flooding and widespread power outages. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Oct. 2 that FEMA does not have enough money to make it through the hurricane season. “We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mayorkas told reporters aboard Air Force One on Oct. 2. Hurricane Helene barreled through the Southeast last week, making landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region. The storm hammered Florida’s Gulf Coast with record storm surges and brutal winds before pommeling the rest of the region with historic flooding, wiping out entire towns. More than 150,000 households have registered for FEMA assistance, according to Frank Matranga, an agency representative. That number is expected to climb as rescue and recovery efforts continue.

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“Ukraine’s entry into NATO would serve as a good basis for a third world war.”

• Slovak PM Fico Pledges To Block Ukrainian NATO Membership (RT)

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has said that his country would not allow Ukraine to join NATO as long as he stays in power. Admitting Kiev into the US-led military alliance would trigger a new world war, he warned in an interview with the broadcaster STVR on Sunday. “As long as I am the prime minister of the Slovak Republic, I will lead the legislators, whom I have control over as a party chairman, to never agree to Ukraine’s membership in NATO,” Fico said. “Ukraine’s entry into NATO would serve as a good basis for a third world war.” Fico, a longtime critic of Western military and financial aid to Ukraine, has insisted that the conflict must be resolved through diplomatic means. He repeatedly warned against further escalation with Moscow. The accession of new countries must be approved by all of NATO’s 32 existing members, with national parliaments voting in favor or against new candidates.

Kiev formally applied to join NATO in September 2022, citing the ongoing conflict with Russia. While many Western states publicly backed Ukraine’s aspirations, they have refused to provide a concrete roadmap or a timetable for accession. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zenesky acknowledged in July that “we will not be in NATO until the war is over in Ukraine.” Russia views NATO’s expansion eastward as a security threat and has cited Ukraine’s cooperation with the alliance as one of the main reasons behind the conflict. President Vladimir Putin warned last month that using Western-supplied longer-range weapons for strikes deep inside Russia would be tantamount to “direct involvement” of NATO in the fighting.

Read more …

Russia has no intention of bargaining.

• Zelensky Rules Out ‘Bargaining’ With Russia (RT)

Kiev has no plans to cede any territories to achieve peace in the conflict with Russia, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has said, following media reports that the West is considering a settlement with Moscow in which it retains “de-facto” control over some areas formerly controlled by Kiev. In a video address on Saturday, the Zelensky announced that Ukrainian officials would discuss Kiev’s so-called ‘victory plan’ with Western backers next week, claiming it would help strengthen the country, especially in the military sphere. Kiev has yet to release the much-hyped roadmap to the public, though it has promised to do so, at least with regard to the essential points. Several media reports, however, claim that the plan includes NATO-like Western security guarantees for Ukraine, the continuation of Kiev’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region to serve as a territorial bargaining chip, deliveries of “specific” Western-made advanced weapons, and international financial aid for Ukraine.

The plan was presented by Zelensky in the US last month, and was reportedly met with skepticism by officials who suggested that it contains no “real surprises” and largely amounts to a “wish list,” according to Bloomberg. Discussions with Kiev’s Western backers will enable it to move closer to ending the conflict in line with Zelensky’s ‘peace formula’, the Ukrainian leader said, referring to his plan which demands that Russia withdraw troops from territories claimed by Ukraine. This has been rejected by Moscow as a non-starter for talks. “This is our goal – to guarantee Ukraine reliable peace and security. This is possible only based on international law and without any bargaining over sovereignty or trading territories,” he stated.

His remarks come after the Financial Times reported that Western diplomats and some Ukrainian officials “have come round to the view that meaningful security guarantees could form the basis of a negotiated settlement in which Russia retains de facto, but not de jure, control of all or part of the Ukrainian territory.” The outlet noted that this approach implies “tacit acceptance that those lands should be regained through diplomatic means in the future,” adding, however, that this remains a “taboo” for Kiev, at least in public. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow is ready to immediately declare a ceasefire and start peace negotiations as soon as Ukraine starts withdrawing troops from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye. In August, however, he ruled out any engagement with Kiev as long as Ukrainian troops are occupying parts of Kursk Region.

Read more …

“..his first public sermon in nearly five years..”

• Khamenei’s Lebanese Red Line (Rizk)

Friday’s commemoration of Hezbollah’s late leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in Iran was no ordinary event and provides an indication of how far Tehran is willing to go to preserve the Axis of Resistance in the face of Israeli escalation. Thousands reportedly turned out for the commemoration ceremony, in which Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei led Friday prayers before addressing the gathered masses. Khamenei’s public appearance can itself be seen as both an act of defiance directed at the Axis’ enemies and a message of reassurance to its supporters, who are no doubt looking to Iran for leadership following Nasrallah’s assassination. The Iranian leader’s public appearance comes after foreign media reports that he had been moved to an undisclosed location for safety reasons in the immediate aftermath of Nasrallah’s assassination.

Perhaps more importantly, it comes on the heels of Operation True Promise 2, in which Iran launched a heavy barrage of missiles on Israel, which, according to the Iranians, hit 90 percent of their intended targets. That operation was notably heavier-handed than the first True Promise, which came in response to Israel’s attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus last April and marked the first direct military action by Tehran on Israel. In an article for Foreign Policy, Vali Nasr notes how Iran’s second direct attack on Israel was carried out with far less advanced warning compared to the April operation. Nasr – considered an authoritative voice in Washington on issues related to West Asia – also explained how the latest missile salvo “signaled Iran’s will and ability to attack Israel – and penetrate its defense systems in potentially damaging ways.”

True Promise 2 came in response to the assassination of Nasrallah, Hamas Political Bureau Chief Ismael Haniyeh, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Abbas Nilforushan, conveying a clear message that Iran, contrary to many assessments, was ready to escalate. This message was reinforced by Khamenei on Friday, as he delivered some fiery remarks with a rifle by his side. “What our armed forces did was the minimum punishment for the crimes of the usurping Zionist regime,” said Khamenei in reference to Iran’s latest offensive, while warning that Tehran was ready to conduct more direct military action against Israel should the need arise.

These warnings come amid much speculation on Israel’s likely response to True Promise 2, as senior officials in Tel Aviv have pledged that Iran’s attack will not go unanswered, and the Israeli military appears to be readying a large-scale operation against Iran, with US support. In turn, senior Iranian military officials have warned that any Israeli operations targeting Iranian soil would be met with devastating blows, far exceeding the strikes Tehran has conducted in both its previous operations. As IRGC Deputy Commander Ali Fadavi said in a statement published by Iranian state-affiliated media: “If the occupiers make such a mistake [attack Iran], we will target all their energy sources, installations, and all refineries and gas fields.”

That Iran has upped the ante dramatically in the aftermath of Nasrallah’s assassination speaks to how determined it is to demonstrate that this setback will not weaken the Axis of Resistance. Perhaps even more importantly, these latest developments speak to the special relationship between the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah. This is reflected in the fact that Khamenei’s speech was the first time in which Iran’s supreme leader publicly addressed a mass crowd since the US assassination of IRGC Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in early 2020, further highlighting the special status of Nasrallah throughout Iran, and with Khamenei, at a personal level.

Read more …

“..those who help” the Palestinians and support them are merely “doing their duty.”

• Israel Won’t Last Long – Khamenei (RT)

The surprise attack on Israel launched by Hamas last year was a “logical and legal” step towards defeating the “malicious and cowardly” Zionist regime, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said. On Friday, in his first public sermon in nearly five years, Khamenei defended the actions against Israel by the ‘axis of resistance’, which includes the Lebanese-based Hezbollah and Palestinian group Hamas. Monday marks one year since the start of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, which came in response to Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,100 people were killed and more than 200 people were taken hostage. Israel’s campaign in the enclave, following years of a de-facto blockade of Gaza, has resulted in the deaths of over 41,000 Palestinians, Gaza’s Health Ministry said earlier this week.

Tensions between Israel and neighboring Muslim countries have soared during the Gaza operation, with both Iran and Hezbollah supporting Hamas and Palestine. Earlier this month, the conflict entered a new stage as Israel launched a ground operation in Lebanon. In retaliation, Iran launched a massive missile attack on Israel this week. Khamenei said in his sermon that the Palestinians, like “every people,” have “the right to defend their land, their home, their country, and their interests against aggressors,” and this “logic is supported by international law.” He added that “those who help” the Palestinians and support them are merely “doing their duty.” “This is the rule of Islam, the rule of reason, and international and global logic. The Palestinians are defending their land; their defense is legitimate, and helping them is also logical and legal,” he stated. He defended Iran’s recent missile attack on Israel, saying it was “the minimum punishment for the usurping and bloodthirsty Zionist regime… whose only achievement has been to bomb homes, schools, hospitals and civilian gathering centers” in Gaza.

Khamenei went on to say that Iran “will perform any duty required” to see Israel defeated, claiming that West Jerusalem has only managed to “survive” for so long due to the assistance of its allies in the West. “This regime acts like rabid wolves and raging dogs of America in the region. This malicious and cowardly entity has barely kept itself afloat thanks to America’s support, and it will not last long,” he said. Khamenei stressed that the main problem in the Middle East is foreign interference, as “the countries of the region are capable of establishing security and peace” if left alone. He criticized America’s involvement and support for West Jerusalem, saying the US has never wanted peace in the Middle East, but has instead been pursuing the goal “of turning Israel into a tool to seize all the natural resources of the region and invest them in major global conflicts.”

Read more …

“..the use of AI-assisted “kill-lists” known as Lavender – allowing 15, 20, or 100 or more civilians to be killed to eliminate one suspected Hamas operative..”

• 4 in 5 Gaza Mosques, All 3 Churches Devastated in Israel Bombing Campaign (Sp.)

At least two dozen people were killed and nearly 100 injured in an airstrike on a mosque sheltering displaced persons in the city of Deir al Balah, central Gaza early Sunday. The IDF confirmed responsibility for the strike, alleging that the mosque and a nearby school were used by Hamas as a command post. Some 814 of 1,245 mosques in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed, another 148 partially damaged, and all three of the strip’s churches ravaged. Those are the stark conclusions reached by Gaza’s Ministry of Religious Affairs on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Gaza war, which has become the deadliest chapter in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since 1948. According to the ministry, 19 of 60 cemeteries in its care have been targeted, eight destroyed, and 11 damaged, and grave sites and remains have been exhumed, desecrated, plundered, and mutilated in areas where Israeli troops have operated.

The campaign of Israeli airstrikes is estimated to have destroyed some 79% of all religious sites in the enclave, causing some $350 million in damage. Eleven of 14 administrative and educational facilities under the Ministry of Religious Affairs’ care have also been targeted, with nine of them razed, the ministry said. Targeted sites included the ministry’s headquarters, the Holy Quran Radio building, the Khan Yunis Endowments Directorate, the Antiquities and Manuscripts Center, the Endowments Sharia School for Boys and the College of Islamic Propagation’s northern branch. Nine of the ministry’s vehicles have also been destroyed. Over the past year, 238 Religious Affairs Ministry employees have been killed and 19 others detained by Israeli forces, according to the figures. The ministry called on the international community and Islamic organizations to intervene to stop what it characterized as an “ongoing war of extermination.”

The Gaza conflict has now claimed the lives of over 43,000 people, mostly Palestinian civilians, and maimed nearly 97,000 others – collectively accounting for over 6% of the strip’s prewar population of 2.1-2.3 million people. An estimated 99% of Gaza’s population is Sunni Muslim, with Christians, Shia, and Ahmadi Muslim communities making up less than 1% of residents. Before the war, Christians were tightly packed into Gaza City, worshiping at the Gaza Baptist Church, the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, and the Catholic Holy Family Church. All three have been targeted by Israeli aerial bombardments. The severity of Israel’s operations in Gaza, which have reportedly included the use of AI-assisted “kill-lists” known as Lavender – allowing 15, 20, or 100 or more civilians to be killed to eliminate one suspected Hamas operative – has sparked international outrage and condemnation. Over a dozen countries have signed onto South Africa’s International Court of Justice case against Israel accusing the nation of “genocide” in Gaza. Israeli officials have rejected the allegations.

Read more …

“..a “curse” would “fall on the Zionist enemy,” and the “global conscience” sure to remember its “crimes.”

• ‘America is Partner and Financier of Israel’s Crimes’ – Houthi Leader (Sp.)

The Houthis’ escalating conflict with Israel is nearing its one-year anniversary, having started on October 19, 2023 with the launch of missiles and drones toward Tel Aviv, and expanding in November of that year into a partial blockade of the Red and Arabian Seas which the US and its allies have proven unable to effectively challenge. “America is a partner and financier of all the crimes of the Zionist enemy. It is killing the Palestinian nation and has brought suffering and misery to this nation,” Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a televised address Sunday on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Gaza War. Pointing to the US provision of large amounts of armaments to Israel in decades past, al-Houthi said Washington had delivered the “devil of wars” in Tel Aviv “the deadliest weapons” over the past year, including hundreds of transport planeloads and over 100 shiploads, (among this 240 planes and 20 ships worth in the first three months of the conflict alone).

“The Israeli enemy has used about 100,000 tons of explosives, including bombs, missiles and rockets, which were provided by the United States,” the militia leader asserted, adding that this includes an estimated 10,000 tons of unexploded ordonnance currently littering the Gaza Strip today, and US-made bombs prohibited under international law. “The enemy has mobilized all its resources to attack Gaza, and America, Britain and the West have supported this regime through the Gaza War. The Israeli enemy attacked Gaza with an army of over 350,000 soldiers and reserve forces…sending five formations under the cover of fire from the land, sea and air. This has been the most violent and brutal attack in the history of wars,” al-Houthi said. Listing off a series of “murders and massacres” he said had targeted Gaza’s residents over the past year, al-Houthi warned that a “curse” would “fall on the Zionist enemy,” and the “global conscience” sure to remember its “crimes.”

Al-Houthi went on to blast the US over what he characterized as Washington’s “obstruction” of efforts at the United Nations to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, including the blocking of five ceasefire resolutions, while its officials visited Israel. Characterizing ‘Al-Aqsa Storm’ – the Hamas surprise attack into southern Israel on October 7, 2023 which kicked off the present war, as a “very big and very hard blow to the Israeli enemy,” al-Houthi asserted that “no matter how much the Israeli enemy continues with its genocide, killing and terrorism, it will not achieve the result it wants.

No matter how many genocidal crimes it commits, it will not bring about any result other than the downfall and destruction of this regime.” “The [Axis of Resistance] fronts of support in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen are one of the most important features of this round of the conflict with the Israeli enemy…and this situation is unprecedented and has never been seen before in the past 75 years,” al-Houthi said. As for the Houthis, “one of the most important results of the Yemen operation has been preventing the movement of the Israeli enemy in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Arabian Sea,” al-Houthi said.

Read more …

“..we need to solve the problem radically and just sink the damned island of Anglo-Saxon dogs..”

• Medvedev Calls for ‘Sinking’ of Great Britain (RT)

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council and former president, has suggested ‘sinking Great Britain’ as a way to solve the country’s problems with London. The former president was responding to a statement made late last month by renowned Russian skiing champion Elena Vyalbe. In an exclusive interview with NEWS.ru outlet, the three-time Olympic champion and head of Russia’s Cross-Country Skiing Federation slammed the West for banning the country’s athletes from most international sports tournaments in response to the Ukraine conflict. Vyalbe claimed that “if we had dropped a serious bomb in the center of London, it would have all been over by now and we would have been allowed everywhere.”

Medvedev, who has become known for his sharp language in social media posts, argued that there are more effective ways to deal with the problem than bombing. “Our famous skier Elena Vyalbe suggested dropping a bomb on London. She’s right, of course, but we need to solve the problem radically and just sink the damned island of Anglo-Saxon dogs,” Medvedev said. He did not elaborate on whether ‘the problem’ refers to sports or the state of Russia’s relations with the UK in general. The UK and its NATO partners have sided with Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, providing Kiev with financial and military aid and placing sanctions on Moscow. London was among 30 nations that urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to uphold a ban it had placed on Russian and Belarusian athletes when it proposed allowing them to compete in the Summer Olympics this year.

Most Western-based sports bodies banned Russia and Belarus from taking part in international sports tournaments shortly after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, including the IOC, FIFA, FIDE, and others. Moscow has repeatedly criticized the restrictions. In her interview, Vyalbe slammed the IOC, calling it a “trash heap” that is “engaged in who knows what, but certainly not honest sport.” She added that while “sports has always been tied with politics,” the sweeping bans on athletes for political reasons “no longer resemble sport at all.”

Read more …

Julian Assange’s Address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on October 1, 2024, with Comment by Paul Craig Roberts.
(Assange address is under the link, this is PCR’s commenst)

• Julian Assange’s Oct. 1 Address with Comment by Paul Craig Roberts (PCR)

After reading Assange’s address I realized that all of this was just the tip of the iceberg. What the United States government did to Assange is worse than can be found in any dystopian novel. Read Assange’s speech, and then ask yourself how you can possibly believe you are a free person living in a free democratic country with accountable government where there is justice, mercy, integrity, morality, and the rule of law. Also notice that it was the Obama Justice Department that dropped all attempts to indict Assange as there are no legal grounds for his indictment, and that it was the Trump Justice Department that reopened the case under CIA pressure. If memory serves, the whores who comprise Western journalism came out against Assange, that is, the dumbshits came out against their own profession, and conservative pundits accused Assange of being a Russian spy. Get the traitor, get the traitor, screamed the presstitutes and conservative pundits.

It was pressure from the Council of Europe and funding of Assange’s lawyers by donations from individuals that caused the CIA to settle for Assange’s plea that he was “guilty of practicing journalism.” We might laugh, but what the CIA has accomplished is a possible precedent for the criminalization of truthful, objective journalism, and its replacement with enforcement of official narratives. Assange himself says he “pled guilty to being a journalist.” The guilty plea implies that journalism is a crime. How many people will be bothered to understand Assange’s treatment by the “great free democracy, the light of the world”? Hardly any, just as hardly any understand that Washington has provoked Russia to the point of nuclear war, and a majority of Americans, it seems, support Israel’s relentless slaughter of Palestinians redefined by Israel as “Muslim terrorists.” Suppose people were able to free themselves from insouciance and gain access to truth and understanding, what can they do without political leaders?

Where are their leaders? I can only think of two who have recognizable names: Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen. How have the ruling establishments reacted to these two representatives of the people? Trump has been served by the “freedom and democracy” US government with four criminal indictments for which he is on trial. Le Pen is on trial for representing French ethnicity. The official charge is embezzlement of funds, but her defense of a French ethnic nation makes her a racist under the ruling DEI ideology, and that is the real charge against her. How good are these two leaders? Le Pen must be pretty good. She has stood the heat for many years, and the party has grown. Possibly it is the largest of the French political parties, but the Establishment has been successful keeping it out of office. It seems Le Pen is on trial on an annual basis.

Trump is a neophyte, He defeated himself in his first term by stupidly surrounding himself with the representatives of the ruling establishment that he thought he was going to overthrow. Instead they overthrew him. Trump claims he has learned Washington since appointing Gestapo operatives such as Pompano and Barr and refusing to defend General Flynn, his only sensible appointment. But what has he learned? Did he learn that the Establishment is more powerful than the President and that second time around he had best get along with the Establishment? Leaders are rare. Even if one appears, he cannot count on the people’s support. Cicero, Quaestor, Procounsel, and Counsel of Rome, tried to rally the Roman people from their self-destruction and paid for it with his life. Trump tried to give power back to the American people and was punished for it with four criminal indictments. Le Pen tries to represent French ethnicity and is constantly legally harassed.

When the people themselves lose interest in their rights and cannot bring themselves to fight to regain them, they lose their freedom. In the United States today, and I think throughout the Western world, law has been weaponized against all who openly dissent from the Ruling Establishment’s narratives and agendas. As law is now a weapon in the hands of the state, why would Democrats, whose hand is on this weapon, permit an election to take it away from them? A sinking ship cannot change its course. If the Democrats steal a third national election, and the American people again accept it, there will not be another election. Americans will have crossed the Rubicon into tyranny. Older Americans will be slow to realize it, and new generations, having been born into tyranny will not know what has been lost, having never experienced freedom. This is the way liberty dies.

Read more …

 

 



 

 

RFK Covid

 

 

Maher Dr. Phil

 

 

Helper

 

 

Penguin

 

 

Ukame

 

 

Barcelona
https://twitter.com/i/status/1842963176545235161

 

 

Locks
https://twitter.com/i/status/1842837698890932241

 

 

 

 

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Everything That Dies Does Not Come Back

Jun 072018
 
 June 7, 2018  Posted by at 2:17 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Comments Off on Everything That Dies Does Not Come Back


Charles Sprague Pearce The Arab jeweler c1882

 

 

There are a lot of industries in our world that wreak outsized amounts of havoc. Think the biggest global banks and oil companies. Think plastics. But there is one field that is much worse than all others: agro-chemicals. At some point, not that long ago, the largest chemical producers, who until then had kept themselves busy producing Agent Orange, nerve agents and chemicals used in concentration camp showers, got the idea to use their products in food production.

While they had started out with fertilizers etc., they figured making crops fully dependent on their chemicals would be much more lucrative. They bought themselves ever more seeds and started manipulating them. And convinced more and more farmers, or rather food agglomerates, that if there were ‘pests’ that threatened their yields, they should simply kill them, rather than use natural methods to control them.

And in monocultures that actually makes sense. It’s the monoculture itself that doesn’t. What works in nature is (bio)diversity. It’s the zenith of cynicism that the food we need to live is now produced by a culture of death. Because that is what Monsanto et al represent: Their solution to whatever problem farmers may face is to kill it with poison. But that will end up killing the entire ecosystem a farmer operates within, and depends on.

However, the Monsantos of the planet produce much more ‘research’ material than anybody else, and it all says that the demise of ecosystems into which their products are introduced, has nothing to do with these products. And by the time anyone can prove the opposite, it will be too late: the damage will have been done through cross-pollination. Monsanto can then sue anyone who has crops that show traces of its genetically altered proprietary seeds, even if the last thing a farmer wants is to include those traces.

Anyway, when reading John Vidal in the Guardian yesterday, I was struck by some numbers. Bayer-Monsanto, soon to be just Bayer, own 60% of proprietary seeds and 70% of agrochemicals in the world. That’s roughly comparable to the numbers of vertebrates and insects that have vanished from the countrysides of Germany, France and England. Life itself is dying. Species extinction is now a bigger threat than climate change. Vidal:

 

Who Should Feed The World: Real People Or Faceless Multinationals?

“Through its many subsidiary companies and research arms, Bayer-Monsanto will have an indirect impact on every consumer and a direct one on most farmers in Britain, the EU and the US. It will effectively control nearly 60% of the world’s supply of proprietary seeds, 70% of the chemicals and pesticides used to grow food, and most of the world’s GM crop genetic traits, as well as much of the data about what farmers grow where, and the yields they get.

It will be able to influence what and how most of the world’s food is grown, affecting the price and the method it is grown by. But the takeover is just the last of a trio of huge seed and pesticide company mergers.” It will be able to influence what and how most of the world’s food is grown, affecting the price and the method it is grown by.

But the takeover is just the last of a trio of huge seed and pesticide company mergers. Backed by governments, and enabled by world trade rules and intellectual property laws, Bayer-Monsanto, Dow-DuPont and ChemChina-Syngenta have been allowed to control much of the world’s supply of seeds.

Do note that although Dow-DuPont and ChemChina-Syngenta may be large companies, Bayer-Monsanto alone own 60% of proprietary seeds and 70% of agrochemicals. Since they ‘only’ own 60% and 70%, they can’t be accused of running a monopoly. But their main product, glyphosate (Roundup) is also produced by Dow, DuPont and Syngenta. So together they do effectively run a monopoly. Just not ‘technically’. These guys have the world’s best and biggest legal, lobbying and PR teams. Because they’re after global control.

[..] because most farmers in rich countries already buy their seeds from the multinationals, opposition has barely been heard. Instead, it is coming from the likes of Debal Deb, an Indian plant researcher who grows forgotten crops and is the antithesis of Bayer and Monsanto. While they concentrate on developing a small number of blockbuster staple crops, Deb grows as many crops as he can and gives the seeds away.

This year he is cultivating an astonishing 1,340 traditional varieties of Indian “folk” rice on land donated to him in West Bengal. More than 7,000 farmers in six states will be given the seeds, on the condition that they also grow them and give some away.

This seed-sharing of “landraces”, or local varieties, is not philanthropy but the extension of an age-old system of mutualised farming that has provided social stability and dietary diversity for millions of people. By continually selecting, crossbreeding and then exchanging their seeds, farmers have developed varieties for their aroma, taste, colour, medicinal properties and resistance to pests, drought and flood.

The battle is between biodiversity and Monsanto, and the latter is winning big. Monsanto-Bayer wants farmers to grow only a few crops, that it has patents on, and to kill off everything else with the chemicals without which these crops will not grow. Monoculture on steroids, raised in sterile environments bereft of life. 75% of insects gone in Europe’s countrysides, 60% of vertebrates, birds and butterflies becoming a rarity.

It is insanity in its purest form. Insanity of individual people, insanity of legal systems, insanity of governance. No-one, and no country, should be obliged to prove that Monsanto’s products are killing off biodiversity. We have an instrument called the precautionary principle, and we must use it. Like Hippocrates’ First Do No Harm. It is not complicated.

But I must admit I sometimes think it’s already too late. Once you kill off 70% of any form of life, in any ecosystem, how is it going to recover? Because mind you, with the Bayer-Monsanto merger being approved worldwide, things are only going to get worse at ever increasing speed. The agro-chemical industry is a culture of death that relies for its profits on a giant die-off, probably worse than whatever it is that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

And the odds that mankind will survive this one are slim to none. Our survival depends one on one on the diversity in the ecosystems we reside in. But yeah, I hear you: intelligent species.

 

 

Here’s something I first published in December 2016. Things have gotten much worse much faster than I could have predicted back then. Kill Monsanto before it kills your children.

 

 

Mass Extinction and Mass Insanity

 


Caters Extremely rare albino elephant, Kruger National Park in South Africa

 

Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back …
Springsteen, Atlantic City

“Erwin Schrodinger (1945) has described life as a system in steady-state thermodynamic disequilibrium that maintains its constant distance from equilibrium (death) by feeding on low entropy from its environment – that is, by exchanging high-entropy outputs for low-entropy inputs. The same statement would hold verbatium as a physical description of our economic process. A corollary of this statement is that an organism cannot live in a medium of its own waste products.”
Herman Daly and Kenneth Townsend

 

What drives our economies is waste. Not need, or even demand. Waste. 2nd law of thermodynamics. It drives our lives, period.

First of all, don’t tell me you’re trying to stop the ongoing extinction of nature and wildlife on this planet, or the destruction of life in general. Don’t even tell me you’re trying. Don’t tell me it’s climate change that we should focus on (that’s just a small part of the story), and you’re driving an electric car and you’re separating your trash or things like that. That would only mean you’re attempting to willfully ignore your share of destruction, because if you do it, so will others, and the planet can’t take anymore of your behavior.

This is the big one. And the only ones amongst us who don’t think so are those who don’t want to. Who think it’s easier to argue that some problems are too big for them to tackle, that they should be left to others to solve. But why should we, why should anyone, worry about elections or even wars, when it becomes obvious we’re fast approaching a time when such things don’t matter much anymore?

The latest WWF Living Planet Report shows us that the planet is a whole lot less alive than it used to be. And that we killed that life. That we replaced it with metal, bricks, plastic and concrete. Mass consumption leads to mass extinction. And that is fully predictable, it always was; there’s nothing new there.

We killed 58% of all vertebrate wildlife just between 1970 and 2012, and at a rate of 2% per year we will have massacred close to 70% of it by 2020, just 4 years from now. So what does it matter who’s president of just one of the many countries we invented on this planet? Why don’t we address what’s really crucial to our very survival instead?

 

 

The latest report from the WWF should have us all abandon whatever it is we’re doing, and make acting to prevent further annihilation of our living world the key driver in our everyday lives, every hour of every day, every single one of us. Anything else is just not good enough, and anything else will see us, that self-nominated intelligent species, annihilated in the process.

Granted, there may be a few decrepit and probably halfway mutant specimens of our species left, living in conditions we couldn’t even begin, nor dare, to imagine, with what will be left of their intelligence wondering how our intelligence could have ever let this happen. You’d almost wish they’ll understand as little as we ever did; that some form of ignorance equal to ours will soften their pain.

It’s important to note that the report does not describe a stagnant situation, there’s no state of affairs, not something still, it describes an ongoing and deteriorating process. That is, we don’t get to choose to stop the ongoing wildlife annihilation at 70%; we are witnessing, and indeed we are actively involved in, raising that number by 2% every year that we ‘live’ (can we even call it that anymore, are you alive when you murder all life around you?) in this world.

This is our only home.

 

 

Without the natural world that we were born into, or rather that our species, our ancestors, were born into, we have zero chance of survival. Because it is the natural world that has allowed for, and created, the conditions that made it possible for mankind to emerge and develop in the first place. And we are nowhere near making an earth 2.0; the notion itself is preposterous. A few thousand years of man ‘understanding’ his world is no match for billions of years of evolution. That’s the worst insult to whatever intelligence it is that we do have.

Much has been made through the years of our ability to adapt to changing circumstances, and much of that is just as much hubris as so much of what we tell ourselves, but the big question should be WHY we would volunteer to find out to what extent we can adapt to a world that has sustained the losses we cause it to suffer. Even if we could to a degree adapt to that, why should we want to?

Two thirds of our world is gone, and it’s we who have murdered it, and what’s worse – judging from our lifestyles- we seem to have hardly noticed at all. If we don’t stop what we’ve been doing, this can lead to one outcome only: we will murder ourselves too. Our perhaps biggest problem (even if we have quite a few) in this regard is our ability and propensity to deny this, as we deny any and all -serious, consequential- wrongdoing.

 

 

There are allegedly serious and smart people working on, dreaming of, and getting billions in subsidies for, fantasies of human colonies on Mars. This is advertized as a sign of progress and intelligence. But that can only be true if we can acknowledge that our intelligence and our insanity are identical twins. Because it is insane to destroy the planet on which we depend one-on-one for everything that allows us to live, and at the same time dream of human life on another planet.

While I see no reason to address the likes of King of Subsidies Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking is different. Unfortunately, in Hawking’s case, with all his intelligence, it’s his philosophical capacity that goes missing.

Humanity Will Not Survive Another 1,000 Years If We Don’t Escape Our Planet

Professor Stephen Hawking has warned humanity will not survive another 1,000 years on Earth unless the human race finds another planet to live on. [..] Professor Hawking, 74, reflected on the understanding of the universe garnered from breakthroughs over the past five decades, describing 2016 as a “glorious time to be alive and doing research into theoretical physics”. “Our picture of the universe has changed a great deal in the last 50 years and I am happy if I have made a small contribution,“ he went on.

”The fact that we humans, who are ourselves mere fundamental particles of nature, have been able to come this close to understanding the laws that govern us and the universe is certainly a triumph.” Highlighting “ambitious” experiments that will give an even more precise picture of the universe, he continued: “We will map the position of millions of galaxies with the help of [super] computers like Cosmos. We will better understand our place in the universe.”

“But we must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity. I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet.”

The tragedy is that we may have gained some knowledge of natural laws and the universe, but we are completely clueless when it comes to keeping ourselves from destroying our world. Mars is an easy cop-out. But Mars doesn’t solve a thing. Because it’s -obviously- not the ‘fragile planet’ earth that is a threat to mankind, it’s mankind itself. How then can escaping to another planet solve its problems?

What exactly is wrong with saying that we will have to make it here on planet earth? Is it that we’ve already broken and murdered so much? And if that’s the reason, what does that say about us, and what does it say about what we would do to a next planet, even provided we could settle on it (we can’t) ? Doesn’t it say that we are our own worst enemies? And doesn’t the very idea of settling the ‘next planet’ imply that we had better settle things right here first? Like sort of a first condition before we go to Mars, if we ever do?

In order to survive, we don’t need to escape our planet, we need to escape ourselves. Not nearly as easy. Much harder than escaping to Mars. Which already is nothing but a pipedream to begin with.

Moreover, if we can accept that settling things here first before going to Mars is a prerequisite for going there in the first place, we wouldn’t need to go anymore, right?

 

 

We treat this entire extinction episode as if it’s something we’re watching from the outside in, as if it’s something we’re not really a part of. I’ve seen various undoubtedly very well-intentioned ‘green people’, ‘sustainable people’, react to the WWF report by pointing to signs that there is still hope, pointing to projects that reverse some of the decline, chinook salmon on the North American Pacific coast, Malawi farmers that no longer use chemical fertilizers, a giant sanctuary in the Antarctic etc.

That, too, is a form of insanity. Because it serves to lull people into a state of complacency that is entirely unwarranted. And that can therefore only serve to make things worse. There is no reversal, there is no turnaround. It’s like saying if a body doesn’t fall straight down in a continuous line, it doesn’t fall down at all.

The role that green, sustainability, conservationist groups play in our societies has shifted dramatically, and we have failed completely to see this change (as have they). These groups have become integral parts of our societies, instead of a force on the outside warning about what happens within.

Conservationist groups today serve as apologists for the havoc mankind unleashes on its world: all people have to do is donate money at Christmas, and conservation will be taken care of. Recycle a few bottles and plastic wrappings and you’re doing your part to save the planet. It is utterly insane. It’s as insane as the destruction itself. It’s denial writ large, and in the flesh.

It’s not advertized that way, but that doesn’t mean it’s not how it works. Saying that ‘it’s not too late’ is not a call to action as many people continue to believe. It’s just dirt poor psychology. It provides people with the impression, which rapidly turns into an excuse, that there is still time left. As almost 70% of all vertebrates, those animals that are closest to us, have disappeared. When would they say time is up? At 80%, 90%?

 

 

We do not understand why, or even that, we are such a tragically destructive species. And perhaps we can’t. Perhaps that is where our intelligence stops, at providing insight into ourselves. Even the most ‘aware’ amongst us will still tend to disparage their own roles in what goes on. Even they will make whatever it is they still do, and that they know is hurtful to the ecosystem, seem smaller than it is.

Even they will search for apologies for their own behavior, tell themselves they must do certain things in order to live in the society they were born in, drive kids to school, yada yada. We all do that. We soothe our consciences by telling ourselves we mean well, and then getting into our cars to go pick up a carton of milk. Or engage in an equally blind act. There’s too many to mention.

Every species that finds a large amount of free energy reacts the same way: proliferation. The unconscious drive is to use up the energy as fast as possible. If only we could understand that. But understanding it would get in the way of the principle itself. The only thing we can do to stop the extinction is for all of us to use a lot less energy. But because energy consumption provides wealth and -more importantly- political power, we will not do that. We instead tell ourselves all we need to do is use different forms of energy.

Our inbuilt talent for denying and lying (to ourselves and others) makes it impossible for us to see that we have an inbuilt talent for denying and lying in the first place. Or, put another way, seeing that we haven’t been able to stop ourselves from putting the planet into the dismal shape it is in now, why should we keep on believing that we will be able to stop ourselves in the future?

Thing is, an apology for our own behavior is also an apology for everyone else’s. As long as you keep buying things wrapped in plastic, you have no right, you lose your right, to blame the industry that produces the plastic.

 

 

We see ourselves as highly intelligent, and -as a consequence- we see ourselves as a species driven by reason. But we are not. Which can be easily demonstrated by a ‘reverse question’: why, if we are so smart, do we find ourselves in the predicament of having destroyed two thirds of our planet?

Do we have a rational argument to execute that destruction? Of course not, we’ll say. But then why do we do it if rationality drives us? This is a question that should forever cure us of the idea that we are driven by reason. But we’re not listening to the answer to that question. We’re denying, we’re even denying the question itself.

It’s the same question, and the same answer, by the way, that will NOT have us ‘abandon whatever it is we do’ when we read today that 70% of all wildlife will be gone by 2020, that 58% was gone by 2012 and we destroy it at a rate of 2% per year. We’re much more likely to worry much more about some report that says returns on our retirement plans will be much lower than we thought. Or about the economic growth that is too low (as if that is possible with 70% of wildlife gone).

After all, if destroying 70% of wildlife is not enough for a call to action, what would be? 80%? 90? 99%? I bet you that would be too late. And no, relying on conservationist groups to take care of it for us is not a viable route. Because that same 70% number spells out loud and clear what miserable failures these groups have turned out to be.

We ‘assume’ we’re intelligent, because that makes us feel good. Well, it doesn’t make the planet feel good. What drives us is not reason. What drives us is the part of our brains that we share in common with amoeba and bacteria and all other more ‘primitive forms of life, that gobbles up excess energy as fast as possible, in order to restore a balance. Our ‘rational’, human, brain serves one function, and one only: to find ‘rational’ excuses for what our primitive brain has just made us do.

We’re all intelligent enough to understand that driving a hybrid car or an electric car does nothing to halt the havoc we do to our world, but there are still millions of these things being sold. So perhaps we could say that we’re at the same time intelligent enough, and we’re not.

We can see ourselves destroying our world, but we can not stop ourselves from continuing the destruction. Here’s something I wrote 5 years ago:

Most. Tragic. Species. Ever.

We have done exactly the same that any primitive life form would do when faced with a surplus, of food, energy, and in our case credit, cheap money. We spent it all as fast as we can. Lest less abundant times arrive. It’s an instinct, it comes from our more primitive brain segments, not our more “rational” frontal cortex. It’s not that we’re in principle, or talent, more devious or malicious than more primitive life forms. It’s that we use our more advanced brains to help us execute the same devastation our primitive brain drives us to, but much much worse.

That’s what makes us the most tragic species imaginable. We’ll fight each other, even our children, over the last few scraps falling off the table, and kill off everything in our path to get there. And when we’re done, we’ll find a way to rationalize to ourselves why we were right to do so. We can be aware of watching ourselves do what we do, but we can’t help ourselves from doing it. Most. Tragic. Species. Ever.

The greatest miracle you will ever see, that you could ever hope to see, is so miraculous you can’t even recognize it for what it is. We don’t know what the word beautiful means anymore. Or the word valuable. We’ve lost all of that, and are well on our way, well over 70% of it, to losing the rest too.

 

 

 

PS Please note I could not gather all sources for all pictures here, but I’d be more than happy to add them. It’s not that I don’t recognize the effort that goes into them; it’s an emotional thing.

 

 

Mass Extinction and Mass Insanity

Dec 082016
 
 December 8, 2016  Posted by at 4:05 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  28 Responses »


Caters Extremely rare albino elephant, Kruger National Park in South Africa

 

Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back …
Springsteen, Atlantic City

“Erwin Schrodinger (1945) has described life as a system in steady-state thermodynamic disequilibrium that maintains its constant distance from equilibrium (death) by feeding on low entropy from its environment – that is, by exchanging high-entropy outputs for low-entropy inputs. The same statement would hold verbatium as a physical description of our economic process. A corollary of this statement is that an organism cannot live in a medium of its own waste products.”
Herman Daly and Kenneth Townsend

 

What drives our economies is waste. Not need, or even demand. Waste. 2nd law of thermodynamics. It drives our lives, period.

First of all, don’t tell me you’re trying to stop the ongoing extinction of nature and wildlife on this planet, or the destruction of life in general. Don’t even tell me you’re trying. Don’t tell me it’s climate change that we should focus on (that’s just a small part of the story), and you’re driving an electric car and you’re separating your trash or things like that. That would only mean you’re attempting to willfully ignore your share of destruction, because if you do it, so will others, and the planet can’t take anymore of your behavior.

This is the big one. And the only ones amongst us who don’t think so are those who don’t want to. Who think it’s easier to argue that some problems are too big for them to tackle, that they should be left to others to solve. But why should we, why should anyone, worry about elections or even wars, when it becomes obvious we’re fast approaching a time when such things don’t matter much anymore?

The latest WWF Living Planet Report shows us that the planet is a whole lot less alive than it used to be. And that we killed that life. That we replaced it with metal, bricks, plastic and concrete. Mass consumption leads to mass extinction. And that is fully predictable, it always was; there’s nothing new there.

We killed 58% of all vertebrate wildlife just between 1970 and 2012, and at a rate of 2% per year we will have massacred close to 70% of it by 2020, just 4 years from now. So what does it matter who’s president of just one of the many countries we invented on this planet? Why don’t we address what’s really crucial to our very survival instead?

 

 

The latest report from the WWF should have us all abandon whatever it is we’re doing, and make acting to prevent further annihilation of our living world the key driver in our everyday lives, every hour of every day, every single one of us. Anything else is just not good enough, and anything else will see us, that self-nominated intelligent species, annihilated in the process.

Granted, there may be a few decrepit and probably halfway mutant specimens of our species left, living in conditions we couldn’t even begin, nor dare, to imagine, with what will be left of their intelligence wondering how our intelligence could have ever let this happen. You’d almost wish they’ll understand as little as we ever did; that some form of ignorance equal to ours will soften their pain.

It’s important to note that the report does not describe a stagnant situation, there’s no state of affairs, not something still, it describes an ongoing and deteriorating process. That is, we don’t get to choose to stop the ongoing wildlife annihilation at 70%; we are witnessing, and indeed we are actively involved in, raising that number by 2% every year that we ‘live’ (can we even call it that anymore, are you alive when you murder all life around you?) in this world.

This is our only home.

 

 

Without the natural world that we were born into, or rather that our species, our ancestors, were born into, we have zero chance of survival. Because it is the natural world that has allowed for, and created, the conditions that made it possible for mankind to emerge and develop in the first place. And we are nowhere near making an earth 2.0; the notion itself is preposterous. A few thousand years of man ‘understanding’ his world is no match for billions of years of evolution. That’s the worst insult to whatever intelligence it is that we do have.

Much has been made through the years of our ability to adapt to changing circumstances, and much of that is just as much hubris as so much of what we tell ourselves, but the big question should be WHY we would volunteer to find out to what extent we can adapt to a world that has sustained the losses we cause it to suffer. Even if we could to a degree adapt to that, why should we want to?

Two thirds of our world is gone, and it’s we who have murdered it, and what’s worse – judging from our lifestyles- we seem to have hardly noticed at all. If we don’t stop what we’ve been doing, this can lead to one outcome only: we will murder ourselves too. Our perhaps biggest problem (even if we have quite a few) in this regard is our ability and propensity to deny this, as we deny any and all -serious, consequential- wrongdoing.

 

 

There are allegedly serious and smart people working on, dreaming of, and getting billions in subsidies for, fantasies of human colonies on Mars. This is advertized as a sign of progress and intelligence. But that can only be true if we can acknowledge that our intelligence and our insanity are identical twins. Because it is insane to destroy the planet on which we depend one-on-one for everything that allows us to live, and at the same time dream of human life on another planet.

While I see no reason to address the likes of King of Subsidies Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking is different. Unfortunately, in Hawking’s case, with all his intelligence, it’s his philosophical capacity that goes missing.

Humanity Will Not Survive Another 1,000 Years If We Don’t Escape Our Planet

Professor Stephen Hawking has warned humanity will not survive another 1,000 years on Earth unless the human race finds another planet to live on. [..] Professor Hawking, 74, reflected on the understanding of the universe garnered from breakthroughs over the past five decades, describing 2016 as a “glorious time to be alive and doing research into theoretical physics”. “Our picture of the universe has changed a great deal in the last 50 years and I am happy if I have made a small contribution,“ he went on.

”The fact that we humans, who are ourselves mere fundamental particles of nature, have been able to come this close to understanding the laws that govern us and the universe is certainly a triumph.” Highlighting “ambitious” experiments that will give an even more precise picture of the universe, he continued: “We will map the position of millions of galaxies with the help of [super] computers like Cosmos. We will better understand our place in the universe.”

“But we must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity. I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet.”

The tragedy is that we may have gained some knowledge of natural laws and the universe, but we are completely clueless when it comes to keeping ourselves from destroying our world. Mars is an easy cop-out. But Mars doesn’t solve a thing. Because it’s -obviously- not the ‘fragile planet’ earth that is a threat to mankind, it’s mankind itself. How then can escaping to another planet solve its problems?

What exactly is wrong with saying that we will have to make it here on planet earth? Is it that we’ve already broken and murdered so much? And if that’s the reason, what does that say about us, and what does it say about what we would do to a next planet, even provided we could settle on it (we can’t) ? Doesn’t it say that we are our own worst enemies? And doesn’t the very idea of settling the ‘next planet’ imply that we had better settle things right here first? Like sort of a first condition before we go to Mars, if we ever do?

In order to survive, we don’t need to escape our planet, we need to escape ourselves. Not nearly as easy. Much harder than escaping to Mars. Which already is nothing but a pipedream to begin with.

Moreover, if we can accept that settling things here first before going to Mars is a prerequisite for going there in the first place, we wouldn’t need to go anymore, right?

 

 

We treat this entire extinction episode as if it’s something we’re watching from the outside in, as if it’s something we’re not really a part of. I’ve seen various undoubtedly very well-intentioned ‘green people’, ‘sustainable people’, react to the WWF report by pointing to signs that there is still hope, pointing to projects that reverse some of the decline, chinook salmon on the North American Pacific coast, Malawi farmers that no longer use chemical fertilizers, a giant sanctuary in the Antarctic etc.

That, too, is a form of insanity. Because it serves to lull people into a state of complacency that is entirely unwarranted. And that can therefore only serve to make things worse. There is no reversal, there is no turnaround. It’s like saying if a body doesn’t fall straight down in a continuous line, it doesn’t fall down at all.

The role that green, sustainability, conservationist groups play in our societies has shifted dramatically, and we have failed completely to see this change (as have they). These groups have become integral parts of our societies, instead of a force on the outside warning about what happens within.

Conservationist groups today serve as apologists for the havoc mankind unleashes on its world: all people have to do is donate money at Christmas, and conservation will be taken care of. Recycle a few bottles and plastic wrappings and you’re doing your part to save the planet. It is utterly insane. It’s as insane as the destruction itself. It’s denial writ large, and in the flesh.

It’s not advertized that way, but that doesn’t mean it’s not how it works. Saying that ‘it’s not too late’ is not a call to action as many people continue to believe. It’s just dirt poor psychology. It provides people with the impression, which rapidly turns into an excuse, that there is still time left. As almost 70% of all vertebrates, those animals that are closest to us, have disappeared. When would they say time is up? At 80%, 90%?

 

 

We do not understand why, or even that, we are such a tragically destructive species. And perhaps we can’t. Perhaps that is where our intelligence stops, at providing insight into ourselves. Even the most ‘aware’ amongst us will still tend to disparage their own roles in what goes on. Even they will make whatever it is they still do, and that they know is hurtful to the ecosystem, seem smaller than it is.

Even they will search for apologies for their own behavior, tell themselves they must do certain things in order to live in the society they were born in, drive kids to school, yada yada. We all do that. We soothe our consciences by telling ourselves we mean well, and then getting into our cars to go pick up a carton of milk. Or engage in an equally blind act. There’s too many to mention.

Every species that finds a large amount of free energy reacts the same way: proliferation. The unconscious drive is to use up the energy as fast as possible. If only we could understand that. But understanding it would get in the way of the principle itself. The only thing we can do to stop the extinction is for all of us to use a lot less energy. But because energy consumption provides wealth and -more importantly- political power, we will not do that. We instead tell ourselves all we need to do is use different forms of energy.

Our inbuilt talent for denying and lying (to ourselves and others) makes it impossible for us to see that we have an inbuilt talent for denying and lying in the first place. Or, put another way, seeing that we haven’t been able to stop ourselves from putting the planet into the dismal shape it is in now, why should we keep on believing that we will be able to stop ourselves in the future?

Thing is, an apology for our own behavior is also an apology for everyone else’s. As long as you keep buying things wrapped in plastic, you have no right, you lose your right, to blame the industry that produces the plastic.

 

 

We see ourselves as highly intelligent, and -as a consequence- we see ourselves as a species driven by reason. But we are not. Which can be easily demonstrated by a ‘reverse question’: why, if we are so smart, do we find ourselves in the predicament of having destroyed two thirds of our planet?

Do we have a rational argument to execute that destruction? Of course not, we’ll say. But then why do we do it if rationality drives us? This is a question that should forever cure us of the idea that we are driven by reason. But we’re not listening to the answer to that question. We’re denying, we’re even denying the question itself.

It’s the same question, and the same answer, by the way, that will NOT have us ‘abandon whatever it is we do’ when we read today that 70% of all wildlife will be gone by 2020, that 58% was gone by 2012 and we destroy it at a rate of 2% per year. We’re much more likely to worry much more about some report that says returns on our retirement plans will be much lower than we thought. Or about the economic growth that is too low (as if that is possible with 70% of wildlife gone).

After all, if destroying 70% of wildlife is not enough for a call to action, what would be? 80%? 90? 99%? I bet you that would be too late. And no, relying on conservationist groups to take care of it for us is not a viable route. Because that same 70% number spells out loud and clear what miserable failures these groups have turned out to be.

We ‘assume’ we’re intelligent, because that makes us feel good. Well, it doesn’t make the planet feel good. What drives us is not reason. What drives us is the part of our brains that we share in common with amoeba and bacteria and all other more ‘primitive forms of life, that gobbles up excess energy as fast as possible, in order to restore a balance. Our ‘rational’, human, brain serves one function, and one only: to find ‘rational’ excuses for what our primitive brain has just made us do.

We’re all intelligent enough to understand that driving a hybrid car or an electric car does nothing to halt the havoc we do to our world, but there are still millions of these things being sold. So perhaps we could say that we’re at the same time intelligent enough, and we’re not.

We can see ourselves destroying our world, but we can not stop ourselves from continuing the destruction. Here’s something I wrote 5 years ago:

Most. Tragic. Species. Ever.

We have done exactly the same that any primitive life form would do when faced with a surplus, of food, energy, and in our case credit, cheap money. We spent it all as fast as we can. Lest less abundant times arrive. It’s an instinct, it comes from our more primitive brain segments, not our more “rational” frontal cortex. It’s not that we’re in principle, or talent, more devious or malicious than more primitive life forms. It’s that we use our more advanced brains to help us execute the same devastation our primitive brain drives us to, but much much worse.

That’s what makes us the most tragic species imaginable. We’ll fight each other, even our children, over the last few scraps falling off the table, and kill off everything in our path to get there. And when we’re done, we’ll find a way to rationalize to ourselves why we were right to do so. We can be aware of watching ourselves do what we do, but we can’t help ourselves from doing it. Most. Tragic. Species. Ever.

The greatest miracle you will ever see, that you could ever hope to see, is so miraculous you can’t even recognize it for what it is. We don’t know what the word beautiful means anymore. Or the word valuable. We’ve lost all of that, and are well on our way, well over 70% of it, to losing the rest too.

 

 

 

PS Please note I could not gather all sources for all pictures here, but I’d be more than happy to add them. It’s not that I don’t recognize the effort that goes into them; it’s an emotional thing.