McCarthy Archives - The Automatic Earth

Another angle of Joe Biden’s fall on stage today. Watch the reactions. pic.twitter.com/74ChFqPafI

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 1, 2023

Putin rule the world

Putin’s response to WSJ’s Ann Simmons when asked if he wants to rule the world. pic.twitter.com/efXqGxvCDA

— Putin Direct (@PutinDirect) May 31, 2023

Trump Hannity

BREAKING: Trump says officials are lying about the true death toll in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/pZsSl2BHlR

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 2, 2023

BRICS vs G7

BRICS vs G7… pic.twitter.com/BlQtxdbsxd

— Mats Nilsson (@mazzenilsson) June 1, 2023

What’s the use of proposing things you know will not happen?

• Ukraine Calls for Massive Demilitarized Zone Inside of Russia (LI)

As a condition for ending the war, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded Russia remove its military forces along its border with Ukraine. Kiev hopes the area within Moscow’s borders will be manned by international forces. Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak called for a 100-120 kilometer demilitarized zone within Russia. “It will be necessary to introduce a demilitarization zone of 100-120 km on the territory of Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, and Rostov republics. Probably with a mandatory international control contingent at the first stage,” he tweeted on Monday. Kiev is seeking to take control over Moscow’s nuclear and missile programs as well.

“Reduction of offensive weapons (missiles with extended range). International conference to organize control over the nuclear arsenal of the [Russian Federation],” Podolyak said in a separate tweet. Podolyak has made other demands of Moscow on the social network during recent days. On Saturday, he stated that the war can only end when the Russian government of Vladimir Putin was removed from power. The adviser added that “there is nothing to talk about with” the current administration in the Kremlin and Putin should be extradited for war crimes. While Kiev makes one-sided proposals for ending the conflict, the Ukrainian army is struggling to regain any of the territory controlled by Moscow.

Russian forces control about 20% of Ukraine, recently capturing Bakhmut after a months-long battle. The Kremlin says it has annexed about five Ukrainian oblasts and it will not return those to Kiev’s control. It seems unlikely Kiev will be able to force Moscow to make concessions demanded by Podolyak. However, the conditions laid out by Zelensky’s adviser could hinder international efforts aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was attempting to build momentum towards a deal, but that was scuttled when Zelensky skipped a meeting with the Brazilian leader. Additionally, a coalition of African nations and China are attempting to work towards a negotiated settlement in the war.

No.

• Zelensky Demands NATO and EU Membership For Kiev (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky insisted on Thursday that his country needed to be admitted to both the EU and NATO this year, or the West would be failing not just Ukraine, but Moldova, Georgia, Belarus and others. “Russia is afraid of NATO,” Zelensky argued at the summit of the European Political Community, which is being held at Castle Mimi in Bulboaca, Moldova. Moscow, he claimed, “tries to swallow only those who are outside the common security space,” or leave behind “frozen conflicts” like Transnistria. Every European country that borders Russia “should be a full member of the EU and NATO,” Zelensky said. “There are only two alternatives to this: either an open war, or a creeping Russian occupation.”

Admitting Ukraine would send a sign to Moldova, Georgia, and Belarus, he claimed, but “if even Ukrainians, who are proving our commitment to freedom and the values of a united Europe with blood, have not yet heard a clear positive answer about joining the EU and NATO, the hopes of the others are becoming completely illusive.” Both NATO and the EU have long-standing policies of not admitting new members if they are currently engaged in conflicts or have unresolved territorial disputes. Though both blocs have made multiple exceptions for Ukraine since last year, the Germans at least appeared unwilling to cross that line.

“There are clear criteria for membership. You can’t have border conflicts for instance,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday. His foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock – herself an outspoken advocate of Kiev – also argued it was “clear that we cannot talk about new membership in the middle of a war.” On Wednesday, the Financial Times reported that Zelensky had threatened to skip the NATO summit in Lithuania in July unless the bloc gave Kiev the security guarantees he demanded. Russia considers NATO’s eastward expansion to be a threat to its national security, and has cited Ukraine’s aspirations to join the US-led bloc as one of the reasons for the current conflict. The bloc has provided Ukraine with over $100 billion in military aid over the past year, while insisting both that Russia “must lose” and that they are not directly involved.

“At the same time, it is clear that we cannot talk about new membership in the middle of a war..”

• Germany Tells Zelensky NATO Can’t Consider Ukrainian Membership Now (RT)

Ukraine cannot join NATO while it remains locked in a conflict with Russia, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has said. Last month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also expressed skepticism about Kiev’s admission into the US-led military bloc. Speaking ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Norwegian capital Oslo on Thursday, Baerbock claimed that the bloc’s doors remain open for potential new members. This applies to Sweden in particular, but also to Ukraine, she said. “At the same time, it is clear that we cannot talk about new membership in the middle of a war,” Baerbock stressed regarding Ukraine’s aspirations.

German Chancellor Scholz said last month that Kiev’s potential NATO membership “doesn’t stand on the agenda anytime soon.” He cited a “whole range of requirements belonging to NATO’s criteria that Ukraine can’t fulfill at present.” The chancellor argued that the bloc should for the time being focus on helping Ukraine to “defend its land” against Russian forces. While some NATO members such as Poland and the Baltic states have long advocated a fast track for Ukraine’s accession, others, including the US and Germany, are reluctant to commit to such a scenario, the Financial Times reported in April.

Citing anonymous sources, the FT claimed on Wednesday that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had “made clear to NATO leaders that he will not attend the Vilnius summit [in July] without concrete security guarantees and a road map for accession.” Kiev formally applied to join the US-led bloc in September 2022, arguing that the collective defense it provides to members would ensure Ukraine’s security against Russia. Moscow, in turn, considers NATO’s eastward expansion to be a threat to its national security, and has cited Ukraine’s aspirations to join the bloc as one of the reasons for the current conflict.

The ultimate li(n)e: we protect you.

• Zelensky Warns Doubts On Ukraine NATO Membership Endanger Europe (Az.)

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned European leaders that any doubts they show before admitting Kyiv into the Nato alliance will embolden Russia to attack more countries, Report informs, citing foreign media. “We must remember that every doubt we show here in Europe is a trench that Russia will definitely try to occupy,” he told a European summit in Moldova. Ukraine is a candidate to join both Nato and the European Union, and Moldova the EU, but some European capitals are wary of setting a formal timeline for membership as Russia’s invasion continues.

But, addressing four dozen European leaders from inside and outside the union and the alliance, the Ukrainian leader warned that delaying a decision would undermine the West’s strength. He complained that if Ukraine and Moldova have no clear path to joining the groupings, vulnerable pro-Western political forces in Belarus and Georgia will be at risk. “Whether these doubts are about vital security steps or doubts about our unity, maybe about our ability to meet the challenges of our time, every doubt brings more insecurity,” he said.

But why? Does Rutte think Ukraine can win? Hard to imagine. Does he know Ukrainians will get killed? Of course he does.

• Netherlands Looks To Buy Dozens More Tanks For Ukraine (RT)

Dutch officials are reportedly making plans to buy dozens more Leopard 1 tanks, as well as Patriot missiles, to help boost Ukraine’s firepower in its ongoing conflict with Russia. The Netherlands’ Cabinet aims to purchase Leopards from Swiss state-owned manufacturer Ruag, Dutch online media outlet NL Times reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the plans. The deal will require approval from Switzerland’s government, which has tried to maintain neutrality amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Amsterdam joined with Germany and Denmark in February to buy at least 100 Leopard 1A5 battle tanks for Ukraine from German manufacturers. Swiss newspaper Targes-Anzeiger reported that the Netherlands seeks to buy 96 Leopard 1s, an older version of the tank, from Ruag. At the same time, the Netherlands is looking to provide more Patriot missiles or parts to operate them to help boost Ukraine’s air defenses, the NL Times said.

The NATO member previously gave Kiev two Patriot launchers and a number of missiles. “We are looking very closely at what we can still do,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Thursday after arriving in Moldova for a summit of European leaders. However, he added that given the Netherlands’ own security needs, “you can’t deliver everything you’ve got.” He called for more countries to join the coalition of nations supplying Patriot missiles to Ukraine. German lawmakers last week approved the purchase of 18 Leopard 2A8 tanks and 12 Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers to replace weapons stockpiles that were sent to Kiev. The deal reportedly includes an option to buy 105 additional Leopards. Berlin’s latest aid package for Ukraine includes 30 Leopard 1 tanks. Ukraine has repeatedly said that the supply of foreign heavy weapons is crucial for the success of its planned counteroffensive. Moscow, meanwhile, has warned that the Western-delivered tanks and other systems would be treated as legitimate targets on the battlefield.

Wow. Talk about propaganda.

• The Guardian View On Vladimir Putin’s War: Terror Without Purpose (G.)

Vladimir Putin has never been honest with the Russian people about the war in Ukraine. He lied about the scale of the invasion and the reasons for it. The deception is sustained with propaganda and repression. Outlawing the truth has kept the reality of war mostly out of sight, which is a condition of public acquiescence. That doesn’t mean that millions would rise up against their government if confronted with the true horror of what is being done to Ukraine in their name. The bellicose cult is well embedded in Russian society. But it is easier to support a war that unfolds on television than one that can be heard flying overhead, which is why drone strikes against targets in Moscow this week have rattled the Kremlin. Ukraine denies involvement in the attack, as it does automatically when military operations cross Russia’s borders, in deference to Kyiv’s western allies who are made uncomfortable by such bold incursions.

There were also reports on Wednesday of a fire at an oil refinery in the southern Russian Krasnodar region, started by a drone. The raid on Moscow caused little damage but plenty of alarm, which is the point. Getting the war within visible range of ordinary Russians is embarrassing for Mr Putin. It undermines his aura of control. It is harder to pretend things didn’t happen when people can see them from their windows. Most analysts interpret these attacks as part of a disorientation strategy, forcing the Kremlin to divert resources and attention away from the frontline in advance of a Ukrainian counteroffensive to recapture occupied territory. The same applies to the murkier business of raids across the Ukrainian border into Russia’s Belgorod region, carried out by far-right, anti-Putin Russian militias.

The fog of war is dense, with Ukrainian strategists cultivating uncertainty to unsettle Russian defences and Russian lines of command, tangled amid factional bickering in Moscow and between rival commanders on the ground. That makes it all the more important to keep a focus on core facts and moral imperatives: Ukraine is the victim of an unprovoked invasion by forces whose primary tactic is terrorising the civilian population into submission by means of indiscriminate murder and destruction. This campaign of atrocity has not succeeded, because Ukrainians have shown heroic fortitude and ingenuity on an epic scale. Also, they have been armed for that endeavour by western governments, which had to balance fear of escalation with a realistic appraisal of the character of Mr Putin’s regime, and the threat he posed to European peace if unchecked.

Russia did not start its territorial aggression against Ukraine in 2022, but eight years earlier, in Crimea. Mr Putin did not stop there because Russia wanted to have complete dominance over the domestic and foreign policy orientation of the government in Kyiv. He gambled that the west would look away again. Thankfully, the Russian president was mistaken. He thought then that Russia’s appetite for carnage, even from a losing position, would outlast western solidarity with Ukraine. That too turns out to be a miscalculation, so far. Without a follow-up strategy, Mr Putin’s war is sustained by his monstrous pride, readiness to sacrifice conscript soldiers for no measurable purpose and a political apparatus that allows him to cover up his failures. Those conditions make Russia’s position look solid. But they could turn out to be brittle, as long as Ukraine’s allies stand firm.

“The Russian economy currently retains its rank as the 11th in the world, based upon standard gross domestic product (GDP) comparisons. However, when one converts Russia’s $1.78 trillion GDP using the “basket of goods” formulation of purchasing power parity (PPP) (i.e., what similar goods cost in the United States versus Russia), Russia’s actual economic strength converts to $4.80 trillion, making it the world’s sixth largest economy, surpassing all but China, the US, India, Japan, and Germany.”

• Sanctions Against Russia Failed. I Saw It Firsthand (Scott Ritter)

I just returned from a month-long visit to Russia, during which time I had the opportunity to see a dozen different cities covering nearly the entire expanse of the Russian Federation. Prior to my departure, I was filling up the tank of my car, when I noticed a sticker on the gas pump. The sticker portrayed a smiling Joe Biden, the President of the United States, gesturing to his right. Underneath the image were printed the words, “I did this!” [..] In January and February 2023, Russia spent 2 trillion rubles ($26 billion) on defense, a 282% jump on the same period a year ago. Far from being unable to replenish its military strength and sustain the conflict in Ukraine, Russia is far outpacing NATO in terms of rushing military material to the frontlines by 4 to 1 in terms of tanks and armored fighting vehicles and 5 to 1 in artillery ammunition.

When calculated with kill ratios that are overwhelmingly in favor of Russia, the fact is that Russia is sapping the strength of NATO and its Ukrainian proxy, while expanding its own. In addition to nearly tripling the size of its special military operation contingent, Russia is simultaneously building up the forces necessary to meet the expansion of its army from its pre-conflict size of 1 million, to a force of more than 1.5 million. Moreover, Russia’s increase in military production has not only softened the economic impact of the US-sponsored sanctions, but also helped reverse their impact across Russia’s industrial base. Everything I saw while touring Russia underscored the incontrovertible fact that, because of Western sanctions, the Russian economy has been compelled to undertake changes which have not only made it more resilient, but also more productive and efficient.

Foreign investments are surging in, proving that there is a world that exists beyond that controlled by the American economic hegemon. Moreover, because sanctions have curtailed the previous practice of Russian business tycoons sending their wealth abroad, there is a huge amount of domestic economic capital available for reinvestment into the Russian economy. This truth was evident in every city I visited, where there were unprecedented levels of infrastructure improvements and new construction taking place.

“..almost half the grain that made its way to the EU ended up as fodder for pigs raised by Spanish ham producers.”

• Black Sea Grain Deal Hits Obstacle – UN (RT)

Russia has notified the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul it will restrict the passage of grain ships to the port of Yuzhny until Ukraine reopens the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Thursday. Dujarric said that Director General Rebecca Greenspan of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is working to resolve the pipeline issue, but there was no progress to report yet, according to the TASS news agency. The UN also expressed concern that the implementation of the deal has slowed down, with only 33 ships leaving Ukrainian ports in May, “two times less than in April.” Meanwhile, the number of inspection teams has been reduced from three to two.

Yuzhny is one of the three ports covered by the July 2022 Black Sea Initiative, the others being Chernomorsk and Odessa. The agreement mediated by the UN and Türkiye provided for the shipments of Ukrainian grain by sea, as well as the unblocking of Russian agricultural exports – but only the first part has been implemented. On May 17, Moscow agreed to extend the deal for another 60 days. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the decision on the eve of the presidential election, which he went on to win in the runoff. In a Facebook post on Thursday, Ukraine’s ministry of renovation and infrastructure accused Russia of “another unjustified refusal … to register the incoming fleet.”

A senior official in Kiev told Reuters, on condition of anonymity, that Ukraine would consider reopening the Togliatti-Odessa pipeline if the Black Sea deal was expanded to include more ports and more commodities. Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said that none of the five issues Moscow had identified with the deal – of which the Togliatti-Odessa pipeline was but one – have been addressed by the UN, “Our position remains unchanged – the export of ammonia is part of the existing agreements and was supposed to start simultaneously with the transportation of Ukrainian grain,” Vershinin said, adding that without addressing the five issues, there is no point in discussing the extension of the grain deal beyond July 17.

The deal was originally trumpeted in Ukraine and the West as a breakthrough in addressing food shortages in Africa and parts of Asia. According to data revealed by the Turkish Ministry of Commerce last week, however, 47% of the Ukrainian exports went to EU countries, and only 27% reached places like Egypt, Kenya, and Sudan. More than 30 million tons of grain have been transported by 953 ships since August 2022, with corn making up 50% of the cargo and wheat another 27%. Much of the grain was not for human consumption, but marked as animal feed. According to the research one Austrian outlet published in February, almost half the grain that made its way to the EU ended up as fodder for pigs raised by Spanish ham producers.

Google translation.

• Ursula von der Leyen’s Name Embroiled In Scandal In Bulgaria (LePoint)

One more scandal in Bulgaria? Ursula von der Leyen could have done without it. Her name appears in a sound recording secretly made during a meeting of the Let’s continue the change party (PP, according to the Bulgarian initials) which was to validate the government agreement reached with the rival party, the Gerb, of Boïko Borissov . This four and a half hour recording had the effect of a bomb! Its broadcast was programmed to derail the negotiations between the PP and the Gerb. We hear, in fact, the former Prime Minister Kiril Petkov. Not knowing that he was being tapped, he recklessly reveals the content of a telephone conversation with the President of the European Commission. There was, indeed, on May 21, a telephone contact between Petkov and von der Leyen about the possible accession of Bulgaria to the euro zone and the Schengen area. The Commission supports Bulgaria in these two undertakings. That’s not the problem.

“I asked her what our chances of being accepted are,” Petkov said. She answered me: “For Schengen, you have a great chance. For the euro zone, you have to find a way around the rules, that is to say ‘fit into the framework’. I answered her: “Can we -we have inflation minus the Ukraine effect .” And she was like, ‘Don’t quote me, we’ll try to help you.’ » On the side of the Commission, we naturally deny the content of the remarks. “There is a structured process for joining the euro zone, which applies to all countries, says the European executive. The Commission provides its support to fulfill the conditions. Of course, the rules must be followed. » We will never know what terms are really used by each other, but this recording is a furious reminder of Greece ‘s contentious entry conditions into the euro zone.

Athens, with the help of Goldman Sachs, had provided false data to circumvent the criteria for joining the euro zone. The pot of roses was revealed during the Eurozone crisis, when the real statistics were restored by Andreas Georgiou . A sinister episode that left its mark on German public opinion, which was very upbeat at the time. Bulgaria, already very fragile, should not repeat the same subterfuge.

Reads like a full time job.

• Breadcrumbs From A Buried FBI Source May Lead To A Bigger Biden Scandal (Fed.)

After a confidential human source claimed then-Vice President Joe Biden agreed to accept money from a foreign national to affect policy decisions, FBI agents used what’s called an FD-1023 form to record the allegation. Now FBI Director Christopher Wray is defying a May 3 congressional subpoena to provide this form. On Tuesday, in response to Wray’s refusal to hand over the documents, Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer announced the House will move to hold the FBI director in contempt of Congress. It isn’t that announcement — or even the other explosive ones released over the past year by Comer’s Senate colleague, Chuck Grassley — that prove the most telling, however. Rather, it is the combination of all the details, big and small, that suggests the scandal set to unfold over the coming weeks will be bigger than anyone imagined.

Take recent big news from whistleblower disclosures revealing that the Justice Department and the FBI have the unclassified FD-1023 form spelling out Biden’s alleged criminal behavior. Then combine that with other known information to discover the bigger picture. For instance, in response to Wray’s failure to comply with the subpoena, Grassley, who had previously noted the FD-1023 form was five or six pages long, indicated that the confidential human source (CHS) was “an apparent trusted FBI source.” This is huge because Grassley wouldn’t make that claim unless the whistleblower had. That means the source is not some random guy walking in off the street, but rather an existing “trusted” CHS, which is why the FBI used the FD-1023 form. In response to Wray’s stonewalling, Comer likewise revealed some significant details, clarifying late last week that the CHS reporting document was dated June 30, 2020, and referenced “the amount of money the foreign national allegedly paid to receive the desired policy outcome” as “five million.”

These details could only have come from a whistleblower with deep knowledge of the investigation, meaning the whistleblower’s characterization of the CHS as “trusted” carries more weight. Likewise, the whistleblower’s claim that the FD-1023 “includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose,” is more credible given the whistleblower’s knowledge of other details. Comer’s reference to “five million” is also intriguing. In a letter to Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, Grassley had previously revealed a promise by a Chinese communist government-connected enterprise to funnel $5 million to “Hunter and James Biden to compensate them for work done while Joe Biden was vice president.” Records released by Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., also confirmed a $5 million payment to James and Hunter Biden from another Chinese-connected business.

The date of the FD-1023 form, June 30, 2020, also proves significant when read in conjunction with Grassley’s letter to Wray in July 2022. In that letter, Grassley said the whistleblower had claimed that “the FBI developed information in 2020 about Hunter Biden’s criminal financial and related activity,” but “that in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters (‘FBI HQ’) team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.” The whistleblower further alleged that in September 2020, the FBI HQ team that handled the Auten assessment, after concluding the reporting was disinformation, placed the information in a restricted access sub-file that only the particular agents who uncovered the CHS’s information could access.

David Stockman was Reagan’s budget director. Hard to claim he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“Speaker Kevin McCarthy has straw for brains and a Twizzlers stick for a backbone..”

• Speaker McCarthy’s Rotten Deal (David Stockman)

If there was ever any doubt, now we know: Speaker Kevin McCarthy has straw for brains and a Twizzlers stick for a backbone. He was within perhaps five days of breaking the iron grip of America’s fiscal doomsday machine, yet inexplicably he turned tail and threw in the towel for a mess of fiscal pottage. We are referring, of course, to the impending moment when the US Treasury would have been forced to forgo scheduled vendor or beneficiary distributions in order to preserve incoming cash for interest payments and other priorities. That act of spending deferrals and prioritization would have obliterated the debt “default” canard once and for all, paving the way for a nascent fiscal opposition to regain control of the nation’s wretched public finances. And there should be no doubt that we were damn close to that crystalizing moment. After all, Grandma Yellen herself forewarned just last week on Meet The Press that absent a debt ceiling increase, the Treasury Department would have to prioritize payments and leave some bills unpaid:

“And my assumption is that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, there will be hard choices to make about what bills go unpaid,” Yellen said on NBC’s “Meet the Press…….“We have to pay interest and principle on outstanding debt. We also have obligations to seniors who count on Social Security, our military that expects pay, contractors who’ve provided services to the federal government, and some bills have to go unpaid….” And, of course, that prioritization and deferral could have been easily done. Federal receipts are now running about $450 billion per month, meaning that after paying $61 billion of interest, $128 billion for Social Security, $26 billion for Veterans and $47 billion for military pay and O&M there would still be $188 billion left to cover at least 50% of everything else. That is to say, no sweat with respect to servicing the public debt, and a lot of sweat among the constituencies that would have had payments delayed or reduced.

So, yes, the GOP has truly earned the Stupid Party sobriquet. No ifs, ands or buts about it. Instead of spending days negotiating over the minutia of budgetary scams, tricks and slights-of-hand, which is the entirety of the McCarthy deal, they should have been demanding from the Treasury a detailed list of scheduled payments by day for the first few weeks in June. And then, in return for continued negotiations on meaningful spending cuts and reforms, demanded assurance from the White House that enough of these due bills would be temporarily stuck in the drawer (deferred), if necessary, to ensure payment of scheduled interest, Social Security, military pay and Veterans pensions. That is to say, McCarthy had Sleepy Joe over the proverbial barrel. But instead of applying the wood to his political backside good and hard, the Speaker chose to hold Biden’s coat and help him get back up, praising the latter’s supercilious retainers as he did so.

A jubilee through inflation?

• A Debt Jubilee of Biblical Proportions Is Coming Soon (IM)

The US federal government has the biggest debt in the history of the world. And it’s continuing to grow at a rapid, unstoppable pace. In short, the US government is fast approaching the financial endgame. Here’s why… Today, the US federal debt has gone parabolic and is scores of trillions. To put it in perspective, if you earned $1 a second 24/7/365—about $31 million per year—it would take you over 1,008,378 YEARS to pay off the US federal debt. And that’s with the unrealistic assumption that it would stop growing.

The truth is, the debt will keep piling up unless Congress makes some politically impossible decisions to cut spending. But don’t count on that happening. In fact, they’re racing in the opposite direction now that they’ve normalized multitrillion-dollar deficits. The amount of debt is so extreme that even a return of interest rates to their historical average would mean paying the interest expense on the debt would consume more than half of current tax revenues. Interest expense would eclipse Social Security and defense spending and become the largest item in the federal budget. Second, a return to the historical average interest rate will not be enough to reign in inflation—not even close. A drastic rise in interest rates is needed. If that happened, it could mean that the US government is paying more for the interest expense than it takes in from taxes.

In short, the Federal Reserve is trapped. Raising interest rates high enough to dent inflation would bankrupt the US government. In other words, it’s game over. They have no choice but to “reset” the system—that’s what governments do when they are trapped. How are they going to reset the system? Nobody knows for sure. But I’d bet a debt jubilee of biblical proportions will be a big part of it. So then, how will the US government repudiate its impossible federal debt burden? My guess is that they won’t be explicit. That would look too much like a default. It would destroy the role of the US as the center of the world’s financial system. Given a choice, I don’t think the US government would choose immediate self-destruction. Since power does not relinquish itself voluntarily, we should presume they’ll decide to stealthily implement their federal debt jubilee through inflation.

Should be a lot simpler.

• Twitter Head Of Trust & Safety Gone After “Mistake” Banning Documentary (ZH)

As Matt Taibbi detailed earlier via Racket News, at roughly 8:30 a.m. ET this morning, Jeremy Boreing, co-founder and co-CEO of the Daily Wire, posted a lengthy thread on Twitter outlining what appeared to be a major reversal on speech issues on the Elon Musk-owned platform. “Twitter canceled a deal with @realdailywire to premiere What is a Woman? for free on the platform because of two instances of ‘misgendering,’” Boreing wrote, adding, “I’m not kidding.” Noting the film would be labeled “hateful conduct,” the thread detailed a months-longer roller-coaster dispute between the producers of What is a Woman?, a controversial documentary by Matt Walsh released a year ago today, and the current incarnation of the bird site.

In celebration of the release anniversary Walsh, Boreing, and the Daily Wire began making plans to partner with Twitter for a 24-hour livestream today, June 1, 2023. Twitter at first responded with enthusiasm, offering the chance to buy “a package to host the movie on a dedicated event page” and “a chance for us to promote the event to every Twitter user over the first 10 hours.” The initial exchange came roughly a month ago, and the Wire team planned a significant ad buy and other promotions.

Weeks later, Twitter ominously asked the Daily Wire for a review copy of Walsh’s movie. Boreing said the firm then found out Twitter would not only “no longer provide us with support,” but bluntly told them they would “limit the reach” of the film if the Daily Wire went ahead with the event on its own. In one of many odd twists to this story, the problem involved two alleged instances of “misgendering,” a category of offense Twitter controversially removed from hate speech guidelines in April. “They gave us the opportunity to edit the film to comply. We declined,” wrote Boreing. Boreing’s tweet-storm today provoked a quick backlash on the platform, with personalities like Tim Pool promising to terminate his “enterprise Blue subscription” if the decision wasn’t reversed. As if by magic, Musk at 1:33 p.m. tweeted that it was a “mistake by many people at Twitter”:

[..] Update (2000ET): Following Elon Musk’s comments earlier that the cancellation of a deal to show Daily Wire’s ‘What Is A Woman?’ documentary “was a mistake by many people at Twitter,” Fortune reports that Twitter’s head of trust and safety is no longer in Twitter’s internal slack, citing an unidentified person and a screenshot of her deactivated account. Reuters later reported that Ella Irwin told them that she has resigned from the social media company. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Irwin’s departure is the second time someone in that role has left since Elon Musk bought the company in October. Yoel Roth, who had previously served as Twitter’s head of trust and safety, left the company in November, and Irwin subsequently took the top job overseeing user content and safety policies.

Irwin, who joined Twitter about a year ago, declined to comment Thursday on the reasons for her decision to leave Twitter. She said in an interview she felt she had always been honest in her work. Presumably by her definition of “honest”. Musk noted briefly in a response to questions about the ban/throttling of the documentary: “being fixed.” The Twitter CEO added in a thread with the creator of the documentary that “It will be advertising-restricted, as advertisers have the right to decide what content their ads appear with, which will impact reach to some degree.” It appears there are still plenty of anti-free-speech workers at Twitter…

Excuse to keep him locked up: pending investigation.

• FBI Reopens Case Around Julian Assange (IC)

The FBI has reopened an investigation into Australian journalist Julian Assange, according to front-page reporting from the Sydney Morning Herald. The news that the FBI is taking fresh investigative steps came as a surprise to Assange’s legal team, given that the U.S. filed charges against the WikiLeaks founder more than three years ago and is involved in an ongoing extradition process from a maximum security prison in the United Kingdom so that he can stand trial in the United States. Assange is charged under the Espionage Act with obtaining, possessing, and publishing classified information that exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, crimes that themselves have gone unpunished. The Morning Herald reporting also comes amid heightened hopes in Australia that a resolution to the case, which has raised serious press freedom issues in the U.S. and abroad, was near at hand.

The country’s ruling party has spoken in defense of Assange, as has the nation’s opposition party leader. In early May, a cross-party delegation of influential Australian lawmakers met with the U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, urging that a deal be struck to return Assange to Australia before U.S.-Australian relations were harmed further by the prosecution. The U.S. has otherwise complicated its relationship with Australia in recent weeks even as it seeks closer ties in order to compete with China in the region. Australia spent weeks preparing for Joe Biden to make a major visit to the nation in May, only to see him cancel the trip at the last minute to fly back from Japan to continue with debt ceiling negotiations. And this week, the U.S. also warned Australia that some of its military units may be ineligible to cooperate with U.S. forces due to their own alleged war crimes in Australia.

It is not lost on the Australian public that Assange is being prosecuted for uncovering and publishing evidence of U.S. war crimes. In May, the Morning Herald reported, the FBI requested an interview with Andrew O’Hagan, who was brought on more than 10 years ago to work as a ghostwriter on Assange’s autobiography. The FBI may have thought he would be cooperative because O’Hagan’s relationship with Assange soured; O’Hagan publicly criticized Assange as narcissistic and difficult to work with and published an unauthorized version in the London Review of Books instead. But O’Hagan told the Morning Herald he was not willing to participate in his prosecution. “I might have differences with Julian, but I utterly oppose all efforts to silence him,” he said.

“..members of the Chicago “Outfit” had successfully packed up and were on their way out of town before being mugged on their way to the airport.”

• Due To High Crime, Mafia Closes Its Chicago Office (BBee)

Today marked the end of an era, as the Mafia announced it was officially closing its Chicago branch due to the rising wave of violent crime in the city. “We just can’t operate under these conditions,” said street boss Albert “Albie the Falcon” Vena, speaking on behalf of Salvatore “Solly D” DeLaurentis, who has run the Chicago organization since 2021. “How are we supposed to conduct respectable business — loan sharking, bribery, racketeering, illegal gambling — with so much crime going on? It’s insane!” The Windy City has long been known for its organized crime operations, dating back even before the days of Al “Scarface” Capone in the 1920s Prohibition Era. Today’s mobsters now lament the difficulty they face in doing horrible things behind the scenes in the city while so many even more horrible things are being done in broad daylight.

“One of our best leg-breakers got his legs broken by a gang of 40 high schoolers last week,” said organization member Frank “Toots” Caruso. “They recorded it and put it on TikTok. We just don’t feel safe around here. I’m afraid to just walk down the street!” Rising crime rates in Chicago have become a staple under Democrat leaders, resulting in skyrocketing numbers of violent crimes and shooting deaths, despite the city having some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. “You think we’re gonna be out there working?” asked Nicholas “Jumbo” Guzzino. “Are you kidding me? I don’t wanna get shot!” At publishing time, members of the Chicago “Outfit” had successfully packed up and were on their way out of town before being mugged on their way to the airport.

Oscar

And the Oscar goes to…. 😂 pic.twitter.com/WSoxiha094

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) June 1, 2023

One

There’s always one! 💕😂pic.twitter.com/v51gBxzFLJ

— The Best (@Figensport) June 1, 2023

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Debt Rattle May 30 2023

May 302023

May 30, 2023 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:07 am Finance Tagged with: ballot harvesting, Borrell, diamonds, Kosovo, Lindsey Graham, McCarthy, Monty Python, Moscow, Serbia 19 Responses »

Vincent van Gogh A Lane near Arles (Side of a Country Lane) 1888

• Russia Hasn’t Started To ‘Act Seriously’ In Ukraine – Envoy (RT)

• Moscow Attacked By Drones – Mayor (RT)

• Russia Will Not Negotiate Until It Wins In Ukraine Conflict – Borrell (TASS)

• Memorial Service (Jim Kunstler)

• Russian Arrest Warrant For Lindsey Graham Over ‘Killing Russians’ Remarks (ZH)

• Clumsy Excuses: Russian FM On Claim Graham’s Words Taken Out Of Context (TASS)

• Ukraine Posts Longer Video Of Lindsay Graham’s Visit (R.)

• Biden, McCarthy Agree on $886 Billion Military Budget (Antiwar)

• Believing Impossible Things (Alastair Crooke)

• US Obsession With Crushing Russia Has Dismantled Middle East Agenda (Inlakesh)

• EU Threatens To Ban Twitter (RT)

• Sanctions On Russian Diamonds Put A Million Jobs At Risk (RT)

• 50 Injured As NATO Troops Clash With Serb Demonstrators (RT)

• Trump Campaign Fundraises For Ballot Harvesting Operations (PM)

• Zero Young Healthy Individuals Died of COVID-19, Israeli Data Show

• John Cleese Holds Line Against Calls to Cancel Scene in Life of Brian (Turley)

Bosi

The former commander of the Australian special forces, Ricardo Bosi, made a sensational statement: “Ukraine has been the center of globalists for decades … The CIA has been working in Ukraine for 70 years” pic.twitter.com/i5brJS2t3i

— Spriter (@Spriter99880) May 29, 2023

Graham/McCain

pic.twitter.com/CUkngG9yez

— Branislav Pipović (@BranaPipovic) May 29, 2023

“..sooner or later, of course, this escalation may get a new dimension which we do not need and we do not want..”

• Russia Hasn’t Started To ‘Act Seriously’ In Ukraine – Envoy (RT)

The outcome of the Ukraine conflict hinges on whether NATO continues to prop up Kiev with arms shipments, Andrey Kelin, Russia’s ambassador to the UK, said in an interview released on Saturday. Speaking to the BBC, when asked how long he thought it would take for the fighting to cease, Kelin replied that it “depends on the efforts in escalation of war that [are] being undertaken by NATO countries, especially by the UK.” The envoy went on to say that “it is a big idealistic mistake to think that Ukraine may prevail,” adding that Russia is 16 times bigger than Ukraine and possesses enormous resources. He stated further that Moscow “hasn’t… started yet to act very seriously.”

At the same time, Kelin warned that “sooner or later, of course, this escalation may get a new dimension which we do not need and we do not want,” pointing to the UK’s recent decision to send Ukraine long-range missiles and tanks, as well as ongoing deliberations about potential shipments of modern aircraft. However, he did not rule out that the conflict could be settled diplomatically, saying that the two sides “can make peace tomorrow.” On Saturday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said that the Ukraine conflict could be resolved if Kiev were to ditch its ambitions to join NATO and the EU, recognize “new territorial realities” and designate Russian as a state language. However, Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, dismissed the demands, insisting instead that to make peace, Russia must withdraw all its troops from the territory Kiev claims as its own, pay reparations and extradite “war criminals.”

Since the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Western countries have provided Kiev with billions of dollars in security assistance, a policy which Moscow claims makes the military bloc a direct participant in the hostilities. The UK has emerged as one of Ukraine’s most active supporters, having committed £4.6 billion ($5.7 billion) in military aid. Earlier this month, London provided Kiev with long-range Storm Shadow missiles, which were subsequently used by Ukrainian troops to target the civilian population in the Russian city of Lugansk, according to Moscow. In March, the UK announced that it would send Ukraine armor-piercing tank rounds containing depleted uranium, with the Russian Defense Ministry warning that the munitions would cause “irreparable harm” to soldiers and civilians alike.

Someone wants Kiev flattened.

• Moscow Attacked By Drones – Mayor (RT)

Drones attacked the Russian capital on Tuesday morning, damaging several buildings, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has said. Sobyanin ordered the evacuation of residents from the two apartment blocks that were targeted, according to several messages posted on Telegram. Emergency officials told RIA Novosti that two drones struck residential buildings. No information regarding casualties has been provided yet. Sobyanin, citing data from the city medical services, said that no residents of the buildings hit by the aircraft were seriously hurt. He added that two people requested medical assistance at the scene, but no one had to be taken to the hospital.

Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyov wrote on Telegram that “several drones” were shot down by air defenses as they were flying towards the city. Telegram channel SHOT posted an unverified video of what it said was the destruction of a drone mid-air. The attack comes after two Ukrainian drones unsuccessfully attempted to strike the Kremlin earlier this month. Moscow accused Kiev of attempting to assassinate Putin and vowed retaliation. Kiev denied responsibility, with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky saying “we don’t attack Putin or Moscow.”

Borrell handed himself a new job: “the defense minister of the European Union.” Did anyone ask for that?

• Russia Will Not Negotiate Until It Wins In Ukraine Conflict – Borrell (TASS)

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrel said he is “not optimistic” about the situation in Ukraine and believes that Russia will not negotiate until it wins in the Ukraine conflict. “I see the clear will of Russia to win in the war,” the European Union foreign policy chief said speaking at an expert forum in Spain’s Barcelona. “Russia will not negotiate until it wins.” “I am not optimistic in my expectations about how this conflict may develop in the summer,” he stated adding that the European Union should “continue building up its military assistance for Ukraine.” Borrell stated earlier in Brussels that while he kept coordinating military assistance to Ukraine from the European Union, he did not feel himself as the EU’s top diplomat, but “the defense minister of the European Union.”.

“..as our leadership turned more pathological and pathocratic, so did our military endeavors..”

• Memorial Service (Jim Kunstler)

An anxious silence falls over the land this Memorial Day as we discern increasingly that those we put in charge of this shape-shifting thing called the public interest are running out of trips to lay on the people. Something grotesque is revealing itself: a bankruptcy not just of money but of national purpose, meaning, and legitimacy. You realize this day, with a breaking heart, that your country has been stolen by psychopaths.Brace for impact. We’re already off the road and now it’s only a matter of how this vehicle comes to a stop in the ditch. Then, it’s a question of how each of us emerges from the smoldering wreckage. The main thing, though, is clear to everyone: What we were riding in is no more. We’re out there stumbling around in the dark, in shock, trying desperately to assess our whereabouts and what has happened to us.

Now, the trouble with being ruled by psychopaths is that they don’t care about other people. They are actually incapable of imagining the lives of others, especially the fact that these others care about each other, and what happens to them. You may have noticed, for instance, that the psychopath Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) went to Ukraine last week and declared, “Russians are dying. We have never spent money so well.” Only a couple of months ago, he called for the assassination of Vladimir Putin. He stopped short of dissing Mr. Putin’s mother. Ukraine, of course, is a lost cause, and it was never a good cause in the first place. Contrary to Lindsay Graham’s untoward utterance, American money has killed far more Ukrainians than Russians. He overlooked [this] unappetizing tidbit because he doesn’t care about the Ukrainians, for whose sake our “folks” in charge supposedly undertook this clusterfuck.

Lindsay Graham also may not have noticed that our country is collapsing and Russia is not. That must be because Lindsay Graham does not care about Americans, either. As for our money, it looks like most of the rest of the world – the nations that still produce things of value – are so turned-off by American pathocracy that they are seeking every way possible to stop using our money in international trade settlements. That money, our dollar, became the world’s reserve currency because our country ended up on top in the previous world war and for the better part of a century afterward dominated the planet militarily. Naturally, as our leadership turned more pathological and pathocratic, so did our military endeavors – until lately they amount to little more than just smashing up other countries to show we can do it.

“..it was the Ukrainian presidency’s office itself that was responsible for the editing and circulating of the remarks in the first place.”

• Russian Arrest Warrant For Lindsey Graham Over ‘Killing Russians’ Remarks (ZH)

Russia’s Interior Ministry has issued an arrest warrant for South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham after video surfaced of the Republican hawk telling Ukrainian officials that “Russians are dying” due to US military aid and that “it’s the best money we ever spent.” There are claims that the video released of the Friday meeting in Kiev wherein Graham spoke the words to Ukraine’s President Zelensky were edited, however. And yet, it was Zelensky himself that posted the edited clip to his official social media channels. Russia’s Investigative Committee announced the criminal case against Graham as he “declared the financial involvement of the United States is causing the death of Russian citizens.”

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted to Graham’s provocative statements by saying, “It’s difficult to imagine a greater shame for a country than having such senators” while Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said the Republican Senator is an “old fool. “The arrest warrant and him being placed on a ‘wanted list’ will of course remain largely symbolic, given Graham certainly won’t be traveling to Russian territory or through its airspace anytime in the foreseeable future. On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry responded to reporting from Reuters which said Graham’s remarks were taken out of context: “Reports by Reuters that remarks by US Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican, South Carolina) made during a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky may have been taken out of context represent clumsy, shameless excuses, a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry made public on Monday said.

“‘It turns out,’ that’s not what Senator Graham said or how he said it. Just like with similar cannibalistic musings by former US President George W. Bush, clumsy, shameful excuses are being bandied about: so, allegedly, the senator’s words were taken out of context, there was some ‘editing’ and so on. Who would have doubted that the politician himself and his spin doctors, such as the top Anglo-Saxon media outlets and news agencies, would, as they say, ‘play dumb.’ What’s next? They will tell us that Lindsey Graham is a product of [artificial intelligence] and doesn’t actually exist?” the Foreign Ministry asked rhetorically. It stressed that this “attempt is doomed to fail.” “It is already impossible to clean oneself [and one’s reputation] from the stain of such remarks, even if they were uttered separately,” the ministry added.” But again, it was the Ukrainian presidency’s office itself that was responsible for the editing and circulating of the remarks in the first place.

“This entire story with cowardly excuses and ludicrous attempts to absolve Lindsey Graham is yet another blow to the already faded reputation of Reuters and the BBC..”

• Clumsy Excuses: Russian FM On Claim Graham’s Words Taken Out Of Context (TASS)

Reports by Reuters that remarks by US Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican, South Carolina) made during a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky may have been taken out of context represent clumsy, shameless excuses, a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry made public on Monday said. “‘It turns out,’ that’s not what Senator Graham said or how he said it. Just like with similar cannibalistic musings by former US President George W. Bush, clumsy, shameful excuses are being bandied about: so, allegedly, the senator’s words were taken out of context, there was some ‘editing’ and so on. Who would have doubted that the politician himself and his spin doctors, such as the top Anglo-Saxon media outlets and news agencies, would, as they say, ‘play dumb.’

What’s next? They will tell us that Lindsey Graham is a product of [artificial intelligence] and doesn’t actually exist?” the Foreign Ministry asked rhetorically. It stressed that this “attempt is doomed to fail.” “It is already impossible to clean oneself [and one’s reputation] from the stain of such remarks, even if they were uttered separately,” the ministry added. Earlier, at a meeting in Kiev with Zelensky, Graham seemingly linked the fact that “Russians are dying” in the Ukrainian conflict with US aid for Ukraine, saying it is “the best money we’ve ever spent.” The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that this was hardly the first instance of such hateful remarks and that “the senator is not alone.” “The Nazi philosophy of hatred toward Russians is actually what unites the Kiev regime and its American handlers,” the ministry emphasized.

The ministry also stated that widespread popular outrage has forced the Western propaganda machine “with its cogs, such as Reuters and the BBC, who led the campaign to whitewash the [words of the] lawmaker, to initiate a crisis management approach and attempt to reverse the situation.” “This entire story with cowardly excuses and ludicrous attempts to absolve Lindsey Graham is yet another blow to the already faded reputation of Reuters and the BBC, which were left to worm their way of out the mess on behalf of both Washington and Kiev. This is not journalism, but PR agencies carrying out an assignment for the ‘collective West,’” the Russian Foreign Ministry concluded. Earlier, Reuters, having examined a complete recording of Graham’s meeting with the Ukrainian leader, said that the remarks by the US senator may have been taken out of context.

“There was a time in America that we were this way: fighting to the last person, we were going to be free or die.” WE, Lindsey?

• Ukraine Posts Longer Video Of Lindsay Graham’s Visit (R.)

Russia’s interior ministry has put U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham on a wanted list, Russian news agency TASS said on Monday (May 29).In an edited video released by the Ukrainian president’s office of Graham’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday (May 26), Graham was shown saying “the Russians are dying” and then saying U.S. support was the “best money we’ve ever spent”.After Russia criticised the remarks, Ukraine released a full video of the meeting which showed the two remarks were not linked. The longer video clip showed the Ukrainian President praises the United States for military assistance valued at $38 billion, thanking Graham for bipartisan support. Graham responds with: “the best money we’ve ever spent.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced Graham, suggesting his comment on U.S. financial assistance was linked to a later remark that Russians “are dying” in the conflict. But the release by the Ukrainian president’s office of Graham’s complete remarks showed there was no such link.Graham said he was visiting on the 457th day of a war that Russia had assumed would be completed within three days and Graham said Ukrainians resisting the invasion reminded him of “our better selves in America. “There was a time in America that we were this way: fighting to the last person, we were going to be free or die.” “Now you are free,” Zelenskiy responded in the encounter. “And we will be.” Graham replied: “And the Russians are dying.”

And there’s Graham again..

• Biden, McCarthy Agree on $886 Billion Military Budget (Antiwar)

The debt ceiling agreement reached between the White House and House Republicans that was announced Sunday caps military spending at $886 billion for 2024, matching President Biden’s requested budget. Republicans negotiating the debt ceiling deal only sought non-military spending cuts. The $886 billion cap for military spending represents about a 3.3% increase from 2023. The White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) still need to get the debt ceiling agreement passed through Congress. Many hawkish Republicans will likely oppose the deal as they previously blasted Biden’s massive $886 billion request as “inadequate.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) slammed the debt limit deal in an appearance on Fox News on Sunday. “The Biden defense budget was a joke before, and if we adopt it as Republicans, we will be doing a big disservice to the party of Ronald Reagan,” Graham said.

“The biggest winner of the Biden defense budget is China because they’ll have a bigger navy,” Graham added. Hawks in Congress have gotten their way over the past two years as they approved significantly more military spending than what President Biden requested for 2022 and 2023. For 2023, President Biden asked for $813 billion in military spending, but Congress added $45 billion, bringing the finalized National Defense Authorization Act to $858 billion. A similar increase for 2024 could bring the NDAA close to $1 trillion. The US also authorizes other national security spending that is not included in the NDAA. According to analyst Winslow Wheeler, factoring in other types of expenditures on the national security state, including interest on debt and the Veteran Affairs budget, would bring the total defense budget for 2024 to around $1.5 trillion.

“.. they understand that the true ‘threats’ to the US derive from its internal divisions, and not from external sources.”

• Believing Impossible Things (Alastair Crooke)

The recent G7 summit should be understood as firstly, the shaping of a battlespace in the ‘War of Narratives’ whose principal ‘front’ today is the Team Biden insistence that only one ‘reality’ — the US-led ‘Rules’ ideology (and it alone) – can predominate. And, secondly to underline pointedly that the West is ‘not losing’ in this war against the other ‘reality’. This other reality is the multivalent ‘otherness’ that self-evidently is attracting more and more support around the world. Many in the West are simply unaware of how fast the geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting: The original plate bifurcation (the failed financial war declared on Russia), already has led to a building wave. Anger is growing. People now no longer feel alone in rejecting western hegemony – they “no longer care”.

In just the week that preceded the G7 summit, the Arab League literally ‘went multi-polar’; It quit its former pro-US automaticity. The embrace of President Assad and the Syrian government was both the logical consequence to the secondary tectonic-plate shift set in motion by China with its Saudi-Iranian diplomacy — a revolution which Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) then logically extended to the entire Arab sphere. MbS sealed this ‘break-free’ of US control through having President al-Assad invited to the Summit to symbolise the League’s act of generalised iconoclasm. For the West, it is ontologically impossible to tolerate their reality being disassembled: to see their society and the world split in two. The narrative reality is so embedded via the well-honed effectiveness of MSM messaging however, that politicians have become lazy. They do not have to argue their case, and have no incentive to hold back on untruths either.

The dynamics are exorable: an over-hyped ‘monolithic reality’ evolves into a Manichaean fight to the death. Any backsliding by ‘principals’ could result in the collapse of the Media narrative ‘house of cards’. (This notion of a monolithic reality is not one shared by most other societies who see reality as multi-faceted). Denial becomes endemic. So, we witness a hawkish G7, diverting from the narrative setback (of Bakhmut falling) by the casual embrace of a ploy to supply F-16s to Ukraine; chastising China for not making President Putin ‘back off’ in Ukraine; and using the meeting to set a narrative framework for the coming confrontation with China on trade issues and Taiwan.

One commentator (at the summit) wondered “Am I still in Europe, or in Japan?”, as she listened to rhetoric as though lifted from Von Der Leyen’s earlier speech to the EU. Von de Leyen had crafted the formulation of ‘de-risking’ with China to disguise the creeping EU-China bifurcation in production on the EU Commission factory floor. This remark does however serve to underline how Von der Leyen has become a de facto member of the Biden Team. China angrily responded to the G7 summit allegation that it had become a workshop for “smearing” and slandering China. This extensive narrative-shaping for China confrontation is seen to be necessary by the G7 as the rest of the world does not view China as a genuine ‘threat’ to the US: Rather, they understand that the true ‘threats’ to the US derive from its internal divisions, and not from external sources.

The G7 salience lies not so much with the anti-China narratives launched, but, plainly said, because the entire episode expresses a western hubristic denial, which portends extreme danger in respect to Ukraine. It speaks to the reality that the West — in it’s present mental mode — will be unable to put forward any credible political initiative to end the Ukraine conflict.(Recall that Moscow was badly mauled by the earlier Minsk episode). The G7 language abjures all serious diplomacy, and signals that the imperative remains to stick with the ‘not losing’ mantra:The fall of Bakhmut is no defeat for Kiev, but a Pyrrhic loss for Putin; Ukraine is winning, Putin is losing, was the G7 messaging.

“After having illegally invaded Iraq [..] it comes off as laughable that the US is now claiming to oppose illegal invasions.”

• US Obsession With Crushing Russia Has Dismantled Middle East Agenda (Inlakesh)

As the months pass, blow after blow has been inflicted on US power in the Middle East. In direct opposition to Washington’s agenda, the Syrian Arab Republic was readmitted to the Arab League following a 12-year hiatus, paving the way to end the crisis in Syria, which the US seeks to prolong. China has also entered Middle East politics in a dramatic way, brokering an Iranian-Saudi rapprochement back in March, and this then spurred a wider normalization wave. Although the US attempted to play off the Saudi Arabia-Iran agreement as an acceptable and welcomed move, this has now clearly worked to collapse Washington’s long-term effort towards regional supremacy, which was based on feeding a proxy conflict between the two powers.

Western leaders publicly predicted that Russia’s economy would collapse under sanctions, a result which clearly has not materialized, with the IMF predicting the Russian economy will grow. Similarly, the US “maximum pressure” sanctions that were first introduced against Iran under the Trump administration, were expected to severely hinder the Islamic Republic’s ability to continue its developments in the defense field, but have failed to achieve those goals. Russia is now exporting more oil than it did in 2021, as its relations with China, the primary global competitor to the US, have advanced. Gulf States have also repeatedly let the US down and refrained from yielding to pressure to cut oil production. There is also the example of Algeria, which has become Italy’s largest gas supplier and raked in over $50 billion dollars in oil and gas revenues during 2022 alone, even as it retains close relations with Moscow.

And when it comes to the West’s ban on Russian gold bullion, the UAE, Türkiye and China have reportedly stepped in to fill the gap. However, perhaps the worst blowback against Russia sanctions has been the nullification of previous limits to Moscow-Tehran economic relations. The two nations are already the most sanctioned on earth, so they need not worry about the potential consequences from their trade, which has encouraged further cooperation between them. Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi signed a deal to finance an Iranian railway line as part of a North-South Transport Corridor. The Biden administration has employed hardline propaganda tactics in order to demonize Russia and lionize Ukraine. Although for some Western audiences the arguments set forth may have proven effective, in the global community and especially the Middle East, such rhetoric is tiresome and clearly hypocritical.

After having illegally invaded Iraq, inflicting around a million deaths, over a concoction of factually-challenged conspiracy theories about weapons of mass destruction, it comes off as laughable that the US is now claiming to oppose illegal invasions.

Musk may accept the challenge: ““This platform is hell bent on being the least untrue source of information..”

• EU Threatens To Ban Twitter (RT)

Twitter will be banned across the EU if it fails to abide by the new regulations on fighting disinformation, French Digital Transition and Telecommunications Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday. The warning comes as the European bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) is due to fully take effect on August 25. “Disinformation is one of the gravest threats weighing on our democracies,” Barrot told France Info radio. “I hope that Twitter complies with the European rules by August 25. Otherwise, it will no longer be welcome in Europe. Twitter, if it repeatedly doesn’t follow our rules, will be banned from the EU.” The DSA mandates that search engines and large platforms, such as Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok, enact measures to mitigate “disinformation or election manipulation, cyber violence against women, or harms to minors online.”

The European Commission can fine offenders up to 6% of annual worldwide turnover. EU Internal Markets Commissioner Thierry Breton announced last week that Twitter had pulled out of the bloc’s voluntary Code of Practice on Disinformation. “But obligations remain. You can run but you can’t hide,” Breton said, adding that DSA’s terms will be “ready for enforcement” when the compliance deadline expires in August. Billionaire Elon Musk, who acquired Twitter last year, promised to rid the platform of disinformation and hateful content, but also uphold the freedom of speech and offer more transparency. “This platform is hell bent on being the least untrue source of information,” Musk wrote on Twitter in early May.

At the same time, earlier this month Twitter fulfilled the Turkish government’s request to restrict access to some accounts in the weeks leading up to the presidential and general election in the country. Musk defended this decision by saying that he wanted to avoid Twitter getting shut down entirely in Türkiye. “We can’t go beyond the laws of a country … If we have a choice of either our people [going] to prison or we comply with the laws, we will comply with the laws,” Musk told the BBC last month.

“The Indian diamond industry cuts and polishes nine out of ten diamonds in the world at a processing hub in Surat..”

• Sanctions On Russian Diamonds Put A Million Jobs At Risk (RT)

Restrictions on exports of Russian diamonds that the G7 countries have been considering for over a year pose a threat to India’s polishing industry, the Economic Times reports. The Indian diamond industry cuts and polishes nine out of ten diamonds in the world at a processing hub in Surat, the outlet said. A potential embargo is weighing heavily on Surat’s more than 4,000 diamond processing companies, which employ at least a million craftsmen, polishers, and traders, according to industry experts. The town of Surat imports at least 35% of its gems from Russia’s mining giant Alrosa, which accounts for 30% of global rough diamond output.

“If the sanctions continue, then there will be a lot of uncertainty in the employment of one million workers,” said the chairman of the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, Vipul Shah. Russia’s diamond trade has so far avoided sanctions due to resistance from major importers such as Belgium, which is home to the world’s biggest diamond trading hub in Antwerp. The Belgian government has repeatedly blocked the EU’s embargo plans, warning that the move could cost thousands of jobs. At the recent G7 summit in Japan, leaders pledged to restrict trade in “diamonds mined, processed or produced in Russia” in an effort to further cut Moscow’s revenues.

In a joint statement, the group of wealthy nations said it would curb the $4.5 billion Russian diamond trade, including by using high-tech methods of tracing. “We are awaiting a proper understanding of how the sanctions will be executed, since there is no way to trace the origin of rough gems right now,” Shah said. Meanwhile, supplies of rough diamonds have been shrinking since Western sanctions disconnected Russia from the SWIFT international financial processing network last year. Indian exports of cut and polished diamonds have also slumped as US and EU firms shunned buying diamonds sourced from Russia.

“The Serb population of these four towns boycotted elections in April in which four ethnic Albanian mayors won with a turnout of less than 4%..”

• 50 Injured As NATO Troops Clash With Serb Demonstrators (RT)

NATO forces attacked a group of demonstrators in the majority-Serb town of Zvecan in Kosovo, RT Balkan reported on Monday. Stun grenades and tear gas were deployed, and around 50 people were injured. Serb demonstrators staged a sit-down protest outside municipal buildings in Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic on Monday morning, preventing ethnic Albanian officials from taking office after elections boycotted by the Serb population as illegitimate. Kosovo police officers arrived on the scene in Zvecan, backed up by members of NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR). The heavily-armored NATO troops surrounded the demonstrators, who refused to disperse, RT Balkan’s journalist on the scene reported. KFOR then threw stun grenades and tear gas into the crowd, provoking a riot.

The Serb demonstrators pelted rocks at the NATO troops, and received baton strikes and rubber bullets in return. Fifty people went to a hospital in nearby Mitrovica, and two were admitted to the emergency room. 25 KFOR soldiers were injured in the melee, Italy’s ANSA news agency said. 11 of those reportedly hurt were Italians. The protesters broke up shortly after the clashes, vowing to return and continue their demonstration on Tuesday. The latest flareup in tensions began when local mayors in four majority Serb towns in northern Kosovo resigned last year after authorities in Pristina announced plans to force residents to switch their Serbian identity documents for Kosovo-issued ones. The Serb population of these four towns boycotted elections in April in which four ethnic Albanian mayors won with a turnout of less than 4%. Nevertheless, the government in Pristina treated the votes as legitimate and the mayors were installed on Friday amid fierce opposition from the Serbs, who view the debacle as a naked power grab aimed at driving them from the breakaway province.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 with the support of the US and many of its NATO allies. Kosovo was historically a province of Serbia, and Belgrade – along with many world governments – does not recognize Kosovo as an independent state. While NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and a number of Kosovo’s Western backers have urged Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leader, Albin Kurti, to de-escalate the situation in the north of the province, he has apparently not heeded their warnings. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday that Kurti “longs and dreams of being a [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky.” Due to the clashes, Serbia placed its army on high alert, moving some units closer to the region’s border. Defense Minister Milos Vucevic said that “it is clear that terror against the Serb community in Kosovo is happening.”

🇷🇸🇭🇺 The Hungarian members of KFOR lowered their shields, which earned them applause from the Serbs. https://t.co/0IlUpAIyCJ pic.twitter.com/VKwGZWGdWj

— Sinnaig (@Sinnaig) May 29, 2023

“A big explosion could be brewing in center of Europe, Serbs in Northern Kosovo have none of the rights they were promised by the West.” — Lavrov pic.twitter.com/q10uCrqrqW

— 🅰pocalypsis 🅰pocalypseos 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🅉 (@apocalypseos) May 29, 2023

“..where it’s legal..”

• Trump Campaign Fundraises For Ballot Harvesting Operations (PM)

The Trump campaign has announced that it is looking to beat Democrat ballot harvesting in states across the country, specifically taking aim at operations funded by billionaire George Soros. “We recently alerted you that a Soros-linked Super PAC has begun targeting 6 battleground states with a $75 MILLION spending blitz to buy Crooked Joe the White House,” a Thursday campaign fundraising email read, according to the Washington Times. “But there’s something important we want to add…some of those states have legalized BALLOT HARVESTING,” the email added, highlighting Soros-linked efforts in the battleground of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

“At the beginning of the year, President Trump made a major announcement that our campaign would ballot harvest in the states where it’s legal to counter the Left’s schemes,” the email added, asking for financial contributions to the Trump campaign’s Ballot Harvesting Fund. Ballot harvesting refers to the act of a person other than the voter turning in a ballot, usually a mail-in ballot. While Republicans have previously disavowed the practice and pushed for it to be eliminated, Trump earlier this year stated that he would embrace it in states where it’s legal in order to fight back against the Democrats. Many pundits have also called for the GOP to get on board and fight fire with fire, instead of letting the Democrats undertake the practice with no pushback.

In February, a fundraising email stated, “The radical Democrats have used ballot harvesting to cancel out YOUR vote and walk away with elections that they NEVER should have won. But I’m doing something HUGE to fight back.” He continued: “Our path forward is to MASTER the Democrats’ own game of harvesting ballots in every state we can. But that also means we need to start laying the foundation for victory RIGHT NOW.” Trump echoed the sentiment in March, telling the crowd at CPAC, “We will become masters at ballot harvesting.” “We have to beat the Democrats at their own game, and we’ll do it legally. The agenda I’ve laid out today will end America’s destruction.”

Now let’s see the excess deaths stats.

• Zero Young Healthy Individuals Died of COVID-19, Israeli Data Show (ET)

Zero healthy individuals under the age of 50 have died of COVID-19 in Israel, according to newly released data. “Zero deceased of 18–49 years of age with no underlying morbidities,” the Israel Ministry of Health (MOH) said in response to a formal request from an attorney. Officials noted that the statement only applies to COVID-19 deaths where the MOH conducted an epidemiological investigation and had received information about the underlying diseases. “Zero is a very, very clear number, and cannot be subject to interpretation,” Yoav Yehezkelli, a specialist in internal medicine and medical management, and former lecturer in the Department of Emergency and Disaster Management at Tel Aviv University in Israel, told The Epoch Times.

“Why were all the extreme measures of school closures, vaccination of children, and lockdowns needed?” he added. The information was sparked by a freedom of information request filed by attorney Ori Xabi, who has been filing several such requests as he seeks to obtain information from the MOH regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 policies. Xabi asked to know the average age of people who died of COVID-19, segmented by vaccination status at the time of death; how many COVID-19 patients with no underlying morbidities under the age of 50 died; and the annual number of cardiac arrest cases between 2018 to 2022. According to the MOH response, the average age of vaccinated COVID-19 patients who died was 80.2 years. The average for the unvaccinated was 77.4 years.

The MOH emphasized that the data they have about the underlying diseases of patients is partial since it relies on information provided by the patients or their relatives, if they chose to do so. And then, only in cases in which the MOH conducted an epidemiological investigation. Therefore “the available information does not necessarily reflect the health status of the patient” the MOH wrote adding that they do not have access to the patients’ medical records. It is not clear why the MOH responded to Xabi’s request using only cases where the MOH had conducted an epidemiological investigation, and which was limited to deceased patients where the families had cooperated, since in 2020 the MOH told the Israeli Knesset—the Israeli parliament—that they use an intelligence system that provides the MOH with extensive information about deceased patients that included “underlying diseases.”

“..These comedy giants are set upon by an Army of Lilliputians who have contributed little to culture beyond chilling artists and writers into obedient silence..”

• John Cleese Holds Line Against Calls to Cancel Scene in Life of Brian (Turley)

We have previously discussed how comedians have been objecting that woke activists are killing comedy. The complaint is that a group of perpetually pissed off, humorless people are remaking the world in their own image. It began with college campuses where comedians are now saying are dead as venues since you cannot safely make any joke that insults any group other than white straight males or Christians or conservatives. Others have objected to hate speech laws limiting comedians, particularly after some comedians have been prosecuted for “malicious communications” or insulting groups or religious figures. Six out of ten students view offensive jokes as hate speech. This week, however, activists appear to have met their match in a legend of comedy who has opposed the cutting of a scene from the movie The Life of Brian. No, activists are not upset with the endless jokes about Italians, Christians, and Jews. It is the scene involving a man who wants to become a women and have a child. John Cleese is refusing to yield.

In The Life of Brian, the scene involves “Stan” who announces that he wants to be a woman named Loretta and have babies. Activists objected that it made fun of transgender people and demanded that it be cut from the film. The scene shows Stan declaring “I want to be a woman… It’s my right as a man. I want to have babies… It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.” After Cleese’s protest, the character snaps, “Don’t you oppress me!” Some reported that Cleese had agreed to cut the scene. However, Cleese tweeted out a correction of the “misreporting.” What is interesting is that Rob Reiner is reportedly working on the reboot. Reiner is known as someone who is a champion of the left in Hollywood. This may be an inauspicious start for the reboot effort. Cleese is not alone in raising this alarm. Comedians including Chris Rock blamed the range of “unfunny TV shows” on the fact that “everybody’s scared to make a move”. Ricky Gervais objected that the BBC is now paralyzed in fear of offending anyone. Jennifer Saunders that people now “talk themselves out of stuff now because everything is sensitive.”

The same complaint has been made in the age of woke advertising that funny commercials seem increasingly rare as opposed to corporate virtue signaling. The director of the classic comedy Airplane! observed that humor is being squeezed out of Hollywood and the movie today would have virtually every joke removed. David Zucker called it the “death of creativity.” They are now set upon by a legion of humorless people who seek to reduce the world to their own narrow range of acceptable levity or irony. These comedy giants are set upon by an Army of Lilliputians who have contributed little to culture beyond chilling artists and writers into obedient silence or compulsive comedy criteria. Of course, Cleese could always use the line from Bryan’s mother: “He’s a very naughty boy! Now, piss off!”

Wynnum

A town with a population of 13,000, Wynnum in Queensland, Australia, witnesses an alarming rise in vaccine injuries and fatalities.

The forest of the fallen.

Credit:https://t.co/OrnqCZTwUN pic.twitter.com/mlhgR53DL0

— 🇦🇺OurVoicesMatter (@OV_Matter) May 29, 2023

CO2

Yeahhhhh I'm keeping my diesel 4×4
They can fuck off pic.twitter.com/75D91JyJXA

— The White Rabbit Podcast (@AllBiteNoBark88) May 28, 2023

Turtle

This is incredible! A heartwarming moment captured at sea as a shark asks for human help to rescue a defenseless turtle🙏👏

pic.twitter.com/iOdP5XJr4q

— Tansu YEĞEN (@TansuYegen) May 29, 2023

Pheasant

Cabot's tragopan is a pheasant from the mountain ranges of south-east China

Below the beak is a decorative wattle, and there are a pair of blue soft "horns"
These are inflated as part of a courtship display to impress females,

Watch it here pic.twitter.com/fYxjs2e9qu

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 29, 2023

Woow

Woow pic.twitter.com/8Y57k1rm9Z

— The Best (@Figensport) May 29, 2023

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Debt Rattle January 16 2023

Jan 162023

January 16, 2023 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:44 am Finance Tagged with: Apache, genocide, Hunter Biden, McCarthy, NATO, Navy Joan, pitchforks, war criminal, war economy 54 Responses »

James Proudfoot Sun on a House, Dieppe 1937

• We’re One Tragedy Away From Pitchforks And Torches (Jeftovic)

• Temporary Morgues are Being Built Across UK Due to Excess Deaths (GP)

• European Parliament Poised To Ban Pfizer Representatives (De Lauzun)

• Impeach ‘War Criminal’ Biden Over Ukraine – US Democrat (RT)

• The Importance of Being Biden (Turley)

• McCarthy Leaves Reporters Silent With Bombshell About Eric Swalwell (TPN)

• Destroying American Democracy – An Inside Job (Hoekstra)

• Glug Glug, Gurgle Gurgle (Kunstler)

• EU Needs ‘War Economy’ – Veteran German Diplomat (RT)

• London Rejects Ukraine Helicopters Claim (RT)

• NATO Promises More Heavy Weapons For Ukraine (RT)

• Zelensky Aide Flip-flops On Apartment Block Blast (RT)

• Zelensky Rolls Out New Anti-Russian Sanctions (RT)

• Ukrainian Blogger Calls For Genocide Of All Russians (RT)

Fasting + ivermectin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1614714917554163713

RFKjr – regulators income

Robert Kennedy Jr.: FDA gets nearly half their budget from Big Pharma companies and CDC makes much of its money via vaccine patents pic.twitter.com/TUJu1rPQ8N

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2023) January 15, 2023

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1614373897067012098

Eugenics
https://twitter.com/i/status/1614689938595024896

“It’s going to take a long time to rebuild public trust and probably not while any incumbents are still in office.”

• We’re One Tragedy Away From Pitchforks And Torches (Jeftovic)

We know now via the various Twitter Files dumps that Big Tech has been taking their orders from the government, intelligence agencies and Big Pharma (a.k.a The Pharmatrocracy) all along. Should we just assume the corporate press has been as well? This would explain why instead of undertaking Watergate level investigative reporting into legions of children, athletes and young adults suddenly dropping dead or having heart attacks, strokes and other medical emergencies, live on the air; we’re getting gaslighted about childhood asthma from natural gas stoves. I have been wondering if it is possible that the perceived increase in these reports of sudden deaths is the result of a self-perpetuating loop of increased focus on these events.

A kind of hysteria of its own. This is why since the onset of COVID, I’ve always tried to find numbers and data – then I follow that data where it leads me. Often times it’s not the same place as what I’m seeing on the television screen. Anybody can look at a graph, and provided that the data is kosher, see when something is out of whack. This one is out of Dowd’s book and sourced with CDC data is the aggregate excess mortality rate for millennials since before the pandemic. We know that the survival rate from COVID goes up dramatically as age comes down. The vast majority of COVID fatalities were in our elderly (many of whom were forced into localized outbreaks where they died locked down and alone). Two things stand out: #1) The excess death rates spike higher as the vaccines deploy, reaching their highest when mandates kick in. #2) The trend line is going the wrong direction.

[..] The disconnect between what the average person on the street is seeing happen right before their eyes and what they’re being told is happening (or not happening) by paternalistic fact-checking media propagandists will soon come to a breaking point. The only thing that can stop it is for some policymakers and pundits to start throwing the engine brake and try to get out in front of what will be an inevitable public backlash. My fear is this won’t happen. There is too much invested: the entire regime of Digital IDs and health passports was to be built atop the COVID vaccine deployment. Vaxports were supposed to be the official lubricant of The Great Reset. If it turns out that these things are not only ineffective but harmful, it will set The Fourth Industrial Revolution back decades. It’s going to take a long time to rebuild public trust and probably not while any incumbents are still in office.

If this is true, it should be happening all over.

• Temporary Morgues are Being Built Across UK Due to Excess Deaths (GP)

Now, temporary morgues are being used as overflow space by hospitals in the UK with full morgues. This news broke just days after a nationwide alert about “mortuary capacity issues” was issued by the Human Tissue Authority, the agency in charge of regulating the storage of human remains. These temporary morgues, which consist of large shipping containers, are being set up in public places like office parks, the Mirror reported. According to The Sun, vehicles from hospitals such as Salisbury District Hospital in Wiltshire and Royal Liverpool Hospital delivered bodies to the council gritting yard, which has a refrigeration unit guarded 24/7. Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust said, “We can confirm that we have opened additional mortuary capacity to accommodate an increase in need across the local community.”

“Our mortuary service operates to the national standards treating the deceased and loved ones with dignity and respect at all times regardless of location. All our additional capacity provides privacy and has 24/7 security,” it continued. Meanwhile, two additional units have been set up at Royal Liverpool University Hospital. The Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which operates the Royal Liverpool Hospital, has stated, “It is common practice for mortuaries to have purpose-built temporary systems available. “This ensures that patients continue to be treated with dignity and respect, in facilities which are equivalent to a permanent mortuary, during periods of increased demand. Two of these systems, which meet standards set out by the Human Tissue Authority, have been deployed at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital,” it continued.

It is not just UK. Funeral homes in Norway sound the alarm as they struggle to store all the dead people as a result of Norway’s skyrocketing excess mortality rate. The number of people needing funeral services in Trondheim City, Central Norway, has risen dramatically, according to the local newspaper Dagbladet Trondheim. Lars Svanholm, the fourth-generation general manager of Trondheim’s largest funeral home, Svanholm & Vigdal Gravferd, has said that the funeral home’s century-long history has never seen anything like the current number of deaths. “It is a marked increase, and we have not experienced anything like it in four generations,” Lars Svanholm told Dagbladet. “We have not had such an increase since the company started in 1922,” said Svanholm to local tv.

Sky Excess

UK excess deaths are off the scale. Over a thousand more people are dying every week than expected. The vast majority are non Covid deaths.

Sky News: “We don’t know what is driving those excess deaths.”pic.twitter.com/ebR0SNlF7Q

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) January 15, 2023

The only thing they can do is fire Ursula. But can they?

• European Parliament Poised To Ban Pfizer Representatives (De Lauzun)

The scandal surrounding Pfizer’s contracts with the European Union over COVID vaccines has taken a new turn. The European Parliament’s COVID committee (COVI) approved on Wednesday, January 11th a proposal to ban Pfizer representatives from Parliament because of the company’s repeated lack of transparency. All political groups approved the proposal, with the exception of the EPP and Renew Europe, but their opposition was not enough to prevent the vote. The procedure has a precedent: in 2017, the agrochemical company Monsanto was also denied access to the European Parliament by the Environment Committee (ENVI) because it had refused to comply with the rule of public hearings.

For several months, many MEPs have been trying to obtain clarification on the conditions under which the European Union concluded contracts for the purchase of COVID vaccines in vain. At issue is the lack of transparency regarding the exact content of the contracts and the repeated exchanges of text messages between Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Albert Bourla systematically refused to attend COVI committee meetings in October 2022 and December 2022, triggering protests from committee members. “The EP has a right to full transparency on the details of this spending and the preliminary negotiations that led to it,” tweeted Kathleen Van Brempt, chair of the COVI committee in December.

It was international markets chair Janine Small who finally confronted the parliamentarians of the COVI committee. She assured the MEPs that the contracts were freely available to them—failing to point out that many passages had been deliberately redacted and made illegible. MEPs also had difficulty accessing the text messages exchanged between Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer during the contract negotiation phase. Janine Small said that nothing had been negotiated by SMS, and that the messages in question were simply due to the teleworking phase caused by the pandemic. These explanations did not satisfy the parliamentarians in charge of the case, who pointed to Pfizer’s clear refusal to collaborate. “I think Albert Bourla deliberately did not come, because he did not want to face the controversies,” French MEP and COVI member Véronique Trillet-Lenoir told Euractiv.

Following the COVI committee vote, a new vote must take place in the CCC (Conference of Committee Chairs), which brings together all committee chairs. Several options are on the table: the duration of the exclusion, whether the sanction will apply only to Bourla or to all Pfizer representatives, or whether it is upheld at all. The final decision should not be taken for another month.

“There is no way Russia can lose this war and no way Ukraine and NATO can possibly win it..”

• Impeach ‘War Criminal’ Biden Over Ukraine – US Democrat (RT)

Geoffrey Young, who is running for governor in the US state of Kentucky, has accused Joe Biden of committing war crimes in Ukraine and other countries, saying the president should be impeached for carrying out an illegal proxy struggle against Russia in the former Soviet republic. “I think Joe Biden (D-war criminal) should be impeached immediately for war crimes in Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, etc.,” Young said in a Twitter post. “Also for continuing the illegal proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. All US presidents since 1945 = war criminals (including Trump),” he added. Young, an MIT-trained economist who has worked as an environmental engineer in state government, made waves last year after winning the Democratic Party’s nomination for Kentucky’s District 6 congressional seat.

He vowed during the campaign to help prevent nuclear war with Russia by pursuing a “reasonable” peace plan with Moscow. He also called the Kiev regime a “Nazi puppet government” and said the CIA should be eliminated because it’s the “worst terrorist organization in the world today.” After Young won Kentucky’s Democratic primary in May, his party declined to support him in the November general election against incumbent Republican congressman Andy Barr. He alienated party leaders with his contrarian views, such as accusing Biden of recklessly provoking China, illegally deploying troops in Syria and Iraq, and making the US vulnerable to attack by becoming a “co-belligerent” with Ukraine against Russia.

Less than a week after the congressional midterms, the 66-year-old Young, who bills himself as a “peace Democrat,” announced his candidacy in Kentucky’s 2023 race for governor. He will try to unseat the incumbent Democrat, Governor Andy Beshear, whom he has accused of being a “not-yet-indicted felon.” Young has called the Ukraine conflict a lost cause for the US and NATO and faulted Biden’s administration for rejecting a peace proposal from Moscow in December 2021. “There is no way Russia can lose this war and no way Ukraine and NATO can possibly win it,” he said last week.

CNN Biden lies

The worms turn pic.twitter.com/hZiLr5bBuT

— James Hirsen (@thejimjams) January 16, 2023

“There is no record that Joe or Jill Biden have ever sought to meet, let alone embrace, their grandchild..”

• The Importance of Being Biden (Turley)

Hunter Biden’s disgraceful treatment of his daughter has long been on display in Arkansas where he long denied being her father, fought paternity, and was threatened with contempt of court over his failure to supply needed documents. After DNA testing was forced by a court, Hunter was found to be the father but he continued to resist efforts to force him to pay child support and supply financial records. Recently, Lunden Roberts sought to have a surname change for her daughter to Biden. Even after his long and abusive treatment of his daughter in court, Hunter Biden’s opposition is breathtaking. He opposes his daughter using his name and says that, if she does, she will never have a “peaceful existence.” Of course, Biden did not feel that way with his other four children. They are all true Bidens and living peaceful existences.

It is only Navy Joan who he does not want to bear the family name. Hunter’s concern for Navy Joan’s peaceful existence is a bit odd since he has reportedly never even seen his daughter after fighting for years to deny his paternal status and child support. While living in a luxurious mansion in Malibu, Hunter continued to fight his obligations under child support and requested in September 2022 to have the payments lowered, bemoaning how his “financial circumstances” were difficult for him. The public pays more for his security in his mansion than he does in monthly support for his daughter. Hunter is asking Circuit Court Judge Holly Meyer to deny Navy Joan the ability to use her father’s surname and claiming that it is in her best interest. The filing is so self-serving and transparently dishonest that it does what was once thought impossible: reach a new low for Hunter.

All of his reported selfies having sex and doing drugs with prostitutes were shocking. His attacks on his former sister-in-law, Hallie Biden, widow of the deceased brother (with whom Hunter later had a romantic relationship), were appalling. However, the craven effort to deny this child his name reaches a level of cad that stands unrivaled. The position of Hunter in court has been disgraceful, but the media has largely ignored the matter. It has also ignored the utter lack of support from President Joe Biden and the First Lady, who tellingly omitted a stocking for Navy Joan as one of their grandchildren. (The dog and cat did receive stockings). There is no record that Joe or Jill Biden have ever sought to meet, let alone embrace, their grandchild. The President has, however, sought to deny the child security protection (despite his son’s concern for her “peaceful existence”).

Too big a headline without the details. “If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee..”

• McCarthy Leaves Reporters Silent With Bombshell About Eric Swalwell (TPN)

On Thursday while speaking with reporters, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy left reporters speechless after he defended his decision to keep California Democrats Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff off of the House Intelligence Committee. “If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy said, leaving reporters silent. This suggests damning bombshell information about Swalwell’s handlings that we will hopefully learn in the coming weeks. “And you’re going to tell me other Democrats couldn’t fill that slot? He cannot get a security clearance in the private sector,” McCarthy said. “So would you like to give him a government clearance?”

McCarthy went on to explain that the last Congress lead by Nancy Pelosi kept Swalwell on the committee even though they were aware of the massive red flag from the FBI. “You’re going to tell me there are 200 other Democrats that couldn’t fill that slot, but they kept him on it? The only way that they even knew it came forward is when they put to nominate him to the Intel committee. And then the FBI came and told the leadership that he’s got a problem, and they kept him on. That jeopardized all of us,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also name dropped Schiff. “Adam Schiff openly lied to the American public. He told you he had proof. He told you he didn’t know the whistle blower,” McCarthy said while referring to false claims made by the California Democrat against former President Donald Trump. “He put America for four years through an impeachment that he knew was a lie.” At the same time, we had Ukraine, the same time we had Afghanistan collapse. Was that the role of the Intel committee? No,” McCarthy said. “So what I am doing with the Intel committee, bringing it back to the jurisdiction is supposed to do forward looking to keep this country safe, keep the politics out of it,” he continued.

Good questions. But who’s going to ask them?

• Destroying American Democracy – An Inside Job (Hoekstra)

The fraudulent efforts by the U.S. government, Clapper, Brennan and the 49 others — along with Hillary Clinton, her campaign committee, the Democratic National Committee and the suppression of the media and social media — to influence the public unfortunately met with some success. For almost two years, the authenticity of the material found on Hunter Biden’s laptop was questioned. Today, its authenticity has been verified; the information is real and damning. As summarized by the New York Post: “Yes that letter from the Dirty 51 had all the classic earmarks of a disinformation operation, all right – one designed to ensure Joe Biden won the presidency. And it was essentially a CIA operation, considering 43 of the 51 signatories were former CIA.”

One final example of the Intelligence Community involving itself in domestic politics comes from the recent release of the “Twitter Files.” According to tweet #20 of the third tranche released: “This post about the Hunter Biden laptop situation shows that Roth not only met weekly with the FBI and DHS, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.” Tweet #17 states: “executives were also clearly liaising with federal enforcement and intelligence agencies about moderation of election-related content.” Finally, the FBI paid Twitter $3.5 million reportedly to “handle requests from the bureau.” We now know what happened. Twitter suppressed discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop story and suppressed conservative messaging, while at the same time it appears the FBI, DHS and the ODNI had literally had set up shop at Twitter.

The American people should be outraged. This level of collaboration between federal law enforcement and a private sector company on controlling speech is terrifying. Having our Intelligence Community, which is supposed to be focused on foreign intelligence collection, involved is even more terrifying. DNI James Clapper lying to the American people in 2013 about government surveillance of them, the promoting of the Russian hoax theory in 2017 by CIA Director Brennan, DNI Clapper, FBI Director Comey and others, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story by 51 former intelligence professionals, and the close working arrangement between the FBI, DHS and the ODNI in 2020-2022 raises a staggering series of questions:

Can our government, law enforcement, and the Intelligence Community still be trusted? Have those federal government agencies literally weaponized law enforcement and intelligence against political opponents in the U.S.? Has more than one solitary person — former FBI attorney Kevin Clinemith, for altering an email — been held accountable for these egregious abuses of power? Why wasn’t there a more powerful response from the Intelligence Community and the law enforcement community about the disinformation from the 51 former intelligence professionals? Who authorized the cozy relationship between law enforcement, the intelligence community with Twitter? Who in these government agencies reviewed and approved of the output and decisions coming from these joint efforts? Were political appointees in the review loop? Who has the records, notes and decisions that emanated from these groups?

Good questions. But who’s going to ask them?

• Glug Glug, Gurgle Gurgle (Kunstler)

Summon the ghost of James Comey to ‘splain’ the finer points of RussiaGate: how he fell for Hillary Clinton’s Steele Dossier prank; how he used Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman to leak info about confidential meetings with Mr. Trump; whether he ordered Peter Strzok’s sandbagging operation on Gen. Mike Flynn, the FISA court shenanigans, the hiring of CrowdStrike instead of using FBI forensic experts to vet evidence; the run-up to “Crossfire Hurricane” the roles of international men of mystery Stefan Halper and Josef Mifsud in the operations to incriminate Trump appointees, Nellie Ohr’s role as a DOJ-FBI go-between with the Fusion GPS company.

Let’s hear from former CIA director John Brennan about the “17 Intel Agencies” who swore Russia was behind 2016 election interference and then about the 50-odd distinguished intel officers and other high officials who swore that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russia put-on job. Ask former Attorney General Bill Barr to ‘splain’ if he was informed about the Hunter Biden laptop when the FBI got it in 2019. Bring back former AG Jeff Sessions to ‘splain’ how the Mueller Special Counsel’s office was stuffed with Democratic Party activist Lawfare cadres, and how he determined that Mr. Mueller was mentally up to the job. Bring in Mr. Mueller to ‘splain’ how he testified that in the two-year course of his inquiry he never heard of the company Fusion GPS.

Find a special booster chair for Merrick Garland to ‘splain’ how come so many January 6 suspects are being held indefinitely pre-trial in the DC lockup on rinky-dink charges under the harshest conditions (solitary confinement, denial of medical care) in defiance of due process of law, in particular the constitutional right to a speedy trial. Ask Mr. Garland why he’s devoting vast resources of the DOJ to pursue ever more January 6 protesters on Mickey Mouse charges. Ask him to ‘splain’ how it came to pass that he went after parents protesting at school boards about indecent sex ed for little children and racist anti-white indoctrination. Ask him about sending SWAT teams on predawn raids to the homes of investigation targets whose lawyers volunteered to deliver them to the FBI offices. Ask him why he appointed a RussiaGate-involved lawyer, one Robert K Hur, as Special Counsel in the “Joe Biden” classified document matter.

The EU doesn’t even have time to do this. It would take ten years.

“..in 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin first voiced his concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and warned that a unipolar model was not only “unacceptable, but outright impossible” for the modern world..”

• EU Needs ‘War Economy’ – Veteran German Diplomat (RT)

The EU must drastically ramp up the production of ammunition and heavy weapons if it wants to help Ukraine succeed in the conflict with Russia, Wolfgang Ischinger, the former chair of the Munich Security Conference and a veteran German diplomat, said on Saturday. He stressed that Kiev’s supporters would run out of supplies unless they transform their economies. “There is much to suggest that this war is far from over. Therefore, it is necessary for us to plan for the long term,” Ischinger stressed in an interview with Germany’s Welt newspaper. “All the military experts I know are saying that stocks of old Soviet weapons and respective ammunition are running out.” “Ukraine is forced to fire as much ammunition per day as we are producing in half a year. The end of our stocks is in sight. What comes next? Who handles replenishment? A war economy means that we – within NATO and in coordination at a European level – take the initiative and call on European armaments companies to produce more weapons and more ammunition as a result of the war.”

Ischinger said that the supplying and resupplying of Ukraine with heavy weapons, such as tanks, missiles, air defense systems, and drones, should be “controlled and coordinated” by the EU, as well as by the governments of individual member states. He added that regular meetings of Western countries that support Kiev with arms and military equipment at the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany are not enough. “They are certainly very helpful, but we need a political prioritization so the industry would have necessary specifications,” he said. Moscow has repeatedly urged the collective West to stop “pumping” Ukraine with weapons, maintaining that doing so will only prolong the hostilities and the suffering of common Ukrainians, rather than change the ultimate outcome of the conflict.

From 2008 to 2022, Ischinger served as chairman of the Munich Security Conference, the largest annual multinational security policy event of its kind. The conference was the platform where, back in 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin first voiced his concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and warned that a unipolar model was not only “unacceptable, but outright impossible” for the modern world. Now a proponent of even further militarization of Europe, Ischinger previously had a hand in the Ukrainian turmoil as well. In early 2014, he was tapped by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to become its representative tasked with establishing a ‘dialogue’ in Ukraine following the Maidan coup, which toppled the democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich and ushered in the years-long conflict in the country’s east.

Made up from whole cloth. No Apaches, no Hellfires. Just stories.

• London Rejects Ukraine Helicopters Claim (RT)

The British government has denied a media report claiming that it would supply Ukraine with AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, Sky News stated on Sunday. The UK still intends to donate a handful of tanks and artillery guns. In an article that has since been deleted, the Sunday People, an outlet that shares a website with The Mirror, claimed that the arrival of the US-made choppers would be “a major game-changer” for Ukraine’s forces, which recently lost the strategically important Donbass town of Soledar to Russian forces, sustaining horrific losses in the process. Citing an unnamed “senior defense source,” the paper said that “other NATO members will now follow suit” and donate their own helicopters. However, the article was “incorrect,” the Ministry of Defence told Sky News correspondent Deborah Haynes.

While the Ukrainian military will not get its hands on the Apaches, the UK still intends to ship a squadron of 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Kiev “in the coming weeks,” as well as “around 30” AS-90 self-propelled artillery guns. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office confirmed the arms package on Saturday, and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to announce further details on Monday. Ukraine has yet to receive any Western-designed combat aircraft from its NATO backers, despite repeated pleas from Kiev for fighter jets in particular. Aside from the challenge of training Ukrainian pilots to fly the machine, the Apache is noted for “frequent failures of key components and high demands for maintenance,” according to a US government report. The report found that in order to keep the Apache flying in combat environments, the US military “relied heavily on contractors” to “keep up with the maintenance burden.”

“Further weapons packages will likely be announced after the US-led ‘Defense Contact Group’ meets on Friday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany..”

• NATO Promises More Heavy Weapons For Ukraine (RT)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Saturday that Ukraine would receive more “heavy warfare equipment” from the West in “the near future.” The UK has already pledged tanks to the country, and Germany is under pressure to follow suit. A US-led ‘contact group’ for arming Ukraine will meet on Friday. “We are in a crucial phase of the war,” Stoltenberg told Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper on Sunday, days after Ukraine lost the strategically important Donbass town of Soledar to Russian forces. “We are experiencing heavy fighting,” the NATO chief continued. “It is therefore important that we equip Ukraine with the weapons it needs to be able to win.” Recent weeks have seen a dramatic escalation in the equipment promised to Ukraine by NATO’s largest powers.

The US, France, and Germany simultaneously announced at the beginning of the month that they would donate infantry fighting vehicles to the Ukrainian military, while the UK officially confirmed on Saturday that it would send fourteen Challenger 2 main battle tanks. “The recent pledges for heavy warfare equipment are important, and I expect more in the near future,” Stoltenberg told Handelsblatt. Further weapons packages will likely be announced after the US-led ‘Defense Contact Group’ meets on Friday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. This panel of nearly 50 countries has met seven times already since Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began last February, with each meeting followed by fresh pledges of military aid from America and its allies.

One of the first meetings in May was followed by deliveries of anti-ship missiles from Denmark, helicopters from the Czech Republic, and artillery systems from Italy, Greece, Norway, and Poland. The group’s last meeting in November came as the US announced a $400 million aid package, including surface-to-air missiles. Although Stoltenberg insists that he does not want “a full-blown war between NATO and Russia,” Moscow has repeatedly warned the West that its continued arms deliveries will only prolong the conflict in Ukraine, while making the Western powers de-facto participants. Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the conflict as one between Russia and “the entire Western military machine,” but said on Saturday that the progress of Moscow’s military operation is “positive,” with the battlefield situation “developing within the framework of the Defense Ministry’s and the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s plan.”

“..Arestovich retracted his apology shortly after, stating he re-watched his interview and deemed it to be carefully-worded and vague enough..”

• Zelensky Aide Flip-flops On Apartment Block Blast (RT)

The partial destruction of a residential building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnepr has triggered a bitter spat between the country’s top officials, struggling to explain the exact causes of the incident. The scandal was prompted by the assessment offered by Aleksey Arestovich, a senior advisor to President Vladimir Zelensky, who said that the Russian missile might have been brought down by Ukrainian troops and ended up hitting the building. The site was heavily damaged on Saturday, with some 25 civilians killed and 73 injured, according to Ukrainian authorities. “It was shot down. It apparently fell on the [apartment] block. But it exploded when falling,” Arestovich said in a YouTube interview.

The assessment immediately came under fire, with Arestovich ending up accused of discrediting Ukraine’s military and assigning blame for the incident on it. The mayor of Dnepr, Boris Filatov, got particularly enraged by his statements, branding the presidential aide “a narcissistic animal and a foul mouth,” and urging the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and counterintelligence to “react.” The spat prompted the country’s military to provide its own explanation of the incident, with the Ukrainian Air Force command identifying the Russian projectile that allegedly hit the building as a Kh-22, a supersonic air-launched cruise missile. The military bizarrely claimed in an official statement that it has no weaponry to bring down the missiles of the type altogether, with more than 210 Kh-22s making it through the country’s air defenses amid the ongoing conflict.

Separately, the spokesman for the Air Force, Colonel Yury Ignat, admitted on Facebook that earlier reports of Ukrainian forces shooting down Kh-22 missiles might have been inaccurate. The barrage of criticism made Arestovich offer an apology over his statements, with the official claiming he got the information from his acquaintance, a retired anti-aircraft officer, who purportedly witnessed the incident. Zelensky’s aide said he should have stated more explicitly that his assessment was merely a “version” rather than the ultimate truth. However, Arestovich retracted his apology shortly after, stating he re-watched his interview and deemed it to be carefully-worded and vague enough. He also blamed the forced explanation by the military on his critics, who preferred to rage over his remarks rather than highlight “Russia’s guilt.”

Most of these people have family and friends “on the other side”.

“I have not formed any particular opinion on the matter, except for what I have already said: I observe with compassion the tragic events in my beloved Ukraine,” Konchalovsky said.”

• Zelensky Rolls Out New Anti-Russian Sanctions (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree on Sunday, imposing personal sanctions on some 198 Russian nationals. The new list includes multiple prominent artists, journalists and other public figures. Kiev targeted award-winning director Andrey Konchalovsky and former governor of Moscow Region Boris Gromov, as well as several RT journalists and multiple bloggers. Commenting on getting on the blacklist, Konchalovsky told the RIA Novosti news agency that a “historical dazzle of large masses of people” was nothing new, but an eventual awakening of them was inevitable. “I have not formed any particular opinion on the matter, except for what I have already said: I observe with compassion the tragic events in my beloved Ukraine,” Konchalovsky said.

The restrictions imposed for a 10-year period include freeze of assets, travel and visa bans, stripping of Ukrainian state awards, and some other measures. The move comes one week after Zelensky decreed personal sanctions against 119 Russian public figures, including opera star Anna Netrebko, Oscar-winning film director Nikita Mikhalkov and pop singer Philipp Kirkorov. The Ukrainian president also targeted Russian journalists, including RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and Dmitry Kiselyov, the head of the Rossiya Segodnya media group. Kiev has repeatedly sanctioned Russian nationals amid the ongoing conflict with Mosciw, blacklisting hundreds of people.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.” Shortly before the hostilities broke out, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Last September, Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, were incorporated into Russia following referendums.

“It’s absolutely fair for me to wish for all Russians and Russia to be wiped off the face of the Earth,” Podoliak tweeted. “It’s not hate speech, it’s not horrible of me, it’s just FAIR.”

• Ukrainian Blogger Calls For Genocide Of All Russians (RT)

Ukrainian blogger Melania Podoliak, a prominent guest on Western news channels, has demanded that Russia and its people be “wiped off the face of the earth.” Podoliak issued her call for genocide on Saturday after her own country’s air defense supposedly caused a Russian missile to hit an apartment block. “It’s absolutely fair for me to wish for all Russians and Russia to be wiped off the face of the Earth,” Podoliak tweeted. “It’s not hate speech, it’s not horrible of me, it’s just FAIR.” Podoliak shared an image of an apartment block in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnepr, which she said was destroyed “after [a] Russian missile attack.” While Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that the building was hit by a Russian missile, his adviser, Aleksey Arestovich, admitted afterwards that the missile was shot down by a Ukrainian anti-air weapon, which caused it to hit the building.

Commenters on Twitter hammered Podoliak for being “pro-ethnic cleansing,” but the Ukrainian blogger stood by her statement, responding to critics with expletives. In a follow-up tweet on Sunday, she described Arestovich as “a f**king moron.” Before calling for the deaths of 143 million people, Podoliak was lauded in the West. A former staffer in Ukraine’s parliament, she has been featured on NBC News as a “political activist” demanding the West send heavy weapons to Kiev, and on Fox News as a “media consultant” calling for sanctions on Moscow. On her YouTube channel, she offers viewers links to donate money to the Ukrainian military. Russia’s defense ministry said on Sunday that Saturday’s missile barrage targeted “the military command and control system of Ukraine and associated energy facilities.” Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians, stating that the missile campaign was launched against Ukrainian military and infrastructure targets in response to Ukraine’s “terrorist” attacks on its own infrastructure, including the Crimean Bridge.

White deer

Rare white deer relaxes in the arms of his friend
(Sound on) pic.twitter.com/IybTohbpEe

— Gabriele Corno (@Gabriele_Corno) January 15, 2023

«A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness»
—Albert Einstein

Calf

The calf he was about to sell comes back and the owner got excited so he decided to bring it home and never sell it again pic.twitter.com/ykab9E1Ds7

— Gabriele Corno (@Gabriele_Corno) January 15, 2023

Dog scoop
https://twitter.com/i/status/1614440440341712896

Dog slide

this is so wholesome pic.twitter.com/VjVdyBG8ai

— The Woof World (@TheWoofWorld) January 14, 2023

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Debt Rattle January 7 2023

Jan 072023

January 7, 2023 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: border visit, hypersonic, Jan6, McCarthy, NATO, offensive, Schiff, Speaker, Ted Cruz, truce, Ukraine 89 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Interieur au Pot de Fleurs 1953

• Ukraine On ‘NATO Mission’ – Defense Minister (RT)

• Ukrainian Political Scientist: Putin Needs Truce To Prepare New Offensive (Az.)

• US To Send Ukraine Dozens Of Bradleys In $2.85b Aid Package (RT)

• US To Arm Kiev With Sea Sparrows – Politico (RT)

• WWIII HAS BEGUN: Medvedev Wants Hypersonic Missiles Near Washington (Celente)

• McCarthy Elected House Speaker After Last-minute Call From Trump To Gaetz (PM)

• Senators Make New Demand Regarding FBI, Hunter Biden, Obama White House (CB)

• 2 Yrs After Jan. 6: 1,000 Arrests; Zero ‘Insurrection’ Charges (Attkisson)

• Jan. 6 Comm. Releases Social Security Numbers Of Trump Officials, Allies (Fox)

• Adam Schiff’s Assault on the First Amendment (BB)

• Ted Cruz Slams Joe Biden for Turning Pharmacies Into Abortion Centers (LN)

• Biden Spokeswoman Blames Trump Ahead Of Border Visit (Fox)

• Repentance (Kunstler)

VSRF

Why are so many YOUNG people dying suddenly? What are we not being told? #diedsuddendly #newcovid #faucifiles #pfizer #vaccinedeath pic.twitter.com/72gpxvvyXf

— Virtue Emoji ™ (@VirtueEmoji) January 5, 2023

‘Unavoidably Unsafe’
https://twitter.com/i/status/1610373150767824901

Disturbing trend

Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough discusses his findings with Tucker Carlson on the disturbing trend of more young athletes collapsing on the field with heart issues than ever before.

"The leading concern here is vaccine-induced myocarditis, if indeed he's taken the vaccine." pic.twitter.com/MILxJgecjy

— Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) January 4, 2023

What? Has NATO denounced this? Since when can NATO not do its own business?

• Ukraine On ‘NATO Mission’ – Defense Minister (RT)

Kiev is shedding blood to carry out the mission NATO set for itself and expects the “civilized West” to provide weapons and ammunition in return, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov has said in an interview for a domestic TV channel. Appearing on the 1+1 network’s TSN channel on Thursday evening, Reznikov pointed out that at the Madrid summit last summer, NATO declared Russia the greatest threat to the US-led bloc. “Today, Ukraine is addressing that threat. We’re carrying out NATO’s mission today, without shedding their blood. We shed our blood, so we expect them to provide weapons,” he said.

Reznikov also claimed that his NATO colleagues have told him, both in conversations and via text messages, that Ukraine is the “shield of civilization” and “defending the entire civilized world, the entire West.” Ukrainian officials, from President Vladimir Zelensky on down, routinely make public appeals for tanks, missiles, artillery and ammunition. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told the General Staff in December that Moscow was de facto fighting the collective West. By his estimates, the government in Kiev has received almost $100 billion worth of weapons, ammunition and other supplies in 2022 alone. Reznikov has led that effort, boasting to the US outlet Politico in October that he had figured out the Pentagon’s political process. His goal, he said, was to keep raising the bar until Ukraine received main battle tanks.

While that particular threshold has yet to be crossed, on Friday Washington announced the delivery of 50 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, the most modern armor sent to Kiev so far, as part of a $3 billion weapons package. Earlier this week, France pledged a number of wheeled ‘light tanks’ as well. These shipments are intended to replace Ukraine’s battlefield losses. Last month, Kiev’s top general Valery Zaluzhny told The Economist he would need 300 more tanks, up to 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 howitzers to conduct offensive operations. This is more than the number of such vehicles in British or German inventory. Moscow insists that Western weapon deliveries only serve to prolong the conflict, and has repeatedly warned Ukraine’s backers that this could result in an all-out military confrontation between Russia and NATO.

Yeah, Putin needs just 36 hours for that.

• Ukrainian Political Scientist: Putin Needs Truce To Prepare New Offensive (Az.)

On January 5, Vladimir Putin instructed the Russian Defense Ministry to introduce a ceasefire along the entire line of contact from 12:00 on January 6 to 24:00 on January 7. Kyiv rejected this proposal, calling it a cover and declaring Russia’s intention to bring equipment, ammunition and military personnel closer to the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Ukrainian political scientist believes that Vladimir Putin needs this truce in order to prepare a new offensive in Ukraine by February-March. “Russia is now short of shells, and for them this truce was necessary,” Reichel said. According to him, Russia now has only one option for a mediator in the person of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, because Western leaders will not talk with Putin: “Negotiations with China made it clear that the country wants to distance itself from the conflict without providing special support either to Russia or to Ukraine.

India is not up to the war in Ukraine now, it already has so many internal and external problems with Pakistan and China. Therefore, Erdogan is now the only person with whom Moscow can talk and whom Kyiv can listen to. Using his mediating experience Turkiye has offered Russia the idea of a truce, thereby taking a step towards future negotiations, in which Putin is very interested,” he added. According to the expert, it was immediately obvious that Kyiv would not agree to a truce. “This truce is nothing but a political cover, Ukraine does not need it,” he said. Yuri Reichel explains this by the fact that any truce is beneficial for Russia, which is now trying to accumulate certain reserves in the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia in order to prevent a possible Ukrainian offensive, which, according to Western and Ukrainian experts, is being prepared in February-March.

Do US taxpayers now pay twice for these obsolete machines?

• US To Send Ukraine Dozens Of Bradleys In $2.85b Aid Package (RT)

The U.S. will send Ukraine nearly $3 billion in military aid, in a massive new package that will for the first time include several dozen Bradley fighting vehicles, U.S. officials said Thursday, in the Biden administration’s latest step to send increasingly lethal and powerful weapons to help Ukraine beat back Russian forces, according to AP. European allies also stepped up their weapons commitments. Germany announced it will provide armored personnel carriers and a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine, and France said it will soon hold talks to arrange for the delivery of armored combat vehicles.

All of the announcements, however, fall short of sending heavier battle tanks, which are more complex to use and have a longer-range gun. The Bradley, an armored carrier used to transport troops to combat, is not a tank but is known as a “tank-killer” because of the anti-tank missile it can fire. The latest U.S. aid — totaling about $2.85 billion and about 50 Bradleys — is the largest in a series of packages of military equipment that the Pentagon has pulled from its stockpiles to send to Ukraine. It is aimed at getting as much to the Ukrainian forces as possible during the winter months, before spring sets in and an expected increase in fighting begins.

“..fitting US-made munitions onto Soviet-made launchers suggests heavy US involvement in such an upgrade..”

• US To Arm Kiev With Sea Sparrows – Politico (RT)

The US may supply Ukraine with RIM-7 Sea Sparrow short-range anti-aircraft missiles, Politico reported on Thursday, citing unnamed officials. The missiles are expected to be fitted onto Soviet-made Buk launchers in an attempt to mitigate a shortage of munitions for the systems remaining in Kiev’s inventory. The missiles, developed in the early 1960s, are expected to be included in a new upcoming military aid package to prop up Ukraine in the ongoing conflict with Russia. “The package will for the first time include radar-guided Sea Sparrow anti-air missiles, which can be launched from the sea or on land to intercept aircraft or cruise missiles. In a bit of battlefield innovation, the Ukrainian military has managed to tweak its existing Soviet-era Buk launchers to fire the Sea Sparrow,” the outlet wrote, citing “two people familiar with the matter.”

Politico did not explain how Kiev came up with this “battlefield innovation,” but given that Ukraine has never been in possession of RIM-7 missiles, fitting US-made munitions onto Soviet-made launchers suggests heavy US involvement in such an upgrade. The missiles in question had previously been successfully fitted onto the Kub anti-aircraft launchers, the predecessor of the Buk system, in a collaboration between Raytheon and the Polish defense manufacturer WZU Sa. The upgrade to Soviet-made launchers was first unveiled in the early 2010s.

The inclusion of unspecified “surface-to-air” missiles into the new massive $3 billion aid package for Ukraine was confirmed by White House officials during a news briefing on Friday. In recent months, Western backers of Kiev have intensified their efforts to bolster Kiev’s anti-aircraft defenses, struggling to deal with a ramped-up bombing campaign against critical Ukrainian infrastructure launched by Moscow in the aftermath of the Crimean Bridge blast. Recent deliveries to Ukraine have included US-made short-range NASAMS systems, German IRIS-T air defense systems, while at least one battery of the US Patriot system, the backbone of NATO’s anti-aircraft defense, is expected to be transferred to Kiev in the near future.

Seems a bit overdone.

• WWIII HAS BEGUN: Medvedev Wants Hypersonic Missiles Near Washington (Celente)

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s national security council, on Thursday called for Moscow’s hypersonic Zircon missiles to be placed about 100 miles off of the coast of the U.S. in retaliation for Washington’s support of Ukraine. He called for these missiles to be in close striking distance to Washington, D.C. and called them a New Year gift. Business Insider reported that the Kremlin announced Wednesday that it will sail the Admiral Gorshkov warship armed with the Zircons “on a long-range voyage that would pass through the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea.” The ship is one of Russia’s most advanced warships. In 2019, the ship docked at a Havana, Cuba, the port.

The AP reported at the time: All of the Russian naval missions to Cuba have been seen as a projection of military power close to U.S. shores, although neither Cuba nor Russian have described them as anything other than routine. His threat came after a U.S. embassy video emerged that supported Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported. We reported in May that Moscow said it successfully fired its Zircon from a warship in the Barents Sea that traveled 625 miles and hit its target in the White Sea. The missile can reportedly travel nine times the speed of sound. In April, Russia also successfully test fired its new Sarmat superheavy Intercontinental Ballistic Missile that can reportedly deploy 10 or more nuclear warheads on each missile.

Theater.

• McCarthy Elected House Speaker After Last-minute Call From Trump To Gaetz (PM)

California Rep. Kevin McCarthy won a late night vote to become Speaker of the House on Friday night after Donald Trump called Matt Gaetz, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to The Post Millennial. Gaetz was leading the charge to oppose McCarthy along with Rep Lauren Boebert, and had opposed McCarthy in nearly every vote since Monday. This after McCarthy made major concessions to the 20 GOP holdouts who spent the week vocally opposing his leadership. Those concessions, however, were not as key as the head of the MAGA movement insisting its members stop rejecting the victory of a GOP-led House.

The final vote saw the hold-outs Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Andy Biggs, Crane, Good and Rosenthal not stand in the way of McCarthy’s leadership This after a vote earlier on Friday saw the flip of 14 in the GOP who had been consistently voting against his speakership. Florida’s freshman Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna posted some of the concessions made by McCarthy. She had offered her vote for McCarthy on Friday, making a note in the House of the successful negotiations between the Trump-backed speaker hopeful from California and the MAGA contingent.

For those wondering: pic.twitter.com/5rR45qFT8q

— Anna Paulina Luna (@realannapaulina) January 6, 2023

What investigations will we see?

• Senators Make New Demand Regarding FBI, Hunter Biden, Obama White House (CB)

Two GOP senators who have been investigating alleged Biden family corruption for years have stepped up their efforts. After Facebook and Twitter suppressed, to an extent, explosive revelations about Hunter Biden’s laptop in October 2020, Republican Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin want more answers. Grassley and Johnson have sent a letter to Zuckerberg noting that in October 2020, “when the New York Post published articles based on evidence from Hunter Biden’s laptop, many news and social media organizations inappropriately rushed to censor and discredit the initial reporting and falsely labeled it as ‘disinformation.’” Mainstream media outlets have finally admitted that the information gleaned from the laptop was not Russian disinformation but was in fact real.

“You recently appeared to indicate that the reason why Facebook made the unwise decision to censor articles about Hunter Biden’s laptop was based on an alert from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the senators wrote. Whistleblowers have also alleged to Senator Johnson that local FBI leadership instructed its employees not to look at the Hunter Biden laptop immediately after the FBI had obtained it,” the senators noted further, going on to say that Americans “deserve to know whether the FBI used Facebook as part of their alleged plan to discredit information about Hunter Biden.” “Congress and the American people require clarity with respect to the extent the FBI communicated with Facebook during the 2020 election about Hunter Biden-related information,” they added.

Expected incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan believes there’s been a seismic shift regarding the ongoing federal investigation of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. The Ohio Republican suggested “something is up” with the probe because of a new interest in the story by many of the same media outlets that initially dismissed reports of corruption evidence stemming from materials and emails obtained from a laptop he reportedly abandoned at a computer repair store in Delaware in 2019. “It sure looks like Joe Biden was involved,” Jordan added. “So, my, how this story has changed. And now, we find out these text messages and emails that link the entire family, not just Hunter and Joe and — but also uncle, the — Joe’s brother, James Biden, is involved in this as well.”

“..there was no evidence proving that Byrd did not fear that Babbitt could kill him..”

• 2 Yrs After Jan. 6: 1,000 Arrests; Zero ‘Insurrection’ Charges (Attkisson)

Two years after the January 6 pro-Trump rally and Capitol riots, the Dept. of Justice has charged nearly 1,000 people with crimes. However, nobody has been formally accused of “sedition,” “treason,” or “insurrection,” according to officials. Sedition is defined as: Conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch. Insurrection is defined as: A violent uprising against a government or authority. Treason is defined as: Betrayal of one’s own country by attempting to overthrow the government through waging war against the state or materially aiding its enemies. The closest related charge made is “seditious conspiracy,” which is planning or plotting with at least one other person to incite rebellion against the authority; not necessarily, personally, committing an act of sedition.

Several suspects pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy. At least one of them, a member of the “Oath Keepers” group, was not present at the US Capitol on January 6. To date, it is inaccurate and arguably libelous to refer to January 6 defendants as “insurrectionists.” Most of the defendants, approximately 860, are charged with entering or remaining in a restricted federal building or grounds. Typically, when Congress is conducting business on the House or Senate floor, the public has a right to enter the US Capitol and watch the proceedings. However, members of the public were blocked from attending on January 6, and there would not have been space for the many thousands to observe in the normal gallery seats. So far, the Dept. of Justice reports, about 192 people have been sentenced to jail or prison.

Officials say 52 people have pleaded guilty to federal charges of assaulting law enforcement officers. The only person shot at the US Capitol on January 6 was an unarmed protester named Ashli Babbitt. The US Capitol Police officer who killed her, Lt. Michael Byrd, was not charged with a crime. Officials kept his identity secret for weeks while they investigated the shooting. Prosecutors eventually found there was no evidence proving that Byrd did not fear that Babbitt could kill him. A shooting by an officer in fear of his life is typically considered to be justified. In an interview, Byrd claimed he’d “saved countless lives” by killing Babbitt, even though Babbitt was unarmed, and there was no evidence she attacked or intended to attack anyone.

July 6th
https://twitter.com/i/status/1611491464537862144

“..inadvertently..”

• Jan. 6 Comm. Releases Social Security Numbers Of Trump Officials, Allies (Fox)

When the House Jan. 6 committee released hundreds of documents from its investigation online at the end of the year, it inadvertently made public nearly 2,000 Social Security numbers belonging to high-profile individuals who visited the White House in December 2020, according to a report. The Washington Post reported Friday that the leaked Social Security information was included in a spreadsheet buried within the “massive cache” of records from the committee’s work. Social Security numbers belonging to at least three members of Trump’s cabinet, a few Republican governors, and several Trump associates were reportedly compromised. The data was part of the White House visitor logs published by the committee.

While many Social Security numbers in the logs were redacted, the Post reported that around 1,900 of them were not. The Government Publishing Office (GPO), which was responsible for publishing the file, does not appear to have notified any of the individuals whose private information was released, the report said. Those whose Social Security information was made public include South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) and her family, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R), former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. Others include an unnamed federal district court judge and a federal appeals court judge, at least half a dozen people who testified before the Jan. 6 committee, and a lawyer who represented another witness before the committee, the Post reported.

“..Sperry’s reporting was never refuted..”

• Adam Schiff’s Assault on the First Amendment (BB)

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) violated the First Amendment and, arguably, his oath to uphold the Constitution in 2020 when his office demanded that Twitter suspend the account of Paul Sperry, an investigative journalist. Sperry happens to be the journalist who reported in 2019 that the “whistleblower” who worked with Schiff to engineer the impeachment investigation against President Donald Trump was Eric Ciamarella, a CIA analyst who had worked at the White House. Though Democrats convinced the media and Silicon Valley to suppress the story, Sperry’s reporting was never refuted, and the article remains live at RealClearInvestigations today.

This week, investigative journalist Matt Taibbi revealed in the “Twitter Files” that Schiff’s office at the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee sent a list of requests to Twitter, including that it suspend Sperry. Schiff claimed, without evidence, that Sperry was spreading “QAnon conspiracy theories.” (Sperry denies he has ever done so, anywhere.) Twitter declined that request, but suspended Sperry in 2022 with no explanation. The attempt by any member of Congress to suppress the freedom of expression of a journalist is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment, which specifically restricts Congress from interfering in a free press. That violation is even more egregious when perpetrated by a congressional leader with unique access to secret information, and who implies that he has evidence no one else does and is acting to protect national security.

Schiff, who is now considering a run for U.S. Senate, is a frequent guest on mainstream media news programs, who have given him wide latitude for years to promote unfounded claims, such as the “Russia collusion” hoax. These journalists, who described Trump as a threat to press freedom merely for insulting the media, have a professional and ethical duty to demand that Schiff explain why he thought he could censor any journalist. It is also worth revisiting Schiff’s egregious record on civil rights in general. Last year, this author outlined five reasons that a new Republican-run Congress should subpoena Schiff — as he has subpoenaed so many others.

What lies will Shifty tell today? pic.twitter.com/thV3tFkVh4

— APOCTOZ (@Apoctoz) January 6, 2023

“This decision was not made with the wellbeing and health of women in mind..”

• Ted Cruz Slams Joe Biden for Turning Pharmacies Into Abortion Centers (LN)

Senator Ted Cruz, a longtime pro-life Texas senator, is not happy with Joe Biden’s recent ruling from his FDA that essentially turns pharmacies into abortion centers. As LifeNews reported, the FDA will allow pharmacies to sell the dangerous abortion drug that has killed millions of babies and injured thousands of women. Previously, mifepristone could only be dispensed by clinics, medical offices, and hospitals or under the supervision of a licensed physician. Following the decision, Walgreens and CVS announced they will sell the abortion drug that has killed millions of babies. Cruz slammed the decision, saying that not only will it expand abortions that kill babies, it will put women’s health at risk because the mifepristone abortion pill has killed at least dozens of women and injured countless thousands more.

“This decision was not made with the wellbeing and health of women in mind,” he said. “We should all be able to recognize that these pills can cause very serious side-effects, and should never be taken without medical supervision.” Cruz continued: “This is a reckless decision that puts the lives of women and girls in Texas and America in danger in order to push a pro-abortion agenda. This decision is not based on science, but on radical politics, and I am deeply disappointed by the callousness of the FDA.” The FDA has already lifted its in-person requirement for a doctor visit which is a medical necessity because taking the abortion pill in a variety of situations such as an ectopic pregnancy can be fatal for women. The decision will set up the ability of customers to purchase the abortion pill via teleconference — denying women the doctor’s visit they should be getting to avoid potential death or major complications.

After two years of absence…

• Biden Spokeswoman Blames Trump Ahead Of Border Visit (Fox)

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday blamed the previous administration for the immigration crisis facing the Biden administration, accusing Republicans of making the problem worse by opposing Democratic proposals for comprehensive immigration reform. Ahead of President Biden’s first visit to the southern border as president, Jean-Pierre told reporters that immigration reform is a “high priority” for the administration and that Biden is looking for Congress to act in the face of historic rates of illegal immigration overwhelming resources at the border.

“The president inherited a mess because of what the last administration did. We inherited a mess. And, you know, Republicans in Congress made it worse by blocking comprehensive immigration reform,” Jean-Pierre said at the daily White House press briefing. “And so what you’re seeing from this president is he’s acting. He’s acting to protect, to continue to protect the border, secure the border, and also deal with irregular migration.” Biden announced several changes to his immigration policies Thursday in a major speech from the White House. His speech came after more than 2.3 million migrant encounters were reported in FY 2022, breaking the historic 1.7 million record encountered in FY 2021.

So far in FY 2023, which began in October, the first two months have outpaced the same period last year — with 233,740 encounters in November, compared to 174,845 in 2021 and 73,994 in 2020. To address this crisis, Biden will expand a humanitarian parole program for Venezuelan nationals to include Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans, allowing some 30,000 individuals per month from those countries to be paroled into the U.S. for a two-year period if they meet certain conditions. Those who attempt to cross the border illegally will be ineligible for the program.

“..Something will emergently replace this monster we call “health care.”

• Repentance (Kunstler)

And what are they going to do now? Pretend that none of this is happening? Continue to demonize, discredit, and punish the few doctors who won’t pretend? My PC doc doubles as Chief Health Officer of his group practice. He’s fired doctors and others on the staff who refused to take the shots his company mandated. He’s dishonored his Hippocratic oath. He’s in mid-life with, one would assume ordinarily, many working years ahead of him. The information about vaccine deaths and disabilities is going to get worse, and his own behavior around the crisis is going to look worse, probably even to himself. There are hundreds of thousands of doctors like him. As of now, early 2023, there is no general movement among them to explain or apologize for their actions. What will happen?

I’ll tell you what will happen: medicine as we’ve known it is going to collapse, along with most other activities in our society. Apart from ethical offenses against the public in the single instance of the Covid-19 emergency, doctors and their administrative cohorts have stealthily surrendered to a racketeering business model that had already badly damaged the practice of medicine before Covid-19 came on the scene. Remember: as a general principle, organisms and systems often assume their greatest size just before the go extinct or fail. That’s exactly what you’re seeing in the conglomeratization of hospitals in the USA. If the idea was to remove redundancies for the sake of “efficiency,” then they did exactly what destroys ecosystems. Anyway, the net effect of all that hospital consolidation was just to make access to health care much more difficult for the average citizen, and the only benefit was to make multi-millionaires of the executives who run the hospitals.

Then Covid-19 came along and they decimated their own workforce with vaccine mandates. Now, many hospitals can barely function, and many have had to shut down specific services. Quite a few hospitals are going bankrupt, which only feeds the predatory consolidation still ongoing. When the financial, banking, and insurance disorders ahead start to bite later this year, hospitals will be shutting down. In the meantime, a lot of people will lose their lives to the disastrous side-effects of the vaccines. It is already the case, that the vaccine-injured who seek help from the medical system are lied-to, mis-treated, or ignored. Some of these are the doctors themselves and other health professionals who collide with reality the hard way. Something will emergently replace this monster we call “health care.”

Maybe it will still think of itself medicine, but it will operate at a much smaller scale, minus a lot of the expensive and rather miraculous high-tech developed in our time, but also minus a lot of hazardous high-tech interventions, especially pharmaceuticals, that were used as revenue streams despite the adverse blowbacks they induced. Will the doctors recover the trust of the public? It’s going to be a slog for them. They’ll have a long way to go just to recover their own honor and self-respect. Some sort of organized act of apology and repentance will have to happen first.

It takes time

Debut of new song in tribute to #JulianAssange, @xychelsea and Aaron Swartz. pic.twitter.com/I77vBRL4gG

— Consortium News (@Consortiumnews) January 14, 2022

Speed
https://twitter.com/i/status/1611121105640505350

Ant hill

Over the course of 3 days scientists pumped 10 tons of cement into an abandoned ant hill. After weeks of digging, the colony’s intricate & impressive structure is revealed. This one

[full video, from "Ants! Natures Secret Power": https://t.co/ol5WJZU6A8]pic.twitter.com/G71KrCYafP

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) January 6, 2023

Glass octopus

Amazing footage of the extremely rare Glass Octopus (Vitreledonella richardi) filmed 651m (2135 ft) beneath the waves near the Phoenix Islands Archipelago.pic.twitter.com/qmA6RCFR5S

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) January 6, 2023

Tiger mom

wow! pic.twitter.com/2D0CEFY7qN

— Funnyman (@fun4laugh) January 6, 2023

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