mercenaries Archives - The Automatic Earth

🚨 Robert F. Kennedy Jr on Impact of the U.S. Dollar Losing Its Global Dominance

"The loss of that global currency is going to cost us a minimum of $750B/year…We're letting it all happen because we're addicted to war."@RobertKennedyJr @ComicDaveSmith pic.twitter.com/PKSvcWTWKV

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) May 20, 2023

“We’ve taken the whole city – every building – so that nobody could say that we didn’t capture some small part of it..”

In the last few months, they went slow, to minimize casualties.

• Key Donbass City Captured – Wagner Chief (RT)

The key Donbass city of Artyomovsk, known as Bakhmut in Ukraine, has been fully liberated by the Russian forces, Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company has announced. “Today at noon, Bakhmut was fully captured,” Prigozhin said in a video address published on Saturday. The last part of an area of high-rise buildings where the Ukrainians were holed up is now under the control of Russian forces, he stated. The Wagner Group will remain in Artyomovsk until Thursday, Prigozhin said, adding that during this period, fortifications will be created across the city. Control will then be passed on to the Russian Defense Ministry, and Wagner Group servicemen will go on leave to rest and regroup following months of intense fighting. According to Prigozhin, the PMC’s operation in the city, which he called ‘the Bakhmut meat-grinder’, had gone on for 224 days.

“We’ve taken the whole city – every building – so that nobody could say that we didn’t capture some small part of it,” he said. Kiev has denied Prigozhin’s claims that Artyomovsk has been captured. Ukrainian military spokesman Sergey Cherevaty told Reuters: “This is not true. Our units are fighting in Bakhmut.” The Wagner chief also personally addressed Ukraine’s president, Vladimir Zelensky, saying, “without sarcasm” that the Ukrainian troops “fought bravely, fought well”defending Artyomovsk. “Today, when you see [US President Joe] Biden, kiss him on the top of his head and tell him that I said ‘hi,’” he said. Earlier on Saturday, Zelensky arrived at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, where he is expected to hold talks with Biden.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1659923608683126784

https://twitter.com/i/status/1659942493771759616

“The losses there for the Ukrainians amounted to 300 to 500 men per day over that last 5 months. That sums up to a total of 60,000 casualties.”

• Bakhmut Has Fallen – Artyomovsk Has Been Liberated (MoA)

The so far largest battle of the 21st century ended today. Bakhmut has fallen. Artyomovsk (the Russian/Soviet name of the city) has been liberated. This was announced today by the titular leader of the Wagner forces, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a video posted on Telegram. Why the Ukrainian leadership had decided to hold onto the city even months after the situation there was already in its disfavor is beyond me. The fight was decided by the numerical superiority of Russian artillery fire and the Ukraine had never a chance to top that. The losses there for the Ukrainians amounted to 300 to 500 men per day over that last 5 months. That sums up to a total of 60,000 casualties. Ten days ago Ukrainian units, including the fascist Azov brigade, rolled up the Russian flanks north and south of Bakhmut to allow the Ukrainian troops in the city to flee west.

That attack alone, only one or 2 kilometer deep, cost them some 1,600+ men and some 50+ armored vehicles. On the Russian side the fighting in the city was largely done by Wagner troops. But they were never able to do it on their own. Russian military intelligence, artillery and logistics all played an important role in the fight. The city has been destroyed but it will continued to exist as it is an important logistical hub with several rail and road connections running through it. Mariupol, which fell/was liberated a year ago, is already being rebuild. In a month or two, when the frontline has moved away from Artyomovsk, rebuilding will start there too. For a moment now the front line in Ukraine seems all around relative quit. It is not clear to me when or where a new operational move will start.

I’ve consistently used Bakhmut. Maybe it’s time to change that?

• Putin Congratulates Wagner Assault Teams With Liberation Of Artyomovsk (TASS)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated assault teams of the Wagner private military company and Russian troops with the liberation of the city of Artyomovsk, the Kremlin’s press office said in a statement on Sunday. “Vladimir Putin congratulates Wagner assault teams as well as all Russian troops, who rendered the required assistance and shielded the flanks, with the completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk,” the statement reads. “Everyone, who distinguished himself in the battle, will be recommended for the state decorations,” the statement added. The Russian Defense Ministry announced earlier in the day that the city of Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine) has been completely liberated in the course of the special military operation in Ukraine.

“In the Artyomovsk tactical direction, the assault teams of the Wagner private military company with the support of artillery and aviation of the southern battlegroup have completed the liberation of the city of Artyomovsk,” the ministry stated. Artyomovsk is located in the north of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and it served as a major transportation hub for the Ukrainian army’s supplies in Donbass. Fierce fighting to liberate the city started on August 1, 2022. The battle for this city is one of the largest battles during the liberation of Donbass since 2014. Some 72,000 people lived in Artyomovsk before the battle started.

“It is tragedy,” Zelenskiy said. “There is nothing on this place.”

• Zelenskyy Appears To Confirm Loss Of Bakhmut (Az.)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared to confirm the loss of the city of Bakhmut to Russia on Sunday, when asked if it remained in Kyiv’s control, Report informs via Reuters. “I think no,” he said ahead of a meeting with US President Joe Biden in Japan. “For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts.” Russia claimed on Saturday to have fully captured the smashed eastern Ukrainian city, which if true would mark an end to the longest and bloodiest battle of the 15-month war. “It is tragedy,” Zelenskiy said. “There is nothing on this place.” The assault on the largely levelled city was led by troops from the Wagner Group of mercenaries, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said earlier in the day that his troops had finally pushed the Ukrainians out of the last built-up area inside the city.

“The Ukrainian Defense Ministry denied that the city had fallen and insisted that the fighting is still ongoing..”

• Ukraine To Recapture Artyomovsk – Zelensky’s Top Aide (RT)

Ukraine will recapture the key Donbass city of Artyomovsk, also known as Bakhmut, President Vladimir Zelensky’s senior adviser Mikhail Podoliak said on Saturday night. His remarks came after Wagner private military company boss Evgen Prigozhin announced that his fighters had taken complete control of the city. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed in the early hours of Sunday that Wagner had executed the operation with the help from regular troops. Podoliak, however, insisted that the Russians were exhausted by the fighting. “What will Russia do next, even if it captures two more [city] blocks? With what forces will they proceed, and where, and why?” Podoliak said in an interview on Ukrainian TV. “As for us, we cannot stop somewhere in the middle. Bakhmut will be liberated, just like any other Ukrainian territory,” the adviser said.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry denied that the city had fallen and insisted that the fighting is still ongoing. Podoliak claimed that Prigozhin sought to divert attention from Zelensky’s overseas tour with stops in several European countries, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. The Ukrainian leader attended the Arab League summit in Jeddah on Friday and the G7 meeting in Hiroshima the next day. The news of the fall of Artyomovsk also comes as Ukraine is gearing up for its much-touted counteroffensive. Officials in Kiev repeatedly stressed that its timing and success would depend on weapons deliveries from the West. Zelensky promised last month that Ukrainian soldiers would not leave Artyomovsk because the retreat would “give Russian troops and Wagner a chance to capture more of our land.” The city itself has been largely destroyed by months in intense warfare.

”..when the systems were deployed as early as April 2023 there was widespread speculation that military contractors from Western countries were responsible for manning and maintaining them..”

• Russian Hypersonic Strikes Likely Caused Mercenary Casualties (MWM)

On May 16 as part of a broad spectrum of attacks on targets in the Ukrainian capital Kiev Russian Air Force MiG-31K strike fighters launched Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ballistic missiles to target Ukraine’s Patriot air defence systems. Recently delivered from Germany and the United States, Patriots are considered by far the most costly and high end weapons systems in Ukrainian service, and are very widely deployed both by seven NATO members and by key overseas strategic partners such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Israel. The strikes on the Patriots followed warnings form Russian officials, as well as from several analysts in the West, that any systems delivered to Ukraine would very quickly be targeted and destroyed after becoming operational. The reputational loss the Patriot was expected to suffer was thus reportedly a major factor leading Washington to hesitate to approve transfers of the assets.

While a radar system and five missile batteries from the Patriot system were reported to have been destroyed in the MiG-31K strike, reportedly after firing 32 surface to air missiles as part of unsuccessful attempts to intercept the Kinzhal missiles, little remains known regarding casualties among the system’s crew or the nature of the personnel which were manning it when it was struck. Washington’s decision to deliver Patriot systems announced in December was largely motivated by an urgent need to strengthen the defences of major Ukrainian cities. Not only were cities such as Kiev considered at serious risk of needing to be abandoned due to the rapid destruction of infrastructure in Russian strikes, but Ukraine’s existing air defence network reliant on massive arsenals inherited from the Soviet era had also been very seriously depleted limiting their ability to defend either cities or frontline forces.

Nevertheless the Patriot as a highly complex weapons system was considered far too advanced for Ukrainian personnel to be able to train to operate in time for the assets to have an impact on the war, meaning when the systems were deployed as early as April 2023 there was widespread speculation that military contractors from Western countries were responsible for manning and maintaining them. Western personnel on the ground have played a very large role in the Russian-Ukrainian War, from British Royal Marines deployed to the frontlines and massive ‘stealth networks’ of CIA and other personnel performing roles such as organising logistics, to contractors usually formerly members of Western militaries who have deployed in an unofficial capacity often in full frontline units.

The presence of Western contractors already trained in operating a range of Western weapons systems has according to multiple reports played a key role in Ukraine’s seemingly seamless integration of new military hardware from its supporters in Europe and the United States, where non-Soviet equipment was previously used only in very limited roles before February 2022. Regarding the need for contractors to operate Patriot systems in Ukraine, the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) advisory body was among many sources to issue reports that Ukrainian personnel would be unable to operate Patriot missile systems before 2024 at the earliest. “There is a lot of learning to do before Ukraine will have a functioning Patriot system on the ground,” it emphasised, highlighting taking local repair crews as an example that this would take approximately 53 weeks. With Ukrainian personnel thus unlikely to have been manning the Patriot systems deployed in April and attacked in May, less than five months after the decision was taken to supply the systems, it is likely that contractors from NATO member states with experience operating the Patriots were the ones targeted. The scale of the destruction caused by the strikes means casualties among these personnel are likely, although they are unlikely to be disclosed at least until many years after the war’s conclusion.

“..Western countries are “sticking to the escalation scenario,” which is “fraught with colossal risks.”

• Germany Pours Cold Water On Fighter Jets For Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine should not expect F-16 fighter jet deliveries from the West in the near future, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday, while expressing support for a plan to train pilots to fly the advanced jets. Speaking on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Scholz stated that “what is connected with the training of pilots is a long-term project,” adding that the US has not yet decided what will happen at the end of the program. “The project has a message for Russia: Russia cannot count on winning if it bets on a long war,” he said. Scholz stated, however, that there is no chance Germany will take part in F-16 deliveries to Ukraine. “First of all, everyone knows that we don’t even have such aircraft.”

The chancellor noted that Berlin is providing Kiev with what is “immediately important now,” including tanks, ammunition, and air defense equipment, adding that Germany “will support Ukraine for as long as it is necessary, financially, humanitarianly and also with arms.” “We have mobilized our resources,” he said. “We can continue to do this for a long time.” The comments come after US President Joe Biden told G7 leaders on Friday that Washington will support a joint training program for Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s, which would take place in Europe.

This week, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that he and his Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte, agreed to establish an ‘international coalition’ to “provide Ukraine with combat air capabilities, supporting with everything from training to procuring F-16 jets,” with a number of European countries supporting the move. On Friday, several US media outlets reported that Washington will not block its allies from sending F-16s to Ukraine, which Kiev has been requesting for months. Commenting on the potential plans to send modern fighter jets to Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko said that Western countries are “sticking to the escalation scenario,” which is “fraught with colossal risks.” “In any case, all our plans will take this into consideration, and we have all the necessary means to achieve our goals” regarding the military campaign in Ukraine, Grushko added.

F16

Russia Threatens To Shoot Down US Fighter Jets

Russia has issued a warning that it will shoot down US F-16 fighter jets if they enter Ukrainian airspace.

The Russian Ministry of Defense conveyed the message, stating that any unauthorized incursion into Ukrainian airspace by… pic.twitter.com/RWezOqaHlV

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 21, 2023

Key line: “..which would be a major blow to the F-16’s reputation..”

• F-16s May Suffer Considerable Losses If Deployed To Ukraine – Magazine (TASS)

The US-manufactured F-16 fighter jets may suffer significant losses in Ukraine, as a result of Russian strikes on their airfields or air combat, which would be a major blow to the reputation of that jet, the US’ Military Watch Magazine reported on Saturday. “A likely key reason for the discrepancy in the American and European positions is that the United States still has a very large stake in the F-16 program, not only as the fighter will continue to form the backbone of the U.S. Air Force for decades, but also because it continues to offer modernized variants of the class for export at times for hundreds of millions of dollars per airframe,” the article said.

“Thus should F-16s be deployed to Ukraine, the United States would be bearing the primary risk. Not only is there a possibility that the fighter or its technologies could fall into Russian hands, as other Western equipment has in considerable quantities, but there is also a much greater chance that the fighters could suffer significant losses both to strikes on their airfields and in air to air combat which would be a major blow to the F-16’s reputation,” the article reads. On Friday, NBC reported that the US and its allies had plans to provide F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, and that Washington’s allies may help Ukraine procure the planes. US President Joe Biden told G7 leaders in Hiroshima that Washington supports international efforts to train Ukrainian pilots on modern fighter jets, including F-16s. Zelensky said that he looking forward to bringing this issue up at the G7 summit. On Saturday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said commenting on F-16 potential supplies to Kiev that Western countries continued down the path of escalation in the Ukraine conflict and Russia would keep this in mind in its plans.

Like Poland was squeaky clean.. Anyone seen Shoah?

• Poland Wants Zelensky To Apologize For WW2 Ukrainian Nazi Massacre (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky should assume more responsibility for his nation when it comes to the Volyn massacre, a mass murder committed by Ukrainian nationalists against ethnic Poles during WWII, a spokesman for the Polish Foreign Ministry, Lukasz Jasina, has said. In an interview with Poland’s Onet online news media outlet on Friday, the official was asked if Zelensky should apologize for the massacre. “The Ukrainian side did not do this but president Zelensky should take more responsibility [for] Ukraine,”Jasina said. The issue has such an importance for Warsaw that it must be dealt with at the highest level, he added. The dark legacy of the Volyn massacre still haunts the bilateral relations between the two neighbors and “blocks many joint initiatives,” the ministry’s spokesman said.

In 2016, the Polish parliament recognized the Volyn Massacres as genocide at the hands of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). “You can’t change that fact. You can’t turn back time and there will never be a good time to talk about it…” Jasina said. According to the official, saying “I’m sorry and please forgive me” always works very well in Polish-Ukrainian relations “but there is still not enough of it.” The Volyn massacre was part of an ethnic cleansing campaign waged by UPA nationalist militants against the local Polish population in the regions of Western Ukraine and eastern Poland also known as Volhynia and Galicia between 1943 and 1944, during the Nazi occupation. According to various estimates, from 40,000 to 60,000 Poles were killed in total. The UPA was a paramilitary wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) known for its radical anti-Semitic ideology.

The UPA assisted Nazi Germany’s troops in the extermination of Jews on the territory of Ukraine on multiple occasions, in addition to the tens of thousands of Poles it killed in western Ukraine. Glorification of Ukrainian nationalists by Kiev, including the OUN leader, Stepan Bandera, has long been a contentious issue in relations between Ukraine and Poland as well as Israel. In 2018, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed a bill that banned the promotion of the ideology associated with Stepan Bandera. Israel also repeatedly urged Kiev to refrain from glorifying “war criminals.” Kiev still apparently fails to understand just how important this issue is for the Poles, Jasina said, adding that “this is… not the most important thing for Ukrainians” and their “understanding is still too weak.” The people in Poland, however, “clearly said this is more important than some behind-the-scenes diplomatic negotiations,”he added.

Kiev blasted Warsaw over what it called bossing Ukraine around. “Any attempt to impose on the Ukrainian president or Ukraine [and tell us] what we must [do] about our common past is unacceptable and unfortunate,” Ukraine’s ambassador to Warsaw, Vasily Zvarych said on Twitter on Saturday. He also said that Ukraine “remembers history” and called for what he called “balance and respect in statements.” Bandera has been officially hailed as a national hero in Ukraine since 2010. Ukrainian nationalists have regularly marked his birthday on January 1 with torchlit marches and massive demonstrations. Warsaw has repeatedly protested such actions. In January, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki vowed to raise the issue of Bandera with Kiev at the first opportunity.

Note: both Paul Craig Roberts and Martin Armstrong see the US going to war before the elections. In order to win the elections. I’ve been toying with the idea for a long time, and I would add the option to use the war to have no elections at all.

• The United States Has Been Destroyed by Its Ruling Elites (PCR)

The Special Counsel’s vindication of Donald Trump and denunciation of the FBI for conducting a politically motivated investigation devoid of any evidence should collapse the equally fraudulent Biden regime investigation of Trump on fake documents charges and the New York state prosecution of Trump on alleged expense misreporting charges. It has been clear for a long time that the list of fake charges against Trump, supported by the media, are propaganda to prevent Trump again running for President and to teach all future potential presidential candidates that they will be destroyed if they attempt to represent the people instead of the unelected ruling oligarchy.

However, the Democrat Party and the presstitutes that service them have no respect whatsoever for truth. Facts simply do not matter to them. This is true also of American Universities, law associations, medical associations, the CIA, FBI, NSA, the State Department, the regulatory agencies such as NIH, CDC, FDA, the large corporations, and many establishment Republican members of the House and Senate who serve the economic interests that pay them, not truth. It is also the case with a high percentage of Democrat voters who have been conditioned by propaganda to hate Trump. To Democrats what matters is not facts, but getting Trump. Truth is not permitted to prevent the destruction of Trump.

Consequently, the US is moving toward a fatal split in the society from which recovery is impossible. Trump represents ordinary Americans who prefer peace to the neoconservatives’ wars, who want their jobs back that the greed-driven capitalist global corporations sent to China and Asia, who want their children properly educated instead of indoctrinated with sexual perversion, Satanism, and told that they are racists. In contrast, the Democrats are increasingly Woke–people who believe that truth is an oppressive tool of white supremacy, that Christian morality is tyrannical and discriminatory against pedophiles and other sexual perverts, and that, as “President” Biden himself has said, white people are the greatest threat to America.

Now that official investigations by the House Republicans have brought the utter corruption of Biden and his son to light, the Democrats, the dangerous and corrupt military/security complex, and the complicit whore American media, are desperate. They all stand as being exposed. So, rather than apologize for their mistreatment of Trump and his supporters–1,000 of whom the Democrats have illegally imprisoned–they will likely strike out while they still control the Executive Branch, the US Senate, the CIA, FBI, NSA, and federal agencies such as the IRS that have been armed and militarized. Alternatively, the corrupt and threatened Democrats might cause war between the US and Russia, or Iran, or China in the hopes that a war will unify even Trump supporters, especially the super-patriots among them, around the “President” against “foreign enemies.”

Armstrong

Martin Armstrong Believes the Neocons Will Start a War to Help Biden Get Re-Elected in 2024

"The neocons think if they start a war before the 2024 election that no President has ever lost an election during the war…I would not put it past them to pull out the standard playbook… pic.twitter.com/ZaPH6ODIJK

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) May 21, 2023

“The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules..”

• China Questions ‘Credibility’ Of G7 Members (RT)

The international community will not fall in line with the pro-Western rules pushed by the G7 and not allow the US-led group to dominate world affairs, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. “China will never accept the so-called rules imposed by the few. The international community does not and will not accept the G7-dominated Western rules that seek to divide the world based on ideologies and values,” the statement read. The Foreign Ministry went on to accuse the group of acting on behalf of “America-first” policies and attempting to impose its will on others. “That simply shows how little international credibility means to the G7,” the ministry said. “Gone are the days when a handful of Western countries can just willfully meddle in other countries’ internal affairs and manipulate global affairs.” The Group of Seven is an informal club consisting of the US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. The G7 annual meetings are typically also attended by officials representing the EU.

In a joint communique adopted at the summit in Hiroshima, Japan on Saturday, the G7 listed multiple allegations aimed at Beijing, including technology theft, “economic coercion,” and human rights abuses at home. The group said that it strongly opposes “any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force” around Taiwan and in the South China Sea. Beijing responded by saying that “affairs related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet are purely China’s internal affairs.” China accused the G7 of endangering peace in the region by providing “support for ‘Taiwan independence’ forces.” Although G7 members refrain from formally establishing diplomatic ties with Taiwan, the US has sold weapons to Taipei and promised to defend it from a potential attack from the mainland. US politicians have also met with officials from Taiwan, prompting harsh criticism from Beijing, which opposes any form of diplomatic contacts with the Taipei authorities.

“..criticism of Soros – who finances the most hostile organizations to the Jewish people and the state of Israel is anything but anti-Semitism, quite the opposite!”

• US and Israeli Envoys Clash Over Soros (RT)

The US and Israeli anti-Semitism envoys have taken opposing positions on whether supporters or critics of Jewish financier George Soros is anti-Semitic. The argument kicked off when Twitter CEO Elon Musk compared Soros to a cartoon supervillain. In a tweet on Monday, Musk said that Soros reminds him of “Magneto,” a mutant-supremacist scientist from Marvel’s ‘X-Men’ universe. When a commenter pointed out that Magneto was depicted – like Soros – as a Holocaust survivor and that both have “good intentions,” Musk doubled down. “You assume they are good intentions,” he wrote. “They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.” Musk was quickly accused of anti-Semitism, with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt declaring that by comparing the billionaire “to a Jewish supervillain,” Musk would “embolden extremists.”

The Israeli government disagreed. “The Israeli government and the vast majority of Israeli citizens see Elon Musk as an amazing entrepreneur and a role model,” Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli tweeted on Thursday, adding that “criticism of Soros – who finances the most hostile organizations to the Jewish people and the state of Israel is anything but anti-Semitism, quite the opposite!” Soros has donated more than $32 billion to liberal political causes through his Open Society Foundations NGO, and was the largest donor in last year’s midterm elections in the US, gifting $128 million to Democratic Party candidates and organizations. Soros funds a number of Palestinian activist groups that accuse the Israeli state of war crimes, and several international organizations that promote boycotts of Israeli goods and sanctions against its leaders. In the US, the Biden administration sided with its leading donor against Chikli’s criticism.

“Irrespective of how one feels about George Soros’s politics or policies, it is entirely disingenuous to deny that many ad hominem attacks on him rely on classic antisemitic tropes and rhetoric,” US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt tweeted on Friday. “In bygone eras, the antisemites invoked the Rothschild family to advance their conspiracies about Jews. Today they use Soros to do so,” she declared. Neither Soros nor his Open Society Foundations have responded to Musk’s comments. Asked on Tuesday whether he was worried his controversial tweets would drive advertisers away from Twitter, Musk told CNBC News “I don’t care. I’ll say what I want to say, and if the consequences are losing money, so be it.”

“It is highly unlikely that society would accept the degradation in global standard of living..”

• Exxon Crushes Progressive “Net Zero” Dreams (ZH)

In a world of suffocating snowflakery, ESG hypocrisy and, well… Tranheuser Busch, a corporation telling the truth without fear of reprisals from the Open Society-funded virtue signaling cabal is rarer than an mRNA-injected, genetically engineered hen’s teeth. And yet that’s what the company hated by every progressive, Exxon Mobil, did this week when it became the first corporation to denounce the insidious and laughable claims that “net zero” is even a remote possibility by 2050. The US supermajor pushed back against investors pressing the company to report on the risks to its business from restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions and potential environmental disasters when in a reply to proxy advisor Glass Lewis, Exxon said the prospect of the world achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 is remote and should not be further evaluated in its financial statements.

A shareholder proposal seeking a report on the cost of having to abandon projects faces a shareholder vote on May 31. Glass Lewis backed the initiative, concluding Exxon could face material financial risks from the net-zero scenario. Exxon disagreed, and said the world is not on a path to achieve net-zero emissions in 2050 as limiting energy production to levels below consumption demand would lead to a spike in energy prices, as observed in Europe following oil sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. Exxon, is of course, correct however that won’t stop the green fanatics from beating the drum that somehow the world can transition to “green” energy (at a cost of some $150 trillion mind you) in the next 27 years without an energy cataclysm.

At the heart of the issue is the 2050 net-zero emissions (NZE) scenario of the International Energy Agency (IEA) which envisions a path to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. For the NZE scenario to be met, the IEA had hilariously said new oil exploration would have to have stopped in 2021 and nations would have to switch to renewable energy from fossil fuels (good luck with that). Exxon is among the companies heavily investing in new exploration to generate oil and gas for decades to come, and in retrospect, one can thank their deity of choice for Exxon’s decision to do so as opposed to sending the world back into the dark ages, an outcome which so many from the World Economic Forum seems to aspire to. “It is clear that the IEA NZE does not, by the scenario authors’ own assessment, meet the level of likelihood required to be considered in our financial statements,” Exxon said in a response filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. “It is highly unlikely that society would accept the degradation in global standard of living required to permanently achieve a scenario like the IEA NZE,” Exxon said in dismissing the proposal.

So free them all.

• FBI Improperly Used Surveillance Program to Spy on Jan. 6 Suspects – Court (ET)

The FBI abused its surveillance powers while spying on suspects in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol and Black Lives Matter protesters, a federal court said in a newly unsealed ruling. FBI agents violated standards the agency developed for the Section 702 program, which enables spying on Americans and others, more than 278,000 times, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in the 2022 ruling, which was made public for the first time on May 19. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act enables agencies like the FBI to collect information like emails without warrants from foreigners, even if they’re in the United States, and bars intentionally targeting Americans.

The FBI developed its own standard for Section 702 searches, stating that queries “must be reasonably likely to retrieve foreign intelligence information, as defined by FISA, or evidence of a crime, unless otherwise specifically excepted.” But FBI agents have been violating the standard, the court has found, with the newest ruling disclosing hundreds of thousands of abusive searches in addition to those already known. The abusive searches include multiple improper queries targeting suspected or confirmed Jan. 6 suspects. In one instance, an analyst searched for information on 13 people suspected of being involved in the Capitol breach. The analyst “said she ran the queries to determine whether these individuals had foreign ties,” but the Department of Justice’s National Security Division (NSD) “concluded the queries were not reasonably likely to retrieve foreign intelligence information or evidence of crime,” the newly unsealed ruling states.

In another case, widespread searches that in total consisted of more than 23,000 separate queries looked for information on presumed Americans to see whether the people were “being used by a group” involved in the breach. “The queries were run against unminimized Section 702 information to find evidence of possible foreign influence, although the analyst conducting the queries had no indications of foreign influence related to the query terms used,” the court said. “NSD assessed there was no specific factual basis to believe the queries were reasonably likely to retrieve foreign intelligence information or evidence of crime from Section 702 information.”

“Cleese last year complained that “cancel culture” had had a “disastrous effect” on comedy and had even caused the “death of creativity..”

• Monty Python Pressured To Drop Gender Transition Skit (RT)

Beloved British comedy troupe Monty Python was pressured to do away with a skit from their classic film ‘Life of Brian’ that jokes about a man wanting to become a woman and have babies, co-founder John Cleese told an audience at his one-man show last week. “We love the script, but you can’t do that stuff about Loretta nowadays,” performers conducting a read-through of the Biblical parody last year supposedly told Cleese, claiming the skit – in which the character Stan insists on being called ‘Loretta’ and declares “it’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them” – would offend modern audiences. “So here you have something there’s never been a complaint about in 40 years, that I’ve heard of, and now all of a sudden we can’t do it because it’ll offend people,” Cleese lamented. “What is one supposed to make of that?”

In the skit, Stan’s comrades in the People’s Front of Judea are split on whether to support ‘Loretta’s’ new identity, and the self-declared woman accuses his detractor of “oppressing” him. “I’m not oppressing you, Stan, you haven’t got a womb! Where’s the fetus gonna gestate? You gonna keep it in a box?” his friend asks. The lone female of the group, Judith, suggests a compromise. “Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies – not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’ – but that he can have the right to have babies.” Stan’s friend Reg likes that idea, declaring it’s “symbolic of our struggle against oppression” – while the naysayer mutters it’s merely “symbolic of [Stan’s] struggle against reality.” The film version of ‘Life of Brian’ was previously banned in some countries for its supposedly blasphemous subject matter, being a profoundly irreverent satire on the Biblical stories chronicling the life and times of the Christian messiah Jesus Christ.

The 2024 stage show adaptation, set to open next year in London, will reportedly excise the film’s crucifixion scene, in which the characters sing the incongruously catchy and upbeat tune ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ while the messiah character Brian is being executed. Eric Idle, another founding member of Monty Python, clarified in a tweet on Friday that he was not involved in the stage show version after British Comedy Guide referred to “Cleese and Idle” having made changes to the original script. Cleese last year complained that “cancel culture” had had a “disastrous effect” on comedy and had even caused the “death of creativity,” explaining that “if you’re worried about offending people and constantly thinking of that, you are not going to be very creative.”

Monty Python called this in 1979!…. “From now on I want you to call me Loretta!” pic.twitter.com/T0tr9cnlYa

— cynthia hilliard (@pickemupjo) May 12, 2023

The Mauna Kea silversword, Argyroxiphium, or the Flower of Patience. It opens every 7 years and it lasts only for 7 days.

This is a newfound species of tardigrade, one of about 1,300 known types of water bears. It was discovered in moss growing on dead tree trunks in Germany’s Black Forest. SEM image, magnified 2,400 times.

Duckling

Duckling living his best life.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/jA33X3Ysh4

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) May 20, 2023

The Philippine eagle is considered the largest of the extant eagles in the world in terms of length and wing surface. Being a critically endangered species, killing a Philippine eagle is punishable under Philippine law up to 12 years in prison [read more: https://buff.ly/2lKrawh]

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Debt Rattle October 10 2022

Oct 102022

October 10, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:40 am Finance Tagged with: blood supply, Elon Musk, Hunter Biden, Kiev, mercenaries, national grid, Nordstream, OPEC, press freedom, Trump 50 Responses »

Paul Gauguin Clovis Gauguin asleep 1884

• Massive Wave Of Missile Attacks Reported Across Ukraine (RT)

• Europe To Feel Impact Of Energy Crisis For Decades – Kremlin (RT)

• Trump Calls For ‘Immediate’ Ukraine Peace Talks (RT)

• Global Margin Call Hits European Debt Markets (AT)

• Nord Stream 2 Offers Germany a Date with Destiny (Escobar)

• ‘Unthinkable’ Number Of Mercenaries Gathered In Zaporozhye (RT)

• German Army Has Ammo For Only Two Days Of War – Media (RT)

• The Last Vestiges Of Press Freedom Disappear In Kiev (Sukharevskaya)

• OPEC Move Balances ‘Chaos That The Americans Create’ – Kremlin (RT)

• UK National Grid Warns Of 3-Hour Rolling Blackouts This Winter (ZH)

• The EU is Forcing Twitter to Censor -and Musk Can’t Stop It- (Kogon)

• White House Spending $265k On Staff To Deflect Hunter Biden Probe (NYP)

• The Chilling Numbers That Reveal The Scale Of Joe Biden’s Border Disaster (NYP)

• Is the US Blood Supply Tainted? (CHD)

• Ex-Partner Of Ukrainian ‘Heiress’ Who Infiltrated Mar-a-Lago Shot In Canada (G.)

Tik Tok Kerch
https://twitter.com/i/status/1578864755334295552

Soros Ukraine
https://twitter.com/i/status/1579006819522863104

Are the kids OK? (Got McCullough banned from Twitter).

Peace talks. Now!

• Massive Wave Of Missile Attacks Reported Across Ukraine (RT)

Multiple missile strikes targeted Ukrainian cities all across the country on Monday morning, according to local officials and media, which attributed the attacks to Russia. This comes two days after a bomb damaged the strategic Crimean Bridge – which Moscow called a Ukrainian terrorist attack. President Vladimir Zelensky highlighted the attacks on the capital, Kiev and the cities of Dnepr and Zaporozhye, before urging people to take shelter. Local officials in Lviv, Kharkov, and Odessa also reported that their cities came under fire. The office of Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, reported they had detected at least 75 missiles and claimed they had intercepted 41.

ZELENSKY’S OFFICE WAS DESTROYED BY A MISSILE STRIKE: UKRAINIAN MEDIA

ZELENSKY'S OFFICE WAS DESTROYED BY A MISSILE STRIKE: UKRAINIAN MEDIA
pic.twitter.com/8UOA46I4Hd

— Russiаn Market (@runews) October 10, 2022

In Kiev, damage from the strikes was reported near the headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which is located in the government area of the capital. City officials halted operations of the metro system, and the stations are now being used as shelters for civilians. The head of Lviv Region, Maksim Kozitsky, reported that elements of the western province’s energy infrastructure came under attack. Boris Filatov, the mayor of Dnepr, a major city in central Ukraine, confirmed the strikes and said he could only feel “hatred and the wish to fight,” while urging residents to take shelter.

Vitaly Kim, who heads the southern Nikolaev Region which borders Russia’s Kherson Region, reported dozens of projectiles and a number of kamikaze drones coming from Russian troops. He claimed that Moscow was targeting “critical infrastructure” throughout the country. With similar accounts coming in from many parts of the country, senior Ukrainian officials have expressed determination to fight Russia. “Our courage will never be destroyed by terrorists’ missiles, even when they hit the heart of our capital,” Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov tweeted, also claiming that Russia’s future is that of “a globally despised rogue terrorist state.”

Gerashchenko later said that five civilians were killed and 12 injured in the capital. Strikes were also reported in the eastern city of Dnepr, and explosions in Lviv, western Ukraine. In a post on his Telegram channel, President Vladimir Zelensky confirmed that there had been missile strikes across Ukraine. “Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded,” he wrote.

Kiev explosions 10-10-22

#Ucrania #Kiev es atacada la capital en estos momentos., será esta la respuesta de #Putin al atentado que sufrió el puente que une a #Crimea con Rusia? pic.twitter.com/FCyOjAowuT

— SputnikV (@Gahe9) October 10, 2022

It’s not easy to rebuild what you lose.

• Europe To Feel Impact Of Energy Crisis For Decades – Kremlin (RT)

Turning away from Russian energy will lead to “very deplorable consequences” for Europe, with up to 20 years of deindustrialization ahead, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has claimed. In an interview with the TV channel Rossiya, fragments of which were released on Sunday, Peskov claimed that the Americans are now making “crazy money” by selling gas to Europe at exorbitant prices. “And Europeans pay them, thereby depriving their economy of competitiveness. Production is collapsing. Deindustrialization is coming. All this will have very, very deplorable consequences for the European continent over probably, at least, the next 10-20 years,” Peskov said.

He emphasized that in the past, there was “a mutual balance,” as Russia was interested in buyers of its energy resources as much as they were interested in Russia. However, Peskov argued, Europe started to repeat “like a mantra” that it had to rid itself of its dependency on Russian energy, and this eventually resulted in the current situation. The Americans are selling gas at prices that are “three or even four” times higher than Russian gas, Peskov said, adding that “the Europeans are making their economy less competitive as they pay” such money to US suppliers. Gas prices in Europe surged earlier this year in the wake of Russia launching its military operation in Ukraine in late February.

After the EU and other Western countries imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow and began a campaign of cutting themselves off from Russian energy supplies, gas prices hit record highs, leading to a rise in overall inflation on the continent. Earlier this week, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo warned that the continent might soon face a significant reduction in industrial activity and social unrest if nothing is done to lower energy prices. Reuters, meanwhile, reported that the US is now delivering more natural gas to the EU than Russia for the first time in history, but that American gas was some ten times more expensive than Russian supplies.

“We must demand the immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in World War III and there will be nothing left of our planet..”

• Trump Calls For ‘Immediate’ Ukraine Peace Talks (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has warned that World War III could break out unless the conflict between Russia and Ukraine quickly ends with a peace settlement. He made the remarks while criticizing President Joe Biden’s foreign policy during a ‘Save America’ rally in Minden, Nevada on Saturday. “And now we have a war between Russia and Ukraine with potentially hundreds of thousands of people dying,” Trump said. “We must demand the immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in World War III and there will be nothing left of our planet,” he stated, blasting the “stupid people” in Biden administration.

Trump has said on several occasions that the Ukraine conflict would not have happened had he been re-elected in 2020. Declaring a partial mobilization of reservists last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West of risking a nuclear disaster by “encouraging” Ukrainian troops to shell the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. He also accused Kiev’s backers of “nuclear blackmail” by making statements about “the possibility and admissibility” of using weapons of mass destruction against Russia. The country will defend itself by all means at its disposal, Putin added.

Some Western officials have interpreted Putin’s speech as a threat to use tactical nuclear weapons. CIA chief William Burns said on Sunday, however, that there is “no practical evidence” that Russia is planning to conduct nuclear strikes. Biden, nevertheless, told a crowd of supporters on Thursday that the US has not faced “the prospect of Armageddon” since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Also on Thursday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who has ruled out negotiating with Putin, called for “preemptive strikes” to deter Russia from using nuclear weapons. His office later said the president’s comments were misrepresented.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1578963221897416705

“It’s a global margin call. I hope we survive.”

• Global Margin Call Hits European Debt Markets (AT)

Risk gauges in Germany’s government debt market rose last week to levels higher than recorded in the 2008 world financial crash, as margin calls forced the liquidation of derivatives positions held by banks, insurers and pension funds. Big institutional investors that spent the past ten years insuring their portfolios against falling interest rates now face massive losses as hedges blow up. A key measure of market risk, the spread between German government bonds (Bunds) and interest rate swap agreements jumped above the previous record set in 2008. The cost of hedging German government debt with interest-rate options, or option-implied volatility, meanwhile rose to the highest level on record. The blowout in the euro derivatives market follows a near-collapse of the British government debt, or gilts, market, averted at the last minute by a 50 billion pound bond-buying spree by the Bank of England.

The world’s central banks responded to the 2008 world financial crash and the European financial crisis of 2011 by pushing bond yields down.

“Real” yields, namely the yield on inflation-indexed government bonds, went deeply into negative numbers in Germany and the UK, followed by the US market. That pulled the rug from under insurance companies and pension funds, which invest pension payments and insurance premiums to provide for future income. To compensate, European and UK institutions locked in long interest rates with derivative contracts, or interest-rate swaps, that receive a long-term interest rate while paying a short-term interest rate. Swaps are a leveraged position that requires collateral worth a fraction of the notional amount of the contract. When the Fed jacked up interest rates in late 2021, the value of interest rate swaps that pay fixed and receive floating imploded.

Pension funds and insurers were stuck with the equivalent of a ten-to-one margin position in long government bonds. The price of long government bonds fell by nearly 20% across the Group of Seven countries, and the value of derivatives contracts evaporated. That left the institutions with margin calls that they could meet only by liquidating assets. That in turn led to a run on the UK government bond market, followed closely by the rest of European bond markets. The Bank of England’s emergency bond-buying delayed a market crash, but the UK gilts market remains on a knife edge, with option hedging costs at an all-time high.

A portfolio manager at one of Germany’s largest insurance companies said, “It’s a global margin call. I hope we survive.” Weaker European banks may have trouble finding short-term funding. The cost of credit default swaps that insure 5-year bonds of Credit Suisse is now higher than it was in 2008, at nearly 400 basis points (4 percentage points) above the cost of interbank funding. The venerable Swiss institution is a special case, with a series of losses due to poor risk controls. Credit Suisse probably will survive – bank regulators will force it to sell assets and shrink – but it will also call in collateral from customers.

Step 1: cripple the largest nation of the group.

• Nord Stream 2 Offers Germany a Date with Destiny (Escobar)

It started with Gazprom revealing that the Line B string of NS2 is intact; not only it escaped Pipeline Terror but may “potentially” be used to pump gas to Germany. That confirms once again that NS2 is an engineering marvel. In fact the whole system: the pipes are so strong they were not broken, but merely punctured. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak followed up, with a caveat: restoration of the whole system, including NS, is possible, and “requires time and appropriate funds”. But first, in Russia’s order of priorities, the perpetrators must be conclusively identified. Sources in Moscow confirmed Gazprom’s assessment of NS2. Even Bloomberg had to report it.

Subsequently in Vienna, attending the Opec+ meeting, Novak remarked the Russian Federation is “ready to supply gas through the second line of Nord Stream 2. This is possible if necessary”. So we know it’s possible. “Necessary” will depend on a political decision by Germany. Novak also sharply noted that neither Russia nor the Nord Stream operators are allowed to investigate Pipeline Terror. Russia insists that without its participation the investigation is flawed. Whatever the modus operandi of Pipeline Terror, incompetence was part of the package. No explosive charges were placed or detonated on Line B of NS2. That means, as Novak said, it’s virtually ready for business. Line B is capable of pumping 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas a year, which happens to be half of the total capacity of NS.

NS’s capacity had been reduced to 20%, due to the interminable turbine saga, before it was completely shut down. Crucially, Line B of NS2 would still pump 2.75 times the capacity of the recently inaugurated Baltic Pipe from Norway to Poland via Denmark. Which basically profits Poland, unlike NS2 servicing several EU customers. In a rational world, Berlin would scrap the Russian sanctions pile up and immediately order the start of forever-delayed NS2, guaranteed to at least attenuate the ongoing process of de-energization, de-industrialization and deep socio-economic crisis imposed by the usual suspects on Germany. But the collective West remains enslaved by geopolitical psychopaths guided by irrationality. So that’s not likely to happen.

The operators of NS and NS2 – Nord Stream AG and Swiss-based Nord Stream 2 AG – cannot reach the scene of the crime because of absurd restrictions imposed by the Danes and the Swedes. The operators need no less than 20 working days to obtain the “permits” to carry out their own inspections. Copenhagen police is handling the crime scene near the Danish exclusive economic zone (EEZ), in parallel to the Swedish Coast Guard around the Swedish EEZ. If this looks like one of those Scandinavian noir series popular on Netflix, that’s because it is. With a crucial twist: it’s NATO investigating itself – Sweden is about to enter NATO – with no Russians allowed. All top working hypotheses on Pipeline Terror point to an intra-NATO dirty op against NATO member Germany.

“..We know about representatives from more than 30 different countries..”

• ‘Unthinkable’ Number Of Mercenaries Gathered In Zaporozhye (RT)

Ukraine has amassed a sizeable number of foreign fighters on the frontline in Zaporozhye Region, which recently voted to join Russia, Vladimir Rogov, a member of the local administration’s chief council, told RIA Novosti on Sunday. “The Kiev regime has accumulated an unthinkable number of mercenaries on the line of contact. We know about representatives from more than 30 different countries,” Rogov said. He went on to say that Ukraine has been deploying to the area both mercenaries and troops from the western part of the country in order to instill terror in local residents who voted in the recent referendums. In late September, Zaporozhye, along with Kherson Region and the two Donbass republics, voted overwhelmingly in referendums to join Russia.

On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin signed into law unification treaties with the former Ukrainian territories, officially making them part of Russia. Zaporozhye Region is also home to a nuclear power plant, which has been under Russian control since March. It has been repeatedly shelled throughout the conflict. Moscow has accused Ukraine of attacking the facility, while Kiev blames the Russian forces. Russia has on numerous occasions conducted strikes on foreign fighters in Ukraine, including with high-precision weapons. Moscow has also warned that the best thing mercenaries from other countries can expect in Ukraine is a “long term in prison.” On September 21, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claimed that Russian forces and the militias of the Donbass republics had eliminated more than 2,000 mercenaries, with 1,000 foreign fighters remaining in the ranks of the Ukrainian military.

“.. It was said that the problem “has been known for years..”

• German Army Has Ammo For Only Two Days Of War – Media (RT)

The German Army (Bundeswehr) has enough ammunition for only one or two days of warfare, the German edition of news website Business Insider (BI) reported on Saturday, citing defense industry and parliamentary sources. According to BI, Berlin is significantly lagging behind the NATO requirement of maintaining stocks for at least 30 days of fighting. It was said that the problem “has been known for years,” as military drills have suffered from insufficient stores. Stockpiles were further depleted after Germany, together with many other Western countries, began sending weapons and ammunition to Ukraine after Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring state in February.

The deliveries included 53,000 rounds for self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, 21.8 million rounds for firearms, and 50 bunker-buster missiles, according to the German government. The situation with the shortage “will not improve if ammunition is removed from the Bundeswehr stocks, while corresponding orders are not placed on the defense industry at the same time,”Hans Christoph Atzpodien, CEO of the German Security and Defense Industry Association (BDSV), told BI. The outlet’s sources, meanwhile, were quoted as saying that there have been “no significant orders” for defense companies to produce more armaments.

Eva Hoegl, the German parliament’s defense commissioner, told BI that an additional €20 billion ($19.5bn) is needed to replenish the stocks. Germany announced the establishment of a €100 billion ($97.4 billion) fund in February to strengthen the Bundeswehr in light of the Ukraine conflict. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht traveled to Ukraine’s southern port city of Odessa earlier this month. After the trip, she announced that Berlin would continue to support Kiev for as long as necessary.

Olga Sukharevskaya, ex-Ukrainian diplomat.

• The Last Vestiges Of Press Freedom Disappear In Kiev (Sukharevskaya)

On August 30, Ukraine’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed a bill on the media at the first reading. Despite the numerous changes that the 300-page document has undergone since President Vladimir Zelensky’s team developed and submitted it a few years ago, its essence remains unchanged. If it becomes law, the authorities’ power over virtually all outlets will be essentially limitless. The main danger this bill presents is that it grants government agencies the authority to block internet resources without any court proceedings, and revoke licenses from broadcast and print media solely on the basis of complaints. This huge power would be vested in the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting.

Ukrainian journalists have been criticizing this bill since the first version appeared in 2018, asserting that it abolishes both freedom of speech and freedom of the press. OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Desir called that version of the law “a blatant violation of freedom of speech,” stating that its adoption “could jeopardize pluralism in the media market, impose additional costs on the media, and negatively affect the reflection of a diversity of ideas and opinions.” Criticism of the bill from both the OSCE and Ukrainian journalists had an effect. In 2020, it was sent for revision, but the changes only include some clarifications concerning gender equality and coverage of sexual orientations.

At the same time, it still contains a ban on publishing any messages contradicting the official government line on military issues. It is likewise forbidden to cover speeches made by officials of the ‘aggressor country’ [meaning Russia] or cast former USSR party functionaries in a positive light. For example, including Ukraine’s own Leonid Brezhnev. The law would also hold foreign media responsible for any of its audiovisual content available in Ukraine. Moreover, social networks, including foreign ones, will be obliged to remove any material the National Council deems undesirable. The deadlines for removing ‘incorrect’ content or replacing it with ‘correct’ material have also been tightened. Among the ‘offenses’ that can get a media outlet banned is distributing programs in which any participant is on the ‘list of persons who pose a threat to the national media space of Ukraine.’

This is compiled by the National Council itself and does not require anyone’s consent. Otherwise, the essence and spirit of the bill is preserved, including severe censorship of “objectionable” media. The American Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) didn’t call on the Verkhovna Rada to reject Bill No. 2693-D ‘On Media’ for nothing. Maya Sever, president of the European Federation of Journalists, has bluntly stated that it means compulsory media regulation “fully controlled by the government worthy of the worst authoritarian regimes.” She is convinced that “a state that would apply such provisions simply has no place in the European Union.”

“..a “victory for common sense..”

• OPEC Move Balances ‘Chaos That The Americans Create’ – Kremlin (RT)

The decision to cut oil production made earlier this week by OPEC and allies is a “victory for common sense,” said Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I’m not inclined to say that this is some kind of a victory for us. No. This is a victory for common sense,” he said on the TV channel Russia-1 on Sunday. Peskov noted that Washington seeks to push through its decisions about the oil market and manipulate prices, even at the cost of destabilizing the global energy market. It has already partially succeeded, he added, having tapped its own reserves and influenced the EU to introduce an oil price cap in its latest package of sanctions. However, according to the spokesman, OPEC+ can counterbalance such measures.

“And the fact that [these actions] are countered by the balanced, thoughtful and planned work of the countries that take a responsible position within OPEC+, including our country, is very good. This at least somewhat balances the chaos that the Americans are creating,” Peskov stressed. OPEC+ announced earlier this week that the countries comprising the group will cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day starting in November. The cuts will be distributed based on the quotas under the OPEC+ deal as of August 2022. The curtailing of output was aimed at stabilizing the global oil market ahead of a seasonal drop in demand and amid fears of a global recession. Meanwhile, according to reports, Russia may cut its production by more than the amount prescribed by OPEC+ due to the new sanctions. US President Joe Biden expressed disappointment with the OPEC+ decision, while the head of the US Treasury, Janet Yellen, called the move “unhelpful and unwise.”

The government denies it.

• UK National Grid Warns Of 3-Hour Rolling Blackouts This Winter (ZH)

People in England, Scotland and Wales could be in for three hour power cuts this winter if it can’t import enough gas and electric imports from other parts of Europe, the British National Grid has warned. The utility said that the scenario was “unlikely,” but that a perfect storm of Russian gas cuts and a cold snap akin to 2018’s “beast from the east” could result in the rolling blackouts – reminiscent of power outages experienced in the 1970s. According to The Guardian, the pre-planned outages would be announced one day in advance, and would aim to reduce total power consumption by 5%. It would require the approval of King Charles on the recommendation of the business secretary.

The National Grid included the scenario as one of several that could occur this winter, as it prepares for a highly uncertain period for power supplies due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We’re heading into winter in an unprecedented situation. Even during the cold war, the Soviet Union kept the gas flowing so it’s very unpredictable,” said one senior industry source. National Grid has worked on a series of initiatives to attempt to manage supply and demand this winter. It is ready to call into action five coal-fired power plants, which can generate up to 2 gigawatts of power – after signing deals with Drax, EDF and Uniper at a cost of £340m to £395m. It will also launch a “demand flexibility service” on 1 November that will encourage businesses and consumers to use power outside peak demand periods, including early evenings on weekdays.

Consumers with smart meters will be notified the day before and will be paid for using power outside these time periods. The initiative was trialled by Octopus Energy earlier this year. -The Guardian If enough households participate in the load-shifting scheme, it could free up an extra 2GW – enough to power approximately 600,000 homes. The utility says it’s “cautiously confident” that there will be enough juice to get through the winter. The Grid’s “base case” scenario is that there will be a surplus of around 3.7GW energy, and forecast a “sufficient operational surplus throughout winter,” notwithstanding tight margins from early December to mid-January.

One more reason to abolish the EU.

• The EU is Forcing Twitter to Censor -and Musk Can’t Stop It- (Kogon)

There has been much talk recently of the Biden administration exerting informal pressure on Twitter and other social media to censor unwelcome content and voices, and lawsuits have even been launched against the government for infringing the alleged victims’ 1st Amendment rights. But all that such pressure appears thus far to have consisted of are some chummy nudges in emails. There has surely not been any threat of fines. How could there be without a law authorizing the executive branch to impose them? And such a law would be blatantly unconstitutional, since precisely what the 1st Amendment states concerning freedom of speech is that “Congress shall make no law…abridging” it.

But there’s the rub. Congress, needless to say, has not made any such law. But what if a foreign power made such a law and it de facto abridged the freedom of speech also of Americans? Unbeknownst to most Americans, this has in fact occurred and their 1st Amendment rights are being vitiated, namely, by the European Union. There is a financial gun pointed at Twitter. But it is not the Biden administration, but rather the European Commission, under the leadership of Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, that has its finger on the trigger. The law in question is the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which was passed by the European Parliament last July 5 amidst almost total indifference – in Europe as much as in the United States – despite its momentous and disastrous implications for freedom of speech worldwide.

The DSA gives the European Commission the power to impose fines of up to 6% of global turnover on “very large online platforms or very large online search engines” that it finds to be non-compliant with its censorship requirements. “Very large” is defined as any platform or search engine that has over 45 million users in the EU. Note that while the size criterion is limited to users in the EU, the sanction is based precisely on the company’s global turnover. The DSA has been designed to function in combination with the EU’s so-called Code of Practice on Disinformation: an ostensibly voluntary code for “combatting disinformation” – aka censoring – that was originally launched in 2018 and of which Twitter, Facebook/Meta and Google/YouTube are all signatories.

To be fair, it’s not all Hunter. A lot more needs to fit under that carpet.

• White House Spending $265k On Staff To Deflect Hunter Biden Probe (NYP)

The White House is gearing up for a growing army of staff to fend off potential Republican-led probes on everything from Hunter Biden to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan — and taxpayers are footing the bill. Battening down the hatches should the GOP regain control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, the White House is shelling out $265,000 a year in salary for staff whose primary portfolio will be to run comms and defense for the administration from an approaching blizzard of subpoenas. In May, the White House poached Richard A. Sauber, the top attorney for the Department of Veterans Affairs, to serve as a “deputy counsel to the president” tasked with handling House oversight probes.

Ian Sams, a veteran of Vice President Harris’ failed 2020 presidential campaign, was hired to run official comms for the team. White House records show the two men will take home $155,000 and $110,000 respectively. And the team is only expected to grow, the Washington Post reported — indicating that its staffing and operational expenditures will balloon further. “Americans deserve transparency from President Biden about his family’s suspicious business dealings. But instead of providing transparency, the White House is hiring staff at the American taxpayers’ expense to stonewall congressional oversight and accountability.” said Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is on track to chair the House Oversight Committee next year if Republicans retake the House.

“Let’s be clear: no amount of Biden White House staff or stonewalling will stop Republicans’ quest for transparency and accountability on behalf of the American people,” he added. House Republicans have vowed to investigate everything from the origins of coronavirus, to the botched withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. The party’s marquee probe will focus on Hunter Biden and what connections his father, President Biden, had to his shady overseas business dealings.

“In FY 2022 (all Biden’s watch), gotaways hit 599,000 — up 54% versus FY 2021 and 768% compared to FY 2020.”

• The Chilling Numbers That Reveal The Scale Of Joe Biden’s Border Disaster (NYP)

Democrats are napping peacefully through the US-Mexico “border” crisis they engineered. Perhaps these data will snap them from their slumber: US Department of Homeland Security reports that the Mexican cartels’ income from smuggling illegal migrants into America has soared from $500 million in 2018 to $13 billion this year — up 2,500%. If these criminals merged into a corporation, their 2022 gross revenues would rival that of — are you sitting down? — Fox Corporation. Fox News Channel’s parent company earned $12.91 billion in the year ended June 30, 2021, and $13.97 billion 12 months later. This fact might awaken Sleepy Joe Biden and the lazy Left: Mexico’s human-trafficking cartels are now as big as Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

If Democrats still are dozing through the havoc of their no-border strategy, these figures might rouse them: Border Patrol agents apprehended 951,568 illegal immigrants during President Donald Trump’s final 19 months in office. In President Biden’s first 19 months, Border Patrol encountered a staggering 3,588,877 illegals — up a sickening 377%. In Fiscal Year 2020, the last fully under Trump’s control, 69,000 illegal migrants were detected on the “border” but got away into America’s interior. FY 2021 (four months of Trump, eight of Biden) witnessed 389,155 gotaways — up 464%. In FY 2022 (all Biden’s watch), gotaways hit 599,000 — up 54% versus FY 2021 and 768% compared to FY 2020.

At least 266,000 unaccompanied migrant children/minors have been encountered at the southern border since President Biden took office, per CBP data,” Fox News Channel’s priceless southern-frontier correspondent Bill Melugin explained via Twitter on September 26. “That’s enough to fill up approximately three Rose Bowls.” Fourteen House Republicans wrote Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sept. 23 to complain that “between October 2021 and July 2022, more than 130,000 Venezuelan nationals were encountered after entering the United States illegally.” The Marxist Nicolás Maduro regime, they added, “is deliberately releasing violent prisoners early, including inmates convicted of ‘murder, rape and extortion,’ and pushing them to join caravans heading to the United States.”

Twelve US senators contacted the US Marshals Service about crooks cascading across the “border.” According to their August 30 letter, “So far in FY22, CBP has apprehended over 9,000 criminal immigrants, including 53 for homicide or manslaughter, 283 for sex crimes and almost 900 for assault, battery and domestic violence.” During Trump’s FYs 2017 through 2020, 11 terrorists on the watch list were captured at the border — two, six, zero and three, in those respective years.

“The sudden transition … from a state of perfect normalcy to a pathological one … is unprecedented. … “

• Is the US Blood Supply Tainted? (CHD)

Funeral directors and embalmers in the U.S. and U.K. have gone public with shocking descriptions of highly unusual blood clots in up to 85% of the bodies coming under their care — a “massive increase” compared to pre-COVID-19 vaccine times when ordinary-looking clots might be found in 5% to 10% of the deceased. “In all my years of embalming, we would run across clots from time to time,” said Richard Hirschman, an experienced funeral director in Alabama, “but since May last year [2021], something about the blood has changed. It’s not normal. It’s drastic.” The rampant clotting and the clots’ disturbing sci-fi appearance — “long fibrous entities that can completely block a vein or artery,” which Hirschman likens to calamari, rubber bands, spaghetti, worms or parasites — are just some of the concerns prompting questions about blood supply safety.

About 55% of blood is plasma — which, among other functions, supplies proteins “for blood clotting and immunity” — with the remaining 45% consisting of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets suspended in the plasma. Depending on their blood type, individuals who give blood can choose to donate whole blood, plasma or platelets, or they can make a “Power Red” donation (a “concentrated dose” of red blood cells). The American Red Cross says it will not accept blood from someone whose blood “does not clot normally,” but — following guidance from the same branch of the FDA that oversees vaccines — welcomes immediate donations from anyone who received one of the mRNA or other COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S., as long as the person says he is “symptom-free and feeling well.”

[..] In one of the most alarming studies, published in August in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research, Italian surgeons described atypical clumping of red blood cells and the presence of “extraordinarily anomalous structures and substances” of “various shapes and sizes of unclear origin” in over 94% of symptomatic, COVID-19-vaccinated individuals whose blood they examined. The 1,006 study participants, ranging in age from 15 to 85, received a first (14%), second (45%) or third (41%) dose of a Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccine about a month before the analysis of their blood. Pointing to other studies that found foreign materials in the blood of COVID-19 vaccine recipients and in COVID-19 vaccine vials — materials “that the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and the many promoters of the experimental injections claimed were not in them at all” — the Italian authors concluded the vaccine-induced blood alterations were “likely … to be involved in producing the coagulation disorders commonly reported after anti-COVID injections.”

Putting the matter even more plainly, they stated: “[S]uch abrupt changes as we have documented in the peripheral blood profile of 948 patients have never been observed after inoculation by any vaccines in the past according to our clinical experience. The sudden transition … from a state of perfect normalcy to a pathological one … is unprecedented. … “In our collective experience, and in our shared professional opinion, the large quantity of particles in the blood of mRNA injection recipients is incompatible with normal blood flow especially at the level of the capillaries.”

I dare you to find a crazier story than this today.

• Ex-Partner Of Ukrainian ‘Heiress’ Who Infiltrated Mar-a-Lago Shot In Canada (G.)

An associate of the Ukrainian woman who posed as a member of the Rothschild banking family at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club was reportedly shot outside a lakeside resort north-west of Montreal, Canadian newspaper LaPresse has reported. The shooting left Valeriy Tarasenko, 44, with “significant injuries”, but he was expected to survive, said the Sûreté du Québec, the Quebec provincial police. The police said it had launched a search for the shooter and any accomplices behind the attack. Tarasenko is known as a former business partner of Inna Yashchyshyn, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian immigrant who was identified by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project over the summer for posing as “Anna de Rothschild” at Mar-a-Lago.

Quebec police told LaPresse that they were trying to “shed some light on the circumstances that led to the injuries of the victim”. But for now, “to protect the investigation, no other detail can be shared”, the police added. Tarasenko, who was born in Ukraine and raised in Moscow, told the Post-Gazette and OCCRP that he had hired Yashchyshyn in 2014 to live in his Miami condo and watch his two daughters while he traveled on business. The FBI, according to the report, has been looking into a Miami charity, United Hearts of Mercy, Yashchyshyn launched in 2015 and carries the same name as a nonprofit founded by Tarasenko in Canada in 2010. According to a statement by the charity’s accountant that was turned over to the FBI, the charity, established to collect money for impoverished children, was in fact a front for organized crime.

Hudson

Micheal Hudson in 2015 explains US funding Nazis in Ukraine pic.twitter.com/jGFvLo68H9

— nuclear war avoider (@TrumanBurrbank) October 9, 2022

Assange BTC
https://twitter.com/i/status/1578922597609525249

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Debt Rattle June 16 2022

Jun 162022

June 16, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:15 am Finance Tagged with: Assange, Erdogan, FDA, Joshua Schulte, mercenaries, new G8, PPI, red flag laws, Schiff, severe Covid, three rings, Vault 7 50 Responses »

Caravaggio The calling of St. Matthew 1599-1600

• Severe COVID-19 ‘Rare’ In Unvaccinated People (MD)

• FDA Advisors Unanimously Endorse COVID Shots for Infants and Young Kids (CHD)

• The World Is Looking At You (Batiushka)

• First American Mercenary Contractors Captured in Ukraine (CTH)

• The ‘New G8’ Meets China’s ‘Three Rings’ (Escobar)

• Schiff: Evidence That Trump “Engaged in Likely Multiple Criminal Acts (Turley)

• ECB Holds Emergency Meeting To Discuss Market Turmoil (ZH)

• PPI: Smoking -AGAIN- (Denninger)

• Today’s The Day…. (Denninger)

• “Red Flag” Laws Put a Target on the Back of Every American (Whitehead)

• Erdogan Issues Fresh Threats Against Greece (K.)

• A Whistleblower’s Agony (Kiriakou)

• Patel Responsible For Assange’s ‘Slow-Motion Execution’ If Extradited (DIss.)

Consumer feelings

“This is the worst consumer sentiment EVER measured.” Biden is toast. pic.twitter.com/NeKO77PHyK

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 16, 2022

Blink

When you smoke some of that good shit before a press conference and totally forget to blink… pic.twitter.com/DujqpoJUqz

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) June 14, 2022

DeSantis Musk

Elon Musk is rumored to be supporting Ron Desantis for president in 2024. Asked about it, Desantis says he’s focused on 2022, but always appreciates the support of African-Americans. This is gold. pic.twitter.com/gr0b6fHVCT

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 15, 2022

We’ve known for a while that the vaccines don’t protect against infection or transmission. The last thing they had left was protection against severe disease. That is now gone too. It’s over.

• Severe COVID-19 ‘Rare’ In Unvaccinated People (MD)

A survey has found that people who did not get the vaccine had a lower rate of suffering severe COVID-19 amid the pandemic. The survey uploaded to the preprint server ResearchGate presented data from more than 18,500 respondents from the “Control Group” project with more than 300,000 overall participants. An analysis revealed that compared to those who got jabbed, unvaccinated people reported fewer hospitalizations. The international survey also found that the unvaccinated people from more than 175 countries were more likely to self-care to prevent and manage COVID-19 infection. They used natural products like vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, quercetin, and drugs, such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

Many participants experienced discrimination for refusing the administration of “genetic vaccines” and struggled with mental health burdens due to the stigma in the mostly “vaccinated” society. Since the participants were self-selected and self-reported, the survey findings had to be interpreted with care compared to statistics or studies based on randomly selected populations, according to the Alliance for Natural Health International. The participants admitted to avoiding vaccines due to their preference for natural medicine interventions and skepticism of pharmaceutical interventions. They also voiced distrust of government information and fear of the possible adverse effects of the vaccines in the long run.

The survey was conducted from September 2021 through February 2022. During the period, participants experienced mild to moderate COVID-19 infection and were infrequently hospitalized. A number of female participants suffered menstrual and bleeding abnormalities, prompting the researchers who analyzed the data to surmise that the issues might have been caused by spike protein exposure and shedding, as per The Epoch Times.

Well, no

Read the article above and then explain this.

• FDA Advisors Unanimously Endorse COVID Shots for Infants and Young Kids (CHD)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) vaccine advisory panel today unanimously voted 21-0 to recommend Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines for infants and young children, stating the totality of the evidence available shows the benefits of the vaccines outweigh the risks of use. Pfizer’s three-dose vaccine would cover children 6 months to 5 years old, while Moderna’s two-dose vaccine covers children 6 months to 6 years old. States have already ordered millions of doses made available prior to FDA authorization by the Biden administration. Depending on whether the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) accept the recommendations of their advisory panels, White House officials have said the administration of vaccines for these age groups could start as early as June 21.

The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) ignored pleas from experts, the vaccine injured and a congressman representing 17 other lawmakers to halt authorization until questions about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines for the nation’s youngest children could be properly addressed. Many of the committee members, including pediatrician Dr. Ofer Levy, said the decision to authorize the shots was about providing a choice to parents who wanted access to COVID-19 vaccines, despite concerns by public commenters the panel was not adhering to the requirements for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and that authorization would eventually lead to mandates — as it did with adult vaccines.

“..the eyes of the freedom-loving world are turned to the Russian Federation..”

• The World Is Looking At You (Batiushka)

As a result of this first War atheist Bolsheviks seized power in the former Russian Empire. Although well over 600,000 Russian troops had died in the two and half years up until February 1917, as they, unlike the Allies on the Western Front, had faced the vast majority of the forces of Germany, Austro-Hungary and Turkey, far worse was to come. Foreign-sponsored foreigners, like the brain-fevered Blank-Lenin and the evil genius Bronstein-Trotsky, killed millions in a civil war, including the Imperial Family, and through deliberate starvation. Many more would later die in concentration camps. And unlike in the First War when the enemy never even entered Russia, in the Second War the enemy reached the very gates of Moscow, Leningrad and the banks of the Volga, slaughtering 27 million, mainly civilians.

But then there was the American flu (called for propaganda reasons ‘Spanish flu’). Beginning in Kansas, it was brought to Europe in 1917 by American troops, who had entered the First War, as arranged, as soon as the treacherous ‘Allies’ (not Germany) had succeeded in overthrowing Imperial Russia. The Americans had come to conquer Europe. After the Great European Suicide of the First War, this flu may have killed another 50 million, though some say far more. But above all, exactly as the French Marshal Foch foretold at Versailles, the ‘Peace’ of 1919 led directly to the Second Great War that broke out twenty years later. And that murdered tens of millions and in 1945 made Western Europe into a conquered and occupied province of the USA, which then set about creating a USE (United States of Europe) in its own image.

And so came the Cold War, with its MAD (mutually assured destruction) phobia, bunker-building, wasteful spending on arms, and the new generation’s social revolution of the 1960s. In turn came the next generation of 1989, 75 years after 1914 and 50 years after 1939, and the occupation of Eastern Europe by the same US colonists, sending out their proconsul-ambassadors to the client states of the ‘New Europe’. In 1991, 50 years after Operation Barbarossa of Nazi Imperialism ravaged the USSR but was defeated, the latter fell to Nato Imperialism. And in turn, 100 years after the Great European Suicide began, the Evil Empire began its occupation of the Ukraine in 2014, turning it into a dependent vassal. The whole pattern of the hundred years, 1914-2014, had the same source.

Until 2022 there had never been any hope of justice and restitution for any of this. Then on 24 February began the Special Operation to liberate the Ukraine and denazify the world. This is the last throw of the dice and the eyes of the freedom-loving world are turned to the Russian Federation. Even with all its troubles, imperfections and treacheries, we have no other hope. The world is looking at you.

“The traditional end result for captured mercenaries is execution; however, Russian President Vladimir Putin may not want to hang these two State Dept. conscripts.”

• First American Mercenary Contractors Captured in Ukraine (CTH)

A contracted mercenary has no legal recognition or protection as a prisoner of war. Two American mercenary soldiers have been captured by Russian forces and now present a rather unique issue for the Biden administration. The traditional end result for captured mercenaries is execution; however, Russian President Vladimir Putin may not want to hang these two State Dept. conscripts. (Via Telegraph) – “Two former US servicemen have been captured during fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine, The Telegraph has been told. The pair were taken prisoner during a fierce battle outside the north-east city of Kharkiv last week, according to comrades who were fighting alongside them.

Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Huynh, 27, had been serving as volunteers with a regular Ukrainian army unit. They are believed to be the first US servicemen to end up as Russian prisoners of war. They join a growing number of Western military volunteers captured by Russian forces, including at least two Britons. Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner have already been told they face the death penalty as “mercenaries”. The capture of the two Americans will be diplomatically sensitive as the Kremlin may seek to use it as proof that America is becoming directly involved in the war. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is likely to demand significant concessions to release them.”

“The new G8, instead, “does not impose anything on anyone, but tries to find common solutions.”

• The ‘New G8’ Meets China’s ‘Three Rings’ (Escobar)

The speaker of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, may have created the defining acronym for the emerging multipolar world: “the new G8”. As Volodin noted, “the United States has created conditions with its own hands so that countries wishing to build an equal dialogue and mutually beneficial relations will actually form a ‘new G8’ together with Russia.” This non Russia-sanctioning G8, he added, is 24.4% ahead of the old one, which is in fact the G7, in terms of GDP in purchasing power parity (PPP), as G7 economies are on the verge of collapsing and the U.S. registers record inflation.

The power of the acronym was confirmed by one of the researchers on Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergei Fedorov: three BRICS members (Brazil, China and India) alongside Russia, plus Indonesia, Iran, Turkey and Mexico, all non adherents to the all-out Western economic war against Russia, will soon dominate global markets. Fedorov stressed the power of the new G8 in population as well as economically: “If the West, which restricted all international organizations, follows its own policies, and pressures everyone, then why are these organizations necessary? Russia does not follow these rules.” The new G8, instead, “does not impose anything on anyone, but tries to find common solutions.”

The coming of the new G8 points to the inevitable advent of BRICS +, one of the key themes to be discussed in the upcoming BRICS summit in China. Argentina is very much interested in becoming part of the extended BRICS and those (informal) members of the new G8 – Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, Mexico – are all likely candidates. The intersection of the new G8 and BRICS + will lead Beijing to turbo-charge what has already been conceptualized as the Three Rings strategy by Cheng Yawen, from the Institute of International Relations and Public Affairs at the Shanghai International Studies University.

Cheng argues that since the beginning of the 2018 U.S.-China trade war the Empire of Lies and its vassals have aimed to “decouple”; thus the Middle Kingdom should strategically downgrade its relations with the West and promote a new international system based on South-South cooperation. Looks like if it walks and talks like the new G8, that’s because it’s the real deal.

Schiff himself “Engaged in Likely Multiple Criminal Acts”.

• Schiff: Evidence That Trump “Engaged in Likely Multiple Criminal Acts (Turley)

Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) went on CNN’s “Don Lemon Tonight” to tout the work of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6th riot. In that interview, Schiff declared that the Committee has enough evidence showing former President Donald Trump “engaged in likely multiple criminal acts.” While vague on the specific crimes, Schiff emphasized that the Justice Department did not have to wait any further to launch a criminal investigation based on what has already been disclosed. While the Committee has disclosed new evidence in the form of videotapes and testimony, it has not presented new material evidence of criminal acts in my view. That could still come but the first two hearings largely focused on a “conspiracy” to challenge the election certification and allegations that Trump knew the there was no compelling evidence of widespread election fraud.

If there is evidence of criminal conduct by former president Trump or others, most of us would support the calls for prosecution. It is also possible that the Justice Department is investigating such crimes or has undisclosed evidence. The hearings, however, have not established such a foundation. That can still come but these crimes have elements that have not been addressed in hearings that have lacked any opposing views or adversarial elements. The decision of Speaker Nancy Pelosi to abandon the long tradition of bipartisan members on such selection committee has robbed the investigation of credibility and legitimacy for many Americans.

Indeed, Schiff’s reference to evidence held by the Committee is likely to bring up memories of his highly controversial public statements that the House Intelligence Committee, which he chairs, had direct evidence of Russian collusion despite the countervailing findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He never produced the evidence and later it was revealed that Justice officials and FBI agents had told his Committee that they did not find such evidence. Now, Schiff is maintaining that:

“I certainly believe there’s enough evidence for them to open an investigation of several people, and so did Judge David Carter of California believes the former president and others were engaged in likely multiple criminal acts. So if the Justice Department concurs with Judge Carter, let alone my own view or others, they should be pursuing that. So, yes, I think there is sufficient evidence to open an investigation. It would be of you up to the Justice Department ultimately to decide does that evidence rise to proof beyond a reasonable doubt such that they’re comfortable indicting someone. But there’s certainly, in my view, enough evidence to open up investigations.”

The reference to the Carter opinion has become a mainstay on cable news. I was critical of Judge Carter’s opinion when it was released. Much of the Jan. 6th hearings seem to be structured along the same lines as the Carter decision which was, in my view, strikingly conclusory and unsupported in critical parts of the analysis. Judge Carter simply declares that Trump knew that the election was not stolen and thus “the illegality of the plan was obvious.” Putting aside the court’s assumption of what Trump secretly concluded on the election, a sizable number of Americans still do not view Biden as legitimately elected. The court is not simply saying that they are wrong in that view but, because they are wrong, legislative challenges amounted to criminal obstruction of Congress.

First Japan, then Europe, then the US. Russia and China will remain standing.

• ECB Holds Emergency Meeting To Discuss Market Turmoil (ZH)

Last week, shortly after the ECB’s latest meeting disappointed markets and concluded without a discussion of Europe’s growing bond market fragmentation which has since sent Italian bond yields soaring above 4%, we joked that “at this rate the ECB would make an emergency rate cut” just hours after announcing an end to QT and guiding to a July rate hike. Once again, our jokes was not too far from the truth because on Wednesday morning, just hours before the Fed’s first 75bps rate hike sine 1994, and with Italian bonds in freefall, European Central Bank unexpectedly announced it would hold an emergency , ad hoc meeting of its rate-setters starting 11am CET in which it would “discuss current market conditions.”

The meeting, which comes less than a week after the rate-setting governing council’s last vote, raised investor expectations that the central bank is preparing to announce a policy instrument to stave-off another debt crisis in the region, which can only come in the form of more QE… which is ironic at a time when the ECB just announced it was phasing out all QE! Italian government bonds rallied in price following news of the planned meeting, reversing some of the recent sell-off that analysts said brought the country’s borrowing costs towards the “danger zone”. Gilles Moec, chief economist at Axa, an insurer, said the “stakes are high” for the ECB “now that everyone is dusting off their debt sustainability spreadsheets for Italy, they probably need to go up an extra notch”.

[..] ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel indicated in a speech on Tuesday evening that the central bank was getting closer to the point where it would intervene in bond markets, saying “some borrowers have seen significantly larger changes in financing conditions than others since the start of the year”. She added: “Such changes in financing conditions may constitute an impairment in the transmission of monetary policy that requires close monitoring.” Schnabel, the ECB executive who oversees its market operations and one of the most influential voices on its board, said the central bank’s commitment to the euro had no limits. “And our track record of stepping in when needed backs up this commitment,” she added. But wait, this means… more QE at a time when the ECB just vowed… less QE!!??

”Choose one and only one: Feel good or be able to afford food and basically everything else.”

• PPI: Smoking -AGAIN- (Denninger)

Oh my look what we have here! “The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.8 percent in May, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This rise followed advances of 0.4 percent in April and 1.6 percent in March. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, final demand prices moved up 10.8 percent for the 12 months ended in May.” So…. two points, more or less, higher than CPI. PPI leads, I remind you, so the consumer inflation level has not peaked. Let’s look inside. “Final demand goods: The index for final demand goods moved up 1.4 percent in May, the fifth consecutive rise. Over 70 percent of the increase in May can be traced to a 5.0-percent advance in prices for final demand energy. The index for final demand goods less foods and energy moved up 0.7 percent, while prices for final demand foods were unchanged.”

Oh really? Only 5% eh? Well, don’t look at June, because gasoline, for example, has risen by more than 10% in the last two weeks which is all in June. Oops. “Product detail: Nearly 30 percent of the May increase in the index for final demand services can be attributed to prices for truck transportation of freight, which rose 2.9 percent.” No kidding? You mean $6+ diesel fuel turns directly into higher shipping prices? I just got back from a cross-country trip and saw lots of dead dinosaurs coming out of the stack of 18 wheelers and every one of them had better keep moving or you’re not eating, never mind being able to buy and consume anything else. The current Administration’s war on fossil fuels might make you feel good but it is also directly responsible for this insanity. Choose one and only one: Feel good or be able to afford food and basically everything else.

The really nasty is that the 12 month trend is unbroken and, as I noted, it all started right after Biden was inaugurated. He said he was going to do this during the campaign and he has. It takes time for the PPI to reflect down into the final shelf price and it has. But the 12 month final demand number, less food, energy and trade from 12 months prior stands at 6% which it has run at or above since August of last year. Shut it off now and it will be next summer before that has all worked its way through and there’s nothing you can do about the time requirement.

“At the core what The Fed does is not the question. It’s what Congress does.”

• Today’s The Day…. (Denninger)

….. we “celebrate” The Fed decision on rates. Well, yeah, ok. The 13 week bill says the FFR should be 1.5% now. As has almost-always been the case historically (go look at FRED if you don’t believe me) the market leads and The Fed is not actually in charge of rates. Of course this runs counter to the “all-powerful Fed” which suits everyone on all sides. The politicians and conspiracy nuts get to blame someone else for an agency that follows what the market demands because if it doesn’t it is proved impotent and takes a huge loss on top of it. Unfortunately 50 bips will do nothing to cool inflation; to do that short-term rates must be higher than the inflation rate so that the real cost of borrowing is positive. That would mean putting about 700bips on the FFR right here and now – which we know won’t happen.

Then again this has been the problem for the last 30ish years. The slope of the interest rate curve has gone from the upper left to the lower right and thus serial refinancing at the corporate and government level, say much less at the personal level, has looked “free.” That’s the sneaky part of inflation which I explained back when I wrote Leverage with a nice graph. When you run a deliberate inflationary policy over decades the first years look like a free lunch because the apparent “wealth” initially goes up faster than the debt service (which is on a smaller base) and thus produces a “belly” (an area of expansion of the space between the two lines of available spending power and debt service.) This is a chimera and to intentionally run such a policy as a business or government is fraud because all exponential expansions eventually go vertical, and the debt service will eventually cross available funds at which point you’re screwed since you cannot spend 110% of what you have — ever — no matter what you do.

It’s happening now. At the core what The Fed does is not the question. It’s what Congress does. The Fed is constrained to use only Federal Government backed securities for its monetary operations and policy. Yes, it has shaved that repeatedly, most-egregiously with Fannie and Freddie paper during the housing crash which at the time was wildly illegal yet not one person in Congress called them on it nor did anyone from the Executive (e.g. DOJ) stop it despite its blatant illegality. Then Congress went even further and, for all intents and purposes, explicitly backstopped said paper on a retroactive basis which is also illegal, but heh, nobody cared because it was “too big to fail.”

Total control is the goal.

• “Red Flag” Laws Put a Target on the Back of Every American (Whitehead)

What we do not need is yet another pretext by which government officials can violate the Fourth Amendment at will under the guise of public health and safety. Indeed, at a time when red flag gun laws (which authorize government officials to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others) are gaining traction as a legislative means by which to allow police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats, it wouldn’t take much for police to be given the green light to enter a home without a warrant in order to seize lawfully-possessed firearms based on concerns that the guns might pose a danger. Frankly, a person wouldn’t even need to own a gun to be subjected to such a home invasion.

SWAT teams have crashed through doors on lesser pretexts based on false information, mistaken identities and wrong addresses. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted laws allowing the police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats. If Congress succeeds in passing the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order, which would nationalize red flag laws, that number will grow. As The Washington Post reports, these red flag gun laws…”allow a family member, roommate, beau, law enforcement officer or any type of medical professional to file a petition [with a court] asking that a person’s home be temporarily cleared of firearms. It doesn’t require a mental-health diagnosis or an arrest.”

In the wake of yet another round of mass shootings, these gun confiscation laws—extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws—may appease the fears of those who believe that fewer guns in the hands of the general populace will make our society safer. Of course, it doesn’t always work that way. Anything—knives, vehicles, planes, pressure cookers—can become a weapon when wielded with deadly intentions. With these red flag gun laws, the stated intention is to disarm individuals who are potential threats… to “stop dangerous people before they act.”

I think he has elections coming up.

• Erdogan Issues Fresh Threats Against Greece (K.)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has issued fresh threats against Greece, this time accusing the country of supporting an international campaign directed against his country. “We have sent a clear message to everyone concerned about developments in the Aegean,” Erdogan told MPs of his AK Party in the wake of the EFES-2022 military exercise near the Aegean port city of Izmir. “We have seen through the game being played at the expense of our country. They are allowing Greece to behave like a spoiled child as they have done in the past,” he said. “The problem is that Greece is not aware of this game, or it has voluntarily adopted a supporting role,” he said, adding that the country would pay a hefty price for “making the same mistake.”

Joshua Schulte. Treated like an animal.

• A Whistleblower’s Agony (Kiriakou)

A C.I.A. whistleblower languishes awaiting trial in a federal prison under inhumane conditions and almost nobody is paying attention. Joshua Schulte is a former C.I.A. hacker, one of those computer geniuses whose job it is to work his way into the computer systems of our country’s enemies in support of some of the most highly-classified operations the C.I.A. carries out. The government believes that Schulte was a malcontent who released to WikiLeaks in 2017 the equivalent of 2 billion pages of top secret C.I.A. data with code names like Brutal Kangaroo, AngerQuake and McNugget. These programs, collectively known as Vault 7, were custom-made techniques used to compromise Wifi networks, hack into Skype, defeat anti-virus software and even hack into smart TVs and the guidance systems in cars.

They were the C.I.A.’s modern-day crown jewels. One senior C.I.A. officer likened the revelations to “a modern-day Pearl Harbor.” The C.I.A. accused Schulte of stealing the data in 2016 and of sending it to WikiLeaks in 2017. He was eventually charged with 13 felonies, mostly related to the Espionage Act. He was later charged with a number of additional felonies related to child pornography, accusations that he has adamantly denied. Schulte went to trial in New York in early 2020 with the Justice Department accusing him of “the single biggest leak of classified national defense information in the history of the C.I.A.”

After four weeks of testimony and six days of jury deliberation, he was found guilty of contempt of court and making a false statement, both minor charges for which federal sentencing guidelines call for imprisonment of zero-to-six months. The jury deadlocked on all other counts, and the judge declared a mistrial. Schulte remains in prison awaiting retrial. He has been incarcerated since October 2018.

“This dramatic deterioration of Mr Assange’s health has not yet been considered in his extradition proceedings.”

• Patel Responsible For Assange’s ‘Slow-Motion Execution’ If Extradited (DIss.)

A coalition of over 300 doctors warned UK Home Secretary Priti Patel that she may be responsible for the “slow-motion execution” of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange if her office approves the United States government’s extradition request. Patel has until June 19, which is ten years after Assange entered Ecuador’s embassy in London and sought political asylum, to decide whether to approve the extradition. Assange faces 18 charges brought against him by the US Justice Department, 17 of which are under the Espionage Act. All the charges relate to documents WikiLeaks released in 2010 and 2011, which were provided by US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

Doctors for Assange” is an international coalition of medical doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists who have spoken up for Assange because of the toll the US government’s prosecution has taken on his health. Many of the doctors are from the UK and Australia, which is Assange’s home country. The doctors sent a letter to Patel on June 10, 2022, ahead of the Home Office’s extradition decision. “Should [Assange] come to harm in the US,” the group contends Patel “will be left holding the responsibility for that negligent outcome.” They add, “The extradition of a person with such compromised health, moreover, is medically and ethically unacceptable.” As the doctors recall, Assange’s health has deteriorated in UK custody at Belmarsh prison, where he’s been detained since April 11, 2019.

“In October 2021, Mr. Assange suffered a ‘mini-stroke.’” “This dangerous deterioration of Mr Assange’s health underscores the medical concern that the chronic stress caused by his harsh prison conditions, as well as his justified fear of the conditions that he would face in the case of extradition, leaves Mr. Assange vulnerable to cardiovascular events,” the doctors add. “This dramatic deterioration of Mr Assange’s health has not yet been considered in his extradition proceedings.” The doctors argue the basis for accepting US “assurances” was based upon “outdated medical information,” which should render the assurances “obsolete.” “Under conditions in which the UK legal system has failed to take Mr Assange’s current health status into account, no valid decision to approve his extradition may be made, by you, or anyone else.”