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Debt Rattle March 12 2026

Mar 122026
 
 March 12, 2026  Posted by at 10:08 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  92 Responses »


Willem de Kooning Rosy-fingered Dawn at Louse Point 1963
When I still lived in Holland I would go to the StedelIjk Museum all the time just to see this painting.


• Trump Says Iran War To End ‘Soon’ As ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target (ZH)
• Thinking About the Unthinkable (Michael Hudson)
• Iran Sleeper Cells ‘Activated’; Threaten To “Eliminate” Trump (MN)
• It Seems Netanyahu Has Trump In Over His Head (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Die Is Cast: Either Iran or Washington/Israel Prevail (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Global Elites Lose Again (Heather Mac Donald)
• Volkswagen Loses Half Their Profit, Plans to Cut 50,000 Jobs (CTH)
• Top DOJ Prosecutor Says Tens Of Thousands Of Noncitizens On Voter Rolls (JTN)
• Epstein’s Accountant To Testify Before House Oversight Panel (JTN)
• Microsoft Backs Anthropic’s Bid to Block the Supply-Chain Risk Label (ET)
• Are Bad Bots Taking Over The Web? (ZH)
• Ukraine Can’t Explain ‘War Mafia’ Cash Convoy – Hungary (RT)
• EU Members Could Loan Billions Directly To Kiev – Politico
• Looks Like The EU Might Have To Pay Zelensky Just To Shut Up (Rachel Marsden)
• The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country (Rick Moran)

 


 

 


 

 


 


92 million people in an ancient civilization, and after just a few days you have ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target? Sounds delusional, perhaps.

• Trump Says Iran War To End ‘Soon’ As ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target (ZH)

President Trump on Wednesday said that the war with Iran will end “soon” because there is “practically nothing left to target.” “Little this and that… Any time I want it to end, it will end,” Trump told Axios during a five-minute phone call, adding “The war is going great. We are way ahead of the timetable. We have done more damage than we thought possible, even in the original six-week period.” “They were after the rest of the Middle East. They are paying for 47 years of death and destruction they caused. This is payback. They will not get off that easy,” Trump said.


So, Mission Almost Accomplished™ after the Trump administration has given estimates ranging from weeks to months for how long this might take.Yet while Trump is signaling that the operation has largely accomplished its objectives, US and Israeli officials say there’s been no indication of when fighting might stop. As Axios notes further, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that fighting will continue “without any time limit, for as long as necessary, until we achieve all the objectives and decisively win the campaign.” Meanwhile, Israeli and US officials say they’re preparing for at least two more weeks of strikes in Iran.

* * * Update (0930ET): The most significant development in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday was the start of IRGC naval mining operations, which were met with massive U.S. firepower that destroyed 16 mine-laying vessels. As we continue monitoring the maritime chokepoint this morning after IRGC attacks on three commercial vessels, attention is now shifting to the IRGC’s drone production capacity, which appears to have been degraded. Bloomberg reports that 2,100 Shaheds have been fired so far in the 12-day conflict. U.S. forces struck IRGC production facilities, disrupting large-scale manufacturing. The report is based on comments from a senior European official.

“Since the Houthis have produced UAVs under bombardment, one would think the Iranians can, albeit not at the same rates, since facilities have to be dispersed and makeshift workshops used,” Sid Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute, told the outlet.The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Saudi Arabia’s kill-cost ratio, neutralizing $20,000 IRGC drones with $2 million-plus missiles, has spurred talks with a Ukrainian counter-drone company for cheap interceptor drones.

* * * America-Israel’s Operation Epic Fury entered its 12th day, with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicating that the most intense phase of U.S. strikes is expected on Wednesday. Tehran responded with retaliatory strikes against Gulf neighbors, as Goldman’s foreign affairs chief warned of a growing risk of regional spillover (read here). Overnight, market attention centered on energy, with the IEA reportedly proposing its largest-ever emergency crude release to combat Brent and WTI prices, which have reached triple-digit territory. “The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes. Intelligence more refined and better than ever. So that’s on one hand,” Hegseth said. “On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles they’ve been capable of firing yet.”

Read more …

“Iran’s Grand Plan to End U.S. Presence in the Middle East..”

• Thinking About the Unthinkable (Michael Hudson)

Iran and Donald Trump have each explained why failure to fight the current war to the end would simply lead to a new set of mutual attacks. Trump announced on March 6 that “There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender,” and announced that he must have a voice in naming or at least approving Iran’s new leader, as he has just done in Venezuela. “If the U.S. military must utterly defeat it and bring about a regime change, or else “you go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who’s no better.’”[1] It will take at least that long for America to replace the weaponry that has been depleted, rebuild its radar and related installations and mount a new war.


Iranian officials likewise recognize that U.S. attacks will keep being repeated until the United States is driven out of the Middle East. Having agreed to a ceasefire last June instead of pressing its advantage when Israeli and regional U.S. anti-missile defenses were depleted, Iran realized that war will be resumed as soon as the United States is able to re-arm its allies and military bases to renew what both sides recognize is to be a fight to some kind of final solution.

The war that began on February 28 can realistically be deemed to be the formal opening of World War III because what is at issue are the terms on which the entire world will be able to buy oil and gas. Can they buy this energy from exporters in currencies other than the dollar, headed by Russia and Iran (and until recently, Venezuela)? Will the present U.S. demand to control of the international oil trade require oil-exporting countries to price it in dollars, and indeed to recycle their export earnings and national savings into investments in U.S. government securities, bonds and stocks?

That recycling of petrodollars has been the basis of America’s financialization and weaponization of the world’s oil trade, and its imperial strategy of isolating countries that resist adherence to the U.S. ruler-based order (no real rules, but simply U.S. ad hoc demands). So what is at issue is not only the U.S. military presence in the Middle East – along with its two proxy armies, Israel and ISIS/al Qaeda jihadists. And the U.S. and Israeli pretense that it is about Iran having atomic weapons of mass destruction is as fictitious an accusation as that levied against Iraq in 2003. What is at issue is ending the Middle East’s economic alliances with the United States and whether its oil-export earnings will continue to be accumulated in dollars as the buttress of the U.S. balance of payments to help pay for its military bases throughout the world.

Iran has announced that it will fight until it achieves three aims to prevent future wars. First and foremost, the United States must withdraw from al its military bases in the Middle East. Iran already has destroyed the backbone of radar warning systems and anti-aircraft and missile defense sites in Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, preventing them from guiding U.S. or Israeli missile attacks or attacking Iran. Arab countries have bases or U.S. installations will be bombed if they are not abandoned.

The next two Iranian demands seem to far-reaching that they seem unthinkable to the West. Arab OPEC countries must end their close economic ties to the United States, starting with the U.S. data centers operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google. And they not only must stop pricing their oil and gas in U.S. dollars, but disinvest in their existing petrodollars holdings of the U.S. investments that have been subsidizing the U.S. balance of payments since the 1974 agreements that made to gain U.S. permission to quadruple their oil-export prices.

These three demands would end U.S. economic power over OPEC countries, and thus the world oil trade. The result would be to dedollarize the world’s oil trade and re-orient it toward Asia and Global Majority countries. And Iran’s plan involves not only a military and economic defeat for the United States, but an end to the political character of the Near Eastern client monarchies and their relations with their Shi’ite citizens.

Read more …

“Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Take care of yourself not to be eliminated!”

• Iran Sleeper Cells ‘Activated’; Threaten To “Eliminate” Trump (MN)

US intelligence intercepts reveal Iran may be triggering covert operatives abroad, as Tehran issues direct warnings to President Trump following the airstrike death of its former supreme leader. U.S. intelligence has intercepted an encrypted message from Iran that appears to be an “operational trigger” for sleeper cells embedded in foreign countries, raising alarms about potential attacks. This development comes amid ongoing conflict, with Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, facing threats from multiple fronts after his father’s death in a U.S.-Israeli airstrike.


https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/2031106637662920797


passcodes, with characteristics suggesting it was meant for operatives outside the country. The alert describes the signal as resembling historical methods used to activate covert assets without internet reliance. “The signals could be intended to activate or provide instructions to prepositioned sleeper assets operating outside the originating country,” the alert stated.Concerns are heightened by reports of Iranian-linked operatives using routes like Venezuela to enter Western nations, potentially establishing networks near the U.S.

Security experts warn of threats from both organized cells and lone actors. Former DHS adviser Charles Marino told the Daily Mail that simultaneous attacks by 10-20 people in a cell are possible, targeting soft spots like concerts or sporting events. The upcoming World Cup, a National Special Security Event, is a particular worry. Tensions escalated further with Iran’s defiant response to President Trump’s comments on the new supreme leader. Trump stated on Fox that Mojtaba Khamenei would be unable to “live in peace” and expressed dissatisfaction with the appointment, warning Iran to brace for “death, fire and fury” if it shuts the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani dismissed these as “empty threats,” adding, “Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Take care of yourself not to be eliminated!”


This exchange follows the conviction of Asif Merchant, a Pakistani national trained by Iran’s IRGC, for plotting to assassinate Trump during the 2024 race. Merchant was found guilty days ago, with the plot linked to revenge for Qasem Soleimani’s 2020 killing. In a related development, Merchant told FBI agents he suspected Iran was behind the July 13, 2024, Butler assassination attempt on Trump. He claimed it mirrored his own scheme, orchestrated under IRGC coercion with threats to his family. Prosecutors allege Merchant recruited hitmen targeting U.S. politicians, including Trump, Biden, and Haley. During his trial, he handed $5,000 to undercover agents. U.S. strikes have since killed the IRGC leader behind the plot, as announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth described Tuesday as the “most intense day” of attacks on Iran, with refined intelligence leading to more strikes. Iran has fired fewer missiles in recent hours, he noted. Iran’s IRGC announced that countries expelling U.S. and Israeli ambassadors would gain passage through the Strait of Hormuz, amid warnings from Saudi Arabia’s oil company of market “catastrophe” due to disruptions.] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Israel is “not done yet” in Iran, while warning Lebanese residents ahead of strikes on Hezbollah. French President Emmanuel Macron assured Cyprus of support amid regional strains.

Tehran saw massive airstrikes with “unusually large” explosions, as Trump vowed to end the war “very soon” but indicated further actions. Smoke billowed over the capital, and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi ruled out resuming U.S. negotiations, citing past betrayals. Mojtaba Khamenei, wounded in the conflict and dubbed “vengeful” by some, has ties to the IRGC and is seen as more extremist. Protests in Iran include chants of “death to Mojtaba,” while state media rallies support.

Trump reiterated warnings on Truth Social, promising to hit Iran “twenty times harder” if oil flow is blocked. Iran insists it will determine the war’s end and continue missile attacks as needed. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut, halting oil tankers and filling storage, spiking global prices and raising economic crisis fears. These intercepts and threats underscore the precarious security landscape, with potential implications for U.S. safety and international stability as the conflict persists.

Read more …

I may not agree all the time, but I highly appreciate the view of a soon 87-year old former (assistant) cabinet secretary.

• It Seems Netanyahu Has Trump In Over His Head (Paul Craig Roberts)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked at a news conference on March 9 if in view of the lack of success of the Israeli-American missile and air strikes to defeat Iran, now that Trump was talking about boots on the ground could America look forward to a draft? Leavitt’s answer was that the President keeps all options on the table.I don’t think that this is going to go down well with American mothers and fathers. Yes, they are brainwashed about “Israel’s right to defend itself,” and “you can’t be an American if you don’t love Israel,” but that was before their sons faced conscription to go to war and to die for Israel.


So far we have only had propaganda, not factual news, about the success for lack thereof of the Israeli-American attack on Iran. But all the indications are that the war has not gone as Trump expected. My own opinion at this time is that the only way Trump can avoid defeat in Iran is to nuke Iran, which I am convinced was Netanyahu’s intent from the beginning. Netanyahu will be telling Trump, “You promised victory. You cannot accept a defeat.”

The Republicans who support the war, ranging from 76% to 85% depending on the poll are too stupid and insouciant to comprehend that they are supporting a war likely to end in nuclear war and their own demise. Patriots are the easiest to deceive, because they wrap themselves in the flag. But a deceived population is a poor basis for survival. Has Netanyahu maneuvered an utterly stupid American president into a draft in a midterm election year?

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Not both.

• The Die Is Cast: Either Iran or Washington/Israel Prevail (Paul Craig Roberts)

President Trump recently declared that he has won the war ahead of schedule. But evidence supports the opposite conclusion. For example, Washington is having to remove sanctions on Russian oil in order to release Russian oil to the market in a weak effort to compensate for Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz. So much for Trump’s “victory.” Washington has already been forced to waive its ban on refiners in India from purchasing Russian oil. US Treasury Secretary Bessent said: “We may unsanction other Russian oil . . . There are hundreds of millions of barrels of sanctioned crude on the water … by unsanctioning them, Treasury can create supply.” One might have thought that the dumbshit Trump regime would have thought of this prior to taking the world to war.


Here we will get a test of Putin’s mettle. Will he sell out his BRICS Iranian ally in exchange for Washington removing its Russian sanctions? Will Putin think he can parlay his cooperation with Israel-America for a mutual defense treaty? Such treachery would be isolating and would cost Russia China’s trust, leaving both countries isolated for Washington to try to destabilize. As Putin has already walked away from Syria and refuses to win the conflict with Ukraine, will he also sell out Iran for hopes that have no chance of being realized? Just how unrealistic is Putin? Can Russia survive Putin’s unrealism?

Until Washington renounces the Wolfowitz Doctrine of US hegemony and Israel renounces the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel, no agreement with Washington means anything other than the stupidity of the Russian or Chinese or Iranian government in giving Washington and Israel time to regroup, resupply, and renew the attack.

On Dialogue Works I discuss with Nima the basic fact that the operative foreign policies are Israel’s agenda of Greater Israel and Washington’s agenda of American hegemony. https://www.youtube.com/live/OEplHZWNG-E Israel’s agenda means that Iran’s only option is to fight for survival. Iran cannot negotiate its survival. The Wolfowitz Doctrine means that China and Russia’s only choice is to prevail over Washington or accept subservience to Washington. It is impossible to negotiate equality with a government, the agenda of which is its hegemony. It is extraordinary that governments, commentators, and media cannot comprehend such obvious facts.

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I kid you not: Their political rivals say the AfD is actively seeking to overthrow the German constitution. Like the Schiffs and Pelosi’s said about Trump.

• The Global Elites Lose Again (Heather Mac Donald)

To the despair of the European establishment, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the most hated political force in Germany, keeps showing robust signs of life, whether in its impressive showing in a state election on Sunday or in a recent courtroom victory. On Sunday, the AfD more than doubled its previous vote share for the parliament of Baden-Württemberg, a key industrial state in western Germany. On February 26, a German court enjoined the country’s domestic spy agency from classifying Germany’s second most popular political party as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization. The “confirmed right-wing extremist” designation has been a key tool in the campaign among establishment and left-wing politicians to ban the AfD entirely. The AfD’s fate should not be a matter of indifference to American conservatives. The globalist elites must be broken everywhere if they are to be permanently broken at all.


Growing numbers of the German public defy their overseers and welcome the AfD as an antidote to the EU-Davos philosophy of open borders and the deindustrialization and immiseration that go under the banner of climate-friendly energy policy. The AfD polls second nationally to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The CDU was once the cornerstone of postwar conservatism, but its leaders have pulled it to the left in order to marginalize the AfD. In February 2025, Chancellor (and CDU party head) Friedrich Merz cobbled together an ideologically incoherent governing coalition whose sole purpose is to shut the AfD out of power, despite the AfD’s receiving the second largest share of the German vote. The establishment proudly refers to this exclusionary strategy as the “firewall,” which allegedly protects German democracy from falling into the hands of purported neo-Nazis.

Despite the relentless agitation against it, the AfD is the leading political force in many East German states. It is rising fast in the West, including in several states, such as Baden-Württemberg, holding elections this year for their local parliaments. That’s where the government-imposed “right-wing extremist” label comes in. If one wants to see the Deep State in its most perfected form, Germany is the place to look.

The country’s domestic spy agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has vast discretion to wiretap German citizens and to determine their political legitimacy. It assesses whether a political movement is an enemy of the “free democratic basic order” and “inimical to the Constitution.” Depending on how confident the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is regarding the anti-democratic character of a party, it classifies that party as “a suspicious case,” a “suspected extremist” party, or a “confirmed extremist” party. These categories govern how much surveillance the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is allowed to conduct on party members—a startling amount by non-German standards, yet now almost shrugged off by its nationalist targets as an unavoidable condition of political existence.

Previously, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had classified the AfD as a “suspected” right-wing extremist organization. But in 2025, the office bumped up the classification to “confirmed extremist” on the basis of a secret 7,000-page dossier of materials, collected from public sources and from years of wiretaps on party members’ phones. That “confirmed extremist” designation meant that the office was now certain that the AfD was actively seeking to overthrow the constitution. The reclassification was clearly the result of prodding from the previous minister of the interior, Nancy Faeser, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The intention was to accelerate the movement to ban the AfD altogether.

So what makes the AfD so dangerous to German democracy? Has it called for suspending elections? For storming the Bundestag (parliament)? For jailing, banning, or censoring its political opponents? For preventing those opponents from participating in the parliamentary debate? For shuttering the internet to contrary opinion? Has it used violence against its enemies? Is it antisemitic? No, it is the AfD’s enemies who seek to ban and censor it, who deny it its parliamentary privileges, who have launched arson attacks against its leaders, and who have assaulted its members. The AfD has done none of these things to its opponents, nor has it called for doing so. It has abided by every legal ruling against it, however tendentious. The AfD is Germany’s staunchest supporter of Israel and German Jews; it alone has tried for years to cut off the U.N. slush fund that supports Palestinian terrorism.

Its representatives are the target of shunning that would make a teenage girl blush. If an AfD member enters a crowded elevator in the modernist Bundestag, he may suddenly find himself alone, as his fellow legislators flee from possible contamination. So what makes the AfD so toxic?

Its cardinal sin is to argue that mass third-world migration is destroying traditional German culture and identity. It is to point out that Germany’s open-borders policies are saddling the country with a crime- and terror-prone, welfare-dependent, culturally alien population that consumes taxpayer resources while only intermittently giving something back to German society. Its crime against democracy is in calling for the enforcement of laws already on the books regarding the deportation of criminal aliens and other migrants who have no right to remain in German society. At its core, its heresy is to assert that a country has a right to decide its level of immigration and resulting culture change, rather than that level being determined by the will of the migrants themselves.

These AfD positions do not threaten due process, popular sovereignty, or other democratic values. If the AfD is nonetheless antithetical to democracy, as we are told, then democracy at present means above all else a commitment to maximum demographic replacement. Speak out against unchecked immigration from the Third World, and you will be branded not just as a racist and xenophobe but as a threat to democracy itself, since democracy is now defined as the embrace of policies that erode national identity. (Such erosion is sought only in Western countries, however.)

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“..EU car companies buy Chinese car company carbon credits, to avoid the EU fines. The Chinese car companies then use the carbon credit revenue to subsidize lower priced Chinese EVs to the European car market, thereby undercutting the European EV car companies..”

• Volkswagen Loses Half Their Profit, Plans to Cut 50,000 Jobs (CTH)

The origin of this issue goes back to 2021 and the relaunch of the Build Back Better European green energy program to fight the non-existent climate change problem. We have been highlighting the consequences within the EU auto sector. We noted in October of last year, the EU’s mandated fines against auto manufacturers who do not hit their production goals for electric vehicle sales began in 2025. EU automakers unable to meet the regulatory compliance goal began purchasing carbon credits to avoid stiff EU fines. Many of those carbon credits were purchased from Chinese EV automakers, who then turned around and started using the extra EU revenue to discount Chinese cars sold in Europe.


At the same time as Chinese autos hit record highs in Europe, EU car sales are flat or declining. Now, Volkswagen is announcing they lost half their profits in one year and will be cutting 50,000 jobs in the next four years. (MSM – Europe) – Volkswagen just revealed its operating profit sank like a stone last year, dropping by more than half as tariffs, Chinese competition, and shifting strategies took a serious bite out of the bottom line. And that performance now has the VW Group’s execs reaching for the cost-cutting scissors, including plans to shed 50,000 jobs by the end of the decade.The German automaker reported an operating profit of €8.9 billion ($10.3 bn at current rates) for 2025. That’s down a hefty 53 percent from the year before and well below what analysts were expecting. Revenue, meanwhile, barely moved, slipping only slightly to around €322 billion ($374 bn). (read more)

This was very predictable. In essence, EU car companies buy Chinese car company carbon credits, to avoid the EU fines. The Chinese car companies then use the carbon credit revenue to subsidize lower priced Chinese EVs to the European car market, thereby undercutting the European EV car companies. The EU tariff applied to gasoline powered cars or hybrids from China is 10%. That tariff is not enough to stop the imports. The Chinese hybrid autos are substantially less than European car brands, and there’s no financial incentive for China to build auto plants in the EU zone especially when you consider the EU is subsidizing those cars by purchasing carbon credits.

When analyzed from a cost and consequence, the entire EU dynamic toward car companies is a little funny. However, for Germany this is a serious issue, and with the German industrial economy already stagnant – every impact to their auto industry only makes the situation worse. When you overlay the big picture of their expensive “green energy” costs, the EU find themselves in an unescapable downward spiral. Quite literally, all commonsense seems to have been lost in their green energy chase. By focusing on energy targets, specifically by trying to force production of European electric vehicles that are not favored by European car purchasers, the EU is shrinking their economy to the benefit of Beijing exploitation.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently travelled to China for a discussion with Chairman Xi Jinping. Chancellor Merz returned to German with a stark message about how the nation needed to quickly get productive in order to meet the far superior work ethic he saw in China. At the same time, the EU has destroyed its energy sector by chasing windmills and solar farms instead of maintaining the much cheaper coal and gas alternatives. Overall, Europe has made a series of really bad decisions, but those consequences will surface the hardest within the largest industrial economy, Germany. They’ve got major problems now.

Read more …

“Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon..”

• Top DOJ Prosecutor Says Tens Of Thousands Of Noncitizens On Voter Rolls (JTN)

The top Justice Department prosecutor for civil liberties and voting rights tells Just the News that her ongoing review of state voter rolls has proven tens of thousands of noncitizens made it into a position to cast ballots and that hundreds of thousands of dead or departed residents were not properly removed from state election systems. “It’s really frustrating that we’re being prevented from doing our job,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said Tuesday night, criticizing state election offices and federal judges who are blocking her office from her historic effort to obtain and review every state’s voter roll ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.


Dhillon gave an early accounting of the initiative, disclosing during a wide-ranging interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show that 16 states have turned over their voter rolls to DOJ or signed memorandum of understanding to provide the data while 29 are facing litigation to compel them to turn over the lists. “We want every American citizen to feel confident in voting and feel confident in the outcome of that election, and that is why we’re undertaking this massive project,” she explained. While having access to less than half the state’s election databases, Dhillon said she has already found deeply disturbing statistics that are only bound to get worse as more states are forced to comply.

“We’re finding tens of thousands of noncitizens on the voter rolls, hundreds of thousands of dead people on the voter rolls, and duplicate registrations between states,” she said. Earlier this month, DOJ announced it had indicted an illegal alien from Africa for illegally voting in seven federal elections in Pennsylvania. Federal law prohibits foreigners from voting in federal elections.Mahady Sacko, who came to the United States illegally from Mauritania, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and the FBI in Philadelphia. He has been charged with voter fraud, officials said. “This criminal illegal alien committed a felony by voting in federal elections dating back to 2008. Illegal aliens should NOT be electing American leaders,” Deputy Assistant Homeland Secretary Lauren Bis said. “Our elections belong to American citizens, not foreign citizens. Congress must pass the SAVE America Act immediately to secure our elections.”

Dhillon revealed there are dozens more noncitizens who DOJ has confirmed voted illegally, but those cases have not yet been prosecuted because the U.S. Senate has not confirmed U.S. attorneys in many jurisdictions. “For every person that we’ve seen a story about, I know of dozens and dozens more cases, and U.S. attorney’s offices are wanting to bring these cases, but we have, of course, interference with the very appointment of these U.S. attorneys at the political level,” she explained. “So that’s above my pay grade, but it’s really frustrating that we’re being prevented from doing our job.

Dhillon said there are two reasons why states aren’t turning over voter rolls: some simply don’t want the DOJ to review their work and others are afraid of being sued by Democrat voting rights lawyers like Marc Elias or future Democratic presidential administrations. “You may ask, why don’t states clean it up themselves? Well, sometimes it’s just inefficiency, but more times it’s actually states wanting to clean up their voter rolls, and the Marc Elias’s of the world and even the DOJ (under Biden) are suing them to stop them from cleaning up their own voter rolls,” she said.

Read more …

I don’t care much for Epstein’s accountant. But this sentence stuck out. I had to read it twice and still have questions:

“Both Kahn and Indyke recently settled a lawsuit alleging they facilitated sham marriages for immigration purposes in which foreign-born victims married U.S. citizens whom Epstein abused.”

Does that state that Epstein abused US citizens who after that fact sham-married foreign-born victims -of Epstein?!

• Epstein’s Accountant To Testify Before House Oversight Panel (JTN)

An accountant for late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will testify Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a closed-door deposition. Richard Kahn was Epstein’s accountant for more than 10 years and became an executor of his estate after his death, CBS News reported. Kahn was one of Epstein’s closest associates in his final years, as he managed the financier’s investments, finances and other matters, such as renovations on his private island. Another executor of Epstein’s estate, lawyer Darren Indyke, is expected to testify before the committee on March 19.


According to documents from lawsuits and the Justice Department’s Epstein files, Epstein, Kahn, and Indyke together operated a sophisticated and tangled web of businesses. The release of the files has shed more light on Epstein’s association with some of the world’s most powerful men, some of whom continued to associate with him after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution. After the House committee issued subpoenas to Kahn and Indyke in January, Daniel H. Weiner, an attorney for both men, said that allegations against them are “false.”

“It is worth emphasizing that not a single woman has ever accused either Mr. Indyke or Mr. Kahn of committing sexual abuse or witnessing sexual abuse, nor claimed at any time that she reported to them any allegation of Mr. Epstein’s abuse,” Weiner said. “Indyke and Kahn did not socialize with Mr. Epstein, and they have always rejected as categorically false any suggestion that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr. Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women, or that they were aware of Mr. Epstein’s actions while they provided legal and accounting services to Mr. Epstein.” Both Kahn and Indyke recently settled a lawsuit alleging they facilitated sham marriages for immigration purposes in which foreign-born victims married U.S. citizens whom Epstein abused.

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“Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable..”

• Microsoft Backs Anthropic’s Bid to Block the Supply-Chain Risk Label (ET)

Microsoft on March 10 filed an amicus brief backing Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Department of War, seeking a court order to temporarily stop the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic as a supply-chain risk. Anthropic filed the suit on March 9 after the Pentagon designated it a supply chain risk to national security, a label that would hinder the Pentagon and its contractors from using Anthropic’s artificial intelligence technology in their work for the U.S. military. The designation stemmed from Anthropic’s rejection of the Pentagon’s request for unrestricted access to its Claude models over concerns that the technology could be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon has denied that it planned to use Claude for such purposes.


In its amicus brief filed March 10, Microsoft said it was directly affected by the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic because it uses Anthropic’s technologies in products made available to the Pentagon. The tech giant said that a temporary block on the designation would “enable a more orderly transition and avoid disrupting the American military’s ongoing use of advanced AI.” Microsoft warned that U.S. warfighters could be hampered “at a critical point in time” if companies are required to immediately alter existing product and contract configurations used by the Pentagon. It also warned that putting the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic into immediate effect will have “broad negative ramifications for the entire technology sector and the American business community.”

Microsoft said the Pentagon gave itself a six-month period to transition services away from Anthropic’s technologies but did not provide the same transition timeline for contractors that use Anthropic products. “Should this action proceed without the entry of a temporary restraining order, Microsoft and other government contractors with expertise in developing solutions to support U.S. government missions will be forced to account for a new risk in their business planning,” it stated. “Should companies choose to forgo the opportunity to work with the U.S. government due to the attendant risks, the U.S. government, its missions, and the people it serves would lose access to state-of-the-art technological solutions,” Microsoft said.

[..] Anthropic alleged in its lawsuit that the federal government designated the company in retaliation for its viewpoint protected under the First Amendment. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Feb. 27 accused Anthropic of trying to dictate military operations by denying the Pentagon permission to use its Claude models for all lawful purposes. “Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable,” Hegseth said in a post on X. The Pentagon used the Claude AI system for mission-critical functions, including intelligence analysis, modeling and simulation, operational planning, and cyber operations.

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We don’t even agree what is a ‘bad bot’.

• Are Bad Bots Taking Over The Web? (ZH)

The share of global web traffic generated by humans is shrinking, while bot activity is on the rise. According to Imperva Bad Bot Reports, in 2018, humans still accounted for 62 percent of web traffic, with malicious bots at 20 percent and benign bots at 18 percent. But over the past seven years, the balance of web traffic has shifted dramatically. As Statista’s Tristan Gaudiat shows in the chart below, humans now represent less than half of all traffic (49 percent in 2024), while malicious bots have surged to 37 percent, accounting for well over twice the traffic of benign bots (14 percent).


This rise in malicious bot activity reflects a growing cybersecurity challenge. Bad bots are often used to steal login details, collect sensitive data, spread misinformation and manipulate online ads. Industries like e commerce, finance and social media are particularly affected. Bot fraud is estimated to cost businesses billions each year. Yet, not all bots are harmful. Benign bots, such as search engine crawlers and chatbots, play a crucial role in indexing the web and improving user experiences. However, their declining share suggests that cybercriminals are outpacing legitimate automation. As AI and machine learning make bots more sophisticated, their growing share of web traffic is likely to remain a defining trend in the years ahead.

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Corruption ”R’ Us

• Ukraine Can’t Explain ‘War Mafia’ Cash Convoy – Hungary (RT)

Ukraine has failed to explain why an armored convoy carrying tens of millions of dollars in cash and gold, and supervised by people with ties to Ukrainian intelligence, was transiting through Hungary, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. He also implied that the funds may be a sign of Ukrainian plans to meddle in Hungary’s upcoming elections. Tensions between the two countries escalated last week when Hungarian officials impounded two trucks belonging to Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank near Budapest, seizing $40 million and €35 million in cash and 9 kg of gold as part of a money laundering investigation. The funds were being transported from Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank to Ukraine.


Hungary said the convoy was being supervised by a former general of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), with other escorts also reportedly having military backgrounds. All seven escorts were deported back to Ukraine, while the assets and the trucks remain in custody. Ukraine, meanwhile, has denounced the seizure as “state banditism” and “blackmail.” Speaking on Tuesday, Szijjarto – who previously suggested that the convoy could be linked to a Ukrainian “war mafia” – rebuked Kiev over what he described as a failure to answer basic questions about the convoy and previous transfers of the same kind. “I think the last time such a transfer happened was in the Stone Age, when two banks settled €1.1-1.2 billion in cash between each other,” Szijjarto said.

The minister further questioned the convoy’s route, pointing out it had bypassed Poland – a NATO member with relatively good relations with Kiev – in favor of Hungarian roads. “So what is this money doing here? And what are the Ukrainian secret service people and people with military connections doing among the escorts?” he said. He also described it as “very suspicious” that the detained Ukrainians were being represented in Hungary by a law firm linked to the Tisza opposition party. Szijjarto suggested that the cash could be tied to alleged Ukrainian efforts to influence Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary elections. “The Ukrainians have an interest in a certain election outcome, and 500 billion forints are again floating around in Hungary. How strong the connection between the two is – that is what needs to be found out now.”

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“A €90 billion loan plan is currently being blocked by Hungary and Slovakia over Ukraine’s refusal to allow them access to Russian oil ..”

• EU Members Could Loan Billions Directly To Kiev – Politico

Cash-strapped Ukraine could receive as much as €30 billion ($35 billion) from individual EU members, Politico reported on Wednesday. The idea is being discussed as Hungary and Slovakia pressure Kiev to resume Russian oil supplies by blocking a joint €90 billion EU loan. Kiev claims supplies through the Soviet-built Druzhba pipeline are suspended due to damage from a Russian attack, with repairs not expected until late April – after key elections in Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused Ukraine of orchestrating an energy crisis to boost the opposition.The freeze on the joint EU loan was part of Orban’s retaliation for the alleged Ukrainian plot. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said his government would block the money even if Orban’s party loses at the ballot box next month.


Baltic and Nordic nations are considering bilateral loans to Ukraine totaling €30 billion to avert bankruptcy, Politico said, citing anonymous sources. Separately, Dutch Finance Minister Eelco Heinen reportedly told fellow EU ministers that the Netherlands intends to provide Ukraine with €3.5 billion annually through 2029. In late February, the International Monetary Fund approved an $8.1 billion loan to Ukraine, with $1.5 billion disbursed immediately to ease Kiev’s budgetary strain. The IMF agreed to postpone demands for financial reforms that the Ukrainian government declined to implement.

Supporters of Ukraine in the EU have proposed a similar scheme for its accession bid. Under the “reverse enlargement” idea, Ukraine would be formally admitted without meeting candidate criteria, enjoying limited privileges and obligations. The proposal has faced strong opposition from member states insisting that EU expansion must remain merit-based.The EU is also under additional economic pressure from the US-Israeli campaign to topple Iran’s government through military force. The Middle East conflict has disrupted oil and LNG supplies, and the resulting price shock poses heightened risks to European consumers, given the EU’s politically motivated rejection of Russian energy.

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Zelensky and the cabal all around him.

• Looks Like The EU Might Have To Pay Zelensky Just To Shut Up (Rachel Marsden)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky have a little something for the ladies for Women’s History Month. They’re apparently going to spend the entire time beaking each other off on the global stage. Get your wads of bills ready to toss, girls! Especially you, Queen Ursula. Let’s peek in, shall we? Orban says he’s already on the verge of pulling out his tool. Guess we missed the part where they play footsie under the table first. “We have no military force for this, I can reassure everyone that this is not part of our plans. But we have political and financial tools,” the Hungarian PM said, in demanding that Zelensky open the tap on the Druzhba pipeline of Russian oil to Hungary that represents the landlocked country’s critical supply.


Orban has said he has no interest in taking his foot off the firehose of cash that the EU has been blasting out on itself and whatever else it has going on in the land of golden toilets amid the fog of war – all under the pretext of helping Ukraine, of course.“We hope that one person in the European Union will not block 90 billion or the first tranche of 90 billion, and that Ukrainian soldiers will have weapons” Zelensky said. “Otherwise, we will give the address of this person to our Armed Forces, to our lads. Let them call him and talk to him in their own language.”

Who could that “one person” possibly be? In any case, guess he’ll either be getting an email, or maybe a visit, depending on what the word “address” actually means here. Or maybe just a phone call with a bunch of guys breathing heavily down the line in a foreign language. Hard to tell. Zelensky, an actor, could probably use a better scriptwriter for his Godfather-style lines. Or maybe just drop a dead rat in the mail next time and skip the public speculation. The EU brass has told these two lovebirds to pipe down. But it really isn’t in Zelensky’s interest to do that. And Brussels seems to be making sure of it. If only because emerging info suggests that Zelensky is on the verge of ensuring that he gets rewarded for playing hard to get.

There are two possibilities shaping up. Either Orban feels enough pressure to drop his veto of the EU’s latest €90 million spending package in order to get the gas flowing during this heated Hungarian election period. An unlikely scenario given that his more pro-EU opponent in the April 12 national vote has left very little daylight between him and Orban on the issue of the need for Zelensky to restart the pipeline. Or, alternatively, Orban can double down and maintain his insistence, leaving Brussels with a new convenient pretext, since it’s being reported by Bloomberg that Brussels is considering the possibility of basically bribing Zelensky with EU money to “fix” the pipeline.

What’s that repair going to cost? Oh, let me guess – €90 billion, perhaps? And are European defense contractors also going to be involved in these “repairs”? Will they require golden toilets in the outhouses on-site? In which case, it’s not hard to see that it could end up serving as the ultimate workaround for much of same spending that’s being blocked by Orban – just rebranded as something that he couldn’t possibly pass up. What’s he going to do – block funding to Ukraine earmarked as “aid” meant to ensure that his Druzhba demands to get the oil flowing to Hungary are met?

No one seems to care too much anymore about whether the repair issue itself is even legitimate. Orban had proposed a fact-finding mission. Zelensky was like, bro, you don’t hear me asking to go peek into your closet to see if you have any weapons for me when you say that you don’t. Not the best analogy.

A better one would be to compare Ukraine to the local charity that asks whether you have old clothes to donate – and then insists on rummaging through your drawers to make sure that you’re not holding out. And Hungary’s request of Kiev is like ordering a pizza (from Russia, in this case), paying for it, watching the delivery guy arrive – and then the building’s security guard, let’s call him Vladimir Z., stands in the lobby eating slices and saying, “Sorry man, delivery seems to be delayed. Nothing I can do.” Or paying for express shipping and the mailman just keeps your package in his truck while telling you, “Yeah the postal system is slow these days. Really unfortunate.” .”

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“The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country With No Hope of Ever Being United Again”

• The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country (Rick Moran)

I am addicted to the internet. I freely admit it. As a news junkie, I am as well-informed as anyone in the country. I know a lot about a few things; I know something about a lot of things; and I know nothing about many things. I spend 10-14 hours a day online, reading, writing, researching, and thinking. While it’s my job, I would spend the time online anyway just because I can’t stand not knowing.And I’m trapped. The life I’m living is not “real” in the sense that most of the 320 million Americans live the same kind of life. Are they as angry as many of us? Do they fear for the future of the U.S. as much as most of us? Are they habitually offended by everything I write?


When I refer to “us,” I mean PJ Media readers and the online right and left: the politically aware, perpetually outraged, eternally wounded, aggrieved, displeased, and helplessly partisan among us who enjoy being outraged, get a rush from catching a political opponent in hypocrisy, and laugh at an enemy’s misfortune. Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, co-founders of Axios, have a piece in that publication that we should all read to remind us that the “online political community” to which we ostensibly belong is only a tiny part of America. The “super majority” of Americans are “patriotic, hardworking, neighbor-helping, America-loving, money-giving people who don’t pop off on social media or plot for power.”

And the real shocker: “Most people agree on most things, most of the time. And the data validates this, time and time again,” they write. Axios: We’ve been manipulated by algorithms and politicians amplifying the worst of humanity. Our feeds and screens spread a twisted, inaccurate view of America.It makes it seem like the nation is hopelessly broken … Political enemies are evil … Facts are no different than fiction … Morality, honesty and service don’t matter … And salvation can only come from magical technologies or a powerful few.

What if we told you it’s a big lie that makes you stop believing your own two eyes? Every day, people battle over outrageous things said on X. Did you know that four out of five Americans don’t use X, and therefore don’t see what you see? Pew Research Center found last year that only 21% of U.S. adults use X, and just 10% visit it daily. The loudest platform in politics reaches barely one in five Americans. “Maybe, just maybe, it’s the very people on these platforms who are the crazy ones,” they write. “Maybe, just maybe, most people are simply normal, sane, real.”

We know this to be true. If we talk to our neighbors, co-workers, or members of our congregations, we know what they’re concerned about: family, work, bills, and everything else that goes into creating a normal life. They don’t give a crap about what AOC just said, Trump’s latest putdown, a Democrat calling us fascists, or a Republican calling Democrats communists.The overwhelming majority of the nation just doesn’t care. In a given year, you see hundreds of people frequently enough to appraise their character. Are they good people? Would they help shovel after a snowstorm or lift groceries for an aging neighbor? Do they volunteer and give to others? We bet the answer is a resounding yes. This is America’s Super Majority.

The numbers back this up. Americans gave $592.5 billion to charity in 2024 — a record, with individuals accounting for two-thirds of it.Over 75 million Americans formally volunteer each year, and 130 million informally help their neighbors. Gallup research out last month found that 76% of U.S. adults gave money to a religious or other nonprofit organization in the past year, and 63% volunteered their time. This isn’t a broken nation. This is a generous one, where the vast majority quietly do the right thing every single day. This is from two hard-headed, respected journalists who have been writing about politics for most of their lives, not a couple of starry-eyed kids. They’ve hit on something important that we should all try to keep in mind.

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https://twitter.com/XFreeze/status/2031514430588989542?s=20 I looked at it and I’m out for now, because I’m not in the US. https://twitter.com/BinsaeedRashid/status/2031373783424975177?s=20 https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/2031459370454659517?s=20 https://twitter.com/XCorpHub/status/2031460080265433303?s=20

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 19 2023

Jan 192023
 
 January 19, 2023  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  88 Responses »


Theo van Doesburg Counter-Construction 1923

 

• US May Assist Ukrainian Strikes On Crimea – NYT (RT)
• NATO Inflates Russia Threat To Justify Its Existence – Chinese Media (TASS)
• Putin: Victory In Ukraine Is “Unavoidable” (ZH)
• West Expects Ukraine To ‘Succeed On The Battlefield’ – Blinken (TASS)
• ‘Fragmented World’ Sleepwalks Into World War III (Escobar)
• West ‘Tired’ Of Ukraine Situation – Poland (RT)
• Lavrov Lambasts Zelensky’s ‘Absurd’ Ideas Of How To Settle Conflict (TASS)
• Russia Posts Record Current Account Surplus (RT)
• Saudi Arabia Ready To Ditch Dollar In Trade – Finance Minister (RT)
• 500 Advertisers Paused Spending At Twitter, Daily Revenue Plunges 40% (ZH)
• Microsoft Announces Mass Layoffs (RT)
• John Kerry Fuels Davos Controversy With ‘ET’ Speech (RT)
• Against the Tide (Jim Kunstler)
• The Biden Scam Unravels (Denninger)
• Hunter Biden Lived In Classified Doc House While Raking In Chinese Millions (ZH)
• After 4 Shots Covid Jabs Sharply Reduced Immune Function In Mice (Berenson)
• Jacinda Ardern Resigns As New Zealand’s Prime Minister (PM)

 

 

 

 

Arestovich

 

 

 

 

Tucker FAA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615605196280799235

 

 

 

 

All Vaccinated Will Die Soon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615160992371019782

 

 

What?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615754513994125314

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..willingness to help Ukraine “go on the offense – including targeting Crimea.”

• US May Assist Ukrainian Strikes On Crimea – NYT (RT)

The US government is weighing whether to supply Ukraine with the capability to attack the strategically important Crimean Peninsula, according to the New York Times. The discussions highlight a gradual shift among US officials toward more brazen support for Kiev, even as Washington insists it does not seek confrontation with Moscow. Following months of hesitation, the White House is now warming up to the idea that Ukraine may “need the power” for strikes deep inside Russian territory, namely its military stronghold in Crimea, the Times reported on Wednesday, citing several unnamed US officials.

“American officials are discussing with their Ukrainian counterparts the use of American-supplied weapons, from HIMARS rocket systems to Bradley fighting vehicles, to possibly target … Crimea,” the outlet said, adding that Washington “has come to believe that if the Ukrainian military can show Russia that its control of Crimea can be threatened, that would strengthen Kiev’s position in any future negotiations.” Despite Moscow’s heavy fortifications on the peninsula, which hosts Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and other military bases, Crimea remains a “major focus” of Ukrainian battleplans, according to the Times. It is unclear exactly how Washington hopes to assist attacks on the region, but the outlet suggested the decision to supply Kiev with Bradley infantry fighting vehicles showed willingness to help Ukraine “go on the offense – including targeting Crimea.”

Alongside troop transports provided by France and Germany, the military vehicles “could be the vanguard of an armored force that Ukraine could employ in a counteroffensive this winter or spring,” unnamed “government and independent analysts” told the Times. However, even as the White House considers supporting attacks on Russian soil, President Joe Biden continues to refuse Ukrainian requests for longer-range missiles and heavy battle tanks that could be used in a future offensive. He has previously warned that such aid could provoke direct hostilities with Moscow and even kick off a nuclear war, though such concerns appear to be slowly waning as the conflict drags on. “The fear of escalation has changed since the beginning,” an unnamed US defense source told a British newspaper last month, suggesting the Pentagon had “given a tacit endorsement of Ukraine’s long-range attacks on targets inside Russia.”

While State Department spokesman Ned Price insisted on Wednesday that the US is not placing any “limits” on Ukrainian strikes or “making targeting decisions” on Kiev’s behalf, the latest discussions at the White House may indicate a shift in opinion among some officials. Historically a Russian territory from the late 18th century until its transfer to Ukraine under Soviet authorities in 1954, Crimea held a referendum to reunify with Russia following the Euromaidan coup of 2014. Kiev and its Western allies have refused to recognize the vote, however, and say the peninsula is still rightfully Ukrainian land, with President Vladimir Zelensky reiterating hopes for the “reconquest” of the region last month.

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“Without the function of dealing with such a so-called threat as Russia, NATO would have no use at all…”

• NATO Inflates Russia Threat To Justify Its Existence – Chinese Media (TASS)

NATO is trying to inflate the so-called Russia threat to justify its existence, China’s Global Times newspaper said in an editorial on Wednesday. “Without the function of dealing with such a so-called threat as Russia, NATO would have no use at all. Therefore, the NATO chief needs to consider how to prolong the alliance’s life. NATO finds a way to justify its existence by setting up targets, including Russia,” the editorial reads. “But it is impossible for the West as a whole to cut off relations with Russia completely. Russia is an important pole in the multipolar world that the Western world cannot avoid or ignore,” the paper noted.


“If the West and Russia continue to fall into an abnormal state of relations, such as confrontation and conflict, Europe, which is closely connected with Russia, will suffer the most. What’s more, European countries are not monolithic. As large-scale military conflicts in Ukraine ends and sporadic conflicts occur, some European countries may relax sanctions against Russia and develop their bilateral relations, because they know that continuing to contain Russia may undermine their interests, even more than Russia’s,” the editorial added. “The Russia-Ukraine conflict is not a confrontation between the West and Russia, but simply between Washington-led NATO and Moscow,” the newspaper emphasized.

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“Putin said once that his mother was declared dead and was about to be taken for burial when his father, who had just come home on a visit from the frontlines, managed to ward off a funeral team at the last moment and helped her recover.”

• Putin: Victory In Ukraine Is “Unavoidable” (ZH)

In a highly anticipated speech Wednesday on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Red Army breaking the Nazi siege of St. Petersburg (during Soviet times: Leningrad) on Jan. 18, 1943, President Vladimir Putin said that victory in Ukraine is “unavoidable”. Addressing military veterans, Putin said, “Large-scale combat operations involving heavy weapons, artillery, tanks and aircraft haven’t stopped in Donbas since 2014.” He added: “All that we are doing today as part of the special military operation is an attempt to stop this war. This is the meaning of our operation — protecting people who live on those territories.” The talk was filled with the usual themes he’s emphasized since the February invasion, but absent was what many pundits and officials in the West were anticipating when the speech was first unveiled a day ago: formal declaration of war.

But the full mobilization has yet to come; instead, he again reviewed Moscow’s perspective of the causes underlying the conflict. He asserted that Russia attempted to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the years-running war in Donbas, in order to prevent the need to send troops, but emphasized “we were just duped and cheated” by Ukraine and the West. He also said that Russia had a duty to protect the Russian-speakers of eastern Ukraine. The Zelensky government has of late cracked down even harder on Russian culture, placing severe restrictions on Russian books and music, and even arresting Ukrainian Orthodox clerics that maintain unity with the Moscow Patriarchate church.

The Associated Press references some interesting background regarding Putin’s personal family history, which makes the West’s ‘Putler’ references hollow and shallow, given that the Nazi siege of Leningrad (Petersburg) directly impacted Putin’s family: “Putin on Wednesday laid a wreath at the city’s Piskaryov memorial cemetery, where 420,000 civilian victims of the siege and 70,000 Soviet soldiers were buried. He also put flowers in a section where his brother, who died as a child during the siege, was buried in a mass grave.” Putin said once that his mother was declared dead and was about to be taken for burial when his father, who had just come home on a visit from the frontlines, managed to ward off a funeral team at the last moment and helped her recover.

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I don’t think he thinks that.

• West Expects Ukraine To ‘Succeed On The Battlefield’ – Blinken (TASS)

Western countries are adapting their military aid to Kiev and expect Ukraine to “succeed on the battlefield,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a joint press conference with UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly on Tuesday.According to him, Ukraine has been “strongly supported by our two countries and many other countries.” “We continue to adapt along the way,” the US top diplomat said. “The bottom line is we are determined to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to succeed on the battlefield,” he asserted. As Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine evolved, so did Western military aid to Kiev, according to Blinken. He stressed that it started “months before the Russian aggression.”


“If you look at the trajectory from Stingers, to Javelins, to HIMARS, to Bradley Fighting Vehicles, to Patriot missile batteries, we have continuously provided what Ukraine needs,” the diplomat said. According to his estimates, Kiev has already received “some $25 billion in security assistance to Ukraine over less than a year.” “I would anticipate that you’ll hear more announcements in the days to come,” he added. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other Russian officials have repeatedly noted the danger of Western weapon supplies to Ukraine ending up in other regions. Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov cautioned that the militarization of Ukraine by the West directly threatens European and global security.

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“The resistance of Russia’s economy is leading the imperial American system to the precipice. Nobody had foreseen that the Russian economy would hold facing NATO’s ‘economic power’”

• ‘Fragmented World’ Sleepwalks Into World War III (Escobar)

Emmanuel Todd was not at Davos. But it was the French anthropologist, historian, demographer and geopolitical analyst who ended up ruffling all the appropriate feathers across the collective West these past few days with a fascinating anthropological object: a reality-based interview. Todd spoke to Le Figaro – the newspaper of choice of the French establishment and haute bourgeoisie. The interview was published last Friday on page 22, sandwiched between proverbial Russophobic screeds and with an extremely brief mention on the bottom of the front page. So people really had to work hard to find it.

Todd joked that he has the – absurd – reputation of a “rebel destroy” in France, while in Japan he’s respected, featured in mainstream media, and his books are published with great success, including the latest (over 100,000 copies sold): “The Third World War Has Already Started”. Significantly, this Japanese best seller does not exist in French, considering the whole Paris-based publishing industry toes the EU/NATO line on Ukraine. The fact that Todd gets several things right is a minor miracle in the current, abysmally myopic European intellectual landscape (there are other analysts especially in Italy and Germany, but they carry much less weight than Todd). So here’s Todd’s concise Greatest Hits.

– A new World War is on: By “switching from a limited territorial war to a global economic clash, between the collective West on one side and Russia linked to China on the other side, this became a World War”.
– The Kremlin, says Todd, made a mistake, calculating that a decomposed Ukraine society would collapse right away. Of course he does not get into detail on how Ukraine had been weaponized to the hilt by the NATO military alliance.
– Todd is spot on when he stresses how Germany and France had become minor partners at NATO and were not aware of what was being plotted in Ukraine militarily: “They did not know that the Americans, British and Poles could allow Ukraine to fight an extended war. NATO’s fundamental axis now is Washington-London-Warsaw-Kiev.”
– Todd’s major give away is a killer: “The resistance of Russia’s economy is leading the imperial American system to the precipice. Nobody had foreseen that the Russian economy would hold facing NATO’s ‘economic power’”.

– Consequently, “monetary and financial American controls over the world may collapse, and with them the possibility for the US of financing for nothing their enormous trade deficit”.
– And that’s why “we are in an endless war, in a clash where the conclusion is the collapse of one or the other.”
– On China, Todd might sound like a more pugnacious version of Liu He at Davos: “That’s the fundamental dilemma of the American economy: it cannot face Chinese competition without importing qualified Chinese work force.”
– As for the Russian economy, “it does accept market rules, but with an important role for the state, and it keeps the flexibility of forming engineers that allow adaptations, industrial and military.”

– And that bring us, once again, to globalization, in a manner that Davos roundtables were incapable of understanding: “We have delocalized so much of our industrial activity that we don’t know whether our war production may be sustained”.
– On a more erudite interpretation of that “clash of civilizations” fallacy, Todd goes for soft power and comes up with a startling conclusion: “On 75 percent of the planet, the organization of parenthood was patrilineal, and that’s why we may identify a strong understanding of the Russian position. For the collective non-West, Russia affirms a reassuring moral conservatism.”
– So what Moscow has been able to pull off is to “reposition itself as the archetype of a big power, not only “anti-colonialist” but also patrilineal and conservative in terms of traditional mores.”

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“Support for Ukraine only ranked sixth among Democrats and tenth among Republicans.”

• West ‘Tired’ Of Ukraine Situation – Poland (RT)

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Wednesday that Ukraine’s backers seem to be growing “a little tired” and showing less “emotional” involvement in the ongoing conflict, despite a steady flow of Western weaponry and other aid to Kiev and unprecedented economic pressure on Moscow. “A few months ago, the discussions were on a different emotional level – and the interest was different,” Morawiecki said in an interview with the state broadcaster TVP, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. “The West, the free world, is a little tired and would like to live a normal life,” Morawiecki claimed. “Today, I see this very clearly and I want to warn world leaders, because Russia is patient and looks to tighten its grip on Ukraine in the long term.”

“Everyone would like to live a normal life, but if Ukraine falls, will it be a normal life?” he argued, adding that “fortunately” he sees a “broad consensus” on the issue of Ukraine among the Western leaders in Davos. After Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine last February, the US and its allies imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow, freezing half its gold and foreign currency reserves and targeting Russian energy exports. The restrictions, however, caused energy prices and living costs to surge, prompting multiple protests across Europe over the past year. Ukrainian officials pledged to fight until their forces seized control of all the territory the country considers its own, while the leaders in Washington and the EU have vowed to help for as long as it takes.

However, according to this week’s opinion poll, roughly half of the people in nine EU nations favor a swift end to the armed conflict in Ukraine, even if it means Kiev would have to relinquish some territory. Americans also don’t consider the ongoing conflict as their top priority, according to a Morning Consult poll made public in December. Democrats cared more about things like climate change and preventing another global pandemic, while Republicans wished the government would focus on immigration, terrorism and drug trafficking. Support for Ukraine only ranked sixth among Democrats and tenth among Republicans.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in July that helping his country should be more important for Americans than domestic concerns, claiming that inflation and coronavirus are “nothing” compared to Ukraine’s struggle, and urging Americans to make sacrifices and support aid for Kiev “until we win.” Since the beginning of the conflict, Poland has become a key hub for the transfer of military aid to Ukraine. Addressing the WEF on Wednesday, Polish President Andrzej Duda pleaded for more deliveries of heavy weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, saying the country may not continue to exist otherwise.

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“..food security, energy security, biological security, withdrawal of Russian troops from everywhere, Russia’s repentance, tribunal and condemnation..”

• Lavrov Lambasts Zelensky’s ‘Absurd’ Ideas Of How To Settle Conflict (TASS)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is putting forward absurd ideas of how to handle the conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference devoted to Russian diplomacy in 2022 on Wednesday. “Zelensky puts forward completely absurd initiatives, like a ten-point plan, where everything is piled up – food security, energy security, biological security, withdrawal of Russian troops from everywhere, Russia’s repentance, tribunal and condemnation,” Lavrov said. Lavrov stressed that negotiations with Zelensky were out of the question. “At least because he legally forbade negotiations with the Russian government,” he recalled.


While addressing the G20 summit in mid-November by video link, Zelensky said that Kiev had its own ten-point “peace plan.” He mentioned nuclear, food and energy security, the exchange of “held persons” according to the “all-for-all” formula, and the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Once again Zelensky recalled that Kiev was insisting on international security guarantees and had developed a draft of the corresponding document. The Ukrainian leader added that Kiev wished to see the establishment of an international mechanism to compensate for Ukraine’s losses from hostilities at the expense of Russian assets.

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

• Russia Posts Record Current Account Surplus (RT)

Russia’s current account surplus almost doubled last year and hit a record high amid rising global energy prices and despite the imposition of Western sanctions, the country’s central bank reported on Tuesday. The current account – which measures the difference between outgoing funds and money coming into the country through trade, investment and transfers – grew by almost 86% year-on-year in 2022 to $227.4 billion, the regulator’s preliminary data showed. The central bank said soaring commodity prices throughout 2022 had helped push the current account balance higher, while imports slowly recovered in the second half of the year.


“The value of imports of goods and services was reduced,” the regulator said. “Nevertheless, the decline in imports observed in the first half of 2022 compared to last year’s indicator was replaced by their gradual recovery.” Russia’s foreign trade surplus in goods and services also surged by 66% from $170.1 billion in 2021 to $282.3 billion last year, reaching a historic maximum for the second straight year. It comes as Moscow has rerouted the bulk of its trade flows eastwards after Western sanctions largely disrupted supply chains with European markets. Trade between Russia and China soared by nearly a third in 2022 to over $190 billion, according to China’s customs data.

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Yes, the riyal is still pegged to the dollar.

• Saudi Arabia Ready To Ditch Dollar In Trade – Finance Minister (RT)

Saudi Arabia is ready to discuss trading in currencies other than the US dollar, according to the Kingdom’s finance minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan, as cited by Bloomberg. Al-Jadaan’s comments come a month after China’s President Xi Jinping said that Beijing is ready to make energy purchases in yuan instead of the US dollar in trade exchanges with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). China’s leader highlighted the necessity of the shift while speaking at a Chinese-Arab summit hosted by Saudi Arabia earlier this week. “There are no issues with discussing how we settle our trade arrangements, whether it is in US dollar, in euro or in Saudi riyal,” Al-Jadaan said on Tuesday during an interview with Bloomberg in Davos, Switzerland. The oil-rich kingdom is seeking to deepen its ties with vital trade partners, including China.


The readiness for talks on the issue expressed by Riyadh may signal that the world’s biggest oil exporter is open to diversifying away from the US dollar after decades of pricing crude exports in the US currency. The riyal, the Saudi national currency, has been pegged to the greenback, too. The trend towards the shift to national currencies that is recently being observed among the major participants in global trade chains is partially attributed to the policies of secondary sanctions that Washington is pursuing. Initially, the steps towards ditching the US currency in trade, particularly in the energy sector, were intensified in the wake of the sweeping sanctions introduced by Western nations against Russia, one of the world’s major energy producers and exporters, over the military operation in Ukraine.

Read more …

I think they’ll be okay.

• 500 Advertisers Paused Spending At Twitter, Daily Revenue Plunges 40% (ZH)

Questions are swirling about the health of Twitter Inc.’s ad business. Since taking over Twitter, Elon Musk has faced an exodus of executives and advertisers. Nearly three months as ‘Chief Twit,’ Musk’s social media platform might be experiencing a significant decline in daily ad revenue and hundreds of top advertisers paused spending. The Information reported that a senior Twitter manager told staff on Tuesday that more than 500 of Twitter’s top advertisers have paused spending since Musk bought the company on October 27.

An alarming crisis is festering in the company’s core ads business. Siddharth Rao, a manager supervising the engineers working on Twitter’s ad business, also told employees that daily revenue plunged 40% versus the same day a year ago, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. “While Musk plans to diversify Twitter’s revenue away from ads in the long run, continued deterioration of that business will make it harder for the company to break even on a free cash flow basis in 2023 as Musk predicted it would three weeks ago,” The Information said. Musk reduced the company’s headcount by thousands of employees to supplement sliding ad revenue and quickly pushed a paid verification subscription for users.

However, Axios reported under Musk’s leadership, the social media company has secured content sponsorship deals with three dozen news outlets, media companies, and sports leagues. “This year, almost all of the major sports leagues, including the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, NASCAR, PGA Tour and more, plan to run content deals on Twitter around regular season games and tentpole events, like March Madness, NBA Playoffs and the Super Bowl, according to the schedule seen by Axios.” Twitter makes most of its money through advertising and now user subscriptions. It remains to be seen if Musk’s radical overhaul of the social media platform will be successful.

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It’s not just Twitter.

• Microsoft Announces Mass Layoffs (RT)

Microsoft announced on Wednesday it will eliminate 10,000 jobs worldwide, almost 5% of its workforce, and take a $1.2-billion charge as global growth is slowing down. In a note to employees seen by Reuters, the company’s chief executive Satya Nadella said the layoffs would conclude by the end of March, with notifications beginning Wednesday. According to the CEO, the company was grappling with a slump in the personal computer market as customers that were accelerating their spending on digital technology during the pandemic are now trying to “optimize their digital spend to do more with less.”


“We’re also seeing organizations in every industry and geography exercise caution as some parts of the world are in a recession and other parts are anticipating one,” Nadella wrote. He added, however, that Microsoft will continue to hire in key strategic areas, emphasizing the importance of building a “new computer platform” using advances in artificial intelligence. Microsoft’s jobs-cut announcement follows similar ones from other big tech companies amid rising concerns of a global slowdown. Amazon said earlier it will be slashing about 18,000 positions while Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000, about 13% of its workforce. Twitter’s new CEO Elon Musk has recently also slashed the company’s workforce.

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Delusions of grandeur. They can be dangerous.

• John Kerry Fuels Davos Controversy With ‘ET’ Speech (RT)

US climate envoy John Kerry has drawn widespread mockery for his speech to the World Economic Forum, in which he sought to portray the people gathered there as wise saviors of the world. “When you start to think about it, it’s pretty extraordinary that we – a select group of human beings, because of whatever touched us at some point in our lives – are able to sit in a room and come together and actually talk about saving the planet,” Kerry told a WEF panel on Tuesday. “I mean, it’s so almost extraterrestrial to think about ‘saving the planet.’ If you say that to most people, most people think you’re just a crazy, tree-hugging, lefty liberal, you know, do-gooder, or whatever, and there’s no relationship. But really, that’s where we are,” he added.

Later in the speech, Kerry lamented that “allegedly wise adult human beings” ignored the science, mathematics and physics of climate change, and said he was certain the world will “get to a low-carbon, no-carbon economy” because “we have to.” Kerry lost the 2004 US presidential election but went on to be secretary of state during Barack Obama’s second presidential term, taking over from Hillary Clinton. He returned to Washington in 2021 as President Joe Biden’s “climate change czar.”While some critics on social media pointed out that Kerry preaches carbon caps while jetting around the world on a private jet, others zeroed in on his “extraterrestrial” remarks about a select few. “Who are you going to sacrifice to save the planet,” tweeted psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson, “and do you think and how will you ensure that they have any say in the matter?”

“I always knew they were aliens,” joked Timcast co-host Luke Rudkowski. Others, like conservative radio host Vince Coglianese, compared the Davos event to a summit of cartoon supervillains. “WEF is increasingly becoming an unelected world government that the people never asked for and don’t want,” billionaire Elon Musk commented on the gathering. The 2023 WEF summit is reportedly being attended by 2,700 participants, including more than 600 global CEOs, 116 billionaires and over 50 world leaders.Kerry’s speech about a “touched” few special leaders wasn’t the only controversy at this year’s gathering in the Swiss Alps. Someone at the WEF also decided it was a good idea to have former CNN employee Brian Stelter host a panel on “Clear and Present Danger of Disinformation,” at which European Commission VP Vera Jourova asserted the US will “soon” have laws against “hate speech,” just like the EU.

Read more …

“The payments per patient ranged wildly, state by state from $18,000 (NJ) to a whopping $471,000 (WVa). Why was that?”

• Against the Tide (Jim Kunstler)

Former US attorney and chief-of-staff to the SecDef, Kash Patel, had a good idea: start with the latest insult to the country. Haul in the newly-appointed special counsel assigned to the “Joe Biden” purloined document scandal. His name is Robert Hur. He was a top aide to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the height of RussiaGate, and liaison to the Robert Mueller operation. Mr. Hur participated in filing falsified warrants based on Steele Dossier nonsense to the FISA court. He should have been accountable for that. He’s not fit to serve as any sort of legal arbiter in a national scandal. He was not appointed to shed any light on the issue, but to bury it under a load of procedural horse-shit, in particular, the dodge that questions about “ongoing investigations” can’t be answered. Let’s disarm that weapon from the get-go. And why not appoint Mr. Patel chief counsel to the Weaponization of Government Committee?

Another person who must answer right away is CDC Director Rochelle Walensky because her agency is still aggressively pushing mRNA shots strongly implicated in causing injury and death among the American people. There are no more obvious weapons against the people than these deadly products retailed by Pfizer and Moderna. The government’s “vaccination” crusade has to stop ASAP. Not one more dose of the stuff should be given to anybody. An audit needs to be run on the CDC’s data base to determine exactly how it was manipulated to hide the facts about “vaccine” injuries and deaths. The public should also hear why Ms. Walensky’s CDC promoted “incentive payments” to hospitals for each patient who died testing positive for Covid-19 (not necessarily from Covid-19). The payments per patient ranged wildly, state by state from $18,000 (NJ) to a whopping $471,000 (WVa). Why was that?

The payments amounted to a bonanza for hospital administrators, who were incentivized not only to misattribute cause-of-death — the proverbial motorcycle crash victim who tests positive — but to let people die on ventilators. The Weaponization of Government Committee might also subpoena FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf and his two predecessors during the Covid-19 event, Janet Woodcock and Stephen Hahn. The country needs to hear what they knew about the operation that produced the “vaccines” with such astonishing speed — as if these products were somehow in development before Covid-19 even appeared on the scene. They also need to answer about the shenanigans behind the following: the fudged and expedited “vaccine” trials; the demonization and virtual outlawing of existing safe and effective FDA-approved drugs for early treatment, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and other meds; the promotion of toxic remdesivir as a primary therapy for C-19; and the initiation and extension (for three years) of an emergency use authorization that shielded the drug companies from liability while injuries and deaths mounted.

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Puzzled by this:

Hunter also claimed that said house was owned by him, but the tax and deed records say otherwise.

• The Biden Scam Unravels (Denninger)

Well now the classified document scandal has really blown up in Biden’s face. But even more-intriguing is that there is an apparent set of evidence of both hinky dealing and intentional cover-up to be found in Biden’s tax returns and the revelation that Hunter was paying Joe $50,000 a month to rent a house that was worth a couple of million. Hunter also claimed that said house was owned by him, but the tax and deed records say otherwise. That, however, is Hunter’s problem — not Joe’s. Joe’s tax return not only shows the property tax paid on the house it also deducts mortgage interest. It’s his house both by deed and by who’s covering the mandatory bills. Joe’s tax returns from the subject year shows business income from pass-throughs (two S corps) which is perfectly legal.

The tax returns do not show income in that classification from other sources; ergo, said “rental” has to be inside one of those two corporations or there is a serious felony involved, because that would be $600,000 of undeclared (and untaxed) income. Line 17 of Schedule 1 shows this and ties back from Schedule E, as it must. The other “business income or loss” from Schedule C is inconsequential in amount. But this leads to a very serious question: There’s nothing wrong with an S corp owning property but does it not have to be titled into the corporation? It wasn’t; at all times material the house was owned by Jill and Joe Biden in their personal capacity. It was not in a trust of some sort nor was it retitled into an S-corp as there’s no record of either.

That seems rather hinky but perhaps not. In any event rental property is very different than a personal residence in that with rental property there’s depreciation and all other manner of things you can deduct that isn’t true for a personal residence — but if you convert it back to a personal residence that gets recaptured which is something I’ve warned other people to be careful of. So let’s see the records on those two S-Corps that the Bidens declared and paid taxes on during that year. Is the rental income from Hunter in there, and if so, how does the S-Corp, which I remind as a corporation must keep formal books of account and not lie in any material respect account for income from an asset it does not own?

If the rental income isn’t in those two S-Corps then either it never existed or Joe and Jill ripped off the government and committed tax fraud on the $600,000 paid by Hunter to Joe that is not declared anywhere in their state or federal tax returns. In any event someone is hiding something in there. Whether this is more confabulation of a drug-addled Hunter or was disclosure of “10% for the big guy” kicked back to his father under the table and either improperly buried in an S-Corp “profit” that never owned the asset in question and thus can’t do that or Joe and Jill got $600,000 worth of undeclared income and didn’t pay taxes on it is now the question that demands an answer.

Read more …

“..the same media which suggested the Trumps were Russian operatives based on a hoax – are virtually silent at actual risks to national security posed by the Biden family.”

• Hunter Biden Lived In Classified Doc House While Raking In Chinese Millions (ZH)

[..] Second, the Washington Free Beacon reports that photos from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop place him at the Wilmington House in July, 2017. Of note, the classified documents were reportedly brought to the house in January of that year. The photos ‘are the most concrete evidence to date’ that Hunter – who was actively negotiating a deal with a CCP-linked Chinese energy company – had access to areas of his father’s home where classified documents were stored. A Washington Free Beacon review of the laptop found four 2017 photographs of Hunter Biden, clad in a white collared shirt and a camouflage baseball cap, behind the wheel of his father’s 1967 Corvette Stingray. GPS metadata embedded in the photos indicate they were taken within a minute of each other at 6:49 p.m. on July 30 of that year, just outside the president’s Wilmington, Del., residence. The photos show Hunter Biden posing in the vehicle beside two young girls. One appears to be his then-12-year-old niece, Natalie Biden. The other could not be identified.

Former Secret Service agent and certified cyber forensics expert, Konstantinos Gus Dimitrelos, analyzed the photos and confirmed their authenticity. “If requested, I will testify the photographs are genuine and were taken on July 30, 2017,” he told the Free Beacon. And as the Beacon further reports – corroborating Breitbart’s reporting, “At the time the photos were taken, Hunter Biden was negotiating a lucrative business deal with the now-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC, which was closely tied to the Chinese government. Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski claimed to have met with Joe Biden in person in early May 2017—less than three months before Hunter Biden was pictured taking the wheel of his father’s prized vehicle—to discuss the Biden family’s Chinese business dealings.” In total, CEFC paid Hunter Biden $6 million in legal and consulting fees in 2017 and 2018. And of course, the same media which suggested the Trumps were Russian operatives based on a hoax – are virtually silent at actual risks to national security posed by the Biden family.

Read more …

“..the mice the researchers used are genetically altered to model accurately the human response to the coronavirus..”

• After 4 Shots Covid Jabs Sharply Reduced Immune Function In Mice (Berenson)

Mice who received more than four Covid vaccine jabs had a collapse in their ability to fight the coronavirus, Chinese researchers have found. The damage extended past antibodies, the immune system’s front line of defense against viruses and bacteria, to the T-cells that form the crucial backup. The researchers reported the finding in a peer-reviewed paper published December 22 in the journal iScience. In surprisingly clear language, they warned: “Our findings demonstrate potential risks with the continuous use of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine boosters, providing immediate implications [emphasis added] for the global COVID-19 vaccination enhancement strategies.” Later in the paper, the researchers were even more direct:


“We found that the protective effects from the humoral immunity and cellular immunity established by the conventional immunization were both profoundly impaired during the extended vaccination course.” The finding has not been confirmed in humans. But the mice the researchers used are genetically altered to model accurately the human response to the coronavirus and have “been shown to share profound similarities with humans in response to SARS-CoV-2 infections,” as the paper explains. The scientists used a vaccine that has a different mechanism of basic action than the mRNA jabs from Pfizer and Moderna, which turn our own cells into spike protein factories. But like them, the Chinese-tested vaccine causes the immune system to focus on a specific part of the coronavirus spike protein to the near-exclusion of other responses.

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One woman wrecking crew.

• Jacinda Ardern Resigns As New Zealand’s Prime Minister (PM)

Jacinda Ardern, who has served as prime minister of New Zealand since 2017, announced that she will be resigning effective February 7 at the latest. Ardern revealed her decision at the Labour Party’s annual caucus meeting on Thursday. “I’m leaving because with such a privileged role comes responsibility,” she said, according to The Guardian. “The responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple.” As Bloomberg reports, Ardern will stay on as a member of parliament until April. An election is scheduled to be held on October 14. Ardern was a controversial figure. During her time as leader, her government imposed on the people of New Zealand some of the strictest Covid-19 restrictions in the world.


At the onset of the pandemic, for example, books were deemed “non-essential” as Ardern and other officials attempted to keep people in their homes. Then in August 2021, following a six month period where no cases were recorded, Ardern sent the entire country into Level 4 lockdown for three days when one man in Auckland tested positive. Those who chose not to adhere to the draconian policies were hit with heavy penalties, including fines of up to US$8,400. Ardern was also an ardent supporter of tightening restrictions on New Zealanders’ online activity, calling for increased censorship. After years of clamping down on the freedoms of her citizens, Ardern’s popularity began to plummet. A December 2022 poll revealed that her support was down to just 33 percent. Support for the centre-right National Party sat at around 39 percent, and in the first polls of the new year, they continue to hold the lead.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Socialism
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615409489447997440

 

 

Zuck
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615555826239823873

 

 

 

 

Snow plow
https://twitter.com/i/status/1615777776002269185

 

 


The Formosan clouded leopard was declared extinct in 2013 after no sightings since 1983. In February of 2019, it was spotted for the first time in almost 40 years.

 

 

The voice of God

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle January 17 2020

Jan 172020
 
 January 17, 2020  Posted by at 10:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  13 Responses »


Jack Delano Mrs. Marcella Hart, mother of three, employed as a wiper at the roundhouse. Chicago & North Western R.R. 1943

 

• BlackRock Will Start Moving Away from Fossil Fuels (NewYorker)
• Microsoft Pledges To Eliminate Carbon Footprint By 2050 (Ind.)
• With Rivals Stuck In Impeachment Trial, Biden, Buttigieg To Barnstorm Iowa (R.)
• Parnas Now Denies Speaking With Trump (WE)
• Putin Purged the West from the Kremlin (Luongo)
• China’s Economic Growth Hits 29-Year Low (BBC)
• Manhattan’s Homeless Shelters Are Full, Luxury Skyscrapers Are Empty (Atl.)
• The Loss of Truth In the Media Is a Threat to Our Democracy (Ray Dalio)
• Bayer Close To Roundup Settlement – Mediator (R.)
• Chemicals In Tap Water Cause Thousands Of Cancer Deaths Across Europe (RT)

 

 

Next week brings not only the Capitol Hill Bizarro circus, there’s also Davos. So we have BlackRock and Microsoft making their solid pledges. Because they see profit in playing nice.

“..there’s about eighty trillion dollars of money on the planet. If that’s correct, then BlackRock’s holding of seven trillion dollars means that nearly a dime of every dollar rests in its digital files”

• BlackRock Will Start Moving Away from Fossil Fuels (NewYorker)

If you felt the earth tremble a little bit in Manhattan on Tuesday morning, it was likely caused by the sheer heft of vast amounts of money starting to shift. “Seismic” is the only word to describe the recent decision of the asset-management firm BlackRock to acknowledge the urgency of the climate crisis and begin (emphasis on begin) to start redirecting its investments. By one estimate, there’s about eighty trillion dollars of money on the planet. If that’s correct, then BlackRock’s holding of seven trillion dollars means that nearly a dime of every dollar rests in its digital files, mostly in the form of stocks it invests in for pension funds and the like. So when BlackRock’s C.E.O., Larry Fink, devoted his annual letter to investors to explaining that climate change has now put us “on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance,” it marked a watershed moment in climate history.

He’s right about the financial future, of course—one can’t look at the clouds of smoke now obscuring the Australian continent and come away thinking that we can maintain our present course. But anyone paying attention—which includes investment-fund C.E.O.s—has known the score for years. What’s changed now are a couple of factors. For one, fossil-fuel stocks have begun to drag down portfolios. As the Times observed, “Had Mr. Fink moved a decade ago to pull BlackRock’s funds out of companies that contribute to climate change, his clients would have been well served. In the past 10 years, through Friday, companies in the S&P 500 energy sector had gained just 2 percent in total. In the same period, the broader S&P 500 nearly tripled.”

But, at least as important, public pressure just keeps mounting. Activist campaigns have been working to make the financial industry start to pay attention. (I’m involved with one, and was among those arrested, on Friday, after a sojourn in the lobby of a Chase branch.) In the past few months, Goldman Sachs, Liberty Mutual, and the Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., have all put forth new climate policies, and the European Investment Bank—the largest international public bank in the world—announced that it would stop lending to fossil-fuel projects altogether.

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CEO Satya Nadella said on the BBC this morning that the world needs much more energy by 2040. Grow the world cleaner! Disregard these lying fools.

• Microsoft Pledges To Eliminate Carbon Footprint By 2050 (Ind.)

Microsoft has promised to remove as much carbon as it has put into the atmosphere by 2050 – a goal critics say is undermined by the tech-giant’s ongoing contracts with some of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in the world. The pledge – one of the most ambitious to be undertaken by a Fortune 500 company – includes the creation of a “Climate Innovation Fund”, which will invest $1bn (£760m) over the next four years to speed up the development of carbon removal technology. Speaking from Washington, chief executive Satya Nadella said the company would seek to be carbon-negative – taking more carbon out of the atmosphere than it puts in – by 2030. “If the last decade has taught us anything, it’s that technology built without these principles can do more harm than good,” he said.

“We must begin to offset the damaging effects of climate change,” Mr Nadella added, commenting that if global temperatures continue to rise unabated “the results will be devastating”. The move was lauded by politicians with the US – with Democratic senator Chris Coons and Republican Mike Braun, both chairs of the bipartisan Senate Climate Solutions Caucus, describing the mood as “exactly the kind of bold action we need from the business community”. However, it is unclear how the pledge will run alongside Microsoft’s work with giants in the oil industry including Chevron and Exxon Mobil – both of which were identified among the globe’s top companies for greenhouse gas emissions from 1988 to 2015, placing in 12th and 5th respectively according to environmental non-profit CDP.

Last February the firm announced it had the potential to expand Exxonmobil’s production by up to 50,000 barrels of oil a day by 2025 from the Permian Basin in the southwest US – and in 2017 it announced a multi-year deal to sell cloud services to US energy giant Chevron Corp. Bill Weihl, former director of sustainability at Facebook Inc, said Microsoft does not take into account that its work with oil companies could outweigh the gains Microsoft makes on its own carbon reduction. “There is good stuff here,” Mr Weihl said of the carbon capture plan. “But the topline message, that this is urgent, is not matched by what they’re focusing on.”

[..] The announcement follows a December lawsuit in which Microsoft was named alongside the likes of Tesla and Google parent firm Alphabet – with the companies accusing the company of being complicit in the deaths of children from the Democratic Republic of Congo who were mining a metal integral to their devices. The children cited in the landmark lawsuit had been put to work to find cobalt – a precious metal vital to the production of modern batteries that has been intensively mined since the dawn of smartphones.

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Unless Biden is called as a witness?!

• With Rivals Stuck In Impeachment Trial, Biden, Buttigieg To Barnstorm Iowa (R.)

Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg will blitz Iowa before the state kicks off the party’s nominating contest on Feb. 3, while their key rivals will be largely unable to campaign because they must sit as Senate jurors in Republican President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. Aides to Biden and Buttigieg, locked in a tight four-way battle with U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, would not comment on the unprecedented advantage next week’s Senate trial presents them. Yet newly released schedules reveal an intense on-the-ground push by both candidates in the final stretch in Iowa, while Sanders, Warren and another senator, Amy Klobuchar, will miss most remaining campaign days to participate in the impeachment trial.

“I would rather be in Iowa today,” Sanders told reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday after the trial formally kicked off. “I would rather be in New Hampshire and in Nevada and so forth. But I swore a constitutional oath as a United States senator to do my job, and I’m here to do my job.” A senior aide to former Vice President Biden, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the campaign has not recalibrated its Iowa strategy because of the Senate trial. But their No. 1 priority is getting Biden talking to as many voters as possible in Iowa in the final days of what polls suggest is a virtual tie among the four.

Biden heads to Iowa on Friday and will spend nearly every day between then and the Feb. 3 caucuses in the state, the aide said. Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, who has been campaigning heavily on behalf of her husband in Iowa and other early-voting states, will also spend much of the final 18 days in the state. [..] To be sure, Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar are not ceding Iowa. They plan to campaign there during the final three weekends and will rely on representatives traveling the state for them on weekdays when the Senate trial is in session. Warren’s campaign has said they are considering remote appearances and events hosted by key supporters or family members.

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Parnas is a natural born liar, as the MSM said until now. But not anymore? Now his words “change the entire impeachment trial”? He’s just a guy who’s been indicted and seeks relief.

• Parnas Now Denies Speaking With Trump (WE)

Indicted businessman Lev Parnas said he did not speak directly with President Trump about a pressure campaign against Ukraine that sought to benefit Trump politically, despite earlier reports to the contrary. Last November, CNN reported that Parnas told close associates he had spoken to Trump. “At one point during the party that night, Parnas and Fruman slipped out of a large reception room packed with hundreds of Trump donors to have a private meeting with the President and Giuliani, according to two acquaintances in whom Parnas confided right after the meeting,” CNN wrote. “Eventually, according to what Parnas told his confidants, the topic turned to Ukraine that night,” the article continued.


“According to those two confidants, Parnas said that ‘the big guy,’ as he sometimes referred to the President in conversation, talked about tasking him and Fruman with what Parnas described as ‘a secret mission’ to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.” The New York Times told a different story Wednesday, reporting: “Mr. Parnas said that although he did not speak with Mr. Trump about the efforts, he met with the president on several occasions and was told by Mr. Giuliani that Mr. Trump was kept in the loop.” Parnas’s decision to go public has led to congressional Democrats demanding that he and other key players in the pressure campaign be called to testify in next week’s Senate impeachment trial.

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A success story like none other these days.

• Putin Purged the West from the Kremlin (Luongo)

[..] the next thing to do was to reform an economy rightly criticized for being too heavily dependent on oil and gas revenues. And that is a much tougher task. It meant getting control over the Russian central bank and the financial sector. Putin was given that opportunity during the downturn in oil prices in 2014. Using the crisis as an opportunity Putin began the decoupling of Russia’s economy from the West. During the early boom years of his Presidency oil revenue strengthened both the Russian state coffers and the so-called oligarchs who Putin was actively fighting for control. He warned the CEO’s of Gazprom, Rosneft and Sberbank that they were too heavily exposed to the U.S. dollar this way in the years leading up to the crash in oil prices in 2014-16.

And when the U.S. sanctioned Russia in 2014 over the reunification with Crimea these firms all had to come to Putin for a bailout. Their dollar-denominated debt was swapped out for euro and ruble debt through the Bank of Russia and he instructed the central bank to allow the ruble to fall, to stop defending it. Taking the inflationary hit was dangerous but necessary if Russia was to become a truly independent economic force. Since then it’s been a tug of war with the IMF-trained bureaucracy within the Bank of Russia to set monetary policy in accordance with Russia’s needs not what the international community demanded. That strong Presidency was a huge boon. But, now that the job is mostly done, it can be an albatross.

Putin understands that a Russia flush with too much oil money is a Russia ruled by that money and becomes lazy because of that money. Contrary to popular opinion, Putin doesn’t want to see oil prices back near $100 per barrel. Because Russia’s comparative advantage in oil and gas is so high relative to everyone else on the world stage and to other domestic industries that money retards innovation and investment in new technologies and a broadening of the Russian domestic economy. And this has been Putin’s focus for a while now. Oil and gas are geostrategic assets used to shore up Russia’s position as a regional power, building connections with its new partners while opening up new markets for Russian businesses. But it isn’t the end of the Russian story of the future, rather the beginning.

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There’s still not enough salt to take the numbers with. But at least at 6.1%, Xi can claim he meant to do this.

• China’s Economic Growth Hits 29-Year Low (BBC)

China’s economy grew last year at the slowest pace in almost three decades. Official figures show that the world’s second largest economy expanded by 6.1% in 2019 from the year before – the worst figure in 29 years. The country has faced weak domestic demand and the impact of the bitter trade war with the US. The government has been rolling out measures over the past two years in an attempt to boost growth. It comes after almost two years of trade tensions with the US – although hopes of a better relationship with America have seen improvements in manufacturing and business confidence data. This week Washington and Beijing signed a “phase one” trade deal. However, analysts remain unsure whether those recent gains will continue.

In response to the lower growth rate, Beijing is now widely expected to roll out yet more stimulus measures. The government has used a combination of measures aimed at easing the slowdown, including tax cuts and allowing local governments to sell large amounts of bonds to fund their infrastructure programmes. The country’s banks have also been encouraged to lend more, especially to small firms. New loans in the local currency hit a record high of $2.44 trillion (£1.86tn) last year. So far the economy has been slow to pick up, with investment growth falling to record low levels. Historically, China has seen much stronger economic expansion, with the first decade of the 21st Century seeing double-digit percentage growth.

But – although that 6.1% growth rate is China’s weakest expansion in almost three decades – it is much higher than other leading economies. The US central bank, for example, has forecast that the American economy will grow by around 2.2% this year. As part of the phase one deal, China pledged to boost US imports by $200bn above 2017 levels and strengthen intellectual property rules. In exchange, the US agreed to halve some of the new tariffs it has imposed on Chinese products. Speaking in Washington, US President Donald Trump said the pact would be “transformative” for the American economy.

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The long term effects of the Fed’s bubbles are disastrous. That’s why they should be taken out of the equation.

• Manhattan’s Homeless Shelters Are Full, Luxury Skyscrapers Are Empty (Atl.)

In Manhattan, the homeless shelters are full, and the luxury skyscrapers are vacant. Such is the tale of two cities within America’s largest metro. Even as 80,000 people sleep in New York City’s shelters or on its streets, Manhattan residents have watched skinny condominium skyscrapers rise across the island. These colossal stalagmites initially transformed not only the city’s skyline but also the real-estate market for new homes. From 2011 to 2019, the average price of a newly listed condo in New York soared from $1.15 million to $3.77 million. But the bust is upon us. Today, nearly half of the Manhattan luxury-condo units that have come onto the market in the past five years are still unsold, according to The New York Times.

What happened? While real estate might seem like the world’s most local industry, these luxury condos weren’t exclusively built for locals. They were also made for foreigners with tens of millions of dollars to spare. Developers bet huge on foreign plutocrats—Russian oligarchs, Chinese moguls, Saudi royalty—looking to buy second (or seventh) homes. But the Chinese economy slowed, while declining oil prices dampened the demand for pieds-à-terre among Russian and Middle Eastern zillionaires. It didn’t help that the Treasury Department cracked down on attempts to launder money through fancy real estate. Despite pressure from nervous lenders, developers have been reluctant to slash prices too suddenly or dramatically, lest the market suddenly clear and they leave millions on the table.

[..] In the past decade, New York City real-estate prices have gone from merely obscene to downright macabre. From 2010 to 2019, the average sale price of homes doubled in many Brooklyn neighborhoods, including Prospect Heights and Williamsburg, according to the Times. Buyers there could consider themselves lucky: In Cobble Hill, the typical sales price tripled to $2.5 million in nine years. This is not normal. And for middle-class families, particularly for the immigrants who give New York City so much of its dynamism, it has made living in Manhattan or gentrified Brooklyn practically impossible. No wonder, then, that the New York City area is losing about 300 residents every day.

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Look, if you quote the Washington Post’s Executive Editor to make this point, you’ve already lost.

• The Loss of Truth In the Media Is a Threat to Our Democracy (Ray Dalio)

While I have reflected on the corrosive effects that fake and distorted media are having on our society’s well-being for the past few years, I am now more concerned about it than ever. To me media distortions + great polarity + the upcoming elections = a significant risk to quality democracy. It is no longer controversial to say that media distortions are a serious problem. Even most of the media folks I speak with share my concern. As Martin Baron, the Washington Post’s Executive Editor, said in reflecting on the problem, “If you have a society where people can’t agree on the basic facts, how do you have a functioning democracy?” This is not just a fringe media problem; it is a mainstream media problem. A 2019 Gallup study said that only 13 percent of Americans surveyed have “a great deal” of trust in the media.


Only 41 percent of those surveyed said that they have either a “fair” or “great deal” of trust in media. That compares with 55 percent having such confidence in 1999 and 72 percent in 1976. The dramatically decreased trustworthiness has even plagued icons of journalistic trust such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as sensationalism and commercialism have superseded accuracy and journalistic integrity as primary objectives. A number of media writers have in private told me that their editors have specifically hired them to write negative, sensationalistic stories because they sell best. They explained that the financial decline of print media and the public’s short attention span have required them to produce such attention-grabbing headlines and stories or face financial decline.

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This doesn’t smell right at all.

• Bayer Close To Roundup Settlement – Mediator (R.)

Bayer is close to settling more than 75,000 cancer claims related to its Roundup herbicide, mediator Ken Feinberg told Bloomberg in an interview, saying he was “cautiously optimistic” a deal could be reached in about a month. Feinberg was quoted as saying that the number of cases had grown to between 75,000 and 85,000 and “maybe more”. Bayer in October said it was now facing 42,700 U.S. plaintiffs blaming its glyphosate-based weedkillers for their cancer. Bayer has ruled out withdrawing from the market in the U.S., saying regulators and extensive research have found glyphosate to be safe.


A spokesman for Bayer said: “The number reported by Bloomberg includes potential plaintiffs with unserved cases and is a speculative estimate about the numbers of plaintiffs who might be included in a potential settlement.” He added: “The number of served cases as reported on a quarterly basis remains significantly below 50,000. Bayer does not report or speculate about potential plaintiffs with unserved cases.”

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Mass suicide continues. We cannot help ourselves, it’s a force that’s bigger than us.

• Chemicals In Tap Water Cause Thousands Of Cancer Deaths Across Europe (RT)

Each year, more than 6,500 cases of bladder cancer, roughly five percent of all cases in Europe, are found to be attributable to exposure to trihalomethanes (THMs) in drinking water – and it’s all perfectly legal. For a study of countries’ water quality, the EU28 became the EU26, as adequate data for Bulgaria and Romania could not be obtained. Nevertheless, the project covered 75% of the total EU population, and a reading of its findings is ominous.

What the hell are THMs?THMs are a class of molecule that appear as a by-product of the disinfectants used to clean drinking water. When chlorine, the main chemical used to clean drinking water, comes into contact with organic matter, it breaks down into THMs. And despite being legal up to certain levels, long-term exposure to them has been consistently associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer. The EU has set that legal limit at 100 lg=L, but anything over 50 lg=L causes a 51 percent increase in the probability of bladder cancer, in men at least. This study was undertaken at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, in a city which has THM levels above the present regulatory maximum limit of 100 lg=L. Astonishingly, there is no provision for the lowering of this maximum in the latest European Council directive.

How common is bladder cancer?Bladder cancer is only the tenth most common form of cancer in the UK; 135,000 people in the EU were diagnosed with it in 2016. It is usually quite treatable with a simple surgical procedure as long as it is caught before spreading to other body parts. Some evidence suggests it affects men more than women (although this could be down to lifestyle differences, such as higher rates of smoking).

The countries with the highest percentages of bladder cancer cases attributable to THM exposure were Cyprus (23 percent), Malta (18 percent) and Ireland (17 percent). In other words, 23 out of 100 Cypriot people who are diagnosed with cancer in a given year are likely to have contracted it from their drinking water. Meanwhile, the greatest number of attributable cases actually occurred in Spain (1,482 attributable cases) and the United Kingdom (1,356) although this is a function of population as well as THM contamination.

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