May 302023
 


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

 

Russia Hasn’t Started To ‘Act Seriously’ In Ukraine – Envoy (RT)
Moscow Attacked By Drones – Mayor (RT)
Russia Will Not Negotiate Until It Wins In Ukraine Conflict – Borrell (TASS)
Memorial Service (Jim Kunstler)
Russian Arrest Warrant For Lindsey Graham Over ‘Killing Russians’ Remarks (ZH)
Clumsy Excuses: Russian FM On Claim Graham’s Words Taken Out Of Context (TASS)
Ukraine Posts Longer Video Of Lindsay Graham’s Visit (R.)
Biden, McCarthy Agree on $886 Billion Military Budget (Antiwar)
Believing Impossible Things (Alastair Crooke)
US Obsession With Crushing Russia Has Dismantled Middle East Agenda (Inlakesh)
EU Threatens To Ban Twitter (RT)
Sanctions On Russian Diamonds Put A Million Jobs At Risk (RT)
50 Injured As NATO Troops Clash With Serb Demonstrators (RT)
Trump Campaign Fundraises For Ballot Harvesting Operations (PM)
Zero Young Healthy Individuals Died of COVID-19, Israeli Data Show
John Cleese Holds Line Against Calls to Cancel Scene in Life of Brian (Turley)

 

 

 

 

Bosi

 

 

 

 

Graham/McCain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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Someone wants Kiev flattened.

Moscow Attacked By Drones – Mayor (RT)

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


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

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

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

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

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

Memorial Service (Jim Kunstler)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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And there’s Graham again..

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

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


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

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

Believing Impossible Things (Alastair Crooke)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EU Threatens To Ban Twitter (RT)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://twitter.com/i/status/1663290819564953604

https://twitter.com/i/status/1663298598615011328

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“..where it’s legal..”

Trump Campaign Fundraises For Ballot Harvesting Operations (PM)

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

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

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

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Now let’s see the excess deaths stats.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Wynnum
https://twitter.com/i/status/1662997866917564417

 

 

CO2

 

 

Turtle
https://twitter.com/i/status/1663220517732597766

 

 

Pheasant

 

 

 

 

Woow

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 052023
 
 February 5, 2023  Posted by at 10:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  50 Responses »


Edward Hopper Room in Brooklyn 1932

 

Russia To Achieve Goals Of Special Operation – Zakharova (TASS)
Putin Did Not Threaten Germany – Scholz (RT)
Chess Master Putin Is Moving Closer To Destroying The US Dollar (Macleod)
US Fails Miserably in Efforts to Isolate Russia (NC)
Moscow ‘Legitimate’ Target For Ukraine – MP (RT)
Ukraine ‘Will Burn’ If It Strikes Crimea – Medvedev (RT)
Pepe Escobar: Ukraine War is Desperate Move by US to Preserve Hegemony (SCF)
EU Sanctions Blocked Nord Stream Repairs – Company (RT)
Congress Set To Expose The Largest Censorship System In US History (Turley)
Critics Shrug as Musk Wins Major Victory in Court (Turley)
Cut The BS – NOW (Denninger)
The Good News About Vaccine Hesitancy (Atlantic)
Japanese Researchers Sue Government For Covering Up Vaccine Side Effects (GP)

 

 

 

 

Ritter

 

 

 

 

Tucker MT balloon

 

 

 

 

Maher

 

 

A shark can swim faster than me, but I can run faster than a shark.
So in a triathlon, it would all come down to who is the better cyclist.

 

 

 

 

“Western attempts are futile..”

Russia To Achieve Goals Of Special Operation – Zakharova (TASS)

Participants in the Ukraine-EU summit, held in Kiev on February 3, will be frustrated, as the goals of Russia’s special military operation will be achieved, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Saturday. “Western attempts are futile. As the Russian leadership has reiterated, the goals and objectives of the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine will be achieved in full. All the participants in the February 3 gathering in Kiev will be bitterly disappointed. They will have to be accountable also to their own population, at the expense of which the bloody geopolitical game ‘to the last Ukrainian’ waged by the West is being funded,” the diplomat said.

According to Zakharova, the recent event was yet further proof that “for the sake of weakening Russia and serving the hegemonic aspirations of the United States and NATO,” the European Union proceeds with its unconditional support of the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev. “By promising a EU prospect in violation of its own standard requirements for EU candidates and by declaring ‘common values’ shared with it, the European Union is condoning the all-out persecution of dissent, the trampling of freedom of speech and expression, the flagrant violation of linguistic and confessional rights in Ukraine,” the diplomat said. “Nevertheless, in the summit’s joint statement they cynically ‘reiterated’ the commitment to full respect for ‘the rights of persons belonging to minorities’. This totally overrides those principles on which the EU was once built,” she stressed.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman pointed out that no less hypocritical were the EU representatives’ calls for peace when they pledged readiness to invest in military action to be continued “for as long as it takes”. “Twelve billion euros has already been allocated at the expense of European taxpayers. The beefed-up funding for the conflict, more shipments of weapons and equipment, more training camps, and more training programs for the Ukrainian armed forces – all of these will result in more casualties in the conflict, including among civilians,” Zakharova continued. According to the diplomat, under these circumstances, the attempts to launch the process of creating any quasi-structures to hold accountable for the Ukraine crisis are “absurd and immoral”.

“As they say, who are the judges? [Are they] those who cheated in the Minsk agreements, covered up the Kiev regime’s war crimes against civilians in Donbass since 2014, pumped weapons and money to Ukrainian criminals, and those who are trying to misappropriate Russian state assets and the money of our citizens?” she asked rhetorically. Zakharova stated that it was proved once again that the leadership of the European Union and its member countries had invested all political, financial and military means into deploying the front to Ukraine against the establishment of a multipolar world order, which was firmly advocated by Russia and the majority of the world community.

Zakharova

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Scholz plays both sides.

Putin Did Not Threaten Germany – Scholz (RT)

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has claimed a “consensus” was reached with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky that Kiev will not use Western weapons, including German Leopard tanks, to stage attacks on Russian territory. The West, however, still considers Crimea and four other new Russian regions to be part of Ukraine. In an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper published on Saturday night, chancellor Scholz once again pinned all the blame for the conflict on Moscow, arguing that Russia’s “unprovoked aggression” justified the collective West’s intervention with military aid to protect the “European peace order.” “Together with our allies, we are giving battle tanks to Ukraine so that they can defend themselves,” Scholz argued. He added that Berlin “carefully weighed every arms shipment, closely coordinating… first and foremost with America.”

Scholz pledged 14 Leopard 2A6 tanks to Ukraine from the Bundeswehr’s own stocks last month, after the US promised to send some of its own M1 Abrams tanks sometime later this year. In the interview, the German leader dismissed any concerns about his country’s weaponry once again being used against Russian soldiers as “abstruse historical comparisons.” At a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of victory at the Battle of Stalingrad on Thursday, Russian President Putin said it was “unbelievable, but true – we are once again threatened with German Leopard tanks, with crosses on their hull. And once again seeking to battle Russia in Ukraine with the help of Hitler’s followers, the Banderites.” “Those seeking to defeat Russia on the battlefield apparently do not realize that a modern war with Russia would be entirely different for them,” he added, promising a response that goes beyond armored vehicles.

“No, Putin didn’t threaten me or Germany,” Scholz said about their phone conversations with the Russian leader, when the interviewer brought up recent claims by Britain’s ex-Prime Minister. The Kremlin said Boris Johnson had either deliberately lied about a “missile threat” or simply didn’t understand what Putin was talking about. Further justifying Western arms shipments to Ukraine, Scholz said there was a “consensus” that these weapons will only be used on “Ukrainian territory,” when asked if there was any kind of “agreement” on that with President Vladimir Zelensky. He did not elaborate on which territory he considered to be Ukrainian. The US also allegedly provided its military aid to Ukraine on condition that it is not used to strike targets in Russia.

However, American officials have said this restriction does not apply to Crimea and the other new Russian territories, and repeatedly stated that Kiev was free to pick its own targets. Crimea and the city of Sevastopol joined Russia in 2014, while the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, did the same last year. Kiev dismissed referendums in which people living in those territories voted for the move as a “sham.” On Wednesday, President Putin tasked the military with “eliminating any possibility” of Ukrainian strikes against Russia. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov clarified that includes the territories that Ukraine still considers to be its own, saying that Moscow will “push back” the Ukrainian troops to a range at which they will not be a threat, and that “the longer range the weapons supplied to the Kiev regime have, the further the troops will need to be moved.”

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“..Germany has a strong manufacturing ethos, benefitting from access to Russian resources, markets for its products, and through Russia renewed access and cooperation with China..”

Chess Master Putin Is Moving Closer To Destroying The US Dollar (Macleod)

There were several claims as to who the Father of a United Europe was, but the version which triumphed was authorised by the American Committee on United Europe (ACUE), which was set up in 1948 by senior American intelligence figures from the CIA. Germany is still kowtowing to US intelligence seventy-five years later. But as the recent episode over Leopard tanks has shown, there is some resistance to this status quo. We also know that other Germans at high levels have been unhappy with the ECB’s monetary regime. Jens Weidmann, who resigned as President of the Bundesbank in October 2021, is not the only critic of monetary policy, though the Bundesbank now appears to have been purged of critics of the ECB.

Therefore, there are two issues holding back Germany. It has been forced to abandon its sound money principals, and to cut itself off from its natural markets in Asia. But a resumption of NATO backed hostilities will throw Germany’s suppression by the US political and military establishments into sharp relief. Chancellor Scholtz will know that Russia is highly unlikely to be easily defeated. If anything, this forthcoming NATO venture is the western alliance’s final desperate throw of the dice. And despite NATO, Scholtz must keep his options open. If against all alliance propaganda NATO fails to win in Ukraine, Russia consolidates its position, and Putin remains as a strong Russian leader, Germany must be prepared for a political accommodation with Russia.

It is not only a question of geographical proximity, but Germany has a strong manufacturing ethos, benefitting from access to Russian resources, markets for its products, and through Russia renewed access and cooperation with China. Clearly, Germany’s commercial ethos has more in common with the industrial revolution being planned by the Asian axis and their emerging plans for sound money than it has with most of her EU partners. If only Germany was free of US political control, in time she could establish a new Hanseatic League, a trade corridor from Eastern Europe encompassing the Baltics and Netherlands. It is considerations of this sort that must make the US establishment determined to not release its grip over Germany and the wider EU.

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“..most of these countries have faced unprecedented pressure from the US but have instead ignored the declining power..”

US Fails Miserably in Efforts to Isolate Russia (NC)

“If Russia does not end this war and get out of Ukraine, it will be isolated on a small island with a bunch of sub countries and the rest of us 141 countries will go forward and build a prosperous future, while Russia suffers a complete economic and technological isolation…” -Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and chief architect of NATO war against Russia, in a March 2022 interview with TASS. Nuland has failed miserably. Instead, Russia’s economy is growing, and the inability to isolate Russia is arguably a larger loss than the one NATO is suffering in Ukraine. Last week The New York Times finally got around to admitting the isolation efforts have failed: “Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington nonprofit, recently issued a similar analysis, estimating that the value of Russian imports from the rest of the world had exceeded prewar levels by September.”

It marks quite the change in script. Consider this sampling of headlines from the past year: “Russia’s isolation from global markets is withering its economy and will wreck its status as an energy superpower, experts say” – Business Insider. “Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will knock 30 years of progress off the Russian economy” – CNBC. “Another Nail In The Coffin Of The Russian Economy” – Forbes. “War against Ukraine has left Russia isolated and struggling — with more tumult ahead” – NPR. “A New Iron Curtain Is Falling: The isolation of the Russian economy is striking in its speed and scope” New York Times.

It’s been clear that this has never been the case. US allies Japan and South Korea remain unwilling to cut off energy ties to Russia. Chinese and Russian economic integration has grown, as have ties between Moscow and the Persian Gulf states. The US has been particularly frustrated by two countries that have been key to Russia’s economic resiliency: Türkiye and India. Washington has been unable to get Ankara and New Delhi to join the sanctions party, and it’s not for a lack of trying. What the Times’ piece leaves unsaid is that most of these countries have faced unprecedented pressure from the US but have instead ignored the declining power.

The US neocons continue to double down, however, lashing out in increasingly desperate attempts to achieve the Russian isolation they want. How much will they isolate the US in the process? They’ve long enjoyed creating chaos elsewhere while benefiting from the safety of two oceans. Will that geography play a part in their lasting gift to Americans: the cementing of the US into a backwater nation, effectively quarantined from the economic engine in Asia due to its untrustworthy and aggressive behavior?

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NATO seeks escalation. Ukraine volunteers.

Moscow ‘Legitimate’ Target For Ukraine – MP (RT)

Kiev’s forces will not hold back when it comes to hitting locations inside Russia, according to Fyodor Venislavsky, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s National Security, Defense and Intelligence Committee. Speaking to Germany’s Bild tabloid on Saturday, he also described Moscow as a “legitimate military target.” Anyone who believes that Kiev should commit to not using the arms supplied by its Western backers in attacks on Russian territory are living in a “parallel world,” claimed Venislavsky, who is also Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s representative in the Constitutional Court.

Venislavsky insisted that any munitions depots as well as other military facilities on the territory of Russia are “legitimate military targets,” adding that the same goes for Moscow. The Russian capital is the country’s most populous city, with around 13 million people, according to official data. Moscow hosts the General Staff headquarters as well as Russia’s National Defense Management Center, which are both in the city center. Venislavsky stressed that he has no issue with Ukraine potentially attacking any command center in the Russian capital.

The MP did not say whether Kiev already has specific plans regarding targets, adding that it was for the Ukrainian military leadership to decide whether to strike locations inside Russia, including Moscow. Venislavsky’s remarks come a day after the Pentagon announced it was supplying Kiev with ground-launched small diameter bombs (GLSDB) – munitions consisting of a rocket motor and an airplane bomb, with a range of up to 150km (93 miles). It is unclear if Kiev has obtained any weapons capable of striking Moscow, since the capital lies some 500km (310 miles) away from Russia’s nearest border with Ukraine. Washington previously stated that it would not prevent Kiev from using the new weapons to strike targets deep within Russia.

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“I can assure you a response would be swift, hard and convincing.”

Ukraine ‘Will Burn’ If It Strikes Crimea – Medvedev (RT)

Washington’s decision to supply Ukraine with longer-range missiles and allow Kiev to use them at will can only lead to further escalation, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev warned on Saturday. He said the US appears not to want the Ukraine conflict to end. Strikes against the Crimean peninsula will not force Moscow to sit down at the negotiating table, the former president said. “The result would be exactly the contrary. There would be no talks in such a case. There would only be retaliatory strikes,” he warned in an interview with Russian journalist Nadana Fridrikhson. Medvedev insisted that if Washington wanted peace in Ukraine, it could simply urge Kiev to engage in talks with Moscow, but that US President Joe Biden’s administration and “hawks” in Congress are “simply not interested in it.”

Russia could “retaliate in any way possible” should Ukrainian forces strike targets in Crimea or deep inside Russian territory, the former president warned. “We do not set any limits depending on the nature of threats, and are ready to use all types of weapons,” he insisted, adding that Russia would only be guided by its own doctrines, including the nuclear one. “I can assure you a response would be swift, hard and convincing.” Medvedev also accused European leaders, who have been supporting Kiev through means including weapon shipments, of acting at the behest of Washington and to the detriment of their own people. The cost of sanctions, military aid to Ukraine, trade wars, and embargoes are borne by ordinary EU citizens, he added.

Medvedev’s remarks came a day after the Pentagon announced it was supplying Kiev with ground-launched small diameter bombs (GLSDB) – munitions consisting of a rocket motor and an airplane bomb, with a range of up to 150 kilometers. According to US Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, Washington will not prevent Ukraine from using these munitions to strike targets deep within Russia. Moscow has repeatedly warned that providing heavy weapons to Ukraine could see the US and its allies directly involved in the conflict, and spiral into a military standoff between Russia and NATO.

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“..The vast majority of the planet wants liberation from the U.S./Western warmongering system that underpins capitalist exploitation that only enriches a global elite..”

Pepe Escobar: Ukraine War is Desperate Move by US to Preserve Hegemony (SCF)

The war in Ukraine is not just about Ukraine and Russia with the U.S. and NATO acting as seemingly benevolent supporters of Ukraine, as the Western media portray. The United States and its NATO allies are deeply involved in the conflict. The military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 – after 20 years of futile occupation – was a calculated “reorganization of firepower” against Russia, says Pepe Escobar. Ukraine is merely a proxy and ultimately cannon fodder for American imperial planners. This war is part of a bigger geopolitical confrontation between the U.S. and Russia, China and other nations that are pushing for the emergence of a multipolar world. That is a multipolar world no longer under the hegemony of U.S.-dominated Western capitalism. Pepe Escobar assesses the bigger picture and outlines how the U.S. imperial state is in “panic mode” to shore up the collapsing American-controlled global capitalist system, and in particular the privileged position of the U.S. dollar.


Going to war with Russia presently and in the longer term against China is part of the desperate dynamic to prolong the dominant position of Washington that was established after the Second World War. That postwar imperial order – euphemistically called the “rules-based order” – is increasingly falling into disrepute from unbridled imperialist wars and abuse of financial controls. The vast majority of the planet wants liberation from the U.S./Western warmongering system that underpins capitalist exploitation that only enriches a global elite. The war in Ukraine is but the manifestation of the breakdown in U.S. global power and the desperation to preserve the systematic inequality that defines capitalism. This year is fraught with extreme danger, says Pepe Escobar. But if the psychotic U.S. deep-state planners can be contained by Russia and China without an all-out catastrophic war erupting then there is a chance of a more hopeful, peaceful and just world order emerging.

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“The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that work on the pipelines would be in breach of the Norwegian sanction regulations – and by extension the EU sanction regulations..”

EU Sanctions Blocked Nord Stream Repairs – Company (RT)

Norway’s Equinor on Wednesday revealed that it was the government in Oslo and EU sanctions that blocked it from responding to a request for assistance in dealing with the damage to Nord Stream pipelines. The Baltic Sea pipelines delivering Russian natural gas to Germany were damaged by sabotage in September, which Moscow blamed on the West. “The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that work on the pipelines would be in breach of the Norwegian sanction regulations – and by extension the EU sanction regulations,” Equinor said a statement emailed to Reuters. Equinor is the Norwegian oil company that administers the Pipeline Repair and Subsea Intervention (PRSI) Pool, established by Oslo to deal with leaks and ruptures. The Swiss-based operators for Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 are among the 72 members of PRSI, and sent requests for assistance in October, shortly after both pipelines were damaged by undersea explosions.

Because PRSI “adheres to current legislation related to sanctions,” it “notified NS1 and NS2 (operators) that we were not able to do work as requested,” Equinor said in the statement. Nord Stream 2 AG told Reuters that it had filed a request for support to inspect the damage, “as a full member of the PRSI Pool,” but was turned down. Its sister company, which operates the original Nord Stream, said in early October that the survey vessel it attempted to charter was waiting for permission from the Norwegian government. The original Nord Stream was inaugurated in 2011, and supplied Russian natural gas to Germany and the rest of the EU while bypassing Ukraine and Poland. The second pipeline, which would have doubled the volume of gas deliveries, was finished in 2021 but Berlin refused to certify it for operations even before the conflict in Ukraine escalated. The US had sought to block the second pipeline’s construction with sanctions and vowed it would prevent it from becoming operational.

On September 26, 2022 both strings of NS1 and one string of NS2 were damaged in a series of powerful undersea explosions. As NS1 was pressurized at the time, a large quantity of gas was released into the Baltic Sea. Washington insinuated that Moscow was behind the blasts, while Russia pointed the finger at the West for the “act of terrorism.” Sweden, Denmark and Germany launched an investigation into the explosion, but refused to share the results with Russia. Anonymous EU officials have since leaked to the US media that there was “no evidence” to suggest Moscow was behind the sabotage. Russia’s energy company Gazprom was allowed access to the site only once, in late October. While the German gas company Uniper has estimated it would take 6-12 months to repair the pipelines, it is unclear whether Berlin even wants to do so.

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“Despite the push for censorship by some politicians and pundits, most Americans still want free-speech protections. It is in our DNA.”

Congress Set To Expose The Largest Censorship System In US History (Turley)

For years, many politicians and pundits have dismissed free-speech concerns by noting that the First Amendment only applies to the government. So long as corporations do the censoring, they contend, it is not a free-speech problem. This obviously is wrong on several fronts. The First Amendment is not the exclusive measure of free speech. Corporate censorship of political commentaries or news stories are denials of free speech that harm our democratic system. Second, this is a First Amendment violation. The Twitter files have substantiated long-standing concerns over “censorship by surrogate” or proxy. As with other amendments like the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches or seizures, the government cannot use private agents to do indirectly what it cannot do directly. Just as a police officer cannot direct a security guard to break into an apartment and conduct a search, the FBI cannot use Twitter to censor Americans.

To be fair, there were occasions when Twitter reportedly balked at government demands for raw political censorship — in one case, a demand by Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.) led a frustrated Twitter censor to object that “We don’t do this.” Nevertheless, Twitter’s management certainly now seems to admit that the company worked as an agent of the FBI and carried out most demands for social media suspensions, removals or blocks of individuals. At the same time, the FBI pushed for closer collaboration on content removal. We do not know the full extent of this operation or its impact, but Congress should want to know if the FBI and other agencies created a system of censorship-by-surrogate. The only reason we now have Twitter’s previously secret communications is because an eccentric billionaire bought the company.

The broader effort with other companies could well constitute the largest censorship program ever run by the government — a system designed to escape both public and judicial scrutiny. It also shows how it is no longer necessary to have a “Ministry of Information” to maintain a state media: You can have an effective state media by consent rather than by coercion or control. The FBI’s response to disclosure of these long-secret communications is particularly chilling. When some critics denounced it as raw censorship, the FBI accused them of being “conspiracy theorists … feeding the American public misinformation.” So, criticism of the FBI’s work to censor citizens resulted in an official statement denouncing those citizens. None of these denials or attacks succeed, however. The public understands the threat and strongly supports an investigation into the FBI’s role in censoring social media. Despite the push for censorship by some politicians and pundits, most Americans still want free-speech protections. It is in our DNA.

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“..This unhinged campaign against Musk is being led by the same anti-free speech figures that long supported censorship..”

Critics Shrug as Musk Wins Major Victory in Court (Turley)

For months, media has been relishing the investor lawsuit against Elon Musk, who became persona non grata when he moved to restore free speech protections on Twitter. Coverage spoke of Musk losing billions in the lawsuit while others speculated that Musk might be “setting himself up to lose Tesla.” Not yet. Not only are stock prices up for Tesla, but Musk just won a unanimous verdict in the investor trial. The reaction to the trial has been a shrug from critics as they continue to try to hammer Musk into submission. It does not appear to be working. A jury found Elon Musk not liable for losses of investors due to a series of tweets saying he had “secured” funding to take the electric car maker private. They deliberated for less than two hours. Musk personally testified at the trial and noted that he was relying on a handshake agreement in 2018 with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.


The verdict is a buzz kill for the alliance of media, political, and business interests against Musk. Critics of his effort to restore free speech protections on Twitter have pressured advertisers while celebrities have publicly renounced their own Teslas. The very thought of allowing opposing views on issues from Covid to climate change to elections appears intolerable for many in politics and the media. The public itself, however, has consistently supported the effort to restore the protections and Twitter has experienced a sharp increase in users. That success, however, has only led figures like Hillary Clinton to call on foreign governments to censor fellow citizens. This unhinged campaign against Musk is being led by the same anti-free speech figures that long supported censorship. That is precisely why Musk may be the only person who could have fought this fight. While these figures and companies have a long history of forcing others into compliance, Musk has proven the immovable object in the face of this seemingly irresistible force.

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The balloon is boring me.

Cut The BS – NOW (Denninger)

Nobody launches a “balloon” of that sort of size and mass without a means of “de-orbiting” it should it veer out of its expected flight envelope or on command. I don’t care if China intended it to enter our airspace or not (although I will assume they did); they most certainly had the ability to prevent it from doing so by sending it a command to come down before it did so. They didn’t do that, on purpose. Period, end of discussion, full stop. The United States has full authority under both US and International law to shoot it down and did from the point at which it entered our EEZ’s airspace. We did not have to wait and there is utterly no excuse for our failure to destroy it before it crossed over into the United States.

Nobody has the right to enter the airspace of a nation without permission. If you do it as a manned aircraft you can be forced down and, if you refuse to land, destroyed. An unmanned device, which this clearly is, can be destroyed without warning. Something of that size and lifting capacity could easily have a thermonuclear warhead on board. Detonation of such at that height would produce minimal direct damage however nothing prevents the device from rapidly descending first and then exploding at, for example, 2 miles of altitude. Oh, they’d never do that? Sorry, that’s not how it works. An unannounced and uncleared incursion by a heavy-lift air vehicle capable of carrying such a device must be presumed to have one on board with intent to use it.

There are no “do overs” if you get this wrong. Our military is derelict in permitting this craft into our airspace and our so-called “civilian leadership” is either incompetent or deliberately in league with the Chinese. Either way both must be removed and destroyed, replacing same with functional entities. The Pentagon appears to be more-concerned with what pronouns some “soldier” wants to use than whether a potential nuclear device is floating over several of our major cities and a decent part of our nuclear missile silos inventory. We are a sovereign nation and its damn time we started acting like one.

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Just wow. The Atlantic. The only problem is not more people get vaxxed.

The Good News About Vaccine Hesitancy (Atlantic)

The world has just seen the largest vaccination campaign in history. At least 13 billion COVID shots have been administered—more injections, by a sweeping margin, than there are human beings on the Earth. In the U.S. alone, millions of lives have been saved by a rollout of extraordinary scope. More than three-fifths of the population elected to receive the medicine even before it got its full approval from the FDA. Yet the legacy of this achievement appears to be in doubt. Just look at where the country is right now. In Florida, the governor—a likely Republican presidential candidate—openly pursues the politics of vaccine resistance and denial . In Ohio, kids are getting measles . In New York, polio is back . A football player nearly died on national TV, and fears about vaccines fanned across the internet .

Vaccinologists, pediatricians, and public-health experts routinely warn that confidence is wavering for every kind of immunization , and worry that it may collapse in years to come. In other words, America is mired in a paradoxical and pessimistic moment. “We’ve just had a national vaccination campaign that has exceeded almost all previous efforts in a dramatic fashion,” says Noel Brewer, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina who has been studying decision making about vaccines for more than 20 years, “and people are talking about vaccination as if there’s something fundamentally wrong.” It’s more than talk. Americans are arguing, Americans are worrying, Americans are obsessing over vaccines; and that fixation has produced its own, pathological anxiety.

To fret about the state of public trust is rational: When vaccine adherence wobbles, lives are put in peril; in the midst of a pandemic, the mortal risk is even greater. More than 60 million Americans haven’t gotten a single COVID shot, and a few thousand deaths are attributed to the disease every week. But the scale of this concern—the measure of our instability—may be distorted by the heights to which we’ve climbed. Evidence that the nation has arrived at the brink of collapse does not hold up to scrutiny. No one knows where vaccination rates are really heading, and the coming crash is more an idea—a projection, even—than a certainty. The future of vaccination in America may be no worse than its recent past. In the end, it might be better.

The first alarms about a widespread vaccination crisis—the first suggestions that a leeriness of COVID shots had “ spread its tentacles into other diseases ”—were raised by clinicians. Megha Shah, a pediatrician with the Los Angeles public-health department, told me that she began to worry in the spring of 2021, while volunteering at a medical center. Two years earlier, she recalled, working there had been uneventful. She’d meet with parents—mostly from low-income Latino families—to discuss the standard vaccination schedule: Okay, here’s what we’re recommending for your child . This protects against this; that protects against that. The parents would ask a couple of questions, and she’d answer them. The child would be immunized, almost every time. But in the middle of the COVID-vaccine rollout, she found that those conversations were playing out differently. “Oh, I’m just not sure,” she said some parents told her. Or, “I need to talk this over with my partner.”

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When will US and EU follow suit?

Japanese Researchers Sue Government For Covering Up Vaccine Side Effects (GP)

During a press conference, a team of Japanese researchers led by Professor Masanori Fukushima stated their intention to sue the Japanese government if the Health Ministry continues to refuse to acknowledge the causal link between the vaccine and deaths. “Around April last year, the pathology and forensics societies have already issued a statement that in the future, an autopsy should be done on people who have died after vaccination,” said Prof. Fukushima. “In the future, we need to urgently establish guidelines on what kind of medical treatment should be provided for victims injured by vaccines, and we need to develop diagnostic techniques.”According to Fukushima, Japan’s Health Ministry won’t acknowledge the causal link between the vaccine and deaths.

The Japanese researchers threatened the government that additional lawsuits would be filed for the COVID vaccine harm cover-up.“One more thing, pathological autopsies have already been conducted on people who died after receiving the vaccine. However, the Health Ministry is still unwilling to acknowledge the causal link between the vaccine and the deaths. If the health ministry maintains this unjustified position, we intend to file additional lawsuits in consultation with our lawyers,” said Fukushima “We demand the Health Ministry provides appropriate victim compensation based on the vaccination law. In other words, the victim is compensated based on the vaccination law that is properly stipulated by Japanese law,” he continued.

When asked by a reporter on what he would say to medical professionals who provide vaccines to patients, he responded:”I want to say one thing very clearly to the Health Ministry in addition to the medical professionals. They should distribute a Vaccination Victim’s Handbook to everyone who has been vaccinated. The Vaccination Victim’s Handbook is similar to the Atomic Bomb Victim’s Handbook, which is distributed to survivors of atomic bombs. After distributing the vaccination victims handbook to vaccinated people, medical institutions should be encouraged to properly follow up with vaccinated people. It is necessary to examine whether there is a link between the disease and the vaccine. Biopsy tests should be performed on sick people suspected a vaccine-induced illness.”

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Visual effects

 

 


In 2015, photographer Atif Saeed captured this intense photograph of a male lion moments before it launched an attack on him. He narrowly escaped with this incredible shot of a face-to-face with a lion about to kill.

 

 

King

 

 

 

 

Hug

 

 

U2

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jun 132021
 


Vincent van Gogh Ravine 1889

 

Vaccine Euphoria (Hayen)
If Science Was Never Challenged, We Would Never Make Any Progress (RT)
So NOW The CDC Will Look? (Denninger)
Pfizer Vaccine Rubber Stamped, Data Sight Unseen (Doctors for COVID Ethics)
Covid-19 Has Mutated So Much That Proven Treatments Are Often Failing (RT)
Greece To Accept All Vaccines For Entry Into The Country (K.)
Judge Sides With Houston Hospital, Dismisses Claims From Staff Resisters (USAT)
Deutsche Bank Issues Grim Post-Pandemic Warning For US Economy (RT)
Bitcoin Is De-dollarization. Ethereum Is DeFi-nancialization (Jeftovic)
Soviet Collapse Taught Russians The Danger Of Being A Messianic Superpower (RT)
Boris Yeltsin Had 100 CIA Agents Who Instructed Him How To Run Russia (RT)
Mark Carney Unveils Dystopian New World To Combat Climate ‘Crisis’ (Foster)
Republicans Propose Vaccination-By-Mail Program (BBee)

 

 

After Danish soccer player Christian Eriksen had a heart attack on the pitch last night at the Eurocup, the urgent issue should be: was he vaccinated? (he was), and if so, what is the link between the vaccine and the cardiac arrest?

I haven’t seen anyone make the connection thus far, and wonder if anyone will. But what if, g-f forbid, another vaccinated player goes down? With some 800 cases of myocarditis in young men in the US alone, this is a serious risk that requires a serious investigation.

Update: the president of his team, Inter Milan, says he was not vaccinated.

Update 2: a Twitter search for “Inter Milan doctor” appears to indicate Eriksen received his 2nd jab on May 31.

 

 

Confused? Did BBC just say that 50% of the people that died were vaccinated? But, but!???? ‘95% efficacy’, right!?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1403830591301242883

 

 

 

 

“The vaccines have been approved as experimental therapy, nothing more. How many times was it that Edison tested his light bulb before it was successful?”

Vaccine Euphoria (Hayen)

Before medical technology caught up with our wildest dreams of living forever with no suffering, we had to make do. If a virus came along we were forced to let nature run its course. Before vaccines were discovered with the advent of Dr. Edward Jenner’s incredible work with cowpox, we didn’t have a choice but to grovel at the feet of Mother Nature and let her do her thing. Ultimately it all turned out pretty well; we are still here, aren’t we? — due to, among other things, the miracle of our immune systems. Things are different now, transhumanism is on the rise and is arriving hand in hand with the upcoming technocracy—we may one day actually be able to live forever! Yahoo! Certainly we can fight this war with Covid, with nature, and win the battle — one step closer to conquering nature entirely! We can cheat death, cheat illness, cheat suffering! Pass out the cigars!

What is the price? Humanity? That sounds too close to being ruled by nature — we certainly can give up these “human” things — smiles, touching, hugging, gathering — all things that engage our human bodies, and human hearts. These are things too close to what animals do, with animal bodies, animal instincts. That’s fine to give up, as Fauci says, we should probably never shake hands again — it’s too dangerous being human. Although I would surmise that people who are overly jubilant to get the vaccine do not necessarily believe they are transforming their body to superhuman status due to the gene therapy mechanism in the chemistry of the vaccination (I doubt if most even know what that is), but rather most of them are intrigued by the new technology they have heard it employs.

There is almost nothing in the modern medicine drug pantheon that is 100% effective, safe, or free of side effects, and even though it is clear the Covid vaccines also fall into this disappointment, the general public has indeed been told it is 95% effective and 100% safe (not bothering to be careful to ascertain what exactly it is effective in accomplishing). They are also nearly 100% synthetic, with a synthetic, high tech, mechanism. This view is a predominant one for vaccine lovers created primarily by the bottomless pockets of the manufacturers who spend countless millions in marketing and in successful attempts to show their customers how safe and effective their product is. “Look at how wonderful new technologies can be!” say their targets. “Those scientists are so very clever!”

Yes, technology can be wonderful, and yes, scientists can be very clever. Unfortunately, there have probably been more disasters in the experimental stages of products the big pharmaceutical companies want to market than successes—at least a fair share of them. The vaccines have been approved as experimental therapy, nothing more. How many times was it that Edison tested his light bulb before it was successful? How many times did he think it was going to work after “this one final experiment” — and it didn’t? There is no question that Edison was very clever, but this is the way of science and new discovery, and it always has been. And don’t tell me that mRNA technology has been studied for decades. That doesn’t cut it; Covid-19 had only been with us for about 9 months when the vaccines were rolled out.

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“I don’t know how a man of such short stature carries such massive arrogance..”

If Science Was Never Challenged, We Would Never Make Any Progress (RT)

Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent suggestion that attacks on him are attacks on science itself is nonsensical. His attitude towards criticism is a prime example of scientism, which treats people in scientific fields with undue reverence. There has been an interesting cultural fight within the culture war over science itself. Many people on the political left have a tendency to place scientific method on a pedestal and not consider it for what it is – which is, purely and simply, scientific method. Rather, they treat science as a sort of dogma which cannot be challenged. In a sense, their attitude towards it is not that different from a Christian’s outlook on the Bible. A Christian believes that the Bible is God’s word, and is static and unchanging because of the nature of God himself.

However, the nature of science is not static because our understanding of the world is not static. As such, it’s appalling when someone who wields as much influence and political power as America’s chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks in a manner that treats science as a dogma. In a recent interview with Chuck Todd on MSNBC, Fauci recently claimed people who are critical of him are “critical of science itself”, which is clearly preposterous. Science is meant to be questioned. If science was not questioned, scientific progress would be impossible because there would be no prevailing attitude that more must be learned. The attitude and belief that science is some sort of monolith is very disconcerting from a societal perspective.

I have great respect for those who spend their time trying to understand our universe one cell and one atom at a time, but Fauci’s stance seems to spit in the face of those people. Ultimately, every person who works in the sciences can only act on what they know, and whether they admit it or not they’ll never know enough. That, surely, is the name of the game. However, Dr. Fauci comes across as if he is the self-declared face of science and that he cannot be questioned for this very reason. Aside from this being wildly untrue, this is a prime example of scientism. It promotes the idea that his diplomas and governmental position make him someone who cannot be questioned, and that his knowledge has elevated him to a place above us mere mortals. As such if you don’t listen to what he says you’re nothing but a troglodyte. I don’t know how a man of such short stature carries such massive arrogance, but he certainly does not speak as if he is someone who has the proper attitude of a scientist.

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“To be “reported” at all you have to wind up in the hospital or similar, so the presumption that these are “mild” is horsecrap.”

So NOW The CDC Will Look? (Denninger)

When do we take out the trash? First the FDA “approves” an Alzheimer’s drug that, on the data, does not work — but it sure as Hell is expensive. At least one and perhaps two of their advisors quit over that one. Now the CDC is going to meet on the “extremely rare” myocarditis risk to kids getting tard shots. Extremely rare my ass; you never see if you don’t open your eyes, and given the reports in the news and social media there is no way this is “extremely rare.” How many people have heart attacks every day yet that doesn’t make the news unless they’re a celebrity or somesuch. So when nobodies start being reported on, well, folks, it’s not rare. To be “reported” at all you have to wind up in the hospital or similar, so the presumption that these are “mild” is horsecrap.


Nobody with a bit of discomfort goes to the ER; you go to the ER if you have chest pain, and that’s not minor. The big unknown is whether the damage done in these cases is permanent. Nobody knows. But, I remind you, a grand total of eighteen, more or less, kids have died with Covid all the way back to March of 2020. Now tell me exactly how many of the hundreds of those myocarditis events being reported, and that’s an undercount where Covid was an overcount, are acceptable if they produce permanent damage? If your answer is anything other than zero you’re a ghoul. If you gave these shots to kids, or advised kids to get them, well… you ought to have a problem. A big one. And so should Biden, Trump, all public health departments and every single corporation and social media firm that has been advocating these things for young people.

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“It is impossible to assess this study fully because 98% of the document was removed in order to protect Pfizer’s intellectual property..”

Pfizer Vaccine Rubber Stamped, Data Sight Unseen (Doctors for COVID Ethics)

A freedom of information request (FOI) request was made by one of our members in February 2021 to the Australian drugs regulator, the TGA (Therapeutic Good Administration) to ask what should have been simple questions. The TGA is the Australian equivalent of the FDA (US), MHRA (UK) and EMA (Europe) and is held in high regard worldwide. Essentially the FOI questions were: • Did the TGA request the raw data from Pfizer • Did any of the committees approving the vaccine look at the raw data and/or discuss it • What were the “studies” referred to in the approval document relating to teratogenicity (risk of harm to a fetus)

The rationale of the request relates to concern over the validity and verifiability of Pfizer’s data given its legal history (and expressed by Peter Doshi in the BMJ in February) as well as the proven concerns over fraudulent data relating to Covid-19 as seen in the “Lancetgate” scandal of June 2020. The document below is a redacted version of the documents that were sent by the TGA in response to this request. What they show is that the TGA never saw or requested the patient data from Pfizer and simply accepted their reporting of their study as true. This means that when the head of the TGA John Skerritt said that “the safety evidence is pretty thorough” on the 6th February (here) his words would ring hollow to most Australians who have assumed, rightly or wrongly, that the TGA had actually looked at the patient data themselves.

A further concerning aspect of the FOI request is the efforts to which the TGA appeared to go to suppress the request – initially requesting a 6 months extension in view of a “voluminous request” which eventually yielded only one document of 14 pages, heavily redacted. This required an instruction from the Office of the Information Commissioner to the TGA to answer the request by the 26th May, a deadline that the TGA also failed to meet. Eventually the only document that was produced from the FOI request was a heavily redacted single study (not studies, as claimed in the TGA assessment document) showing that the only investigation into the effects on the fetus was performed on 44 rats with no long term data on the offspring. It is impossible to assess this study fully because 98% of the document was removed in order to protect Pfizer’s intellectual property (points 32-44 of the report).

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Moscow just declared a non-working week with strict curfews.

Covid-19 Has Mutated So Much That Proven Treatments Are Often Failing (RT)

Covid-19 has mutated significantly, and the virus is now much harder to treat than it used to be. That’s according to the head of Moscow’s Kommunarka Hospital, which last year became the city’s main coronavirus treatment facility. Speaking to Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy on Thursday, the hospital’s chief physician, Denis Protsenko, who became a household name in 2020 due to his role at the forefront of the country’s battle against Covid-19, explained that it has become much harder to treat ill patients. “There is a feeling that the virus is changing,” Protsenko explained. “The proven methods of treatment for hyperinflammation or, as we call it, cytokine storms, are often failing.”

“This makes us think that the virus has also changed and has mutated in this year and a half,” he said, before encouraging people to get vaccinated against the disease. According to Protsenko, the Kommunarka hospital is now filled with a large number of elderly patients, as well as people who are overweight or diabetic. Furthermore, collective immunity in the capital is still under 50%, he said. On Wednesday, Deputy Moscow Mayor Anastasia Rakova revealed that the city would open up additional hospital beds in the upcoming days, boosting its capacity by 1,500. That announcement came after Mayor Sergey Sobyanin ordered local authorities to ramp up enforcement of sanitary measures, such as the wearing of masks on public transport. However, he also noted that he had no plans to introduce any new lockdowns.

According to the official numbers, Russia recorded 12,505 new cases nationwide on Friday – the highest figure since February 22. The capital is bearing the brunt of the latest wave, with 5,853 new infections detected in just 24 hours – 47% of all cases recorded. Moscow is home to just 10% of the country’s population. However, perhaps most worryingly, Moscow’s coronavirus spread, measured by the so-called R rate, soared to 1.6 in the past 24 hours – the highest seen since September 30 last year.

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It’s getting silly now, it’s like: as long as it comes out of a needle, you’re good to go.

Greece To Accept All Vaccines For Entry Into The Country (K.)

All vaccines, even if they have not been approved by the European Medicines Agency, will be accepted by Greece for entry into the country, according to the member of the health committee advising the government on the pandemic. More specifically, speaking during a regular briefing of reporters, Vana Papaevangelou said the decision was taken following a recommendation by the committee. The vaccines that will be accepted are Novavax, Sinovac Biotech, Sputnik V, Sinopharm and CanSino Biologics. Papaevangelou also stressed that tourists will be able to enter from the land border, and that specifications for hotels and ships will be updated, while stating that tourism workers will have to undergo a weekly self-diagnostic test and complete their vaccinations. She sounded the alarm for those people who haven t been vaccinated, noting that 98% of deaths in the last week were people who had not completed their vaccinations.

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Freeing everyone else to start firing employees for refusing to be guinea pigs.

Judge Sides With Houston Hospital, Dismisses Claims From Staff Resisters (USAT)

In the first federal ruling on vaccine mandates, a Houston judge Saturday dismissed a lawsuit by hospital employees who declined the COVID-19 shot – a decision that could have a ripple effect across the nation. The case involved Houston Methodist, which was the first hospital system in the country to require that all its employees get vaccinated. U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes said federal law does not prevent employers from issuing that mandate. After months of warnings, Houston Methodist had put more than 170 of its 26,000 employees on unpaid suspension Monday. They were told they would be fired it they weren’t vaccinated by June 21.


The hospital already had made it clear it means what it says: It fired the director of corporate risk – Bob Nevens – and another manager in April when they did not meet the earlier deadline for bosses. In recent weeks, a few other major hospitals have followed Houston Methodist’s lead, including the University of Pennsylvania, University of Louisville, New York Presbyterian and several major hospitals in the Washington, D.C. area. Houston Methodist’s CEO Marc Boom predicts more hospitals soon will join the effort. Many hospitals and employers were waiting for legal clarification before acting. “We can now put this behind us and continue our focus on unparalleled safety, quality, service and innovation,” Boom said after the ruling. “Our employees and physicians made their decisions for our patients, who are always at the center of everything we do.”

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“..the experts forecast dire impacts from the Federal Reserve’s new framework that supports tolerating higher inflation for the benefit of a full recovery ..”

Deutsche Bank Issues Grim Post-Pandemic Warning For US Economy (RT)

Further disregarding inflation will push the global economy to a major crisis, according to the latest report issued by Deutsche Bank economists who point the finger at the US money-printing policies. Germany’s largest lender warned that the unprecedented levels of cash being injected into the economy while inflation fears are being dismissed will lead to excruciating economic pain if not in the near term then in 2023 and beyond. The report points to the US’ “breath-taking” monetary stimulus that is reportedly comparable with that seen around World War II. “Then, US deficits remained between 15-30% for four years. While there are many significant differences between the pandemic and WWII we would note that annual inflation was 8.4%, 14.6% and 7.7% in 1946, 1947 and 1948 after the economy normalized and pent-up demand was released,” Deutsche Bank notes.


Moreover, the experts forecast dire impacts from the Federal Reserve’s new framework that supports tolerating higher inflation for the benefit of a full recovery of the country’s economy after the slumber caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. “The consequence of delay will be greater disruption of economic and financial activity than would be otherwise be the case when the Fed does finally act,” Deutsche’s economists wrote in the first report of the new series, titled “Inflation: The defining macro story of this decade.” “In turn, this could create a significant recession and set off a chain of financial distress around the world, particularly in emerging markets,” the report added. According to the bank’s analysts, neglecting inflation leaves global economies “sitting on a time bomb.”

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“Bitcoin is for when you’re bearish on society and Ethereum is for when you’re bullish”

Bitcoin Is De-dollarization. Ethereum Is DeFi-nancialization (Jeftovic)

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum while at the same time the world is witnessing the inexorable move to crypto in realtime. Some may question the latter half of that assertion, given that the latest FUD cycle against cryptos has been one of the most intense that I’ve witnessed since getting involved in the space in 2013. Behind the FUD we see actions. We see Russia dumping dollar assets (can you blame them?). We hear Munger making almost childishly uninformed remarks on crypto, yet BRK is investing in one of the world’s most crypto friendly banks. We see El Salvador as the first country in the world to make Bitcoin legal tender. In my mind this has not only sounded the starting gun on de-dollarization in earnest, it goes beyond that. Back in the late 90‘s people like me were about the age of many of the crypto kids today, and we were talking about the Internet Asteroid headed straight at the telecoms and traditional media.

Today, pretty well everybody is aware of Bitcoin. They may have positive or negative opinions on it, but most people are figuring out that it’s here to stay and there is a spectrum of sentiment around that ranging from enthusiasm to denial. But I don’t get the sense that traditional institutional finance sector sees the other asteroid coming, and it’s coming straight at them. Or maybe Ethereum/Bitcoin. Whatever your risk tolerance and investment objectives entail. I’ve been listening to the Bankless podcast lately and in more than one episode they’ve said something about Bitcoin as compared to Ethereum that I think is very helpful. It’s really helped me think about the two in terms of construction of a crypto portfolio. They’ve said, in essence, that Bitcoin is for when you’re bearish on society and Ethereum is for when you’re bullish.

It’s not that I agree with that literally (I don’t), but it really helped me refine the distinction I’ve always had around Bitcoin being the value and Ethereum being the execution in a coming tectonic shift into crypto. In the olden days, bonds and equities had an inverse correlation. Bonds kept your portfolio afloat when the economy hit a soft patch and stocks went down (yes, in the olden days, stocks could experience bear markets, sometimes for months or even years). Conventional wisdom was to have a portfolio mix between equities and bonds, along some rule of thumb like 60/40 adjusted for your age, risk tolerance, etc. We’re headed into a world where Bitcoin and Ethereum will fulfil the roles that bonds and equities did traditionally.

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“Moscow, he said, “has no superpower ambitions, regardless of how much people try to convince themselves and everyone else otherwise.”

Soviet Collapse Taught Russians The Danger Of Being A Messianic Superpower (RT)

Russia has none of the “messianic fervor” of Western states such as the US, its foreign minister said this week, as the nations’ leaders prepare to meet. No longer the Third Rome, Moscow is seeking a more modest role in the world. The author Fyodor Dostoevsky had a grand vision for the country. Russia, he believed, would lead the West back to Christ and bring about “universal, spiritual reconciliation.” This it could do, he felt, because its people supposedly had a “capability for high synthesis, a gift for universal reconcilability.” The Russian, Dostoevsky wrote, “gets along with everyone and is accustomed to all. He sympathizes with all that is human, regardless of nationality, blood, and soil.” By contrast, those on the other side of the continent, the novelist added, “find a universal human ideal in themselves and by their own power, and therefore they altogether harm themselves and their cause.”

Russians, in other words, seek to reconcile all, while Westerners believe their own ideals are universal and seek to spread them everywhere. One may justifiably doubt such sweeping generalizations. But as Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, prepares to meet the leader of the Western world, Joe Biden, next week, these different approaches to the world were on display in Russian and American public rhetoric. First, on the eve of the G7 summit in London, which begins on Friday, the New York Times noted that Biden is casting his trip to Europe “as an effort to rally the United States and its allies in an existential battle between democracy and autocracy.” “We have to discredit those who believe that the age of democracy is over, as some of our fellow nations believe,” the president said. “I believe we’re at an inflection point in world history,” he added.

“A moment where it falls to us to prove that democracies don’t just endure, but will excel as we rise to seize enormous opportunities in the new age.” An altogether different view, however, came from Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. In a riposte to Biden’s assertion that a struggle between Western liberalism and other systems was inevitable, Lavrov declared that Russia had no interest in a competition for ideological or geopolitical domination. Moscow, he said, “has no superpower ambitions, regardless of how much people try to convince themselves and everyone else otherwise.” The top diplomat claimed that the country simply doesn’t “have the messianic fervor with which our Western colleagues are trying to spread their ‘values-based democratic agenda’ throughout the planet. It has long been clear to us that the imposition of a certain development model from the outside does nothing good.”

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Did they also tell him to appoint Putin?

Boris Yeltsin Had 100 CIA Agents Who Instructed Him How To Run Russia (RT)

The first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, was surrounded by “hundreds” of CIA agents who told him what to do throughout his tenure as leader. That’s according to Ruslan Khasbulatov, the former chairman of Russia’s parliament. Speaking to radio station Govorit Moskva, Khasbulatov claimed Yeltsin’s entourage was full of Americans. In 1991, he was elected to his leadership post with Washington’s help, it has been alleged, and it is still not yet known to what extent the US remained the voice in his ear throughout his presidency. “There must have been a hundred [CIA employees],” Khasbulatov said. “They determined everything.” He also added that, after winning the presidential election, Yeltsin would send security officials and heads of departments to the US so the Americans could “examine them” and “give conclusions.”

Khasbulatov’s statement comes after former Russian vice president Alexander Rutskoy told online outlet Lenta that 12 full-time employees of the CIA helped carry out the landmark Yeltsin-Gaidar market reforms, systematically dismantling the centrally planned economic system and leading the country into shock capitalism. Rutskoy also claimed that, on one significant occasion, he overheard Yeltsin speaking to a stranger with a foreign accent. However, according to Khasbulatov, everyone knew about Rutskoy’s links to the US, and American officials even influenced the former president to replace a considerable number of his appointees.

“On the whole, Rutskoy is absolutely right – Yeltsin was advised by foreigners,” he continued. “There is no secret here, and a great number of people know about it. I don’t have any detective stories about eavesdropping, but, in general, it’s well known. Yeltsin used to confer very closely on all personnel matters with foreign representatives.” Yeltsin left office in 1999, but not before creating a hyper-presidential system, taking power away from a hostile parliament, and removing almost all checks and balances. This move was supported by Washington, which hoped to keep the Communist Party out of power in the newly formed Russian state.

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Carney’s going to claim trillions to save the planet. Few are as dangerous as he is.

Mark Carney Unveils Dystopian New World To Combat Climate ‘Crisis’ (Foster)

In his book Value(s): Building a Better World for All, Mark Carney, former governor both of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, claims that western society is morally rotten, and that it has been corrupted by capitalism, which has brought about a “climate emergency” that threatens life on earth. This, he claims, requires rigid controls on personal freedom, industry and corporate funding. Carney’s views are important because he is UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance. He is also an adviser both to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the next big climate conference in Glasgow, and to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Since the advent of the COVID pandemic, Carney has been front and centre in the promotion of a political agenda known as the “Great Reset,” or the “Green New Deal,” or “Building Back Better.” All are predicated on the claim that COVID, and its disruption of the global economy, provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not just to regulate climate, but to frame a more fair, more diverse, more inclusive, more safe and more woke world. Carney draws inspiration from, among others, Marx, Engels and Lenin, but the agenda he promotes differs from Marxism in two key respects. First, the private sector is not to be expropriated but made a “partner” in reshaping the economy and society. Second, it does not make a promise to make the lives of ordinary people better, but worse.

Carney’s Brave New World will be one of severely constrained choice, less flying, less meat, more inconvenience and more poverty: “Assets will be stranded, used gasoline powered cars will be unsaleable, inefficient properties will be unrentable,” he promises. The agenda’s objectives are in fact already being enforced, not primarily by legislation but by the application of non-governmental — that is, non-democratic — pressure on the corporate sector via the ever-expanding dictates of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) and by “sustainable finance,” which is designed to starve non-compliant companies of funds, thus rendering them, as Carney puts it, “climate roadkill.” What ESG actually represents is corporate ideological compulsion. It is a key instrument of “stakeholder capitalism.”

Carney’s Agenda is promoted by the United Nations and other international bureaucracies and a vast and ever-growing array of non-governmental organizations and fora, especially the World Economic Forum (WEF), where Carney is a trustee. Also, perhaps most surprisingly, by its corporate victims. No one wants to become climate roadkill. Carney clearly feels himself to be a man of destiny. “When I worked at the Bank of England,” he writes in Value(s), “I would remind myself each morning of Marcus Aurelius’ phrase ‘arise to do the work of humankind’.” One is reminded of French aristocrat and social reformer Henri de Saint-Simon, the “grand seigneur sans-culotte,” who ordered his valet to wake him with similar words: “Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do.”

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“Best of all, nobody will be subjected to any racist ID checks!”

Republicans Propose Vaccination-By-Mail Program (BBee)

As COVID vaccine delivery continues to decline nationwide, Republican leaders have proposed a radical solution: a vaccination-by-mail program to cover all Americans. “Since voting by mail went so smoothly last year, we wanted to apply those same principles to our COVID vaccination program,” said Senator Mitch McConnell. “Mail-in vaccines will ensure that we have the most secure vaccination process in American history!” The Republican proposal is simple: every American will automatically receive a pre-loaded syringe in the mail, along with a COVID vaccine card. Individuals will then self-administer the vaccine and self-report their vaccination status, all from the comfort of their own homes.

“Everyone will be able to receive the vaccine without having to miss work to travel to a vaccination site where they will wait in line for hours,” McConnell noted. “Best of all, nobody will be subjected to any racist ID checks!” Democrats were quick to criticize the proposal, saying a self-reported mail-in vaccine program was ripe for fraud and dishonesty. McConnell quickly dispelled those notions, saying they were nothing more than a transparent attempt to disenfranchise Republicans from getting vaccinated.

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Jun 292018
 
 June 29, 2018  Posted by at 1:19 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


René Magritte Mysteries of the horizon (a.k.a. The Masterpiece) 1955

 

Don’t know if you noticed, but the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki on July 16 takes place one day after the soccer World Cup final, Sunday July 15. Now it seems clear that Trump doesn’t care about soccer, though he apparently knows Christiano Ronaldo, but that factoid is significant because the World Cup takes place in Russia.

It’s amusing to contemplate that Putin told Trump’s people he would love to meet with his counterpart, but not until after the Cup Final. So they settled on the very next day.

The same people who now express worries about the summit, also had worries about the nasty things that could happen to players and supporters in Moscow and other cities. There has not been one single incident. No police violence, no hooliganism, the stadiums are beautiful, the organization is pitch perfect. There’s been only sunshine, too.

The only problem reported in the media was that some cities ran out of beer, because the Russians hadn’t expected the Aussies and British to drink as much of the stuff as Russians themselves do. They probably didn’t expect them to show up in such large numbers either. But those Russians don’t see a real problem: “we always have enough vodka”.

 

Patrick Lang called the fact that Trump sent uber-neocon John Bolton to Moscow to organize the summit a stroke of genius. The man who wants WWIII more than anyone must now make sure a summit that may serve to prevent it, successful. But what does Trump really want? And what do the neo-cons want?

First off, US and Russian presidents should meet all the time. It’s beyond reason that Trump has been in the saddle almost a year and a half without such a summit. Trumped up allegations of election meddling in about half the nations on the planet, about poisonings in Britain and about chemical weapons in Syria, have prevented a summit so far.

It looks like Trump got tired of all that. But of course all we’ll see the next two+ weeks is more ‘Trump is Putin’s lapdog’ memes. While there are very serious issues to be discussed. A major one, undoubtedly, is Syria. There has been a lot of movement politically on that.

The US has indicated it will no longer support the Syrian rebels. It has acknowledged that regime change, and removal of Assad, is not going to happen. Because Russia will not leave Assad to fend for himself.

 

There are signs that another false flag chemical attack in the country is being prepared, but if that happens before July 16, Trump himself will jump in to condemn the nonsense. He wants the meeting, and he wants it bad. As he should, and not for some nefarious reason.

Regime change in Syria is off the calendar because of Putin. Regime change in Iran, apparently still on that calendar, will also fail because while Putin may -but just may- be willing to give in, China will not. And not even a Saudi-US-UAE-Israel cabal can withstand both China AND Russia. Those days are over.

The neocons are way behind the action. They think in terms of something that has long since passed its best before date. Yeah, wonder how John Bolton sees these things these days. Maybe he had a crash course upon entering the White House.

But let’s not kid ourselves: the US warmonger faction may be outdated, they are still very powerful and very present. They can still attempt to force Trump’s hand with a false flag here or there. Their plans to conquer Russia, though, will have to be shelved for now. Or do they?

Tyler Durden has a lengthy report on the proposed spending in Europe by the US military. I won’t get into the details (tons of infrastructure spending close to Russian borders), but here’s the money shot:

 

The request for additional funding would more than double the military’s infrastructure projects under the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI), from the 2018 request, when just a few years ago, the Pentagon was scaling back its Cold War-era footprint in Europe. According to Defense News, the EDI request increased to $6.5 billion from $4.8 billion in 2018, military construction projects in the EDI request jumped from $338 million in 2018, while pre-positioning funds soared from $2.2 billion to $3.2 billion.

The Air Force would spend roughly $368.6 million to pre-position equipment and $363.8 million for military construction projects. While the spending is almost equal to what was expensed in fiscal 2018, it is a huge jump from 2017, when the Air Force was only allotted $31.2 million in pre-positioning funds and $85.4 million for military construction.

 

And I know what you’re thinking: didn’t Trump say not so long ago that he wanted Europe to pay more for its own defense? Well, yes, he did, but Europe is other wise engaged, it’s now planning its own ‘army’, which can’t NOT take away from its contributions to NATO.

So Trump meets Putin on July 16, who knows all of this and a boatload more, and what’s he going to tell him? When Putin asks him about these new US ‘investments’ in Europe, what’s he going to say?

Putin will state that Russia’s military expenditures have only fallen over the past decade+, and that he doesn’t understand why the US spends that much more, because Russia’s new weapons are decades ahead of America’s. (I don’t think he’s kidding).

Of course Putin knows better then anyone that his military spending takes place for a whole different purpose than that in the US: he builds a strong defense, while America feeds its private contractors arms industry as much taxpayers’ money as it can get away with. What did the Pentagon lose track of again, was that $21 trillion?

And of course Putin knows that to an extent Trump is trapped inside the military-industrial complex Ike warned about. And that John Bolton is such a docile and eager servant of.

One thing we can be sure of is that just like the World Cup, the summit won’t be a boring event, the media will be all over it, each with their own favorite, and over half the world will follow the ‘games’. And the outcome of Helsinki is as unpredictable as that of the final in Moscow. One more thing that’s for sure: the US won’t be in that final. Not even John Bolton.