Oct 042023
 


Albrecht Dürer Study of the left hand of an apostle (for the Heller Altar) c.1508

 

RFK Can Become President as an Independent (Jeffrey Tucker)
US House Removes McCarthy From Speakership in Historic Vote (Sp.)
Trump Hit With Gag Order After ‘Disparaging’ Attacks Against Court Clerk (Sp.)
New Messages to Hunter Deepen Concerns Over Chinese Influence (Turley)
Ukraine Forbids Troops To Group Together Fearing Mutiny – Macgregor (TASS)
No Arms Left For Ukraine In Europe – Politico (RT)
EU Incites Ukrainian Conflict and Stigmatizes Peace Talks – Hungary FM (Sp.)
EU Wants To Pay Hungary €13BN So Orban Doesn’t Veto Ukraine Aid (ZH)
UK Advises Zelensky to Enlist Young Ukrainian Recruits (Bridge)
‘Experiments Carried Out’: Ukrainian Soldiers Become Antibiotic-Resistant (Sp.)
US ‘Failing’ At Life Expectancy – WaPo (RT)
“The Beasts With A Red Star On Their Foreheads” (Helmer)
Murderous Work on mRNA Technology Wins the Nobel Prize (VN)

 

 

Not NATO
https://twitter.com/i/status/1709146534074302648

 

 

 

 

Ukr nazis

 

 

 

 

Gaetz
https://twitter.com/i/status/1709320755572289570

 

 

De Gaulle grandson

 

 

 

 

 

 

“That would put him in the solid category of a real Democrat—half a century ago. Times have changed, and dramatically so.”

RFK Can Become President as an Independent (Jeffrey Tucker)

As predicted two weeks ago, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears ready to declare as an independent for president. Already polling at 20 percent nationwide, he will announce that he’s severing ties with the Democratic National Committee (DNC). This is because the DNC has set up impossible roadblocks to victory within the party apparatus and the primary process. The Biden administration is denying him Secret Service protection despite apparent attempts on his life. Of all figures in public life today, Mr. Kennedy has the strongest claim to the legacies of his father and uncle, ideologically and culturally. That would put him in the solid category of a real Democrat—half a century ago. Times have changed, and dramatically so.

He started off this campaign with the belief that he would help guide his family’s party back to a principled commitment to the common good. But he has discovered that this isn’t what the party is about anymore, at least not according to the masters at the top. This is a man who believes that America isn’t lost, not foundationally corrupt, not a complete goner. He looks around at the people in this nation and sees goodness, a love of country, a desire for freedom, and a strong devotion to making things right. Conventional American politics, however, seems designed to block real solutions. Because he still wants to make a difference—one senses that he believes it’s his destiny—he will continue his run for president as an independent.

[..] Few people really want to see a Biden/Trump rematch, and those who do are motivated by a burning passion to reverse or reinforce the 2020 election, the results of which are widely disputed thanks to President Trump’s aggressive protests against irregularities. Let’s just say that this constitutes about one-third of the electorate. What about everyone else who would like to see something like normalcy return to this country without the incredible corruption that has invaded our public lives? Mr. Kennedy makes a credible claim that he has the knowledge and ability to begin to clean up the system in Washington, precisely because he has been litigating against it for many years. What else does he have going for him? There’s an authenticity to his language and approach that no other candidate can match. He’s obviously not a professional politician.

He speaks and sounds more like the best professor you ever had, with an incredible and ever-present command of facts and information about a huge range of subjects. His recall seems at times to be photographic concerning names, dates, data, and anecdotes. His speeches often seem more like teaching seminars. In a strange way, we need that now. Regardless of what you think about his views on this topic or that, everyone has to admit that he has an amazing command of all the issues, whether health policy, foreign policy, censorship, or environmental problems. In a startling way, when he doesn’t know something, he outright admits it and seeks out experts to help him. What’s especially beautiful about Mr. Kennedy is his absolute refusal to censor himself. He believes that the CIA was involved in the killing of his uncle and says that, bringing the receipts.

He believes that the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are deeply corrupt, sacrificing American liberty and health in the pay of the legally privileged pharmaceutical industry, and he says that, too. He looks around the country and sees a government/corporate cartel crushing the interests of small businesses, farmers, and the middle class generally, and he says that, too. Most striking of all, none of these points are politically strategic, much less put together by consultants with focus groups. They come from his own mind and heart. He has ruminated on them for many years. Running for president is just his chance to reach a larger audience with a message that’s his alone.

Read more …

Next: Gaetz, Scalise, Trump?!

Trump is a nice option, but he’ll be in court much of the time.

US House Removes McCarthy From Speakership in Historic Vote (Sp.)

Over the weekend, Congress narrowly passed a continuing resolution funding the government for another 45 days, to give more time to debate a series of spending bills that form the 2024 budget. After a vote of 216 to 210, the US House of Representatives on Tuesday removed US Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker of the House. It was the first time the lower chamber voted on vacating the speaker’s office in 113 years and the first time it has ever succeeded. The decision came after an earlier motion to table the vote failed, with 11 Republicans voting with Democrats against the motion and allowing it to proceed. “It’s to the benefit of this country that we have a better speaker than Kevin McCarthy,” said US Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who called the vote against McCarthy. “The reason he went down today is because no one trusts him.”

Gaetz said the California representative “is a feature of the swamp … we are breaking the fever now and we should elect a speaker that is better.” Shortly after the motion cleared the congressional chamber, Republican held a closed-door meeting to discuss next steps, specifically who would be put forward to permanently fill the position. At present, it’s temporarily filled by US Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC). McCarthy has since detailed that he will not be making another bid for the speakership. “I will not run for speaker again, I’ll have the conference pick somebody else,” McCarthy said Tuesday evening. “I wouldn’t change a thing.” The former speaker added the country is too great for the small visions of the eight Republicans who voted alongside Democrats to oust him from his post. Moreover, McCarthy said he will look into whether he will remain in Congress.

US President Joe Biden has weighed in on the latest developments and urged the House chamber to immediately elect a new speaker. Democrats are expected to hold a meeting at 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday to address the McCarthy fallout. Gaetz has suggested US Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) would make a better speaker than McCarthy. The Florida lawmaker is a member of a small GOP faction that has used the party’s slim House majority to push its own agenda on McCarthy. The faction, which is closely aligned with the Freedom Caucus and former US President Donald Trump, allowed McCarthy to become speaker in January only after extracting a series of agreements on policies, such as a willingness to engage in brinksmanship regarding budget cuts.

Even then, McCarthy only became speaker after 15 rounds of voting, with several members of the faction ultimately only agreeing to vote “present” during the vote instead of against the California lawmaker. After McCarthy spent months refusing to raise the debt ceiling in an attempt to force Democrats into agreeing to steep budget cuts – a key demand of the Freedom Caucus – the speaker then agreed to cut a deal with Democrats in late May that provided for some limitations on the forthcoming budget, but well below what hard-liners had demanded. Gaetz and his coterie saw this as a betrayal and the threat to oust McCarthy has hung over the House chamber for months.

McCarthy’s fate was ultimately sealed after he blinked a second time in the showdown with Democrats over the fiscal 2024 budget this past weekend. Without a budget, the federal government would have shut down many of its non-essential functions until new funding could be passed. Republicans made clear they saw this as an acceptable outcome if it meant pressuring the Democrats into large budget cuts, but McCarthy again cut a deal with Democrats at the last minute to pass a 45-day funding extension, giving lawmakers more time to debate the budget without facing a shutdown.

Trump speaker

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“Schumer’s girlfriend, Alison [sic] R. Greenfield, is running this case against me. How disgraceful! This case should be dismissed immediately!!”

Trump Hit With Gag Order After ‘Disparaging’ Attacks Against Court Clerk (Sp.)

The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York issued a limited gag order for the former president and other parties involved in the case, barring them from publicly speaking about his staff. The order came after Trump’s Truth Social account posted about the judge’s principal court while he sat feet from her in court. Judge Arthur Engoron did not mention Trump by name while issuing the order, saying instead that “one of the defendants” posted a “disparaging, untrue and personally identifying post” about his staff. The judge ordered the post deleted, but by that time it had already been shared across the internet. “Personal attacks on members of my court staff are not appropriate and I will not tolerate it under any circumstances,” Engoron said, adding that he warned counsel about the issue previously.

During the trial, Trump’s Truth Social account posted a picture of the clerk, Allison Greenfield, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). “Schumer’s girlfriend, Alison [sic] R. Greenfield, is running this case against me. How disgraceful! This case should be dismissed immediately!!” the now-deleted post read, which also shared a link to one of Greenfield’s social media accounts. The photo showed Schumer and Greenfield smiling while standing next to each other. Schumer’s arm can be seen high on Greenfield’s shoulder and the two do not seem to be in any kind of embrace. The image has been likened to photos people take with celebrities or politicians. Screenshots of the post include a comment by Greenfield saying it was taken at a brunch event for the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club Founders. Greenfield also took a photo with US Rep.Carolyn Maloney (D-NC) at that event.

There have been no credible accusations that Greenfield and Schumer have an inappropriate relationship or any relationship at all. Schumer has been married since 1980. Trump was apparently sharing an accusation made by a conservative account on X (formerly Twitter) that started posting about Greenfield shortly before the trial began. The same account previously accused Engoron of drinking on the job. It is not clear if the account, which has less than 500 followers, is satirical in nature. It purports to be “applying the 69th Amendment to the internet.”

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“Hunter Biden’s massive spending and addictions would have been a draw for intelligence services..”

New Messages to Hunter Deepen Concerns Over Chinese Influence (Turley)

Messages from longtime Biden associate Fran Person show the Chinese stepping in to support Hunter’s lavish lifestyle as funds dried up during his divorce. Person wrote Hunter that Chinese businessman Bo Zhang “will help you with what you need.” Fran Person was not just a close aide to Joe Biden for years, but someone that the First Lady Jill Biden described as a member of the family: “Fran has been like a son to Joe and me. For eight years, we traveled the country, shared holidays together … Fran may be leaving the office, but he will always be a part of our family.” Fran left the staff of Joe Biden and went to work with Chinese figures . . . and Hunter. In a July 2017 WhatsApp message, Person told Hunter that Zhang was aware that he was in financial distress during his divorce and would cover his costs.

Hunter sounds desperate for the Chinese support as he gushes money to fund his lavish lifestyle: “100K at least gets me until next month.” Person assures him that Zhang has his back: “He will help you with what you need.” Fox News Digital reported on Person’s messages. They include this assurance: “I talked to Bo previously about the 37K – he didn’t flinch. I will talk to him about 56K and possibly 100K. It really depends on his liquid assets in the US…I will ask. His only problem is getting large sums out of China (especially right now).” Hunter appears in distress and presses Person if he knew whether anything was wired or if they were in a “holding pattern.” Person responds “No holding pattern…he was on his way to the bank this morning. He will be in touch when it’s confirmed.”

“He will help you with what you need. He also mentioned that you should take a trip to China some time this month to just get away for a week or so…just decompress.” Hunter later schedules the trip. The concern is that Hunter was receiving money from figures closely associated with foreign governments and foreign intelligence agencies, including the CCP. These operatives often look for people who are in desperate situations to exercise influence over them. Hunter Biden’s massive spending and addictions would have been a draw for intelligence services. He offered an obvious entry into potential influence or access with regard to Joe Biden. At one point, Hunter offers in July 2017 to have Zhang at his father’s McLean home after Joe Biden left the vice presidency.

Zhang met repeatedly with Hunter Biden, Person, and Eric Schwerin. Person’s message shows him showering Hunter with praise and promises of Chinese funds. In one message, Person told Hunter that he “selfishly want[s] to work” with him “because I know what the hell your capable of, AND I want to learn from you. I’m putting myself out there right now, and I’m learning quickly. But I’d love to be there with you doing some of this stuff. I mention the 500K on 10M raise be I’m about to get started on that, and I could really use your help. We could knock it out together. I’d think that’d help take some bite out, and you wouldn’t feel like your ‘resorting’ to anything…I’ve got one loyalty brother. That’s to my family. Your family.”

Person is obviously going to be busy during this impeachment inquiry. Despite President Biden’s repeated denials that anyone in his family received any money from China, The Washington Post and other media outlets have found those denials to be false. Indeed, at least two transfers of funds to Hunter Biden in 2019 from a Chinese source listed the President’s home in Delaware where Hunter sometimes lived and conducted business. The latest messages reveal how Hunter Biden’s personal and financial distress may have been viewed as an opportunity for foreign interests. Hunter suggests that he was existing month to month on such payments. The question is what he did in return for such foreign generosity in what is clearly an influencing peddling operation.

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“..whittle down the squads to three or four men to prevent larger formations from forming that might actually rebel..”

Ukraine Forbids Troops To Group Together Fearing Mutiny – Macgregor (TASS)

The leadership of the Ukrainian armed forces does not allow its servicemen to gather in large groups for fear of a large-scale rebellion, retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a former adviser to the Defense Secretary of Defense under former US President Donald Trump, said.”They (the Ukrainian military leadership – TASS) whittle down the squads to three or four men to prevent larger formations from forming that might actually rebel,” Macgregor said on the air of the YouTube channel Judging Freedom. He pointed out that distrust pervaded a military that sees its leadership send them to their deaths. “It’s a terrible condition. The people (the Ukrainian servicemen – TASS) are simply being fed systematically into the so-called meat grinder. <…> I would expect that to continue and even worsen in time,” the colonel added.

Earlier, Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Seymour Hersh said that Ukrainian troops had suffered enormous losses during the counteroffensive and were effectively forced to call it off. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian army has been making unsuccessful attempts to launch a counteroffensive since June 4. On September 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Ukrainian armed forces had lost 71,500 servicemen, 543 tanks and almost 18,000 armored vehicles of various classes. The head of state stressed that the Ukrainian counteroffensive yielded no results.

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“..the “big elephant in the room” in Europe is the concern that Washington could abandon Ukraine..”

No Arms Left For Ukraine In Europe – Politico (RT)

EU countries have given Ukraine all the arms they can without compromising their own defense, Politico has reported, citing a European official. Kiev is facing cuts to both arms supplies and cash injections as “cracks appear”in Western support, according to the outlet. “We cannot keep on giving from our own stockpiles,” the European source said as quoted on Monday. There may still be robust political support, but “we’ve given everything that will not endanger our own security.” The comment was made to Politico as part of its coverage of last week’s International Industries Defense Forum in Kiev, during which the hosts went on a “charm offensive directed at weapons-makers,” as explained in the report. In a separate story on Tuesday, the outlet said that support for funding the Ukrainian government was “showing more cracks than ever.”

The failure of the US Congress last week to allocate aid money in its stopgap budget, the election victory of former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who vowed to stop assistance to Ukraine on the campaign trail, and Kiev’s ongoing diplomatic row with Poland all send “a chilling message.” The Ukrainian government expects to receive at least $42.8 billion from international donors next year, as outlined in its projected budget. An expected fight over the EU’s joint budget means that “no one dares to predict anything” at this point, a diplomatic source told the news outlet. Another diplomat said the “big elephant in the room” in Europe is the concern that Washington could abandon Ukraine. The event in Kiev was part of its effort to ramp up domestic military production. Germany’s Rheinmetall and the UK-based BAE have made some commitments to open production facilities in Ukraine.

Kiev’s goal is to become “an Israel in Europe – self-sufficient but with help from other countries,” Daniel Vajdich, a Washington-based advocate for Ukraine, told Politico. President Vladimir Zelensky floated the idea of paying for the proposed build-up with “confiscated Russian assets” when he spoke at the forum. Prime Minister Denis Shmygal indicated that the proposed plants would not be safe. He said 37 of Ukraine’s own facilities have been damaged by Russian strikes. Russian officials have stressed that foreign-funded arms manufacturing sites in Ukraine would be treated as legitimate military targets. Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, reiterated the policy during an interview on Monday.

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“..other countries do not understand why Europe “has made this conflict global” and why people living in Asia, Africa and Latin America have to pay for it due to growing inflation, energy prices and unstable food supplies..”

EU Incites Ukrainian Conflict and Stigmatizes Peace Talks – Hungary FM (Sp.)

The world outside Europe does not share its position on the Ukraine conflict and does not understand European double standards applied to conflicts in other parts of the planet, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. “I can say that the world outside Europe is already really looking forward to the end of this war, because they do not understand many things. They do not understand, for example, how it can be that when a war is not in Europe, the European Union, looking down with fantastic moral superiority, calls on the parties to peace, advocates negotiations and an immediate end to violence. However, when there is a war in Europe, the European Union incites the conflict and supplies weapons, and anyone who talks about peace is immediately stigmatized,” Szijjarto said in an interview on Monday. He also said that other countries do not understand why Europe “has made this conflict global” and why people living in Asia, Africa and Latin America have to pay for it due to growing inflation, energy prices and unstable food supplies.

Szijjarto added that Hungary’s position on the issue is treated with “great respect” outside the EU, which he was witnessing more than once during the UN General Assembly. Hungary has consistently opposed sanctions on Russian energy resources and sending weapons to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The Hungarian parliament issued a decree banning the supply of weapons to Ukraine from the country’s territory. Szijjarto explained that Budapest seeks to secure the western Ukrainian region of Zakarpatye, where ethnic Hungarians live, since the supply of weapons through its territory would become a military target for Russia. The country’s leadership has repeatedly emphasized that Hungary stands for the earliest possible start of peace negotiations.

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“..so that EU aid to Ukraine doesn’t get blocked at a crucial moment that Washington funding is drying up..”

EU Wants To Pay Hungary €13BN So Orban Doesn’t Veto Ukraine Aid (ZH)

“The European Commission is preparing to unfreeze around €13 billion in funds for Hungary to try to avoid Prime Minister Viktor Orbán vetoing EU aid for Ukraine, in a move likely to draw criticism from the European Parliament,” Politico reports Tuesday. “The Commission needs the unanimous backing of the bloc’s 27 countries for an update to the EU’s long-term budget, which includes a €50 billion funding pot for Ukraine,” the report adds. Akin to what’s currently going down in Washington with a group of Republicans holding up Ukraine funding, Brussels may soon have its own Ukraine aid blockage problem. EU aid for Kiev which was previously approved runs out in December, hence the urgency for EU leadership in wanting to push through a new package.

A week ago, Orbán gave a speech declaring Hungary will no longer support Ukraine in any way unless certain significant policies are changed both in Kiev and in the European Union. He stressed in the words given before parliament that “Hungary is doing everything for peace” but that “unfortunately the Russian-Ukrainian war continues, tens of thousands of people are victims.” Thus, he continued, “Diplomats must take control back from the hands of the soldiers, otherwise it will be in vain for women to wait for their sons and fathers and husbands to come home.” The Hungarian leader has stood against ratcheting Western sanctions on Moscow, instead choosing to maintain a generally positive diplomatic relationship with the Kremlin. He also a week ago charged that Kiev and its backers have cheated Budapest by “Ukrainian grain dumping” into his country.

He had also laid out, per The Hill: … that he was protesting a 2017 law in Ukraine that limits ethnic Hungarians from speaking their own language, particularly in schools and said Hungary would not support Ukraine on international issues “until the previous laws are restored. Needless to say EU officials are panicking, and are readying a lucrative quid pro quo with Hungary (based on freeing frozen funds related to the prior years’ so-called “rule of law” punitive measures”), so that EU aid to Ukraine doesn’t get blocked at a crucial moment that Washington funding is drying up.

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“Ukraine will eventually have to restore its dangerously depleted demographic numbers if it hopes to survive in some form..”

UK Advises Zelensky to Enlist Young Ukrainian Recruits (Bridge)

On the same day that the party of pro-Russian populist Robert Fico emerged victorious in Slovakia’s parliamentary election, potentially destabilizing European unity for Ukraine, Ben Wallace, the former UK Secretary of State for Defence, penned a zinger of an opinion piece in The Telegram where he argues without a hint of irony that “Ukraine’s counteroffensive is succeeding.” “Whisper it if you need. Dare to think it. But champion it you must. Ukraine’s counteroffensive is succeeding. Slowly but surely, the Ukrainian armed forces are breaking through the Russian lines. Sometimes yard by yard, sometimes village by village, Ukraine has the momentum and is pressing forward.” There’s just one problem with Wallace’s hyperbolic pep talk – it’s absolute malarkey, yet so many people are lapping up the war propaganda and asking for seconds.

Across the line of conflict, the Ukrainians have spent the last four months of their counteroffensive taking one step forward and two steps back in the face of an impenetrable, multilayered Russian defense line, complete with mines, artillery and almost total air superiority. When the Ukrainian forces have succeeded in seizing a village or plot of land – increasingly on foot, as they no longer trust their lives inside the deathtraps of armored vehicles – it almost always turns out to be a self-defeating Pyrrhic victory. Since June, the Ukrainians have lost an estimated 81,000 troops in their efforts to seize Russian acquired territories in the Zaporozhye, Donetsk, Lugansk, and Kherson regions. At the same time, over 10,000 Ukrainian fighters have surrendered since summer using a special radio frequency set up by the Russian forces. Needless to say, Kiev’s stated goal of ultimately cutting off Russian forces from the land bridge connecting to the Crimean peninsula has thus far proven illusory.

And this is where Wallace’s message to the Ukrainian people takes on a very dark and even sinister tone. While imploring Ukraine to “play its part,” as if it has been sitting on its laurels all this time, the former defense minister lectured Kiev about its mobilization, particularly its lack of young blood. “The average age of the soldiers at the front is over 40. I understand President Zelensky’s desire to preserve the young for the future, but the fact is that Russia is mobilising the whole country by stealth. (In fact, there is nothing “stealth” about Russia’s recruitment efforts, as it’s widely known that 300,000 Russians have volunteered for military service since the start of the special military operation in February 2022).”

It is the absolute height of arrogance and cynicism for one country to entreaty another on behalf of a lower military recruitment age, especially when the primary purpose does not seem connected to securing victory, but for sustaining a steady flow of profits for the Western arms manufacturers. After all, no soldiers, no need for expensive weapons systems. And lest we forget, millions of young Ukrainians have already fled their country, never to return. Yet Ukraine will eventually have to restore its dangerously depleted demographic numbers if it hopes to survive in some form, a fact that has conveniently escaped Wallace’s attention.

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“..healthcare networks in Europe now consider prior hospitalization in Ukraine to be a critical risk factor for colonization of MDR organisms..”

‘Experiments Carried Out’: Ukrainian Soldiers Become Antibiotic-Resistant (Sp.)

Hospitals in several European countries have recorded significant growth of antibiotic resistance among Ukrainians arriving for treatment. So far, the exact cause of this remains unclear. The first case was announced in a research letter for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Germany in August, when a Ukrainian soldier was diagnosed with a number of dangerous infections that were not treatable with antibiotics. Western media recently highlighted that similar incidents were registered in several unnamed European countries, where wounded soldiers and refugees from Ukraine had gone. They cited “hospital and hygiene infrastructure” problems in Ukraine as one of the reasons the diseases spread, making “it harder to take the usual precautions against antibiotic resistance.”

Media also pointed out the absence of tests to determine the correct antibiotic use in Ukrainian hospitals. Therefore, infections and antibiotic-resistance are often found only in Europe. However, experts told Sputnik that antibiotic resistance could be a sign that these people had undergone biological experiments. The German CDC report claims the first case was officially registered in Germany. The wounded Ukrainian soldier was taken from Dnepropetrovsk to Kiev first, and then to an American military hospital in Germany. It was only when he was there that he was tested for infections and the unexpected discovery was made. “Doctors obtained blood, urine, respiratory, and peri-rectal surveillance cultures. Surveillance cultures grew A. baumannii, Enterococcus faecium, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and two distinct morphologies of P. aeruginosa.

Blood cultures grew a third P. aeruginosa. By using the Vitek 2 automated system, the gram-negative organisms were found to be non-susceptible to almost every antibiotic tested,” the paper explained. According to the CDC, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Klebsiella pneumoniae can cause pneumonia, meningitis, as well as infections in wounds and in the urinary tract. Ukrainians, both military personnel and refugees, can be carriers of dangerous infections across both Ukraine and Europe. Thus, US researchers warned European countries of an “increased risk” of the spread of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDR): “As a result, healthcare networks in Europe now consider prior hospitalization in Ukraine to be a critical risk factor for colonization of MDR organisms (7,10). Healthcare practitioners treating citizens of Ukraine need to be aware of the increased risk for MDR organism transmission and infection imposed by the conflict in Ukraine and implement appropriate infection control measures to mitigate their spread.”

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Also a kind of experiment…

“..almost 42% of adult Americans are obese, compared to 11.6% in 1990. Medical professionals and scholars interviewed by the Post blamed a variety of factors, from lack of preventive care and focus on treatment, to racism.”

US ‘Failing’ At Life Expectancy – WaPo (RT)

The US is dead last among “peer countries” in terms of life expectancy for its population, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. Months of research and interviews have revealed a widespread problem with obesity, cancer, heart conditions, and diabetes, as well as a growing gap between poor and wealthy Americans. “Among wealthy nations, the United States in recent decades went from the middle of the pack to being an outlier. And it continues to fall further and further behind,” according to the Post. American life expectancy peaked at 78.9 years in 2014, the same year the Affordable Care Act – also known as ‘Obamacare’ – fully went into effect. It has been declining ever since. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of 2021 it was at 76.4 years.

The Post reporters looked at county-level death records over the past five decades, finding the largest increase in excess deaths among the 35-64 demographic. In that group, chronic diseases kill twice as many Americans as “all the [drug] overdoses, homicides, suicides and car accidents combined.” Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, liver failure, and other chronic ailments are the main culprits. Cases of breast, thyroid and colorectal cancer are “mysteriously” rising among Americans under 50. Meanwhile, almost 42% of adult Americans are obese, compared to 11.6% in 1990. Medical professionals and scholars interviewed by the Post blamed a variety of factors, from lack of preventive care and focus on treatment, to racism.

They said advances in medicine, nutrition, and technology have been “overwhelmed by poverty, racism, distrust of the medical system, fracturing of social networks and unhealthy diets built around highly processed food.” While the US medical system is great at treating diseases, “growing healthy people to begin with, we’re the worst in the world,” according to William Cooke, a doctor in Austin, Indiana. Elena Marks, a senior health policy fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, argued that the US has built a “health industrial complex” that costs trillions of dollars but focuses on treatment.

“Eighty-plus percent of health outcomes are determined by nonmedical factors,” said Marks, who used to be the health and environmental policy director for the city of Houston in Texas. There is a major “wealth gap” in life expectancy, according to the Post. In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the poorest Americans were 61% more likely to die than the richest ones, and had “far lower” life expectancy than poor people in comparable countries. While wealthy Americans enjoyed longer lives on average, they too lagged behind their counterparts in Canada, France, or Japan. The Post also highlighted the racial disparities in life expectancy, with Native Americans coming in dead last at 65 and Asian-Americans leading at 84. Meanwhile, Hispanics were at 78, whites at 76, and African-Americans at 71.

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“They were all murdered by June 1943 when the town was declared Judenfrei. Hunka remembered that time as “the happiest years of my life..”

“The Beasts With A Red Star On Their Foreheads” (Helmer)

Canada’s parliament, the Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) demonstrate what the other NATO allies keep trying to hide. They aim to reverse the outcome of World War II and resume Adolf Hitler’s operation to destroy Russia. However, the fate of soldier Yaroslav Hunka of the SS Waffen Galician division, whom the MPs, the chief of the Defence Staff, and the RCMP commissioner, saluted a few days ago for his exploits killing Jews and Poles in the Ternopil region of western Ukraine between 1943 and 1945, now rests with two dossiers. One is in the archive of the Polish war crime prosecuting authority, the Institute of National Remembrance, in Warsaw. The second is the Soviet Army intelligence and KGB archives on the operations of Hunka’s unit before it fled a thousand kilometres southwest to Austria in order to surrender to the British Army.

“Beasts in human form with a red star on their foreheads,” Hunka has called the Russians whom he was afraid to fight. His Jewish schoolmates in the Berezhany Gymnasium – 32 of them refugees from Poland – caused him to “wonder why they ran away in front of such a civilized Western people as the Germans.” They were all murdered by June 1943 when the town was declared Judenfrei. Hunka remembered that time as “the happiest years of my life [dreaming] of the company of charming girls.” A year later, the Red Army launched its offensive against Lvov and in four weeks Hunka’s division was destroyed at Brody, 70 kilometres north of Hunka’s home. Of 11,000 of the Galicians with Hunka in the battle of the Brody pocket, less than a third survived. He fled with the retreating Wehrmacht towards Graz, Austria. “It was now every man for himself”, a recent history of the Battle of Brody (lead image, July 14, 1944) has described the outcome for the Galicians.

What Hunka had already done to the “charming” Jewish girls of Berezhany, and what he did when facing the Russians has been described by the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, in a script drafted by the Canadian Foreign Ministry, applauded by General Wayne Eyre, chief of the Defence Staff, as “heroic”. With Hunka as their inspiration, the Canadian military wants to repeat this battle against “the beasts with a red star on their foreheads” — this time with the Canadian Jewish community for allies, one of them the Leader of the House of Commons, Karina Gould. But she and her fellow government ministers must now decide whether to block Polish and Russian requests for assistance in documenting Hunka’s war record from Canadian, British and US military intelligence files. If they refuse, they will be protecting Hunka from prosecution for the war crimes in the Ukraine they declare they know nothing about, in order to improve themselves on Hunka’s performance at Brody seventy-nine years ago.

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“COVID is just the beginning. And what will likely ensue will be subsequent campaigns to get more mRNA injected into every man, woman, and child.”

Murderous Work on mRNA Technology Wins the Nobel Prize (VN)

Katalin Karikó and Dr. Drew Weissman have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on messenger RNA (mRNA). Their collaboration has not only transformed vaccine development but also opened up possibilities for other novel treatments for various diseases. Karikó, a Hungarian-born biochemist, spent a significant portion of her career at BioNTech, the German pharmaceutical company that partnered with Pfizer to create the first COVID-19 vaccine. On the other hand, Weissman, a physician-scientist, holds a prestigious position as a professor of vaccine research at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Soon, mRNA technology will be coming to flu vaccines. Supporters tout that the adaptability of mRNA technology allows for quicker response times in developing vaccines that can more accurately target circulating influenza strains, potentially making yearly flu shots more effective.

Furthermore, work is being done to apply mRNA technology to “treat” various other diseases. It is being explored as a potential treatment for sickle-cell disease and the autoimmune disorder, multiple sclerosis. Additionally, its application in cancer treatment is under investigation, with the aim of harnessing the immune system to combat malignancies. The fight against HIV, a long-standing global health challenge, is also on mRNA’s radar. Currently, three experimental HIV vaccines, built on an mRNA design akin to the COVID-19 vaccines, are in the early stages of human clinical trials. Dr. Robert Malone, a renowned scientist, medical doctor, and pioneer in mRNA vaccine technology, made some fiery comments on “X.”

He stated, “Kariko and Weissman get the Nobel, not for inventing mRNA vaccines (because I did that) but for adding the pseudouridine that allowed unlimited spike toxins to be manufactured in what could have been a safe and effective vaccine platform, if safely developed.” Malone further criticized the integrity of the award process, suggesting undue influence from pharmaceutical giants. “Pfizer has been campaigning for this since 2020 – at first, they even claimed (as did Kariko) that she invented the mRNA vaccine platform technology. Pfizer donates heavily to the Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel. Science has been hijacked again by big pharma.” The decision to honor Karikó and Weissman while omitting key contributors like Dr. Robert Malone raises questions about the narrative that’s being pushed surrounding mRNA technology. One thing is sure: COVID is just the beginning. And what will likely ensue will be subsequent campaigns to get more mRNA injected into every man, woman, and child.

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Kinetic

 

 

 

 

Baseball

 

 

Yamyam?!

 

 

Any regrets?

 

 

 

 

Howlin wolf
https://twitter.com/i/status/1709229230570029235

 

 

Cat Python

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 142023
 
 March 14, 2023  Posted by at 9:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  78 Responses »


Louis Anquetin Girl Reading a Newspaper 1890

 

Kremlin Explains Its ‘Only Option’ In Ukraine (RT)
Doubts In Ukraine About Readiness To Mount Offensive -WaPo (RT)
Xi Jinping Plans To Visit Moscow As Early As Next Week (TASS)
Germany Is Not An Independent Nation – Patrushev (RT)
Russia Insists On Objective Investigation Into Nord Stream Attack (TASS)
Hungarian Defense Minister: Europe Can Send Troops To Ukraine (Az.)
‘Yanukovich Case’ Tantamount To Kiev’s Confession Of Coup – Former PM (TASS)
Jan. 6 Attorney Alleges FBI Criminally Altered Evidence (ET)
US Heading For Another Great Depression – Trump (TASS)
Money Troubles (Kunstler)
Sorry, No Empathy, No Bailouts And YES I MEAN IT (Denninger)
Are The Evil Gods Returning? Or Is Evil Is Inside Us? (Ugo Bardi)
House Dems Use Hearing to Attack Both Free Speech and a Free Press (Turley)
mRNA Vaccine Contamination Much Worse Than Thought (DS)

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1634898813855866881

 

 

 

 

RFK Trump

 

 

TUCKER: Should the United States support regime change in Russia?
TRUMP: No. We should support regime change in the United States, that’s far more important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ischinger wants a “peace process” led by only one side of the conflict: US, UK, Germany and France. WTF?

Kremlin Explains Its ‘Only Option’ In Ukraine (RT)

There are currently no conditions for a peace settlement in Ukraine, meaning Russia has no other option but to keep fighting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has argued. “The absolute priority for us remains and will always remain reaching the goals that we’ve set for ourselves. At this point in time, they can only be achieved through military means,” the official told journalists on Monday. Peskov was reacting to an article penned by veteran German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, who served as chair of the Munich Security Conference for over a decade. In a piece published by the Der Tagesspiegel daily on Sunday, Ischinger urged Western leaders to “start thinking about a peace process now” and create a special political contact group for the Ukraine conflict.

“In addition to arms deliveries and financial support, we have to offer perspectives to the growing chorus of questions by critics,” he argued. According to Ischinger’s proposal, the contact group would be led by the US, UK, Germany and France, with other nations and international organizations, including NATO, forming an “outer circle” of participants to lend legitimacy to any draft documents. The group’s task would be to prepare a ceasefire agreement and other paperwork to form the backbone for a post-conflict period. It would work alongside the so-called Ramstein Group, which funnels Western military aid to Ukraine. Ischinger stressed that the new initiative would not put pressure on Ukraine to negotiate.

The veteran German diplomat suggested a list of questions that the group would ask themselves, including: “Should a ceasefire agreement be endorsed by the UN Security Council?”, “Will there be a demilitarized buffer zone?”, and “Should the people in Crimea hold a referendum to decide who they belong to?”. Kiev has declared the full return of territories it claims as Ukrainian as a precondition for peace talks. Its national security council has also banned talks with Russia for as long as President Vladimir Putin remains in office. Moscow has argued that the Ukrainian government has effectively made peace talks impossible, and that Kiev has adopted its stance based on orders from the US, which is aiming to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.

Macgregor
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635321905426178058

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“Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded..”

Doubts In Ukraine About Readiness To Mount Offensive -WaPo (RT)

Kiev’s forces have been so “degraded” by a year of fighting against Russia that some Ukrainian officials doubt their ability to execute a planned spring offensive, the Washington Post has reported. The conflict has taken many of the most seasoned Ukrainian troops, with the arrival of inexperienced draftees changing the profile of the country’s military, the US paper pointed out on Monday. US and European officials have estimated that up 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the launch of Russia’s military operation last February, it added. Kiev keeps information abouts losses secret, even from its Western backers. “Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded,” a battalion commander in Ukraine’s 46th Air Assault Brigade, identified only by his call sign, Kupol, told the paper about his experienced troops.

And the poorly trained rookies that he’s been getting recently “just drop everything and run” as soon as the battle begins, the commander added. Another problem faced by Ukrainian troops is a shortage of ammunition, including artillery shells and mortar bombs, the Washington Post said, citing those fighting on the ground. “You’re on the front line. They’re coming toward you, and there’s nothing to shoot with,” Kupol said, describing the situation. “We don’t have the people or weapons,” an unnamed senior Ukrainian government official told the paper. He explained that casualties incurred by the side mounting an offensive are usually two or three times higher than on the defending side. “We can’t afford to lose that many people,” the official added.

“If you have more resources, you more actively attack. If you have fewer resources, you defend more. We’re going to defend. That’s why if you ask me personally, I don’t believe in a big counteroffensive for us. I’d like to believe in it, but I’m looking at the resources and asking, ‘With what?’ Maybe we’ll have some localized breakthroughs,” the source said. The official called the number of tanks promised to Kiev by the US and its allies “symbolic,” while some of other officials who talked to the paper didn’t believe that Western weapons would be able to reach the frontline in time. The newspaper also cited a US official, who said that – despite some gains on the battlefield recently – ammunition, manpower and motivation problems were even worse on the Russian side. However, no facts were provided to back this claim. As for Ukraine, the stakes will be “particularly high” in the coming months as Kiev’s Western supporters watch to see if the country can reclaim the initiative, the Washington Post noted.

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Zelensky wants to meet with Xi. He will not like that.

Xi Jinping Plans To Visit Moscow As Early As Next Week (TASS)

Chinese President Xi Jinping intends to visit Moscow as early as next week, Reuters reported on Monday, citing sources. According to its information, the Chinese leader expects to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. No details were given. The Wall Street Journal reported in February that the Chinese president’s trip to Moscow could take place in April or May. Last December, Putin, in talks with Xi Jinping via video conference call, invited him to come to Moscow in the spring of 2023. In February, the Russian president received Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), member of the CCP Politburo Wang Yi in the Kremlin. Putin then expressed the hope that this visit would give an additional impetus to the development of bilateral relations between Moscow and Beijing. The previous face-to-face meeting between the Russian leader and his Chinese counterpart took place in September 2022 in Samarkand during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.

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“..this scenario would seem plausible only to people who “cannot think logically.”

Germany Is Not An Independent Nation – Patrushev (RT)

Germany is facing an inevitable economic decline after losing its access to Russian energy, but cannot do anything about it because it is not a sovereign nation, the secretary of the Russian National Security Council has claimed. “Germany tried for many years to build its economy on a combination of cheap Russian energy and advanced German technologies. Like no one else, it realizes that the terrorist attack against the [Nord Stream pipelines] will definitely cause the German economy to decline further,” Nikolay Patrushev said in an interview published in Argumenti i Fakti newspaper on Monday. The advantages that German businesses enjoyed by getting access to Russian fuel has long irritated the governments of the US and the UK, he continued.

But Berlin is not at liberty to continue cooperating with Moscow, “because the German nation is not independent.” “Washington imposes on Berlin its economic and environmental agenda and keeps a 35,000-strong military force on its soil. For years, the White House controlled [former chancellor] Angela Merkel, and now it forces the German leadership to side with the version of the pipeline sabotage that is advantageous to the US authorities,” Patrushev said, describing America’s treatment of Germany as “humiliating.” The remarks were part of Patrushev’s comments on the sabotage of the undersea pipelines, which were built to supply Germany with Russian natural gas. The Nord Stream links were ruptured by powerful explosions last September in what Russia has called a blatant terrorist attack.

A series of articles published by Western media this month claimed that Western intelligence services believe that a “pro-Ukrainian group” not associated with any government was behind the attack. Patrushev argued that, considering the training and equipment that such a complicated operation required, this scenario would seem plausible only to people who “cannot think logically.”

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“Berlin is well aware that close economic cooperation between Germany and Russia has never satisfied Washington and London..”

Russia Insists On Objective Investigation Into Nord Stream Attack (TASS)

Moscow insists that an objective international investigation with its participation should be carried out on the Nord Streams sabotage. The one-sided versions being heard now do little to explain anything, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said. “I emphasize that any accusations that are not supported by the results of an impartial investigation cannot be trusted. Therefore, Moscow insists on an objective investigation with the participation of Russia and other interested countries. Without this, voicing one-sided subjective versions of the terrorist attack does not explain anything,” he told the Argumenty i Fakty weekly on Monday.

According to Patrushev, Russia still did not know for certain who was behind the terrorist attacks at the Nord Stream gas pipelines, and the country has not been included in the investigation of this “unprecedented terrorist act”. He stressed that the situation was also complicated by the planting of a fake leak published without any reference to the real source. “Resolving to cover up the true patrons of the crime, the pro-government Anglo-Saxon media, following orders from above, laid the blame on a certain group of Ukrainian terrorists. In essence, they once again pointed to the terrorist nature of the current Kiev regime. At the same time, the authors of the information campaign thought that no one would object to this version,” the Russian Security Council Secretary stressed.

In his opinion, the idea that the US and the UK were not involved in the terrorist attack “is obviously driven by the calculation that the audience lacks the ability to think logically, including the method of denial.” “Since newspapers are emotionally claiming that the act of sabotage was carried out by a group of Ukrainian terrorists, the question to ask is whether such a group exists at all and if it’s capable of doing such things. It’s no secret that activities like this require special ops units that are properly trained and equipped,” Patrushev noted. According to the security chief, the US and England certainly have such capabilities. Other NATO countries also use combat swimmers for sabotage tasks but only “with the consent and support of the country that determines the main agenda for NATO,” the official explained.

Patrushev also suggested considering who benefited from the attack. “Were the blasts advantageous for Ukraine or Germany? Kiev neither lost nor gained anything from the gas pipeline destruction. Moreover, such an act is not advantageous for the Zelensky regime, which actually begs Berlin to give more military and other aid, and has no use for such an act,” he said. Germany, who for many years has been trying to build its economy based on a combination of cheap energy resources from Russia and advanced German technology, knows better than anyone else that the attack on the pipeline would definitely lead the economy of Germany to a further decline, added the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. “At the same time, Berlin is well aware that close economic cooperation between Germany and Russia has never satisfied Washington and London,” he recalled.

Along with that, Patrushev pointed out that it has long been clear that today’s German state was not independent: Washington imposed its economic and environmental policy on Berlin and kept a 35,000-strong military contingent on its territory. “It is known that for many years the White House controlled [former German Chancellor] Angela Merkel, and today it is forcing the German leadership to go along with the US authorities’ version of the pipeline sabotage. Perhaps that is why [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz was urgently summoned to Washington for a meeting with [US President Joe] Biden. By doing so, the US continues to humiliate Germany, showing it its place,” he concluded.

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We’re working on it. But other than 30,000 Poles, which other country is ready to send troops?

Hungarian Defense Minister: Europe Can Send Troops To Ukraine (Az.)

Europe’s tendency to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons and armored vehicles could lead to the deployment of troops to the conflict zone, Minister of Defense of Hungary Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky said, Report informs. “Now we are at the point where we need to participate; we need to get involved, first by voting for sanctions, then with money, then only with defense means; now we already see that they are sending tanks, Leopard, fighter jets are also on the way, and if this continues, soldiers will be needed if Ukrainian human resources run out,” he said.

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“.. In October 2016, Ukraine’s new authorities stripped Yanukovich of the title of president..” That’s 2,5 years after the coup.

‘Yanukovich Case’ Tantamount To Kiev’s Confession Of Coup – Former PM (TASS)

The Kiev regime’s charges against the ex-president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, of illegal border crossing and incitement to desertion are tantamount to a confession a coup d’état was staged in Ukraine in 2014, Ukraine’s former prime minister Nikolay Azarov (2010-2014) said on Monday. “In any unclear situation in Ukraine the Kiev regime blames Yanukovich. It is alleged that on February 23, Yanukovich fled Ukraine and encouraged about 20 of his guards, who were members of the state bodyguard service, to emigrate. What idiot has concocted this case?! First, they themselves were yelling at the top of their lungs that Yanukovich had quit on his own and left the territory of Ukraine on February 21. Now they themselves have admitted that Yanukovich was on the territory of Ukraine on February 21, which means that there was no quitting on his part,” Azarov he wrote on his page on a social network.

The former prime minister urged Ukrainians to independently assess the inconsistency of the Kiev regime’s actions. On March 10, the Office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General announced that a district court in Kiev would hold hearings in absentia on the case of illegal border crossing and incitement to desertion against Yanukovich. The other defendant in this case is Konstantin Kobzar, the former chief of the head of state’s bodyguards. According to investigators, on February 23, 2014, Yanukovich and Kobzar illegally crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border twice and smuggled at least 20 people across it. On the same day, if the Prosecutor General’s Office is to be believed, Yanukovich, while staying on the territory of a military unit of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, was “instigating” his bodyguards commit desertion.

Yanukovich served as Ukraine’s president from 2010 to 2014. During the coup d’état in February 2014, he was essentially ousted from office by force and, faced with a threat to his personal safety, had to flee the country. In October 2016, Ukraine’s new authorities stripped Yanukovich of the title of president, and a month later launched criminal proceedings against him in absentia on charges of treason. In 2019, a court in Kiev sentenced Yanukovich in absentia to 13 years in prison.

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“Miller’s hidden messages reveal casual discussions among the FBI regarding the monitoring of codefendant Rehl’s trial strategy, Rehl’s defenses and ‘interesting’ points, and ways the government can get around Rehl’s defenses..”

Jan. 6 Attorney Alleges FBI Criminally Altered Evidence (ET)

Rogers Roots, an attorney representing Dominic Pezzola, a Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach defendant, alleged on Sunday that the FBI had committed crimes by altering evidence and requested that the court appoint a special master to review the evidence. Roots’s move came days after the testimony of FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller, who was involved in the agency’s investigations of the Jan. 6 defendants. When cross-examining Miller, Nick Smith, an attorney representing Proud Boys member Ethan Nordean (listed as co-defendant on Pezzola’s case), revealed classified FBI emails that were hidden in a tab in an Excel spreadsheet, which included a directive to Miller to “destroy” 338 pieces of evidence and “edit out” an FBI agent from an informant report.

“Destroying evidence is a federal crime. It actually falls under a federal crime under more than one statute. The same goes with altering documents, altering records, that is a federal crime,” the John Pierce Law attorney told The Epoch Times in an interview on Sunday. In a filing on Sunday, Roots requested that Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee presiding over the case, either dismiss the case in its entirety or appoint a special master to independently review the FBI messages that were revealed in court. “The unceremonious and uninhibited nature of Miller’s discussion of committing these serious crimes suggests an FBI culture of corruption and lawlessness that must be immediately stopped, and fully investigated,” Roots said in the filing. A key question about these leaked messages is whether they fall under the scope of evidence in the case.

Roots said in the filing that the messages show a violation of due process, reiterating his argument in an earlier filing that the FBI’s monitoring of communications between a co-defendant, Zachary Rehl, and his attorney violated the Sixth Amendment, which prohibits invasion of the right to counsel (Matter of Fusco v. Moses). “Miller’s hidden messages reveal casual discussions among the FBI regarding the monitoring of codefendant Rehl’s trial strategy, Rehl’s defenses and ‘interesting’ points, and ways the government can get around Rehl’s defenses,” Roots said in the Sunday filing. In the filing, Roots requested the court dismiss Pezzola’s case with prejudice, appoint a special counsel, appoint a special master, schedule extensive evidentiary hearings, and release Pezzola from custody.

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“We will have a great depression far bigger and more powerful than that of 1929. As proof, the banks are already starting to collapse!!!”

US Heading For Another Great Depression – Trump (TASS)

Former US President Donald Trump has blamed the incumbent, Joe Biden, for the economic problems of the United States and predicted a new Great Depression. “With what is happening to our economy, and with the proposals being made on the largest and dumbest tax increase in the history of the USA Joe Biden will go down as the Herbert Hoover (US President in 1929-1933) of the modern age. We will have a great depression far bigger and more powerful than that of 1929. As proof, the banks are already starting to collapse!!!” he wrote on his social network Truth Social on Monday.


On Friday, the California Department of Financial Protection announced the bankruptcy of the 16th largest bank in the US, Silicon Valley Bank. It serviced primarily employees of the high-tech sector workers and venture capital-funded companies, including some of the industry’s most well-established brands. According to CNN, this was the largest bank failure in the United States since the 2008 financial crisis. The Great Depression was a global economic crisis that began on October 24, 1929 with the stock market crash in the United States. It lasted until 1939. Industrial cities were the hardest hit, construction almost stopped, farm produce prices plummeted and mass unemployment ravaged the country.

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“..the interest rate hikes that Mr. Powell spoke of so confidently only days ago just got stashed into his folder labeled “Fuggeddabowdit.”

Money Troubles (Kunstler)

Since banks today exist in a vast matrix of interconnected obligations — promises to pay this-and-that — fear grows that the rot from one bank, such as SVB, will infect many other banks that are no longer able to keep their promises about paying this-and-that, leading to a daisy-chain of things not getting paid. For an economy, that’s about the same as the blood ceasing to circulate in a body. The practice in situations such as this (say, as in 2008-09) is for the governing authorities — who supposedly rule over the banking world like gods — to rush to rescue these outfits with “liquidity,” money (or representations of it) as required to re-balance things, or, maybe provide the impression of re-balancing until something else can be figured out. The Jupiter and Minerva of American banking, Jay Powell and Janet Yellen, were faced with just that sort of call for divine intervention over the weekend as fear seeped into every nook and crevice of the money world that wealth was flaring away in the long-feared-of conflagration out of the dumpster banking had become.

Sunday morning, Ms. Yellen told CBS News “bailouts, no way” but by the afternoon Mr. Powell cried “bailouts, way,” and they had to get their story straight. They offered up $25-billion to bail out depositors for a smoldering system that will arguably require a trillion dollars or more of liquidity to quench the spreading fires. One thing looks for sure: the interest rate hikes that Mr. Powell spoke of so confidently only days ago just got stashed into his folder labeled “Fuggeddabowdit.” So, the campaign to control inflation must now yield to the urgent need to create a whole lot of money to spray over those fires.

You may have noticed that the value of your money has been slip-sliding away the past year or so. Peanut butter at five bucks a jar, and all. The situation at hand kind of guarantees that we’ll be seeing a whole lot more of that. And then the gods of money will have lost control of the interest rate console altogether. No more tweaking the broken knobs. More inflation will prompt US treasury paper holders to dump what they can while there’s still some value to retrieve. But the US has to issue more debt for all the bail-outs and theoretical buyers of new debt will perforce bid up the rates to keep up with inflation… and yet the US can’t possibly bear the burden of paying higher interest on its debt. Looks like the business model for running the USA is breaking down before our eyes.

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“What was featured in the stupidity of 2008? Allowing banks to run with no reserves..”

Sorry, No Empathy, No Bailouts And YES I MEAN IT (Denninger)

The so-called “Chief Risk Officer” at SVB had a masters in….. public administration. Anyone care to bet if she passed any form of advanced mathematics — you know, like for example Calculus or Statistics? Do you think she understood exponents and why this graph made clear that concentration of risk and duration was stupid and likely to blow up in everyone’s face — including hers? How about Bill Ackman and the others on the Internet screaming for a bailout? How about the CFOs of public companies like Roku that stuck several hundred million dollars in said bank? Was it not widespread public knowledge (and available to anyone who took 15 minutes to do research, which you’d think someone would do before putting a hundred million bucks somewhere) that this institution was chock-full of VC-funded startup companies which, historically fail 90% of the time and their debt becomes impaired or even worthless?

Where are the indictments for fiduciary malfeasance among these people? It takes a literal five minutes with Excel to prove to yourself that if debt is rising faster than GDP no matter the interest rate eventually the interest payments on that debt will exceed all of the economy. This of course is impossible because you cannot use over 100% of anything as its not there, but long before you reach that point you’re going to have trouble putting food on the table, fuel in the vehicle and paychecks are going to bounce. It was for this reason that one of the first sections in my book Leverage, written after the 2008 blowup which I chronicled and laid bare upon the table featured exactly this chart.

The last bit of insanity was just 15 years ago by my math. Did we fix it? No. What was featured in the stupidity of 2008? Allowing banks to run with no reserves. Who did that? Ben Bernanke, who got it into the TARP bill that eventually passed and which I reported on at the time. It accelerated that which was already going to happen because Congress is full of people who think trees grow to the moon, leverage is never bad and exponents are a suggestion. Oh by the way, your local Realtor thinks so to as does, apparently, the former SVB “risk officer” who, it is clear, didn’t understand exponents — or didn’t care. The simple reality is that it must always cost to borrow money in real terms.

This means the rate of interest must be positive in said real terms, which means across the curve rates must be higher than inflation — again, in real terms, not in “CPI” which has intentional distortions in it such as “Owner’s Equivalent Rent” when you’re not renting a house, you’re buying it. Had said “CPI” actually had home prices in it then it would have shown a doubling in many markets in that section of the economy over the last three years. In other words housing alone would have resulted in a roughly 10% per year inflation rate, plus all the other increases, which means the Fed Funds rate should have been 300bips or so beyond that all the way back to 2020 — which would put Fed Funds at about 13% for the last three years. It isn’t of course but if it had been then all those “housing price increases” would not have happened at all. Incidentally even today the Fed Funds rate is below inflation and thus the crazy is still on.

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“We were mistreated by dumb bureaucrats, not by the minions of evil deities..”

Are The Evil Gods Returning? Or Is Evil Is Inside Us? (Ugo Bardi)

[..] sometimes you have the sensation that something truly evil is moving in the world. Naomi Wolf expressed the idea most clearly in a recent post of hers. I could not explain the way the Western world simply switched from being based at least overtly on values of human rights and decency, to values of death, exclusion and hatred, overnight, en masse — without reference to some metaphysical evil that goes above and beyond fallible, blundering human agency. … “What we have lived through since 2020 is so sophisticated, so massive, so evil, and executed in such inhumane unison, that it cannot be accounted for without venturing into metaphysics. Something else, something metaphysical, must have done that. And I speak as a devoted rationalist.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking along similar lines. I even argued that worshiping the evil deity Baphomet could be a good idea for really nasty people who want to dominate the world. Overall, though, I think it is not the right explanation. No matter how inexplicable the rise of evil can look, it is still something that comes from inside us, not from the outside. Evil is us, eventually. The recent release of the “Lockdown Files” in Britain supports this idea. These files contain the messages sent and received by Matt Hancock, the British Secretary of State for Health and Social Care during the lockdown period in Britain. In these messages, Hancock doesn’t sound evil. He just writes as if he cared only about himself, and his personal prestige. He wanted to “own the exit,” and he didn’t care about the British people, whom he evidently considered a band of morons. We were mistreated by dumb bureaucrats, not by the minions of evil deities.

Now, I have a stated policy that I call the “Grokking Strategy” that consists in listening to everyone and trusting no one. So, I am perfectly willing to consider the hypothesis that the Hancock files are a psyop designed to divert the public’s attention away from the hidden forces that governed the reaction to the pandemic. On the whole, though, I think these files are genuine. They make sense, and they also match other examples of the same kind. For instance, we recently saw similar leaks of messages sent and received by the Italian equivalent of Hancock, Mr. Roberto Speranza, Minister of Health of the Italian government during the lockdown period. We can’t swear on the authenticity of these leaked messages, but they fit with the personality of Mr. Speranza. Like Hancock, he was clearly trying to “own the exit.” In late 2020, he published an autobiographical book designed to show how he had been valiantly fighting the virus and eventually had succeeded in squashing it. The book was quietly removed from the market when it turned out that the pandemic was not over. Now a printed copy is a rare collector’s item.

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The Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger hearing was unreal.

House Dems Use Hearing to Attack Both Free Speech and a Free Press (Turley)

“At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Those words were first asked by lawyer Joseph Welch in his confrontation with Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) during the Senate’s infamous Army-McCarthy hearings. This week, nearly 70 years later, Welch’s words seem more relevant than ever after House Democrats savaged two journalists who attempted to explain a government effort to censor citizens. It was only the latest of a series of hearings in which FBI agents and other whistleblowers, experts and journalists have been personally attacked for raising free-speech concerns. Last week’s hearing showed definitively that we live in a post-decency era.

The latest attacks came as journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified about breaking the “Twitter Files” story, detailing how the FBI and other agencies secretly sought to censor or ban citizens from social media. In her opening statement, Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), the ranking member of the House Judiciary subcommittee, attacked them as “so-called journalists” and said they were “a direct threat” to the safety of others by reporting the censorship story. Taibbi pushed back, saying that “I’m not a ‘so-called’ journalist” and giving a brief description of his award-winning career at Rolling Stone magazine and other publications. Yet other committee members also attacked the honesty of the two journalists. And after failed efforts to claim they were Elon Musk’s corrupt “scribes,” or limited by him in their investigations, the committee members attacked their ethics.

The witnesses were attacked on everything but their choice of socks. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) even claimed that “being a Republican witness today certainly casts a cloud over your objectivity.” When Wasserman Schultz impugned the two journalists’ honesty and ethics, she immediately “reclaimed (her) time” to prevent them from defending themselves. When the subcommittee chair gave them a chance to answer her claims, Wasserman Schultz and her Democratic colleagues objected that a witness was allowed to defend himself after being blocked from doing so. In an earlier attack, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) prevented Taibbi from answering a question and dismissed his effort to defend his position, saying: “This is how it works now. I’ll ask the question and you try to provide an answer if you can.”

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“100 times greater than previously reported..” But Pfizer knew…

mRNA Vaccine Contamination Much Worse Than Thought (DS)

The contamination of mRNA vaccines with DNA is far greater than initially thought at up to 35%, and the DNA’s role in inducing human cells to produce the spike protein long term has been confirmed, according to the latest research. Earlier this month, the Daily Sceptic reported on the work of Dr. Kevin McKernan and his team who had subjected the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to deep sequencing analysis and found alarming levels of DNA contaminants known as plasmids. These are small circular DNA molecules that in principle can self-replicate in bacterial and human cells and induce the cell to produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein long term. Each vaccine dose was found to contain billions of these plasmids.

Japan deaths

The Moderna vaccine appeared to contain DNA contamination at around the ‘safe’ level set by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) at the equivalent of one part per 3,000 mRNA molecules, though it’s not clear how safe this level really is. The Pfizer vaccine, on the other hand, was found to contain DNA contamination at 10 times the ‘safe’ level, at one plasmid per 350 mRNA molecules. The DNA is part of the vaccine manufacturing process, providing the blueprint for the mRNA, but it should have been removed to at least the ‘safe’ level, though was not for reasons that are unclear. Now, Dr. McKernan and his team have undertaken further analysis and found that the level of DNA contamination is much greater than originally reported, with up to 35% of the vaccine product being this DNA contamination. They write:


This equates to 20-35% of the nucleic acid in each vaccine being expression vector. This is several orders of magnitude over the the EMAs limit of 330ng/mg. With these levels of contamination, RT activity from LINE-1 is not a prerequisite for genome integration. Molecular biologist Dr. Jessica Rose explains that this means each dose may contain trillions of DNA molecules, 100 times greater than previously reported: “The left-over expression vectors used to manufacture the mRNAs are at contamination levels 100-fold higher than originally proposed and imply trillions of DNA molecules per dose. This has implications for integration into our genome.”

Dowd
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635330030845980673

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Walking oats

 

 

 

 

Frens
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635226717806813185

 

 

Godfather

 

 

Heron

 

 

Shelter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1635389575119147009

 

 

 

 

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Feb 262023
 
 February 26, 2023  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


W.H. Bartlett and J. Appleton The port of Beirut 1838

 

Western Leaders Privately Say Ukraine Can’t Win the War (Lauria)
Fewer Americans Think That Ukraine Is Winning – Rasmussen (RT)
Ukraine ‘Most Threatened’ By China – Bolton (RT)
Anti-China Rhetoric Is Off the Charts in Western Media (Nair)
Elon Musk Calls 2014 Ukraine Regime Change A ‘Coup’ (RT)
For the First Anniversary: 24 February 2023 (Batiushka)
Russia Confronted With Whole Empire Of Diverse Enemies – Medvedev (TASS)
Biden Team Has ‘Deeply Rooted Hatred For Russia’ – US Congressman (RT)
What the America got Wrong (Observer R)
Putin’s Collaborators (?) and Distant Echoes of WW2 (Moglia)
The World Has Enough Trouble (Kunstler)
From Special Operation To Full-Scale War (Alexander Dugin)
Ukraine Sees Some Value In Chinese Peace Plan (Le Monde)
Russia Comments On China’s Ukraine Roadmap (RT)
UK Sets Up Secret Task Force To Purchase Ammunition For Ukraine (RT)
Hard Evidence in New Study: Brain, Heart Damage Caused by mRNA Vaccine
Yes, Hate Speech Is Constitutionally Protected (Turley)

 

 

 

 

Excellent

 

 

 

 

CNNDonbass

 

 

 

 

Woody

 

 

 

 

“What we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and warmongering. Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken.”

Western Leaders Privately Say Ukraine Can’t Win the War (Lauria)

Western leaders privately told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine can not win the war against Russia and that it should begin peace talks with Moscow this year in exchange for closer ties with NATO. The private communications are at odds with public statements from Western leaders who routinely say they will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes until it achieves victory on the battlefield. The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the private remarks to Zelenksy, said:“The public rhetoric masks deepening private doubts among politicians in the U.K., France and Germany that Ukraine will be able to expel the Russians from eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014, and a belief that the West can only help sustain the war effort for so long, especially if the conflict settles into a stalemate, officials from the three countries say.

‘We keep repeating that Russia mustn’t win, but what does that mean? If the war goes on for long enough with this intensity, Ukraine’s losses will become unbearable,’ a senior French official said. ‘And no one believes they will be able to retrieve Crimea.’ French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Zelensky at an Élysée Palace dinner earlier this month that he must consider peace talks with Moscow, the Journal reported. According to its source, the newspaper quoted Macron as telling Zelensky that “even mortal enemies like France and Germany had to make peace after World War II.” Macron told Zelensky “he had been a great war leader, but that he would eventually have to shift into political statesmanship and make difficult decisions,” the newspaper reported.

At the Munich Security Conference last week, Gen. Petr Pavel, the Czech Republic’s president-elect and a former NATO commander, said: “We may end up in a situation where liberating some parts of Ukrainian territory may deliver more loss of lives than will be bearable by society. … There might be a point when Ukrainians can start thinking about another outcome.” Even when he was a NATO commander Pavel was a realist in regard to Russia. During controversial NATO war games with 31,000 troops on Russia’s borders in 2016 — the first time in 75 years that German troops had retraced the steps of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union — Pavel dismissed hype about a Russian threat to NATO.

Pavel, who was chairman of NATO’s military committee at the time, told a Brussels press conference that, “It is not the aim of NATO to create a military barrier against broad-scale Russian aggression, because such aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessment suggests such a thing.” The German foreign minister at the time, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also embraced realism towards Russia, saying: “What we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and warmongering. Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken.”

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“..an Associated Press-NORC poll conducted in late January showed that less than half of US adults (48%) still agreed with sending weapons to Kiev. Just 26% said Washington should continue to play a “major role” in the conflict.”

Fewer Americans Think That Ukraine Is Winning – Rasmussen (RT)

Americans are losing confidence that Ukraine is winning its conflict with Russia, a new Rasmussen Reports poll has shown. The latest figures indicate that more than one-third of US voters who were confident of a Ukrainian victory in December no longer expect Kiev to prevail. The poll, which was conducted last week and released on Friday, found that 46% of likely US voters believe the Russia-Ukraine conflict has become a stalemate. Those Americans who believe that one side or the other is winning are about evenly divided, with 21% in Ukraine’s camp and 19% saying Russia has the upper hand. Just two months ago, a Rasmussen poll asking the same questions showed that 32% of Americans believed Ukraine was winning the conflict.

And just as around one-third of voters who were confident in December that Ukraine would prevail no longer expect a victory for Kiev, the percentage of respondents who see Russian forces winning has increased by about the same proportion. Rasmussen’s findings dovetail with recent polling showing that public support for US aid to Ukraine has dropped sharply. For example, an Associated Press-NORC poll conducted in late January showed that less than half of US adults (48%) still agreed with sending weapons to Kiev. Just 26% said Washington should continue to play a “major role” in the conflict.

Middle-aged voters are most likely to say that President Joe Biden’s administration is doing “too much” to help Ukraine, Rasmussen said. Washington has already allocated $113 billion of military and economic aid for Ukraine since Russia began its offensive against Kiev a year ago. During his visit to Kiev earlier this week, Biden vowed “unwavering” support for Ukraine’s defense, pledging to continue backing the former Soviet republic “as long as it takes.” The US and its NATO allies also have declared that Ukraine will win, and must win, to preserve the “rules-based international order.” However, critics of US foreign policy have argued that Ukraine’s battlefield successes have been greatly exaggerated, and US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said last week that the conflict will need to end in a negotiated settlement because neither side can likely achieve victory on the battlefield.

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Where would we be without John Bolton?

Ukraine ‘Most Threatened’ By China – Bolton (RT)

Former top US diplomat John Bolton says he doubts that China can legitimately hold a position of neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, even as Beijing called for a ceasefire and the resumption of peace talks one year after the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. Bolton, who has garnered a reputation for hawkish, interventionist foreign policy stances throughout his political career, has been a prominent critic of China’s policies as it relates to an independent Taiwan and the alleged state-sanctioned theft of Western intellectual property. On Friday, he fired another salvo towards Beijing and the nature of its relationship with Russia. “A lot of so-called experts have said that China was dismayed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Bolton told the Washington Post. “I think we’ve seen in recent days proof positive that’s not true.”

Bolton added that China had upped its imports of gas and oil from Russian providers to make up for the impact of Western sanctions, and suggested that China’s roadmap to peace in Ukraine would likely have been, he said, signed-off by Moscow. “So, to be clear, I think China’s in this with both feet on Russia’s side,” he said. “And while I certainly don’t diminish the threat that China poses to Taiwan and countries in East and South Asia, I would say the most threatened country in the world today from China is Ukraine.” Bolton, who was a key adviser in the Donald Trump administration for a 17-month spell between April 2018 and September 2019, added that he believes “the Russians and the Chinese are in this together,” referring to the conflict in Ukraine as a “global war.”

“The Chinese have, from the beginning, politically, and I think militarily, had Russia’s back,” Bolton explained. “And the concomitant other side of that is that if China, for example, were to try to attack Taiwan, or throw a blockade around it, they would expect Russia to have their back.” China’s 12-point peace-brokering document, which it issued on Friday, called for an end to hostilities in Ukraine, as well as the removal of Western sanctions on Russia. However, Beijing’s stance has been criticized in the West as being undermined by the country’s diplomatic and economic support for Russia. Various Western officials have also warned that China may be considering providing arms to Moscow – an assertion which Beijing denies.

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“It has become a feature of Western commentary on China to say that its rise is a concern and a threat.”

Anti-China Rhetoric Is Off the Charts in Western Media (Nair)

Typically, the negative stories adhere to three core ideas, which inform the unspoken guidelines within these press rooms when it comes to reporting on China. First is the belief that China is a threat to the world and that this belief must be relentlessly reinforced at every available opportunity. How and why China is a threat is never explored; such is the deep-rooted and almost religious nature of the belief. Sound arguments do not matter. The basic tenets of good journalism are ignored when it comes to a China story. There is no need to explain or give evidence of why China is a global threat. Left ignored is the plentiful evidence that shows China is not a global threat – even if one can point to mistakes and overreach in certain areas. China has not invaded any country in decades, or imposed sanctions that have devasted the lives of millions in poor countries, unlike the West, led by the United States.

Second is that China must be linked to every possible global event that affects the West. This provides an opportunity for the West to bash China while simultaneously burnishing its own credentials as the supposed arbiters of what is right and wrong in international relations. From the pandemic to the Russia-Ukraine war to carbon emissions; from rising sea levels to the scramble for rare earths; from the building of infrastructure in Africa to the production of vaccines – there must be an angle to demonize the country and instill fear in Western nations (and beyond). Indeed, media outlets are reverting to the “yellow peril” of the late 1800s. There is no subtle and nuanced approach to instilling fear like this. It is full-on and very often blatantly racist – but it is now acceptable for one to be racist about the Chinese in Western media, despite the fact that Black-White relations are very carefully described.

The third part of this phenomenon, which is surprisingly not challenged by liberal readers of mainstream media, is the sentiment that everything must be done – even illegal and unfair methods – to arrest the rise of China. Never mind the rights of hundreds of millions of Chinese to have a better life after a century of poverty and deprivation. Headline after headline that capture this sentiment have normalized the view that there is a need to curb the rise of China, and that this is a legitimate geopolitical objective. There is no explanation about why or if it is even morally acceptable. It has become a feature of Western commentary on China to say that its rise is a concern and a threat. With this assumption unassailably in place, the West has the right to galvanize – and even bully – its allies and ask the absurd question, “what should be done about China’s rise?” – as if China does not have the right to carve its own place in the new world.

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“The same way that Fauci was supposed to be protecting us from viruses and then funded gain of function research, Victoria Nuland was supposed to be our chief diplomat with respect to Russia and Eastern Europe and what did she do instead? She ginned up this conflict.”

Elon Musk Calls 2014 Ukraine Regime Change A ‘Coup’ (RT)

Twitter CEO Elon Musk polarized his followers with a tweet declaring there was “no question” that the 2014 change of government in Ukraine was a “coup.” On Saturday, the billionaire tweeted that while “the election” – presumably referring to the 2010 vote that elected Viktor Yanukovych president – was “arguably dodgy,” what followed “was indeed a coup.” The tweet was a response to a post from user @KanekoaTheGreat that featured the front page of an article by University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer titled “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is The West’s Fault.” Dating from 2014, the piece – subtitled “The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin” – argues that “NATO enlargement” and Western meddling in Ukrainian politics, and not “Russian aggression,” are to blame for Crimea’s accession to Russia.

Mearsheimer states that “for Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically-elected and pro-Russian president – which he rightly labeled a ‘coup’ – was the final straw,” an explanation Musk appeared to agree with, at least in part. While the 2010 election that installed Yanukovych as president was deemed an “impressive display” of democracy by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the West soured on the Party of Regions politician when he abandoned a 2013 economic cooperation agreement with the EU. Massive violent protests followed, forcing Yanukovych to flee. The US’ hand in the unrest was confirmed in a leaked phone call between then-assistant US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt in which they appeared to be plotting to overthrow Yanukovych and install Arseniy Yatsenyuk – who indeed briefly became Prime Minister following Yanukovych’s ouster.

Musk also replied approvingly to a previous post by Kanekoa that featured a video clip of All In podcast host David Sacks claiming that the US “courted” the Ukraine conflict. The video likened Nuland to former Biden administration medical adviser Anthony Fauci, a frequent target of Musk’s ire.“The same way that Fauci was supposed to be protecting us from viruses and then funded gain of function research, Victoria Nuland was supposed to be our chief diplomat with respect to Russia and Eastern Europe and what did she do instead? She ginned up this conflict. How? We backed an insurrection in Ukraine in 2014,” Sacks said in the video, which Musk described as an “accurate assessment.”

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“In 1714 Tsar Peter I opened a window on Europe. Russia never closed it. But in 2014 the West did.”

For the First Anniversary: 24 February 2023 (Batiushka)

Four Christmases ago an ex-British ambassador to a certain European country asked me why the excellent relations between the West and Russia of the 1990s (when he was an ‘attache’ in the British Embassy in Moscow) had so regrettably dissolved. I answered him simply: ‘Because the arrogant West spat in Russia’s face’. He had not been expecting that answer and the only reply of the old spy was astounded silence. I maintain its truth.

In 1714 Tsar Peter I opened a window on Europe. Russia never closed it. But in 2014 the West did. The bad news was that Russia was sick for 300 years with an obsession with the setting sun of the Western world, the Abendland, the Evening land, as the Germans rightly have it. The good news is that Russia is recovering from this obsession, because in 2014 it turned eastwards with its other head, to the rising sun. In 2014 Russia turned eastwards because the arrogant West had spat in its face. And, unsurprisingly, it found daybreak in the east much more pleasant than nightfall. Russia very quickly made friends with China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Iran – to name but a few. In fact, Russia very quickly made friends with seven-eighths of the world, where its real friends had been all along.

As President Putin said in his speech of 21 February, Russia is ‘an ancient, independent and quite distinct Civilisation’. Therefore, just because arrogant Europe spat in its face, Russia does not now have to face an identity crisis. It has refound its identity in being what it is, Northern Eurasia. It no longer has to pretend to be only the Western half of itself, it has reclaimed the double-headed eagle which faces both East and West. But this does mean that the rest of Europe has to face an identity crisis. And this is serious. For it. Because, having renounced its Civilisation, it has lost its identity. And because without Russia, Europe cannot survive. Why else did the US try to destroy and substitute for Ukrainian Civilisation? It was in order to cut little Kiev off from its Russian child, who had become much greater than Kiev, just as it tried to cut off little Europe from Russia, that had become much greater than it. Why else did the US blow up Nordstream? It was to cut off the small north-western peninsula of Eurasia from the other half of Europe and so from all Eurasia, so as to make it a fully dependent invalid of the US.

As we have said a multitude of times, Russia only ever had three aims in this conflict: the Demilitarisation and Denazification of the territory at present known as the Ukraine and the Liberation of the territory at present known as the Donbass. Demilitarisation. Denazification. Liberation. Three words. It is not the tens of thousands of words of the EU directive on the regulatory height of forklift truck seats. (I used to know the author). What has happened after a year is that through Western foolishness the territory to be demilitarised and denazified, the Ukraine, has had to be expanded, and the territory to be liberated, the Donbass, has had to be expanded. As a result of ever-escalating Western aggression and its supply of ‘long-range weapons’, Russia has now had to go further ‘to repel the menace from our borders’. (I quote from President Putin’s same speech). In other words, the Demilitarisation and Denazification of the Ukraine has become the Demilitarisation and Denazification of all Europe, for Europe has been Ukrainianised. It was its own choice. And the Liberation of the Donbass has become the Liberation of all the Ukraine, for the Ukraine has been Donbassised. It was its own choice.

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“..the so-called ‘Western world’ is just a small part of the international community, about 15% of the planet’s population. A rich, over-satiated but still a minority..”

Russia Confronted With Whole Empire Of Diverse Enemies – Medvedev (TASS)

History repeats itself and Russia is again confronted with an empire of diverse enemies 80 years after the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, Russia’s Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said in an article, Year of Defending Fatherland, published in the National Defense magazine on Saturday.”A year after the start of the special military operation, we celebrated yet another very important date in our history in February 2023: the 80th anniversary of the Soviet people’s victory in the Battle of Stalingrad – the chief battle of the 20th century, after which the final rout of the Hitlerite armies became inevitable,” Medvedev said.

“History repeats itself. We are again confronted actually with a whole empire of diverse enemies: Ukrainian and European Neo-Nazis, the United States, other Anglo-Saxons and their minions (about half a hundred of countries),” he said. The enemies have set the task of wiping Russia off from the face of the earth but their attempts will fail, the security official stressed.”We are stronger and this is also obvious now. And the so-called ‘Western world’ is just a small part of the international community, about 15% of the planet’s population. A rich, over-satiated but still a minority,” he added.

The past year of the special military operation in Ukraine has taught the Russians many things and consolidated the country’s citizens in the fight against the common enemy and “has finally helped get rid of the illusions about the ‘democratic’ West whose hypocrisy and frenzied Russophobia have gone beyond all thinkable limits,” Medvedev pointed out. What Russia has gained over that year is its firm confidence in its own strength and in its victory, he said.

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100+ years.

Biden Team Has ‘Deeply Rooted Hatred For Russia’ – US Congressman (RT)

Senior officials at the US State Department are attempting to get the country “involved in another world war” with Russia, Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar tweeted on Friday. Gosar, Twitter CEO Elon Musk, and former president Donald Trump, have all named Victoria Nuland as the most dangerous among this group in recent days. Responding to an RT article on Musk accusing Nuland of “pushing this war” in Ukraine, Gosar declared that the billionaire “is correct.” “Both Nuland and Blinken have a deeply rooted irrational hatred of Russia, and they seek to get the US involved in another world war,” he continued. “These are dangerous fools who can get us all killed.”

In a follow-up tweet, Gosar wrote that “as a non-soldier, Nuland is quite willing to endorse violence and war.” The Republican lawmaker then quoted the article, which stated that Nuland had “endorsed regime change in Russia, celebrated the US’ destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, and called for the indefinite flow of arms into Ukraine.” As assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2014, Nuland was largely responsible for orchestrating the pro-Western coup that unseated democratically-elected president Viktor Yanukovich. Nuland traveled to Kiev and promised military aid to the rioters, and was recorded plotting to install a successor to Yanukovich. As Biden’s secretary of state, Blinken has promised to keep weapons flowing into Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” and advised Kiev in December not to seek the kind of negotiated settlement that would liken to a “phony peace.”

Gosar has been a persistent critic of the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy since Russia’s military operation began a year ago on Friday. However, although the Republican Party now controls the House of Representatives, there is little the Arizona congressman can do to change the administration’s course. A significant bipartisan majority supports continued military aid to Ukraine, with only 11 Republicans, Gosar included, sponsoring legislation that would cut funding for Kiev. These Republicans are all allies of former president Donald Trump. In a campaign video released on Tuesday, Trump blamed the situation in Ukraine on Nuland and “others like her” in the Biden administration. Nuland, he said, was “obsessed with pushing Ukraine towards NATO,” adding that the conflict would have “never happened if I was your president.”

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“..giving rise to the theory that the purpose of the Defense Department is to spend a lot of money, and not necessarily to win wars.”

What the America got Wrong (Observer R)

Going forward it seems past time to consider some significant deficiencies that have become evident in the American quest to remain a great or the greatest military power. Many of these elements have been brought forward recently in pubic discussions and are important considerations in terms of weapons and military force.

The US has continued to procure weapons that many critics perceive as not suited for the modern age, or that are simply obsolete. These weapons are generally very expensive and prevent funds from being shifted to better uses. The usual examples are aircraft carriers, stealth fighter planes, littoral combat ships, and so forth. Instead, the US should have switched funding and effort into hypersonic missiles, electronic warfare, air defense systems, and perhaps more advanced submarines. Thus, the US really does have a “missile gap” to contend with. The bad name that air defense got with the “Star Wars” episode under President Reagan delayed work in that area for many years. Now it appears that at least one foreign country, Russia, is considerably ahead of the US in air defense equipment.

In addition, long ago the US set up approximately 800 military bases around the world. These bases were useful in the days of gunboat diplomacy and when US hegemony required extensive preparation for military action anywhere around the globe. Then and now these bases require a lot of manpower and funding to operate, but it is not clear that they serve an essential purpose in this age. Other countries have taken up the chore of fighting pirates and bombing terrorist dens. The US effort could be greatly scaled back.

The US system for developing new weapons and producing weapons has suffered from not “getting the biggest bang for the buck.” It is often pointed out that the US spends on weapons many times what other countries do, but does not seem to get any more or better weapons as a result. Probably the entire system needs to be rethought. One option would be to go back to having the military run some of its own factories, as in the days of armories. Perhaps a bit of government ownership would provide some competition which is sorely lacking now. The politicians even require the military buy weapons it does not want—essentially giving rise to the theory that the purpose of the Defense Department is to spend a lot of money, and not necessarily to win wars.

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“Hallstein had accompanied Hitler in his state visit to Mussolini in Italy and had established the framework of the notorious ‘axe’ Hitler-Mussolini. Later he set up the legal framework for the ‘new European order’, now renamed ‘European Union’..”

Putin’s Collaborators (?) and Distant Echoes of WW2 (Moglia)

‘Collaboration’ is a word of easy etymological determination. It derives from Latin, meaning ‘to work together’. Historically, ‘collaboration’ referred to the medieval meaning of “shared possessions acquired through work by a married couple.” However, in France, during the German occupation in WW2, it assumed the significance of ‘cooperating with the enemy’. And as if to ensure that the new WW2 meaning could not be confused with the original, the term ‘collaborator’ was shrunk into the shorter and disparaging-sounding word ‘collabo’. The lexical metamorphosis began on October 24, 1940 when, in the little town of Montoire-sur-le-Loire, a meeting was held at the railway station between Adolf Hitler and Marshall Petain, president of France. A historical photo shows Petain shaking Hitler’s hand.

A transcription of the actual conversation is not available, but six days later, Petain, in a radio speech delivered while sitting by his fireplace, gave the French a status report on the situation. It is during this broadcast that he used the term ‘collaboration,’ in a significantly historical paragraph: “It is a matter of honor, in order to maintain French unity, a unity spanning ten centuries – and in the context of a constructive new European Order – that today I have begun on a path of collaboration” (with Germany). One important consideration. As a matter of principle and action, ‘collaboration’ was an integral foundation of Petain’s philosophy, in relation to the ‘new European order’ spoken-of in his radio address.

Meaningfully, Petain’s words ‘new European order’ are omitted from French history texts in schools, referring to that period and event. Why? Because, in the sanctioned interpretation of history, it was/is important to emphasize Petain’s submission (to Germany) rather than collaboration. Which, more objectively, at least in my view, should have been called ‘modus vivendi’ – a sentence whose flavor of neutrality and antiquity, would better represent the condition when people who declared a war on an enemy and lost it, attempt to survive in objectively critical circumstances. Still, given the aftermath of WW2 and the strongly promoted implementation of the European Union, Petain’s ‘new European order’ returned a few years later under a new flag and – we may add – with a vengeance. Ever since, implicitly, explicitly, officially and unofficially the ‘new European order’ has been imposed, not to say forced-upon the seemingly complacent, compliant, beguiled, gullible, undisturbed and unruffled Europeans.

Furthermore, given that the tale of history cannot be told without (often) strategic and convenient omissions, a curious reader may be interested in another remarkably curious piece of news, usually (or strategically) omitted. One important protagonist in the establishment of the current European Union was Walter Hallstein, a jurist most close to Hitler during the regime. Hallstein had accompanied Hitler in his state visit to Mussolini in Italy and had established the framework of the notorious ‘axe’ Hitler-Mussolini. Later he set up the legal framework for the ‘new European order’, now renamed ‘European Union’, including the structure of what would become the ‘Treaty of Rome’ of 1957. Equally, Walter Hallstein became the first president of the CEE Commission (Commission Economique pour l’Europe). In other words he was a pedigreed Nazi, though he successfully managed to hide it.

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“Do you suppose Mr. Zelensky still has the prosecutor’s files in his possession?”

The World Has Enough Trouble (Kunstler)

The USA is falling apart from a combination of mismanagement, malice, and negligence. Our economy is a tottering scaffold of Ponzi schemes. Our institutions are wrecked. The government lies about everything it does. The news industry ratifies all the lying. Our schoolchildren can’t read or add up a column of numbers. Our food is slow-acting poison. Our medical-pharma matrix has just completed the systematic murder and maiming of millions. Our culture has been reduced to a drag queen twerk-fest. Our once-beautiful New World landscape is a demolition derby. Name something that hasn’t been debauched, perverted, degenerated, or flat-out destroyed.

And so, the “Joe Biden” show is busy ginning up nuclear war hysteria because that’s all it has left for manipulating public emotion. The Covid-19 derangement lost its mojo in 2022 and the population has only just begun to grok the all-causes death disaster underway courtesy of Pfizer and Moderna (and the CDC with the FDA). Did you notice, by the way, that the CDC just added those unapproved, still-experimental shots to the childhood vaccine schedule, considered official “guidance” that is followed by virtually every school system in America. Rochelle Walensky did that despite massive evidence that the “vaccines” damage children’s hearts, nervous systems, reproductive systems, and immune systems?

Do you know why Ms. Walensky did that? Because adding the mRNA shots to the childhood schedule supposedly confers permanent immunity from legal liability for the drug companies, even after the current emergency use authorization (EUA) runs out. The catch to that cozy arrangement is if there was any fraud committed on the public in the release and administration of those products, the companies lose their immunity and can be sued until there is nothing left of them but the paperclips. Plus, the executives may be liable for criminal prosecution. Hard time.

One Brook Jackson, a technician involved in the sketchy Pfizer drug trials, and who directly witnessed the procedural violations as they occurred, is currently suing Pfizer under the False Claims Act (31 U.S. Code § 3729) saying that the company defrauded the government. Pfizer’s lawyers have asked the judge to dismiss the case on the grounds, they said in court, that, “We did not defraud the government. We delivered the fraud that the government ordered.” So now, millions of schoolchildren in this land will be subject to compulsory harmful mRNA shots in order to cover the Pharma companies’ multi-billion-dollar asses. Doesn’t that sum up our national predicament nicely? Way to go, Rochelle. Don’t think nobody noticed.

It’s also worth pondering whether we are neck-deep in the Ukraine morass because Volodymyr Zelensky is blackmailing “Joe Biden” over the mysterious Biden Family business operations that took place there directly following the US-orchestrated Maidan revolution that overthrew Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovich in 2014. Remember “The Big Guy’s” earnest efforts to get rid of the Ukrainian state prosecutor who was looking into the affairs of the Burisma gas company that invited Hunter Biden and his associate Devon Archer onto the board of directors. Of all people in Western Civ… these two Americans… with no knowledge of or experience in the natgas industry. Weird, a little bit. Do you suppose Mr. Zelensky still has the prosecutor’s files in his possession?

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“Only a year later, Moscow finally realized that this was not a Special Military Operation, but a full-fledged war.”

From Special Operation To Full-Scale War (Alexander Dugin)

A year has passed since the start of Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine. It began precisely as a Special Military Operation, it is clear today that Russia has found itself in a full-fledged and difficult war. The war not so much with Ukraine – as a regime, not with a people (hence the demand for political denazification was put forward initially), but first of all with the “collective West”, that is, in fact, with the NATO bloc (except for the special position of Turkey and Hungary, seeking to remain neutral in the conflict – the remaining NATO countries take part in the war on the side of Ukraine one way or another).

This year of war shattered many illusions that all sides of the conflict had. The West, hoping for the effectiveness of an avalanche of sanctions against Russia and its almost complete cut-off from the part of the world economy, politics, and diplomacy controlled by the United States and its allies, did not succeed. The Russian economy has held its own, there have been no internal protests, and Putin’s position has not only not wavered, but has only grown stronger. Russia could not be coerced into stopping military operations, attacking Ukraine’s military-technical infrastructure, or withdrawing decisions to annex new entities. There was no uprising of the oligarchs, whose assets were seized in the West, either. Russia survived, even though the West seriously believed that it would fall.

From the very beginning of the conflict, Russia, realizing that relations with the West were crumbling, made a sharp turn toward non-Western countries – especially China, Iran, Islamic countries, but also India, Latin America and Africa – clearly and contrastingly declaring its determination to build a multipolar world. In part, Russia before tried already to strengthen its sovereignty, but with hesitation, not consistently, constantly returning to attempts to integrate itself into the global West. Now this illusion has finally dissipated, and Moscow simply has no way out but to plunge headlong into building a multipolar world order. It has already achieved certain results, but here we are at the very beginning of the way.

However, in Russia itself, everything did not go the way it was supposed to. Apparently, the plan was not to wait for Ukraine to attack Donbass and then Crimea, which was being prepared during the Minsk agreements with the active support of the globalist elites of the West – Soros, Nuland, Biden himself and his cabinet – but to strike a swift and deadly preemptive blow against Ukraine, rush to besiege Kiev and force Zelensky’s regime to capitulate. After that, Moscow planned to bring a moderate politician (someone like Medvedchuk) to power, and begin to restore relations with the West (as it happened after the reunification with Crimea). No significant economic, political, or social reforms were planned. Everything was supposed to remain exactly as before.

However, it all went very wrong. After the first real successes, huge miscalculations in the strategic planning of the entire operation became apparent. The peaceful mood of the army, the elite, and society, unprepared for a serious confrontation – neither with the Ukrainian regime, nor with the collective West – had its impact on the development of the situation. The offensive stalled, encountering desperate and fierce resistance from an adversary with unprecedented support from the NATO military machine. The Kremlin probably did not take into account either the psychological readiness of the Ukrainian Nazis to fight to the last Ukrainian, or the scale of Western military aid.

In addition, we did not take into account the effects of eight years of intensive propaganda, which forcibly inculcated Russophobia and extreme hysterical nationalism in Ukrainian society day in and day out. While in 2014, the overwhelming majority of eastern Ukraine (Novorossiya) and half of Central Ukraine were positively disposed toward Russia, although not as radically as residents of Crimea and Donbass, in 2022 this balance has changed. The level of hatred toward Russians has significantly increased, and pro-Russian sympathies have been violently suppressed, often through direct repression, violence, torture and beatings. In any case, Moscow’s active supporters in Ukraine became passive and intimidated, while those who hesitated before sided finally with Ukrainian neo-Nazism, encouraged in every possible way by the West (I think for purely pragmatic and geopolitical purposes). Only a year later, Moscow finally realized that this was not a Special Military Operation, but a full-fledged war.

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“I am planning to meet with Xi Jinping,” Zelensky said without saying when or where. “This will be important for world security.”

Ukraine Sees Some Value In Chinese Peace Plan (Le Monde)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, February 24, gave credit to a 12-point peace plan put forward by China as the war between Russia and his country entered a second year, adding Beijing’s interest was “not bad” and might be useful in isolating Moscow. “Our task is to gather everyone to isolate the one,” Zelensky told reporters during a news conference marking the first anniversary of the Russian invasion. “China has shown its thoughts. I believe that the fact that China started talking about Ukraine is not bad. But the question is what follows the words. The question is in the steps and where they will lead to,” Zelensky said, adding he was planning to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “I am planning to meet with Xi Jinping,” Zelensky said without saying when or where. “This will be important for world security.”

China called for a cease-fire and peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in a vaguely worded proposal released on Friday that analysts said was unlikely to deliver results. Beijing claims to have a neutral stance in the war that began a year ago but has also said it has a “no limits friendship” with Russia and has refused to criticize Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine or even refer to it as an invasion. It has accused the West of provoking the conflict and “fanning the flames” by providing Ukraine with defensive arms. Zelensky said there were points in the Chinese proposals that he agreed with and “those that we don’t.” He also said he was doing “everything possible” to prevent China from arming Russia. “I really want to believe that China will not supply weapons to the Russian Federation… It is point number one,” Zelensky said. He also said that he wanted to “believe that China will be on the side of the just world, which means, on our side.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry also welcomed China’s peace plan and said it remains open to political and diplomatic efforts. The plan released by China’s Foreign Ministry mainly reiterated long-held positions. It calls for the “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries” to be respected but does not say what will happen to the territory Russia has occupied since the invasion. It also calls for an end to “unilateral” sanctions on Russia, indirectly criticizes the expansion of the NATO alliance and condemns threats of nuclear force. Speaking after China issued the paper, but without referring to it, Zhanna Leshchynska with the Ukrainian embassy in Beijing said her country does not want peace at any price. We will not agree to anything that keeps Ukrainian territories occupied and puts our people at the aggressor’s mercy,” Leshchynska told a gathering at the European Union mission to China.

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“..recognition of the new territorial realities that have developed as a result of the people’s right to self-determination, the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as the elimination of all threats emanating from its territory.”

Russia Comments On China’s Ukraine Roadmap (RT)

China sincerely wants a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but the main obstacles to peace are the Ukrainian leadership and its backers in the West, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday. “We highly appreciate the sincere desire of our Chinese friends to contribute to the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine by peaceful means,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement, commenting on China’s 12-point “roadmap” for peacefully ending the hostilities. Moscow shares Beijing’s position that any sanctions not authorized by the UN Security Council are “illegitimate” and “a crude instrument of unfair competition and economic warfare.”

The two countries also agree on the UN Charter, the norms of international law, and the principle of the indivisibility of security. Those considerations informed Russia’s proposals for security guarantees, made to the US and NATO in December 2021 – proposals which the West rejected, Zakharova noted. When it comes to Ukraine, “Russia is open to achieving its goals through political and diplomatic means,” Zakharova said, laying out the criteria for a “comprehensive, just and sustainable peace.” “This involves the West ending the supply of weapons and mercenaries to Ukraine, the end of hostilities, the return of Ukraine to a neutral non-aligned status, recognition of the new territorial realities that have developed as a result of the people’s right to self-determination, the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as the elimination of all threats emanating from its territory.”

All citizens of Ukraine, including Russian-speakers and ethnic minorities, should be guaranteed their inalienable rights, and Kiev must end “all illegal restrictive measures and politicized lawsuits,” Zakharova added. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the main obstacle to peace is currently the Ukrainian ban on negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin, enacted by the government in Kiev at the end of September 2022. The insistence of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on withdrawing Russian armed forces “from our new territories – Donbass, Crimea, Zaporozhye and Kherson,” testifies “to what extent official Kiev is detached from reality,” Zakharova said.

She also noted that the Ukrainian government stopped the peace negotiations with Russia, which Kiev had initiated, in April 2022. According to pro-government media in Ukraine, that decision was made after Boris Johnson – who was the British prime minister at the time – visited Kiev and said the West was unwilling to make peace with Russia. NATO and the EU have rejected the Chinese proposal out of hand, saying Beijing had “no credibility” when it came to Ukraine, because it did not join them in denouncing Moscow.

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No, we are not involved..

UK Sets Up Secret Task Force To Purchase Ammunition For Ukraine (RT)

The UK Ministry of Defense has established a secret task force to purchase ammunition for Ukraine, especially Soviet-made weapons, American media reported, citing documents it obtained and people familiar with the matter, Report informs referring to Sputnik International. The task force is mainly focused on obtaining Soviet-style ammunition through third countries and brokers, according to the report. The US has also financed such deals, the report said. Such deals, however, became harder in recent months as suppliers began running out of stock, the newspaper said. Last June, London reportedly struck a deal to buy 40,000 Pakistani-origin artillery shells and rockets made by the government-owned Pakistan Ordnance Factories.


Under the agreement, the UK would pay a Romanian broker to buy the weapons, which would be transferred from Pakistan to the UK, with no mention of Ukraine, according to the newspaper. The deal was not realized because the Pakistani supplier was unable to deliver the ammunition, the report cited Marius Rosu, the head of exports at Romanian broker Romtehnica, as saying. Rosu noted that his company does not provide weapons directly to Ukraine. However, purchasers may obtain them from Romtehnica and later send them to Ukraine.

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“So if you see spike protein on its own, that means it’s vaccine; if you see spike protein and nucleocapsid protein, that means it’s natural viral infection..”

Hard Evidence in New Study: Brain, Heart Damage Caused by mRNA Vaccine

Scientists in Germany have found that mRNA vaccination, not COVID-19 infection itself, caused brain and heart damage in an older adult with underlying conditions. This study was published in October 2022 in the journal Vaccines: “A Case Report: Multifocal Necrotizing Encephalitis and Myocarditis after BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccination against COVID-19.” It examined the situation of a 76-year-old German man with Parkinson’s disease. The patient died three weeks after receiving his third COVID-19 injection. The first vaccine he received in May of 2021 was the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. That was followed by two more injections in July and then December of the same year. His two subsequent vaccines were both made by Pfizer. After the second vaccine, the patient’s family noticed marked changes in his behavior. He started experiencing more anxiety, became more lethargic, and did not want to be touched. He became withdrawn, even from close family members, and the symptoms of his pre-existing Parkinson’s disease worsened considerably.

Given the ambiguous clinical symptoms prior to his death, his family requested an autopsy. [..] As a former vaccine developer with a Ph.D. in molecular genetics, Joe Wang has questioned the design of these vaccines. At the same time, however, this vaccine design makes it easy to distinguish pathology caused by infection by the virus versus pathology caused by the vaccine. “So if you see spike protein on its own, that means it’s vaccine; if you see spike protein and nucleocapsid protein, that means it’s natural viral infection. That’s the difference between the two,” Campbell explained. In order to conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death in the 76-year-old Parkinson’s disease patient, researchers processed tissues in his body with formalin, cut them into sections, and stained them with hematoxylin and eosin in order to examine them.

Cancer cells

They compared their samples with controls, both of the cultured cells from SARS-CoV-2 positive COVID-19 patients (that contained both the spike protein and the nucleocapsid), and cultured cells that contained vaccine-induced spike protein expression but no nucleocapsid protein. The autopsy uncovered inflammation in both the brain and the heart. The patient experienced acute brain damage that was unrelated to his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. There were patches of degeneration and inflammation in the front of his brain and his brain further contained three kinds of pathological findings: neuronal death (dead nerve cells), microglial infiltration (defense cells in the brain), and lymphocytes, which are associated with viral infection.


They found spike protein in the frontal lobe of the brain, as well as in other sections of the brain. But there was no nucleocapsid protein present. They found myocarditis–that is, swelling—in the heart. It was clear from the autopsy that the myocarditis was not caused by natural infection but, instead, by vaccine-induced spike proteins.

Thorp

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“..many politicians and pundits are using this false constitutional claim to defend potentially unconstitutional actions by the government..”

Yes, Hate Speech Is Constitutionally Protected (Turley)

Author Salman Rushdie, still recovering from the latest assassination attempt, once said freedom of speech must include “the freedom to offend” or “it ceases to exist.” Rushdie has risked his very life to support that principle after being put under a death threat by Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 for allegedly insulting Islam. Recently, when Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded to the attack on Rushdie, he notably attacked the role of hate speech as one of “the pernicious forces that seek to undermine these rights.” It was a curious spin. Rushdie has fought limitations on speech and was himself accused of a type of hate speech toward Islam. Due to his alleged blasphemy, his accusers declared not just his right to speech but his right to life as forfeit.

The use of Rushdie to further calls to curtail hate speech may be bizarre but it is not surprising. There is a concerted effort by the Biden administration and many Democrats to censor anything deemed hateful on the internet and social media. That was evident at the start of a recent House hearing on the government’s role in censoring citizens on social media. As one of the witnesses, I was taken aback by the opening statement of the committee’s ranking Democrat, Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.). Besides opposing an investigation into the role of the FBI and other agencies in such censorship, Plaskett declared that “I hope that [all members] recognize that there is speech that is not constitutionally protected,” and then referenced hate speech as an example.

Hate speech is indeed a scourge in our nation, but it is also protected under our Constitution. Yet many politicians and pundits are using this false constitutional claim to defend potentially unconstitutional actions by the government. Recently, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who is a lawyer, said that “if you espouse hate … you’re not protected under the First Amendment.” Former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean declared the identical position: “Hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.” Even some dictionaries now espouse this false premise, defining “hate speech” as “Speech not protected by the First Amendment, because it is intended to foster hatred against individuals or groups based on race, religion, gender, sexual preference, place of national origin, or other improper classification.”

It is not an argument that improves with repetition. Yet, there have been calls to ban hate speech for years. Even former journalist and Obama State Department official Richard Stengel has insisted that while “the First Amendment protects the ‘thought that we hate’ … it should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another. In an age when everyone has a megaphone, that seems like a design flaw.” Actually, It is not a design flaw but the very essence of the Framers’ design. The First Amendment does not distinguish between types of speech, clearly stating: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

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Street cat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1629486875109883906

 

 

 

 

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Feb 242023
 
 February 24, 2023  Posted by at 10:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  73 Responses »


Constantin Brancusi Portrait of George 1911

 

China Unveils Roadmap To End Ukraine Conflict (RT)
China Publishes Its Proposals On Ukrainian Crisis Settlement (Az.)
Elon Musk Accuses Victoria Nuland Of ‘Pushing War’ In Ukraine (RT)
US Seeks To Discuss New START Implementation With Russia – Nuland (TASS)
19% Of Americans Have Confidence In Biden’s Handling Of Ukraine Conflict (SN)
Russia-EU Relations ‘No Longer Exist’ – Moscow (RT)
Moscow Analyzes Brazil’s Peace Initiatives On Ukraine (TASS)
Seymour Hersh Explains Why US Blew Up Nord Stream (RT)
Why Putin Went to War — One Year Later (Lauria)
Google Accused Of Destroying Evidence In Antitrust Suit (RT)
Hunter Biden’s Latest Rebrand Is Just Smoke And Errors (Turley)
The Immediate Need To Screen Blood For mRNA And Spike Protein (Horowitz)

 

 

 

 

Tedros

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short version…

China Unveils Roadmap To End Ukraine Conflict (RT)

The international community should encourage all efforts to end the Ukraine conflict peacefully, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a 12-point political roadmap published on Friday. In a statement on its website, the ministry urged each side to “stay rational and exercise restraint.” “All parties should support Russia and Ukraine in working in the same direction and resuming direct dialogue as quickly as possible, so as to gradually deescalate the situation and ultimately reach a comprehensive ceasefire,” the document said. “All efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis must be encouraged and supported,” the plan stressed, adding that Beijing would “continue to play a constructive role” in the matter.

China called for abandoning “the Cold War mentality,” arguing that “the security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs.” There is “no simple solution to a complex issue,” the proposal said, and countries should “prevent bloc confrontation” and work towards building “a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture.” Beijing warned against “armed attacks” on nuclear power plants and called on the parties to “resolutely avoid man-made nuclear accidents.” China also said it opposes sanctions that are not approved by the UN Security Council. “Unilateral sanctions and maximum pressure cannot solve the issue; they only create new problems.”

Unlike many Western countries, ChinaA has refused to condemn Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and has not imposed economic restrictions on Moscow. Chinese officials have stressed that Beijing wants to find a peaceful solution rather than fuel the conflict by sending weapons to Kiev. Russia sent troops to Ukraine exactly a year ago, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass and Kiev’s failure to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk peace accords. Ukraine, meanwhile, accused Moscow of unprovoked aggression. Ceasefire negotiations effectively broke down by April 2022. Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi traveled to Moscow this week, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin later said that he was expecting Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Russia sometime in the future.

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… and long version…

Pepe Escobar: “On the Chinese peace proposal. A post-mod epigone of Diogenes, the Cynic would say, with a nod and a wink: The ONLY thing that really matters for Beijing are the New Silk Road corridors across Eurasia. This war is bad for business. Over and out.”

China Publishes Its Proposals On Ukrainian Crisis Settlement (Az.)

The foreign ministry of China published its proposals for a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine on its website on February 24, Report informs referring to TASS. The 12-point settlement plan, put forward by the Chinese side, includes a call for de-escalation and ceasefire. “All sides should show rationality and restraint, avoid fueling tensions or taking steps to aggravate the conflict, avert further escalation and prevent the situation from spinning out of control, assist contacts between Russia and Ukraine and resumption of direct dialogue, promote gradual de-escalation and detente until the fire and hostilities cease completely,” the document says. “Peace negotiations should begin. Dialogue and negotiations are the only way to settle the crisis in Ukraine. All efforts aimed at resolving the crisis peacefully need to be encouraged and supported.”

Besides, China urges to pay attention to, and ease in a proper way legitimate security interests and concerns of all countries. “Cold War mentality should be abandoned. Security of one country should not be ensured through harming the security of other states, and regional security cannot be maintained through strengthening and expansion of military blocs,” the Chinese foreign ministry said. “Legitimate security interests and concerns of all countries should be taken into account, and properly eased.” Also, Beijing urges to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and prevent it from spreading. “The humanitarian crisis needs to be resolved. All measures that help to mitigate the humanitarian crisis need to be encouraged and supported. Humanitarian missions should be conducted in accordance with the principle of neutrality and impartiality, in order not to politicize humanitarian issues,” the document says, adding that safety of civilians needs to be properly ensured.

“It is necessary to increase humanitarian aid to relevant areas, improve the humanitarian situation, ensure prompt, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and prevent the crisis from spreading,” the Chinese foreign ministry said. Besides, China supports the prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine and calls for creating favorable conditions for that. “The protection of civilians and prisoners of war needs to be ensured,” the ministry said. “China supports a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine, all sides should create more favorable conditions for that.” The document emphasized that all parties to the conflict should adhere to the international humanitarian law, avoid attacks on civilians and civilian facilities, protect women and children and defend the basic rights of prisoners of war.

It also calls for ensuring that grain exports to the global market continue: “All sides must honor the agreement on grain transportation via the Black Sea – signed by Russia, Türkiye, Ukraine and the United Nations – in a balanced, all-encompassing and effective form.” The document also urges to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and avoid a nuclear crisis, and calls to maintain security of nuclear power plants. “Strategic risks need to be reduced. Nuclear weapons must never be used, a nuclear war must never be unleashed. It is necessary to resist the use of nuclear weapons and threats to use it, to prevent nuclear proliferation and to avert a nuclear crisis,” the document says. “China strongly opposes attacks on nuclear power plants and other civilian nuclear facilities. We call upon all sides to respect the international law, including the Convention on nuclear safety.”

On top of that, “China opposes development and use of biological and chemical weapons by any country, under any circumstances.” Also, the foreign ministry of China opposes any unilateral sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine, imposed without a relevant decision of the UN Security Council. “Unilateral sanctions [should be] stopped,” the document says. “We oppose introducing any unilateral sanctions without the UN Security Council’s decision. “Stability of supply and delivery chains needs to be ensured. All sides should duly protect the existing system of the global economy, oppose attempts to politicize, instrumentalize and weaponize it,” the statement continues. It also calls for a joint effort to mitigate the crisis and its effects on global cooperation in the sectors of energy, finance, food trade and transport.

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“.. Trump called Nuland and “others like her” in the Biden administration “warmongers and ‘America Last’ globalists.”

Elon Musk Accuses Victoria Nuland Of ‘Pushing War’ In Ukraine (RT)

“Nobody is pushing” the conflict in Ukraine more than US State Department official Victoria Nuland, Twitter CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday. Nuland, who largely orchestrated the pro-Western coup in Kiev in 2014, is now backing military strikes on the Russian territory of Crimea. Nuland’s declaration last Thursday that Russian military bases in Crimea are “legitimate targets” for Ukrainian forces was received by the Kremlin as proof of “US involvement in the Ukraine conflict.” In a post on Telegram, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Moscow would respond to such attacks “using weapons of any kind.” “Nobody is pushing this war more than Nuland,” wrote Musk, who has previously warned that nuclear war could break out unless Ukraine abandons its claims to Crimea and both sides agree to peace talks.

Nuland’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict predates Russia’s military operation, ordered one year ago on Friday by President Vladimir Putin. As assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2014, Nuland helped organize the coup that saw Ukraine’s democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovich, replaced with the pro-Western Pyotr Poroshenko, who then began a campaign of military repression against the people of Donetsk and Lugansk.= During the coup, Nuland handed out cookies to protesters in Kiev and promised pro-Western politicians military aid and a billion-dollar loan guarantee program. In an infamous leaked call between Nuland and then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, the two discussed which person should replace Yanukovich from a list of opposition politicians.

After leaving the State Department during Donald Trump’s presidency, Nuland is now serving as President Joe Biden’s deputy secretary of state for political affairs. In recent months, she has endorsed regime change in Russia, celebrated the US’ alleged destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, and called for the indefinite flow of arms into Ukraine. sMusk is not the only prominent American to condemn Nuland’s role in instigating the conflict in recent days. In a campaign video released on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump called Nuland and “others like her” in the Biden administration “warmongers and ‘America Last’ globalists.” Nuland was “obsessed with pushing Ukraine towards NATO,” he declared, claiming that the conflict would have “never happened if I was your president.”

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Washing her hands.

US Seeks To Discuss New START Implementation With Russia – Nuland (TASS)

The US authorities would like to get back to inspections as part of the New START nuclear arms control treaty and have a chance to discuss with Russia the implementation of this agreement, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said in an interview with Washington Post. When asked if Russia’s suspension of the treaty would make any difference for the US in terms of behavior, the top State Department official said: “We will not [do this] and we’ve made that clear to the Russians.”


According to Nuland, Washington has “no intention or need” to resume testing. “We would like to get back into mutual inspections. We would like to get back to a place where we can sit at a table and talk about implementation [of the treaty],” she said. Nuland also assured that the US is not interested in rebuilding its nuclear weapons. The top State Department official said the US is trying to understand what Russia’s decision on suspending its participation in New START would mean in practical terms.

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Can’t enter a war with those numbers.

19% Of Americans Have Confidence In Biden’s Handling Of Ukraine Conflict (SN)

An Associated Press and NORC poll has found that fewer than 20 percent of Americans have a “great deal” of confidence in the way Joe Biden is involving the U.S. in the Ukraine conflict. The survey reveals that only 19 percent of the public have a “great deal” of confidence in Biden’s ability, while 37 percent say they have “only some” confidence,” and 43 percent have “hardly any” confidence.

The poll also found that only 42 percent approve of the way Biden is handling the U.S.’ relationship with Russia, while 54 percent disapprove. The poll also found that a quarter of respondents believe the U.S. shouldn’t be playing any role in the war, with a further 49 percent saying that the U.S. should only have minor role. Just 26 percent believe the U.S. should be playing a major role.

The poll also found that while 59 percent of Democrats said they were in favour of sending government funds directly to Ukraine, just 21 percent of Republicans concur. The figures represent a decrease in support among both groups, as last year 63 percent of Democrats and 28 percent of Republicans said they were in favour. The findings come after Biden’s probable 2024 opponent Donald Trump declared that he would negotiate a peace deal and end the conflict within 24 hours, as well as ousting all the “demented warmongers and globalists” currently occupying the U.S. National Security establishment.

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“..Never in the history of Europe has the continent been so “subservient” to the US..”

Russia-EU Relations ‘No Longer Exist’ – Moscow (RT)

Relations between the European Union and Russia are practically nonexistent, consumed by the abyss of EU subservience to the US, the Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council on Thursday. Moscow had said in June 2022 that the “bottom had fallen out” when it came to relations with Brussels, Nebenzia said in his speech at the UN. “It turns out there was an entire abyss below still, that swallowed up not only our relations – which are basically nonexistent now – but also the EU itself,” he said. “A year after completely severing ties with our country, the GDP growth of the EU has stuck near zero. At the same time, record inflation rates are measured by double-digit indicators. Rejoicing that it jumped off the ‘Russian gas needle,’ the EU got hooked on ‘hard drugs’ – expensive American liquefied natural gas,” the Russian diplomat added.

Nebenzia also accused the EU of openly discussing how to dismember and destroy Russia. Earlier this week, the Estonian prime minister suggested Russian history needs to be rewritten and its population re-educated, to protect Europe from “Russian imperialist dreams.” Never in the history of Europe has the continent been so “subservient” to the US, Nebenzia argued, pointing to last September’s sabotage of Nord Stream. “Things have come to the point where Brussels has silently swallowed that its closest ally blew up the main gas pipeline, which was also paid for by European investors,” he said, adding that EU members are even covering up inconvenient truths in order to shield the US.

The twin pipelines running under the Baltic Sea were built to supply the continent with Russian natural gas via Germany. Denmark, Sweden and Germany have refused Russian requests for information about their investigation into the blasts. In an article published earlier this month, American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed the US and Norway had conspired to destroy the pipelines and described how they carried it out. Russia has called for a UN investigation into the sabotage. The US has denied any responsibility for the Nord Stream bombing.

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BRICS. India next.

Moscow Analyzes Brazil’s Peace Initiatives On Ukraine (TASS)

Moscow is studying Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s peace proposals for Ukraine, but it is taking into account the evolving situation “on the ground”, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said in an interview with TASS. “We took note of the President of Brazil’s statements on the subject of possible mediation in order to find political ways to prevent escalation in Ukraine, correcting miscalculations in the field of international security on the basis of multilateralism, and considering the interests of all players. We are examining initiatives, mainly from the standpoint of Brazil’s balanced policy, and, of course, taking into consideration the situation ‘on the ground’,” he said. Galuzin emphasized the importance of Brazil’s view, which is Moscow’s strategic partner both bilaterally and globally.


“We are interacting constructively in the BRICS, G20, UN and its Security Council, where this nation is now represented as a non-permanent member,” he added. Russia appreciates Brazil not supplying weapons to Kiev despite US pressure, Deputy Foreign Minister emphasized. “I would like to emphasize that Russia values Brazil’s balanced position in the current international situation, its rejection of unilateral coercive measures taken by the US and its satellites against our country, and the refusal of our Brazilian partners to supply arms, military equipment, and ammunition to the Kiev regime,” he said. “At the same time, we can see how Washington is putting pressure on Brazil. Such sovereign stance deserves respect,” Galuzin added. Earlier, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stated that the country’s officials had no intention of transferring weapons and ammunition to third countries to be used in the Ukrainian conflict.

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“It’s not going to help the war. What he was doing it for, was to prevent Germany and Western Europe, in case the winter came quickly, from opening up the pipeline..”

Seymour Hersh Explains Why US Blew Up Nord Stream (RT)

US President Joe Biden ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in order to make sure Germany could not change its mind about sanctions against Russia and weapons shipments to Ukraine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said in an interview with ‘Going Underground’. Earlier this month, Hersh published an article that blamed the US and Norway for the series of explosions that disabled both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the pipelines under the Baltic Sea built to supply Western Europe with Russian natural gas. In an interview with Afshin Rattansi this week, Hersh said the US intelligence community hatched the plan “in late 2021,” before the escalation of hostilities in Ukraine.

When Biden and Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland both publicly spoke about “stopping” and “ending” Nord Stream 2, however, Hersh claimed the spies were upset, “because it was supposed to be a covert operation.” “The people who did this thing in the intelligence community, they initially thought it was a great idea,” Hersh told Rattansi. According to his story, the bombs were planted in June, during the scheduled BALTOPS 2022 naval exercise off the Danish island of Bornholm. The bombs went off in late September, as Ukraine was facing “a serious issue” on the battlefield. “It’s not going to help the war. What he was doing it for, was to prevent Germany and Western Europe, in case the winter came quickly, from opening up the pipeline,” Hersh said.

The rationale for the mission was “to make sure that Europe keeps on supporting NATO and keeps funneling arms into what is clearly a proxy war against Russia that’s being fought right now,” he added. Asked whether Moscow had somehow missed the American involvement, and focused on the UK instead, Hersh said he had not spoken to anyone in Russia. One thing he could say is that it would be “absolutely insane” for Russia to blow up its own pipeline. Just about everyone in the pipeline business agrees with that assessment, he added. The White House, the Pentagon and the State Department have all disavowed Hersh’s article as “fiction” and denied all accusations of US involvement in the attack on Nord Stream. Russia has called for an independent UN investigation into what it described as an act of international terrorism.

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“It is the start of the final collapse of Western colonialism.”

Why Putin Went to War — One Year Later (Lauria)

It is instructive to compare Russia’s war aims expressed on Feb. 24, 2022 to the state of the conflict today — a year long war of attrition that Russia is slowing winning on the ground. But what was unleashed a year ago today is far from settled and is fraught with supreme danger for all of humanity. The West’s economic war, intended to spur Russians to overthrow their government, has failed spectacularly. The ruble did not collapse despite sanctions on the Russian central bank. Nor has the economy. Instead an alternative economic, commercial and financial system that excludes the West is rising with China, India and Russia in the lead, and most of Asia, Africa and Latin America taking part. It is the start of the final collapse of Western colonialism.


The sanctions instead backfired on the West, especially in Europe. The West is on the outside looking in. The information war has failed across the world. Only the United States and Europe, which consider itself “the world,” believe their own “information.” Even The New York Times on Thursday recognized this. Washington itself is split between realists who want a diplomatic solution and neoconservatives who keep “doubling down” on supporting Ukraine in the slim hope that it can win on the battlefield, without sparking a direct NATO-Russia war. There will either be a negotiated settlement in which Ukraine loses territory; a total Russian victory; or a third world war, potentially the final war.

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“Google systematically destroyed an entire category of written communications every 24 hours.”

Google Accused Of Destroying Evidence In Antitrust Suit (RT)

The US Department of Justice has accused Google of “systematically” destroying records linked to ongoing antitrust litigation, saying the company failed to preserve its internal communications despite a previous order to do so. In a legal filing issued in a Washington, DC federal court on Thursday, DOJ officials said Google has refused to change a feature on its company chat which automatically deletes employees’ logs, adding that it “falsely” claimed to have ended the practice back in 2019. “Google’s daily destruction of written records prejudiced the United States by depriving it of a rich source of candid discussions between Google’s executives, including likely trial witnesses,” said DOJ attorney Kenneth Dintzer.

While the government said Google was required to end the auto-delete function under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the company did not “preserve potentially relevant chats,” meaning that for nearly four years since the antitrust case was launched, “Google systematically destroyed an entire category of written communications every 24 hours.” The DOJ has asked the court to rule that the tech giant violated a civil procedure guideline, and requested a hearing to determine how to penalize Google and demand more information about its internal communications.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Google said it “strongly” rejected the allegations, with a spokesperson arguing its teams have “conscientiously worked for years to respond to inquiries and litigation.” They added that the company has “produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, and millions more to regulators around the world.” The antitrust case against Google was opened in 2020, when the Justice Department said the company is a “monopoly under traditional antitrust principles” in the search engine industry and “must be stopped.” While the government argued the firm has used its market power to disadvantage smaller competitors, Google later slammed the suit as “deeply flawed,” insisting it would “do nothing to help consumers.”

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“..as Joker stated in The Dark Knight, Madness … is a lot like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”

Hunter Biden’s Latest Rebrand Is Just Smoke And Errors (Turley)

Welcome to the latest Hunter Biden reboot. Call it Dark Biden rises. Hunter has long been a reclamation project for the media and the Biden team. Despite ample evidence that he and his family may have engaged in one of the largest influence-peddling operations in history, the media have struggled to find a redeeming image for someone who’s committed his life to a toxic mix of nepotism, narcissism and narcotics. First there was “Hunter: the wrongly accused international businessman.” This blanket denial of wrongdoing was maintained by his father and dutifully repeated by the media. Hunter Biden did “nothing wrong,” and reporters pressing questions of corruption were immediately attacked. Then came “Hunter Biden: victim of Russian disinformation.”

Before the 2020 election, the media repeated the false claim that the Hunter laptop was likely “Russian disinformation.” Despite the denial of American intelligence and self-verifying emails on the laptop, the media accepted without question the dubious claims of former intelligence figures pushed by longtime Democratic operatives. Then it was “Hunter Biden: heroic recovering addict.” As the media denials became more difficult to maintain, Biden released a book that detailed his struggle with drugs and debauchery. The media again launched into the same fawning, unquestioning mode. Now we have the Dark Biden. Hunter’s handlers are reinventing Hunter in a more menacing image. He is an edgy and aggressive antagonist ready to fight fire with fire against Republicans.

A team was assembled to reportedly attack potential witnesses and critics. With a possible criminal indictment and congressional investigations looming, Hunter the wronged businessman or Russian victim or recovering addict will not do. Hunter appears to have acquired lawyers by the gross, including high-profile lawyer Abbe Lowell. Lowell recently sent out a letter that caused a stir by not only confirming the authenticity of the laptop but threatening a host of critics. Lowell categorically refused to turn over a single document to House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), saying there was no “legitimate legislative purpose” for the investigation. He left open the possibility the House might convince Hunter to cooperate.

It’s all bravado and the posturing will be even less credible in the future when he backs down. Congress clearly has a legitimate interest in investigating whether millions of dollars from foreign interests, including some connected to foreign intelligence, were funneled to the Biden family to influence President Biden. [..] Despite the considerable risk, Hunter is keeping to his new character. He has not shared information on his art sales. Now his art dealer, Georges Berges, has also reportedly refused to provide the House Oversight Committee with identities of the buyers. It won t work. Indeed, it is a strategy that could lead to a criminal charge entirely separate from the underlying allegations. It just shows, as Joker stated in The Dark Knight, Madness … is a lot like gravity. All it takes is a little push.

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This issue will explode.

The Immediate Need To Screen Blood For mRNA And Spike Protein (Horowitz)

You might be part of that small percentage of adults who were smart enough to avoid the COVID gene therapy and lucky enough not to have it forced upon you to keep your job. But what happens if you ever need blood in the hospital? Or what about those who got the jabs but were lucky enough to have the spike protein leave their systems without much harm? What if you were forced to accept more spike protein through blood transfusions due to a medical emergency? New research points to the imperative for state lawmakers to pass laws requiring that blood banks screen out spike protein from the blood supply. Danish microbiologists published a shocking finding this week in the Journal of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology.

They took samples of blood from 108 hepatitis C patients, and one of the discoveries was that “full-length or traces of SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccine sequences were found in blood up to 28 days after COVID-19 vaccination.” Lest you think that they were picking up on spike protein from natural infection still lingering in the blood, the researchers meticulously distinguished not just between infection- and vaccine-induced spike protein, but even between the genetic codes of Pfizer and Moderna. It turns out five of those detected were positive for the Pfizer nucleotides and five had the Moderna ones. “To our knowledge, our study is the first to detect Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccine sequences in blood after vaccination, and therefore provides new knowledge regarding the timeframe in which the mRNA can be detected,” observed the authors.

One the one hand, we should be thankful that most did not have detectable spike protein circulating in the blood plasma. But the fact that they found it in 10% of the samples (and contrasted to a control group) raisess the obvious question: How many blood supplies in the blood banks from the general population have spike protein, and if this sample detected spike protein up to 28 days (the extent of the study period), how much longer can it potentially last? Remember, the bombshell study from Stanford last year found spike antigen remaining in germinal cells up to 60 days after injection, and researchers did not study beyond that time frame. Even more disturbing, a study by St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix found exosomes containing spike protein were detectable for up to four months after vaccination. Another paper in Frontiers in Immunology revealed the detection of some spike in monocytes for 15 months!

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Birds

 

 


Elephant throws a 500 kg buffalo into the air like a rag doll – Kim Maurer

 

 

Horse chicken
https://twitter.com/i/status/1628618176425775104

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 112023
 


Arkhip Kuindzhi Red Sunset on the Dnieper 1905-8 (see story below)

 

What’s Wrong With The Hersh Report On The Nord Stream Attacks (Helmer)
On the Legal Question of Russia’s Military Intervention (Lauria)
Stuff You Should Know About Ukraine (Mike Whitney)
The US Takes The Scandal Global And Turns It Into A Tool (Fomenko)
A Star is Born! (Jim Kunstler)
Wagner Boss Estimates Ukraine Conflict Could Last Three More Years (RT)
Kiev Sounds Alarm Over Ammo (RT)
US ‘Lying’ About Nord Stream Expose – Moscow (RT)
German Defense Minster’s Remark About World Without Putin Inadmissible (TASS)
West’s Threat To Russia’s National Security Nipped In The Bud – Lavrov (TASS)
What Funeral Directors Know That You Don’t (Kirsch)
The CDC Lied: The mRNA Wasn’t Meant to “Stay in the Arm” (Kogon)
CDC Adds COVID-19 Vaccines to Child Immunization Schedule (ET)
Righteous Tyrants (Julie Kelly)
US Museum Changes Russian Artist’s Nationality (RT)

 

 

 

 

We chose a clown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Multiple people wonder why Hersh left the UK role out of his article.

What’s Wrong With The Hersh Report On The Nord Stream Attacks (Helmer)

Seymour Hersh’s report on President Joseph Biden’s decision to destroy the Nord Stream gas pipelines on the Baltic seabed on September 26, 2022, and the involvement of the US Navy in preparing the explosives, has been based on a single anonymous US source with what Hersh calls “direct knowledge of the process”. From the full text of the Hersh report, it appears that neither the source nor Hersh has “direct knowledge” of the history of US-led operations to sabotage and destroy the pipelines which became public more than a year before; they directly involved the Polish government and the Danish government. In fact, by error of omission Hersh and his man are ignorant of those operations and of that history.

Also, the two of them are ignorant of the British government’s role in this history, and in the final destruction, which was revealed publicly by then-Prime Minister Elizabeth Truss to Secretary of State Antony Blinken sixty seconds after the detonation; and by the Russian government when it announced its knowledge of the British involvement. The source and the reporter appear to be equally oblivious of the role German government officials played in the operation, and of the history of German warfighting operations against Russia stretching back to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s engagement in the NATO plan for military intervention in eastern Ukraine, following the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014. That attack was costlier in lives and in the US warfighting strategy against Russia than the Nord Stream operation.

In terms of cost, the US attack seizing more than $300 billion in Russian Central Bank reserves, announced on February 28, 2022, was much greater. Hersh implies, without identifying his source at all, that there were “US promises to minimize direct conflict with Russia”; that because the Nord Stream attack plan violated those “promises”, they were in the source’s opinion either illegal in US law, or violations of US intelligence and military operation standards, or breaches of international undertakings the US has given its NATO allies or its Russian targets. Without explanation, Hersh omitted to ask Russian officials or others with “direct knowledge of the process” to confirm these claims or deny them. Hersh and his man dismiss the Germans with the same disdain. They report that “after some wobbling [Chancellor Olaf Scholtz] was now firmly on the American team” in January 2022, when the Nord Stream attack plan had already been under way, Hersh reports, for at least a month. Hersh omitted to ask any German source — active official, army general, navy admiral or retiree – to confirm or clarify.

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Different opinions on Article 51. Lauria doesn’t think it’s valid…

On the Legal Question of Russia’s Military Intervention (Lauria)

The U.N. Charter has something to say about the legal use of military force. It allows it in two cases: when it is authorized by the Security Council and when it is legitimately used in self-defense. Council authorization for force is contained in Chapter VII, Article 42: “Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 [economic sanctions] would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.” The second instance allowing armed force is in self-defense, explained in Chapter VII, Article 51:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.” So, on these narrow legal grounds, the U.N. Charter only permits the use of force after authorization by the Security Council or in self defense by a “member state.”

Russia entered the eight-year Ukrainian civil war on Feb. 24, 2022 to defend against attacks against the majority-ethnic Russian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk, which had declared independence from Ukraine in 2014. Russia only recognized their independence on Feb. 21, 2022, three days before its intervention. It intervened without authorization from the Security Council, where the U.S., Britain and probably France would have vetoed it. As the self-defense article pertains only to U.N. member states, it could not apply to Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia is a member state but the article says “if an armed attack occurs” against it, and there was at the time no armed attack against Russia. sSo according to the U.N. Charter, Russia’s military intervention was not legally authorized.

However, states are not prohibited by the Charter to request the presence of foreign forces on their territory. There is no language in the Charter about it. Officially inviting foreign forces onto one’s territory would not be considered an illegal occupation. Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Convention says: “Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.” The Russian army is certainly not seen as hostile in Donetsk and Luhansk. The murkiness of the legal issue arises then on the question of whether Donetsk and Luhansk were independent states in February of last year — states that could invite foreign forces onto its territory — or were they at the time still part of Ukraine?

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… but Whitney does.

Stuff You Should Know About Ukraine (Mike Whitney)

So, has anyone in the western media reported on the fact that Putin invoked UN Article 51 before he launched the Special Military Operation? No, they haven’t, because to do so, would be an admission that Putin’s military operation complies with international law. Instead, the media continues to spread the fiction that ‘Hitler-Putin is trying to rebuild the Soviet empire’, a claim for which there is not a scintilla of evidence. Keep in mind, Putin’s operation does not involve the toppling of a foreign government to install a Moscow-backed stooge, or the arming and training a foreign military that will be used as proxies to fight a geopolitical rival, or the stuffing a country with state-of-the-art weaponry to achieve his own narrow strategic objectives, or perpetrating terrorist acts of industrial sabotage (Nord-Stream 2) to prevent the economic integration of Asia and Europe.

No, Putin hasn’t engaged in any of these things. But Washington certainly has, because Washington isn’t constrained by international law. In Washington’s eyes, international law is merely an inconvenience that is dismissively shrugged off whenever unilateral action is required. But Putin is not nearly as cavalier about such matters, in fact, he has a long history of playing by the rules because he believes the rules help to strengthen everyone’s security. And, he’s right; they do. And that’s why he invoked Article 51 before he sent the troops to help the people in the Donbas. He felt he had a moral obligation to lend them his assistance but wanted his actions to comply with international law. We think he achieved both.

Here’s something else you will never see in the western media. You’ll never see the actual text of Putin’s security demands that were made a full 2 months before the war broke out. And, the reason you won’t see them, is because his demands were legitimate, reasonable and necessary. All Putin wanted was basic assurances that NATO was not planning to put its bases, armies and missile sites on Russia’s border. In other words, he was doing the same thing that all responsible leaders do to defend the safety and security of their own people.

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“..the so-called ‘Chinese Spy Balloon’, the US has now reportedly briefed the diplomats of 40 countries about the supposed threat..”

The US Takes The Scandal Global And Turns It Into A Tool (Fomenko)

After the outburst of paranoia triggered by the so-called ‘Chinese Spy Balloon’, the US has now reportedly briefed the diplomats of 40 countries about the supposed threat. Washington has apparently sent American missions around the world information about the incident and presented to foreign diplomats gathered in Beijing information to demonstrate that it was indeed an espionage aircraft, and not a weather-monitoring balloon as China claims. In addition to the domestic political motivations for Washington to whip up a frenzy about the Chinese balloon, we now see the US deliberately weaponizing the story to attack China on a global scale, aiming to instill greater fear, suspicion and paranoia of Beijing worldwide. The incident itself might be nothing more than hot air, but Washington is willing to gaslight its allies and “partners” into greater alignment with American goals and preferences.

The American foreign policy machine is a master of a process known as ‘manufacturing consent’, the term famously coined by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman. The US uses an array of aligned think tanks and cherry-picked experts, as well as a monopoly over information and press access, in order to perfectly craft a narrative which promotes their goals and preferences. Simply speaking, the topics, areas of interest and points of view which the US government focuses on are given funding (often from government departments), press access and regular airtime. Those it does not care for are simply ignored. As a key example of how this works: Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran a story that cited unnamed US officials to confirm the Chinese balloon was indeed used by Beijing’s military for spying and was part of a wider aerial surveillance effort.

Not only is this a direct official-to-media report, but no evidence or facts were given, neither was any possible agenda behind the story highlighted or scrutinized, nor any ‘alternative’ point of view presented. Of course, these are beyond the scope of a simple news story – and we don’t get anything other than this news story, sourced from US officials, speaking to the media on condition of anonymity but most likely with the direction of their superiors. This is how the US government shapes the narrative and manufactures consent through the media. So what’s the agenda behind the US raising the ‘spy balloon’ alarm internationally? It’s one thing to make it a scandal at home, trading some political points over who is the most hard-line on China, but to publicize it internationally like that, there must be a bigger goal behind it.

By claiming that the balloon was being used for military and espionage purposes, and therefore constitutes a ‘national security threat’, the US is clearly eyeing up an opportunity to impose new sanctions against Chinese firms. It has been a running theme of US sanctions against China to blacklist a company, either from receiving US technology exports, or from US investment, by claiming that it is owned or operated on behalf of the Chinese military, even when it isn’t. This has been a key part of Washington’s growing technology war against Beijing. These assumptions are made on insinuations and ‘guilt by association’ logic, rather than clear-cut proof. Therefore, the US could be preparing to blacklist the companies involved in constructing the balloon, claiming they are a military threat. In addition to that, it should be noted that the US is also trying to push G7 to collectively sanction China for “supporting” the Russian offensive in Ukraine, which would also involve blacklisting Chinese firms.

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“The perpetually-vacationing Leader of the Free World has apparently made America great again..”

A Star is Born! (Jim Kunstler)

Weird, a little bit. A sane person in a sane world would call sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines an act-of-war against a friendly nation, since the result was to virtually destroy the basis of Germany’s industry, not to mention the domestic comfort of German citizens. Now, thanks to 85-year-old Seymour Hersh, the independent investigator who uncovered the My Lai Massacre in 1969 and reported on the depraved antics of American jailers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004, we have a pretty good idea how the Nord Stream caper went down. For a year before the op, “Joe Biden” and Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland — architect of the 2014 Maidan Coup in Ukraine, which kicked-off the present fiasco there — blabbed about “ending” the Nord Streams. Curiously, the Germans said nothing.

Meanwhile, the US made a deal to beef up military bases in Norway, an original NATO signatory (1949), for staging the Nord Stream sabotage op. Of course, Norway, being Western Europe’s remaining sole oil-and-gas exporter, had an interest in eliminating its competition. In June of 2022, under cover of an annual NATO naval exercise in the Baltic Sea, US Navy divers attached mines to the Nord Stream pipelines. The mines had triggers that could be activated remotely at any time of choosing, and that moment came on September 26… kaboom. Ms. Nuland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken gloated publicly. Naturally, the US blamed Russia. America’s news media — catamite of the Intel Community — amplified the charge, despite the absurdity of Russia blowing up its most lucrative source of export revenue.

The New York Times has so far made no mention of Mr. Hersh’s recent update of the Nord Stream sabotage. Germany, too, hardly made a peep, nor did the rest of Western Europe, which now faces a future that looks, energy-wise, like a return to the Fourteenth Century. Maybe they’re all jaded with modern life, all that tiresome bathing and malingering in the brightly-lit cafes. Under the sagacious guidance of the WEF they were all going “green,” anyway — but was that green like the heart-shaped leaves of the linden tree or green like the moldy veins in Roquefort cheese? I guess they’ll find out.

Luckily, America had the Chinese balloon to distract them, and then “Joe B’s” State-of-the-Union extravaganza where the nation learned that we are living in the most extraordinary economic boom since the days of Babe Ruth and Charlie Chaplin. The perpetually-vacationing Leader of the Free World has apparently made America great again, despite the dastardly plots and ongoing insurrections of his far-right, white supremacist adversaries. Did the annual SOTU smell a little bit like a reelection pitch, though? I hope so.

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The West doesn’t have ammo for three months once Russia gets serious.

Wagner Boss Estimates Ukraine Conflict Could Last Three More Years (RT)

The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine will likely continue for up to three more years, depending on the goals Moscow actually pursues in it, Wagner private military group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin has said. The businessman made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Semyon Pegov of the independent WarGonzo project on Friday. “If we need to cover the DPR and LPR, then we need to work for at least another year and a half or two,” Prigozhin stated, referring to the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which were recently incorporated into Russia. Should Russia seek to “go toward the Dnepr,” a major river separating Ukraine into roughly two halves, the conflict will last even longer and drag on for up to three more years, Prigozhin suggested.

At the same time, the founder of the private military group noted that in any conflict, the destruction of the enemy’s army must be the priority, rather than a desire to seize territories from the adversary. Prigozhin also revealed, apparently jokingly, that should Moscow also seek to reach all across Europe toward the English Channel, he already has a perfect plan for such an endeavor. To achieve that goal, everyone in Russia must drop any leisure activity, put on their “working suits,” and work tirelessly. Some spoils of the campaign, however, including “France, Italy, Bulgaria and something else,” should be ceded afterwards to Ukrainians, since they are set to “suffer here with us” much more.

Founded in 2014, Wagner has mainly operated as a security contractor in Africa and the Middle East until now. The precise details of its deployments have not been made public, while Prigozhin denied his ties to the group and its very existence until last year. The group has been an active participant in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, scoring several victories against the Ukrainian troops. The achievements have also earned the company wide international attention, with the US declaring Wagner a “transnational criminal organization” last month.

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“..upcoming Ramstein format meeting on February 14..”

Kiev Sounds Alarm Over Ammo (RT)

Intense fighting in Ukraine means that its military is running out of ammunition, with stocks not being replenished in time, Igor Zhovkva, chief diplomatic adviser to President Vladimir Zelensky, has told media. The official also called on the West to provide Kiev with long-range artillery systems, tanks and fighter jets. In an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Zhovkva lamented that “now we are having like almost zero ammunition,” – a situation that makes it harder for the Ukrainian military to respond to Russian shelling. “We are running [out] of the ammunition very quickly because the fights are intensive,” he went on to explain, adding that Russia has more firepower.

Zelensky’s adviser also noted that Kiev needs long-range missiles to “de-occupy Ukrainian territory,” as opposed to hitting targets inside Russia. According to the official, this type of weaponry would be crucial to launch a counteroffensive against Moscow’s forces. On the subject of fighter jets, Zhovkva named several reasons why Ukraine is seeking to get hold of them. He pointed out that, among other things, such aircraft are “very good in intercepting the ballistic missiles.” He expressed hope that the upcoming Ramstein format meeting on February 14 will see Kiev’s Western backers pledge more weapons, adding that “it’s high time” they stopped caring about Moscow’s reaction to such deliveries.

Commenting on the military aid already provided by the West, Zhovkva said that it was “too late, too little, and too slow.” On Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reacted to the news of the British government possibly considering donating some of its warplanes to Ukraine, by warning that the UK and several other European nations are becoming increasingly involved in the conflict. “The line between indirect and direct involvement is gradually disappearing,” he stressed, adding that this fuels further escalation. Peskov pointed out, however, that while unnecessarily prolonging the fighting, Western arms shipments will not be able to change the outcome of the conflict or prevent Russia from achieving its goals.

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China wants answers too.

US ‘Lying’ About Nord Stream Expose – Moscow (RT)

Attempts by the US State Department to brush off Seymour Hersh’s article about the sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines as “nonsense” are overt lies that display shocking ignorance of American history, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Friday. The veteran investigative journalist reported on Wednesday that the US was behind the destruction of the Baltic Sea pipelines in September 2022. American divers planted charges under the cover of a NATO exercise, and a Norwegian airplane detonated them remotely when the time came, Hersh wrote. “It would not be typical for us to engage allies and partners on something that is utter and complete nonsense,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday, answering a question about Hersh’s article.

Zakharova said she was astonished by Price’s audacity to call “nonsense” what US President Joe Biden and Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland openly described as their preferred outcome. “The US is once again lying live on air, openly mocking journalists who asked fully justified questions,” Zakharova said. Washington also has a history of targeting civilian petrochemical infrastructure, Zakharova noted, citing the 1983 CIA sabotage of a pipeline in Nicaragua as an example. “You did this, you do this, and you will do this until you’re stopped,” the spokeswoman added. As for bringing allies and partners into “nonsense,” Zakharova argued that this was precisely what “trans-Atlantic solidarity” means in practice, referring to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as one example. “Twenty years ago, Secretary of State Colin Powell brought to the UN Security Council a vial of something, and called [on] allies and partners to invade a sovereign state, without any evidence, over claims that proved to be utter nonsense.

Ned, do you know your own department’s history?” Zakharova said. “I have no doubts that at the State Department they are bad with the history of their own country. That’s why we are where we are.” Explosions that damaged both Nord Stream pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm cut off the flow of Russian natural gas to Germany. US officials tried to blame Russia for the blasts, while expressing delight at the destruction and calling it an “opportunity” for Europe. The White House has denounced Hersh’s report as “utterly false and complete fiction.” Zakharova noted that Denmark and Sweden had refused Russian offers to assist with the investigation, while Norway declined to provide aid citing EU sanctions, adding that this shows the three governments were not interested in finding out the truth, but rather covering it up.

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Germany is not a serious country.

German Defense Minster’s Remark About World Without Putin Inadmissible (TASS)

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’s statement that the world would be a better place without Russian President Vladimir Putin is “absolutely inadmissible,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Friday. “Defense Minister Pistorius hinted in very certain terms at the desirability of ousting the Russian leadership altogether. Such a statement is absolutely inadmissible for officials of any country that is a member of the international community,” she said. The West “in its reckless support for the Nazis in Kiev has trespassed all conceivable and inconceivable boundaries,” Zakharova stressed.


She recalled German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s remark that the West was waging war against Russia. “[Germany] is not some fictional country. It is a state that is officially a member of the UN. These people represent not some private office, but those who elected them,” Zakharova stressed. Against the background of such speeches by official representatives Berlin still dares position itself “as a champion of international law and human rights,” Zakharova said. Earlier, Pistorius, in an interview with the Bild newspaper during a visit to Kiev said that, in his opinion, the world would be better place without the Russian president.

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“..countries in Eurasia, the Asia-Pacific Region, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, which are guided primarily by their fundamental national interests..”

West’s Threat To Russia’s National Security Nipped In The Bud – Lavrov (TASS)

The threat to Russia’s national security from the Western track will be robustly neutralized and the diplomatic service will do everything necessary to strengthen national sovereignty, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a special meeting on the occasion of Diplomatic Worker’s Day on Friday. “There can be no doubt that the threat to national security from the Western track will be firmly neutralized. The Russian army and navy have adequately met the challenge. For its part, our diplomatic service continues to do everything necessary to strengthen national sovereignty and neutralize external challenges when they are still far away,” he said.

The collective West is waging a “total hybrid war” against Russia, in fact it is conducting a new eastward “crusade”, using “Ukrainian neo-Nazis” as its “advanced detachment.” However, today it can be argued that the West’s plans for isolating Russia and for encircling it with a sanitary cordon have “failed,” Lavrov stressed. “Despite the anti-Russian ballyhoo by Washington, London and Brussels, we keep strengthening neighborly relations in the broadest sense with the global majority – countries in Eurasia, the Asia-Pacific Region, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, which are guided primarily by their fundamental national interests,” he continued.

Lavrov pointed out that Russia maintains dialogues with reasonable representatives from public and political business circles of European states who appreciate friendship with Russia. “All of us are united by a commitment to the democratization of interstate relations and firm rejection of the US-centric rules-based world order, with its inherent blackmail, threats, ultimatums and zero-sum games – in other words, precisely those utterly irrelevant tools of coercion for which there should be no place in the future diplomacy of the twenty-first century,” Lavrov said.

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These numbers physically hurt.

What Funeral Directors Know That You Don’t (Kirsch)

Ever since the vaccines rolled out, deaths are up, particularly among young people. I talked to the owner of many funeral homes across the US; collectively they handle over 3,000 funerals a year. He asked that his name be kept confidential for fear of retribution. Overall, their business is up by 50% after the vaccines rolled out and it’s not proportional… young people are a greater portion of the deaths. For example pilot deaths at Southwest Airlines are up six-fold after the vaccines were mandated. My source said that normally they’d see 1 stillbirth/month pre-vaccine. After the vaccines rolled out, they were seeing as many as 12 stillbirths a month. But they noted that many hospitals will dispose of these cases directly and NOT involve the funeral home, so they are only seeing a fraction of these deaths; the actual increase could be much larger than the 12X increase they observed.

In the 78 years they’ve been in business, they can’t recall ever having seen a 15-year old die from a heart attack. In December 2022, they had 1 a week for three weeks straight. A very experienced nurse I consulted had never even heard of a 15-year old with a heart attack in her entire career. Now, she hears of these cases on a regular basis. These funeral homes are also seeing the strange rubbery clots that they’ve never seen before. The medical examiner was called and verified it, but nobody is saying anything publicly for fear of being fired. Basically, ever since 2021, they have been seeing very strange things: stillbirths, number of “found dead,” healthy people having heart attacks and strokes, blood clots, etc. They’ve never seen anything like that before; it’s a “noticeable” difference.

Like most funeral homes, they don’t tally statistics but they remember the anecdotes. The most noticeable thing is that the events are happening disproportionally to younger people (i.e., people under 65). So if elderly deaths are only up by 15%, but younger age groups are increased by 100% or more, the overall all-cause mortality for all ages will only increase modestly (since younger people rarely die). Also, the CDC stats for 2022 say that the data is not fully reported due to reporting delays. This means checking with funeral directors is a way to estimate what is happening in real-time. Bottom line: everyone knows what is causing this, but they are all afraid to speak out. For the few who do speak out, their stories are never covered in the mainstream media.

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From bad to worse.

The CDC Lied: The mRNA Wasn’t Meant to “Stay in the Arm” (Kogon)

The CDC’s information page on Covid-19 vaccines contains the following bullet points on “How mRNA COVID-19 vaccines work:” First, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are given in the upper arm muscle or upper thigh, depending on the age of who is getting vaccinated. After vaccination, the mRNA will enter the muscle cells. Once inside, they use the cells’ machinery to produce a harmless piece of what is called the spike protein…. After the protein piece is made, our cells break down the mRNA and remove it, leaving the body as waste. Or, in other words, as we have long been told, “it” – the mRNA – “stays in the arm.” And then, after having instructed the muscle cells to produce the spike, is disposed of. But look at the below picture from a recent presentation on mRNA vaccination at the European Parliament. The picture was posted on Twitter by Virginie Joron, a French member of the parliament. The speaker is no less an authority than Özlem Türeci, the Chief Medical Officer of BioNTech: the German biotech company that developed what has come to be known to most of the world as the “Pfizer” Covid-19 vaccine.

Far from “staying in the arm” and entering the muscle cells at the injection site, the injection site is only the point of departure for a journey that is supposed to take the mRNA rather to the lymph nodes. The subtitle of the slide is “Bringing mRNA to the right cells at the right places.” The deltoid is not the right place; the lymph nodes are. Once in the lymph nodes, a specific sort of cell, the dendritic cells, is supposed to manufacture the spike protein: here colorfully described as the “wanted poster” that will help the immune system to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus in case of subsequent exposure. A passage from The Vaccine, the book that Türeci and her husband, BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin, wrote which journalist Joe Miller, explains why BioNTech’s platform specifically targets the lymph nodes:

“What Ugur learnt was that the location to which a vaccine delivers its ‘wanted poster’ really mattered. The reason for this, the couple’s team in Mainz later realised, was that not all dendritic cells … were created equal. The ones that resided in lymph nodes – of which the spleen is the largest – were particularly adept at capturing mRNA and making sure the instructions it carried were acted upon. These kidney-bean shaped organs, found under our armpits, in our groins, and at several other outposts in the body, are the information hubs of the immune system. (p. 98)” Indeed, Sahin and Türeci were so determined to get their mRNA into the lymph nodes that they had an earlier mRNA construct injected directly into the patient’s lymph nodes in the groin (p. 104).

Needless to say, such an approach was not likely to obtain wide acceptance as a vaccine! This is why the couple, as explained in their book, needed to package the mRNA in lipid nanoparticles, in order to ensure that mRNA administered by way of an intramuscular injection would, nonetheless, be widely distributed around the body and thus reach the lymph nodes.

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Criminal.

CDC Adds COVID-19 Vaccines to Child Immunization Schedule (ET)

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added COVID-19 vaccines to its routine immunization schedule for children and adults on Thursday, attracting criticism for the decision. According to the CDC’s 2023 immunization schedule for children and adolescents, two or three doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been recommended beginning with infants who are just six months old. Children in the age group of 6 months to four years, and five years to 11 years are recommended COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna or Pfizer. Among children aged 12 to 18, Novavax vaccines are also recommended in addition to Pfizer and Moderna. In the list for adults, two or three doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been recommended from the age of 19 years.

The 2023 COVID-19 vaccine recommendation for kids and adults is included among other typically-recommended vaccines for measles, flu, rubella, and so on. Advisers to the CDC in 2022 recommended adding the vaccines to the schedule. Though the CDC has added COVID-19 vaccines to the recommended list, it has not mandated the vaccines. The agency does not have the authorization to do so, but local and state jurisdictions can, and many mandate most of the vaccines on the schedule. However, there are hardly any states that make flu vaccinations mandatory in public schools. Lawyers have said they’ll sue any state that requires COVID-19 vaccination to attend school and many officials have vowed not to implement such a requirement.

The CDC’s move to add COVID-19 vaccines to immunization schedules has attracted criticism online. “While I thought impossible for @CDCgov to lose anymore credibility—they decide to do this despite growing studies showing declining efficacy, no net benefit for majority of immunocompetent” individuals, anesthesiologist Megan Martin said in a Feb. 10 tweet.

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Gitmo?!

Righteous Tyrants (Julie Kelly)

James Baker, Vijaya Gadde, Yoel Roth, and Anika Collier Navaroli took the quasi-stand this week at a House Oversight Committee hearing to explain their roles in colluding with the government to suppress free speech during an election year, particularly related to the New York Post’s coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020. Baker, the former general counsel for the FBI when the bureau used fabricated political opposition research to defraud a secret federal court and obtain a warrant to spy on Donald Trump, was fired by Elon Musk as Twitter’s general counsel after it was discovered Baker was vetting company files made available to independent journalists.


Roth, Gadde, and Navaroli were considered the “custodians of the internet,” Roth boasted in a New York Times opinion column published in November, shortly after he resigned. “The work of online sanitation is unrelenting and contentious,” Twitter’s former head of “trust and safety” lamented. Roth then outlined a series of steps the government, private companies, and Big Tech oligarchs should pursue to rein in Musk. “In the longer term,” Roth warned, “the moderating influences of advertisers, regulators and, most critically of all, app stores may be welcome for those of us hoping to avoid an escalation in the volume of dangerous speech online.” That sort of hubris was on full display this week as the Twitter Four defended their crusade to censor users on the Right, including the suspension of Trump in January 2021.

Mace

In the process, these self-proclaimed warriors of truth and integrity revealed themselves to be nothing short of petulant foot-stompers unfit for employment anywhere outside of Silicon Valley or the government. Further, all four were clearly guided by their hatred for Trump and his supporters, contrary to their solemn assurances that decisions were based on unbiased considerations to protect the site from insidious content. For example, Gadde retweeted a Nicholas Kristof piece in 2016, emphasizing Kristof’s conclusion that he had “never met a national politician in the U.S. who is so ill informed, evasive, puerile and deceptive as Trump.” She, like 98 percent of people working in Silicon Valley, is a generous contributor to Democratic Party officials and candidates. She reportedly cried when she learned Musk had acquired the company.


But Gadde’s attempts to hide her partisan stripes failed this week. In a nonsensical explanation only an Ivy Leaguer could love, Gadde told committee members about the inner workings of the social media giant. “Defending free expression and maintaining the health of the platform required difficult judgment calls,” claimed Gadde, who was largely responsible for the decision to ban Trump’s account after January 6, 2021. “Most applications of Twitter rules were fact-intensive, subject to internal debate, and needed to be made very quickly. We recognized that after applying those rules, we might learn that some of them did not work as we had imagined and that we would need to update them. At times, we also reversed course.”

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Why? See painting at the top.

US Museum Changes Russian Artist’s Nationality (RT)

Arkhip Kuindzhi, a 19th century Russian landscape painter, has been re-designated as a Ukrainian national, according to an update on the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website. The news comes as a number of museums around the world are rebranding classical Russian artworks as Ukrainian amid the ongoing military conflict between Moscow and Kiev. In the description of Kuindzhi’s 1905 painting ‘Red Sunset on the Dnepr,’ the artist is now listed as “Ukrainian” with the added clarification that he was born in Mariupol “when the Ukrainian city was part of the Russian empire.” Previous versions of the webpage had designated him as “Russian.” In archived snapshots of the webpage, the Met even described Kuindzhi as “one of the most talented Russian landscape painters of his generation” and noted that his works are “celebrated in both Ukraine and Russia.”


The city of Mariupol was captured by Russian forces last spring amid the military operation in Ukraine. In September, the Donetsk People’s Republics, which incorporates Mariupol, along with Lugansk People’s Republic and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, officially became part of the Russian Federation after holding public referendums. The rebranding of Kuindzhi comes after the Met, on demands from Ukrainian activists, also renamed the painting ‘Russian Dancer’ by French artist Edgar Degas into ‘Dancer in Ukrainian Dress.’ The UK’s National Gallery made a similar move last April when it also re-titled Degas’ ‘Russian Dancers’ into ‘Ukrainian Dancers,’ stating that the women in the painting were “almost certainly Ukrainian rather than Russian.”

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Leo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1624316684461871106

 

 


Indian scops owl

 

 

Friends
https://twitter.com/i/status/1623931762526257153

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 262023
 
 January 26, 2023  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  93 Responses »


Elliott Erwitt California, USA 1956

 

Is This Western War On Russia Simply Stupidity? (Alastair Crooke)
What Heavy Weapons For Ukraine Will Mean On The Battlefield (Khodaryonok)
Ukraine Demands Jets And Missiles (RT)
Ukraine Will Now Push For F-16 Fighter Jets (Hill)
Russia, Now The South And East’s Counterpoint To Israel (Mazaheri)
NATO Has Already Destabilized Europe, Asia Is Next (Lukyanov)
German Foreign Minister Just Essentially Declared War On Russia (ZH)
Ukrainian Nationalism as a ‘Cold War Weapon’ (Chung)
Türkiye To Be Out Of NATO In Months – Erdogan Ally (RT)
The Worst Article You’ll Ever Read (Space Worm)
US Africa Leaders Summit Promises More Exploitation For Africa (GZ)
Breaking The Silence: Do mRNA Vaccine Harms Outweigh Benefits? (Sladden)
217,000 Americans Killed By The Covid Vaccines In Just The First Year (Kirsch)
We Have the Evidence; Time to Hold Government Criminals Accountable (Tom Renz)
Australia Has Not Written to US on Assange For 6 Months (Lauria)

 

 

 

 

Make viruses

 

 

 

 

Pay it forward
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616057896604672003

 

 

South Africa Suspended vaccines
https://twitter.com/i/status/1618204753271611394

 

 

CJ Hopkins

 

 

 

 

Vaxx Street Boys
https://twitter.com/i/status/1618292478150594561

 

 

 

 

“..NATO’s existence derives its validation from the management of perceived ‘threats’ that in a circular process of thinking precisely were provoked by NATO enlargement – an enlargement done ostensibly to manage such ‘threats’..”

Is This Western War On Russia Simply Stupidity? (Alastair Crooke)

The US proxy war on Russia is stupid. Professor of Law at the LSE, Peter Ramsay, in a review of Benjamin Abelow’s book, How the West Brought War to Ukraine, outlines how the latter eschews the simplistic ‘Putin invaded Ukraine’ narrative — attributing primary responsibility for the war to less proximate causes: ‘American governmental stupidity and blindness’ and ‘the deference and cowardice’ of Europe’s leaders toward this American governmental ‘stupidity’. “Although Abelow describes the self-deluding arrogance and hypocrisy of Western policy very clearly, he does not attempt to explain how; or why US policy has become so stupid or European leaders so cowardly. He appears dumbfounded by it, describing the level of irrationality involved as ‘almost inconceivable’”.

Nevertheless, we must conceive of it, because it has happened, and it is bringing revolutionary change to a Middle East busily re-configuring itself as an integral part of the BRICS+ bloc; a transition, which in itself, portends a huge shift to the framework of geo-economics. At the bottom, the core “monumental stupidity” — for which Abelow quotes British Academic Richard Sakwa — is not something concealed, but rather, is one of those ‘truths’ that are ‘out there: hiding in the open’. It is that NATO’s existence derives its validation from the management of perceived ‘threats’ that in a circular process of thinking precisely were provoked by NATO enlargement — an enlargement done ostensibly to manage such ‘threats’. In short, it is a circular closed-loop argument.

Not only is there no threat from Russia that is independent of American policy, but it is also the expansion of NATO to ‘meet the threat from Russia’ that creates the very threat that expansion was supposed to meet. Similarly, it is this type of circular reasoning which makes ‘Putin into Hitler’ — a self-fulfilling epithet that is created because NATO expansion is firstly ‘reasonable (a ‘Value’, and a national Right), and therefore that anyone contesting it therefore must be ‘fascist’. Abelow asks simply, “What sane person could believe that putting a Western arsenal on Russia’s border would not produce a powerful response?” At its root, Abelow laments that the insanity that bothers him intensely is that US policy-makers recognize the circularity of their argument (he gives examples), yet will not countenance for a moment any argument against it. They know ‘one thing’, but say ‘another’, he says.

But the charge of insanity, Ramsay opines, “whilst appealing rhetorically, tends to obscure a vital aspect of the narcissism that drives Western policy: the aspect in which the self-regarding sense of virtue is informed by the dominant mindset of our time – ideas which influence not just ‘experts’ – but political leaders and entire populations.” This Narcissism and smug self-regard are indeed a key factor, but we need fully to understand their role by turning to Leo Strauss, whose thinking so shaped a generation of American conservatives (the Straussians).

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“This gives us a figure of 1,800 tanks, which must be considered an absolute minimum..” “..the German manufacturer concedes that only 29 of them could be shipped before the summer of 2023..”

What Heavy Weapons For Ukraine Will Mean On The Battlefield (Khodaryonok)

Another thing to consider is probable Ukrainian losses during offensive operations. The average daily losses of an armored unit in this case stand at 10 to 15%. About 15 to 20% of incapacitated tanks are typically irrecoverable losses, while the rest require repairs (general maintenance for 30 to 50%, medium-level repairs for 15 to 30%, and an overhaul for 10 to 20%). Simply put, at least another 300 tanks are required to offset losses during combat operations. This gives us a figure of 1,800 tanks, which must be considered an absolute minimum. These are very approximate and somewhat simplistic calculations, yet they give us ballpark figures. Great Britain and Poland have officially pledged an armored company each, respectively consisting of up to 14 tanks. Germany will supply a similar amount, while the US is preparing the supply of 31 Abrams heavy weapons.

At a recent meeting of the US-led Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, officials from 12 countries discussed sending a total of about 100 tanks to Kiev, if Berlin were to give the green light, which, according to an ABC report, it has done. Rheinmetall could additionally supply a total of 139 tanks to Ukraine, including 88 Leopard 1s and 51 Leopard 2A4s, yet the German manufacturer concedes that only 29 of them could be shipped before the summer of 2023. What impact will NATO’s tanks have? Will all these tanks see combat any time soon? Let’s consider the example of the M1 Abrams, which is seen as one of the symbols of US military power. A small number of these tanks manned by poorly trained crews and lacking full-scale maintenance and supply infrastructure support would most likely yield negative results.

They will fail to change Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield, while images of burning American tanks will likely hurt US public opinion. Thus, one of America’s premier weapons, the pride and joy of its defense industry, will be humiliated on the battlefield for a long time. This is something the Pentagon can’t allow to happen under any circumstances. Therefore, before any actual fighting happens, evacuation teams, tank repair units, and spare part supplies must be in place, while crews must receive superior training to handle American tanks. Last but not least, the first deployment of US main battle tanks in Ukraine must be accompanied by a significant Ukrainian army success, at least at the tactical level, which would necessitate no fewer than 200–300 (maybe even 400–500) tanks.

Otherwise, supplying the M1 Abrams to Ukraine makes neither military nor political sense. Transferring them one company (10 to 15 tanks) at a time would only mean that this equipment will burn on the battlefield without making any significant impact or even catching anyone’s attention. So far, Russia has not had any significant trouble dealing with enemy equipment. Since the launch of the military operation, according to Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman, Russian forces have destroyed 376 planes, 203 helicopters, 2,944 UAVs, 402 anti-aircraft missile systems, 988 MLRVs, and 3,898 field artillery guns and mortars. As well as 7,614 tanks and other armored vehicles.

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“Right now we are seeing a sharp change in sentiment among the political elites of European countries..”

Ukraine Demands Jets And Missiles (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has called on Western countries to supply fighter jets and long-range munitions, urging for more weapons just hours after the United States and Germany agreed to send heavy battle tanks. Speaking for a video address on Wednesday, Zelensky thanked his German and American counterparts for their decision to send tanks, but quickly shifted to Ukraine’s needs for additional arms. “We must also open deliveries of long-range missiles to Ukraine, it is important – we must expand our cooperation in artillery,” he said, adding that his country also requires fighter jets, and that “speed and volume are key now.”

Washington’s decision to send 31 Abrams tanks broke a stalemate with Berlin, which had refused to send its own Leopard 2 tanks or allow allies to re-export them to Kiev unless the United States followed suit. Ukrainian officials had long pleaded for heavier armor, specifically the M1 Abrams, among other advanced weapon systems from the West. A top advisor to Zelensky, Mikhail Podolyak, told the Telegraph on Wednesday that he expects Ukraine’s patrons to provide long-range missiles eventually, claiming they would be “part of the negotiation process” for the next weapons delivery to Kiev. “Right now we are seeing a sharp change in sentiment among the political elites of European countries, who understand that we need to transfer all equipment, including armored vehicles,” he said. “And we will reach, I am sure, no doubt, an agreement on long-range missiles.”

The advisor added that “Only these missiles will make it possible to destroy almost the entire infrastructure of the Russian rear army.” Citing unnamed sources, the Telegraph reported that the UK government has “not ruled out” longer-range missiles, but currently has no plans to supply them. Washington has previously refused Ukraine’s requests for ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles, which have a range of around 190 miles (305km), though it is unclear whether that, like the M1 Abrams decision, might be subject to change.

Moscow has repeatedly called on Western countries to halt the flow of weapons into Ukraine, saying the arms will only prolong the conflict and make a negotiated settlement impossible. Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, condemned the upcoming tank shipments as “another blatant provocation,” insisting the hardware will be “destroyed” by Russian forces.

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“Can’t blame the Ukrainians for wanting more and more systems,” Kirby said. “It’s not the first time they’ve talked about fighter jets, but I don’t have any announcements to make on that front.”

Ukraine Will Now Push For F-16 Fighter Jets (Hill)

With main battle tanks from the U.S. and Germany now headed to Ukraine, Kyiv is now focusing on securing modern fighter jets from Western allies. Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s Defense secretary, told The Hill that he was optimistic about receiving Western fighter jets such as the American F-16s, which Ukrainians have sought since early last year when Russia first invaded. “Every type of weapon we request, we needed yesterday,” Sak said. “We will do everything possible to ensure Ukraine gets fourth-generation fighter jets as soon as possible.” Reuters first reported the news that Ukraine was setting its sights on fighter jets.

Ukraine scored a major win on Wednesday with the announcement from President Biden that the U.S. will donate 31 American-made M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Kyiv. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday also said he would supply Ukraine with the country’s Leopard 2 tanks and approve the transfer of other Leopards from European allies. The tanks were the latest hurdle for Western allies, who have cautiously approved more and more advanced weaponry for Kyiv, from HIMARS launchers to the Western battle tanks. Western fighter jets and longer-range artillery units, which would allow Ukraine to strike Russian forces deeper in occupied territory, will likely be the next debate for NATO.

Ukraine currently uses Soviet-era fighter jets, including MiG-29s, which became a point of controversy last March when the U.S. declined to facilitate the transfer of MiGs from Poland to Kyiv. So far, the U.S. has resisted sending the F-16 fighter jets and does not appear ready to announce their transfer anytime soon. But national security adviser John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday the U.S. was “in constant discussions” with Ukraine and “we evolve those as the conditions change.” “Can’t blame the Ukrainians for wanting more and more systems,” Kirby said. “It’s not the first time they’ve talked about fighter jets, but I don’t have any announcements to make on that front.”

WWIII

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Focus on China.

Russia, Now The South And East’s Counterpoint To Israel (Mazaheri)

There is no doubt that were Israel threatened with the forced implementation of even something as fundamentally just and decent as a two-state solution they would resort to using nuclear bombs. They are dead-set on waging war until they get all the Palestinians’ lands, and they have made it clear that there is no place for non-Jews (non-White Jews, actually) inside this land they have stolen as if human mores had not changed since the 19th century. In the blink of a post-corona eye, Russia has become something quite similar. As former Russian ex-president Dmitry Medvedev just reiterated, if the Russian nation is seriously threatened with defeat nuclear weapons will be used in self-defence. Other than North Korea, only Israel feels the need to use such language.

Russia and North Korea are genuine nations, ones whose existence was not entirely contrived by and for Western imperialism, but in many ways Russia has become a new Israel. To be more accurate – Russia is now the counterpoint and antithesis of Israel. Just as Israel, the poisoned blade of Western capitalism and imperialism, faces and constantly thrusts east and south, now Russia is the South and East’s defensive rampart facing West. Russia has gone from post-1991 kowtowing to Western liberal democracy – earnestly trying to join them – to realising that the West has declared total war against them. How can there be a reconciliation? War in the Donbass has been going on for nearly a decade – that’s not the blink of an eye. Anyway, the West simply does not remove sanctions once in place – look at decades of Western policy towards Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc. – barring total capitulation.

The West only removed sanctions on China because they absurdly thought that China had gone capitalist and that it had all just been Mao’s doing. Sanctions are now back in force, as Xi has reflected the broad persistence of socialism in China. The alleged end of history was based on the idea that only one type of civilisation existed any more, but it’s clear that there is a false idolatry of a West which exists in only in theoretical words and not in practical deeds, and there is a tolerant and truly diverse non-West which insists on national sovereignty and the right to cultural differences. The West’s outpost in Asia is well-known – Israel – and it is not just a rich colonialist’s whim and folly. Israel serves as an imperialist foothold to destabilise the entire Muslim world and Africa – training, funding and supporting all types of awful monarchies and puppet governments – and for these crimes they suffer internally from the awful, unstable Apartheid they have created.

The surprising development is that non-Western bloc’s frontier has shifted West: from 1979 onwards it was clearly Iran. Forty years of war on and around Iran failed to topple the revolution, and drained the West of vital tangible and moral resources. The non-Western frontier has now been pushed back to Russia. Russia is the country that – for reasons which are diametrically and morally the opposite for the reasons of Israel’s existence – will now serve as the non-Western bloc’s frontier, a frontier which will be in long-term combat and instability.

Schlanger

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“The open discourse on Ukraine as a testing ground for US weapons and Russia as an example to China suggests that the Americans see the current campaign as a test run for different means of influencing the future..”

NATO Has Already Destabilized Europe, Asia Is Next (Lukyanov)

Currently, the world’s attention is focused on the European theater of war, but some very interesting events are also unfolding in Asia. Japan is the most illustrative. Until recently, the country was reluctant to peddle a militant attitude either in terms of weaponry or even in using economic pressure. Things are changing, and this is a strong indicator of the transformation of the international arena. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has just completed a tour of the US and the leading countries in Western Europe. Contrary to usual custom, there was virtually nothing but military rhetoric everywhere. In a policy statement delivered in Paris, Kishida stressed that the security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific region are inextricably linked and must be ensured collectively.

Other statements in Rome, London and Washington confirmed the new trend: In the security field, Japan no longer intends to limit itself exclusively to its relationship with the US, though it forms the basis of its entire defense strategy. Now, Tokyo seeks a much broader engagement with the main Western bloc (NATO), subject to its gradual reorientation towards the Pacific space. This is a new scheme. Since the Cold War, the security system in Asia has been America-centric but not unified, instead based on different groups of countries or bilateral relationships. The US has been the fixed element, the others have varied. Recent innovations such as the “QUAD” involving Japan, India, Australia, and an “Anglo-Saxon club” of the Americans, British and Australians have not disturbed the usual logic. However, something else is emerging – the transfer to greater Asia of the principle of a consolidated alliance, moreover, with European allies to whom the region poses no security threats.

At the heart of the strategy is the logic of Washington, which proceeds from the inevitability of strategic rivalry with China and Beijing’s Asian neighbours, or more precisely, its most bellicose ones. There is no doubt in the US that Beijing will be a major challenge to the American position in the world for years or decades to come. It is discussed in doctrinal documents and it guides the military’s entire posture. Russia is seen as an acute, but short-lived and transient, threat because of what Washington sees as its limited aggregate capabilities. The open discourse on Ukraine as a testing ground for US weapons and Russia as an example to China suggests that the Americans see the current campaign as a test run for different means of influencing the future. In this context, the question of NATO’s status naturally arises.

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80 years ago, 25 million Russians were killed by Germans. Baerbock is too young and uneducated to remember that. But every Russian knows. And German tanks are back fighting Russia.

German Foreign Minister Just Essentially Declared War On Russia (ZH)

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock bluntly stated in fresh remarks that Western allies are fighting a war against Russia. The remarks came during a debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Tuesday amid discussions over sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. While Baerbock’s words were largely ignored in mainstream media, a number of pundits on social media noted with alarm that the German foreign minister just essentially declared war on Russia. Ironically other German officials have long sought to emphasize their country is not a party to the conflict, fearing uncontrollable escalation. Contradicting this official stance, Baerbock said the quiet part out loud, and introduced the comments with: “And therefore I’ve said already in the last days – yes, we have to do more to defend Ukraine. Yes, we have to do more also on tanks.”

And that’s when she asserted: “But the most important and the crucial part is that we do it together and that we do not do the blame game in Europe, because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.” Interestingly, both Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his former defense minister who recently resigned, Christine Lambrecht, have been seen as weak on arming Ukraine – repeatedly declaring an unwillingness to get pulled deeper into the proxy war aspect to the conflict. But now it seems the more hawkish Baerbock is willing to at this point be much more open with the reality of what’s happening. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova seized on the comments, saying this is yet more proof that the Western allies were planning a war on Russia all along…

“If we add this to Merkel’s revelations that they were strengthening Ukraine and did not count on the Minsk agreements, then we are talking about a war against Russia that was planned in advance. Don’t say later that we didn’t warn you,” Zakharova said. One thing is for sure, things are moving fast…

From Russia
https://twitter.com/i/status/1618014795755839491

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“..spend much of the war collaborating closely with the Germans. They had no issues with the Nazi ideology for they too believed that a solution was found in returning to a ‘pure race.’”

Ukrainian Nationalism as a ‘Cold War Weapon’ (Chung)

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was founded in 1929 in East Galicia (located in Poland at the time) and called for an independent and ethnically homogenous Ukraine. From the beginning, the OUN had tensions between the young radical Galician students and the older military veteran leadership, who grew up in the more lenient Austro-Hungarian Empire. The younger generation had only known oppression under the new Polish rule and underground warfare. As a result, the younger faction tended to be more impulsive, violent and ruthless. During this period, Polish persecution of Ukrainians increased and many Ukrainians, especially the youth who felt they had no future, lost faith in traditional legal approaches, in their elders and in Western democracies who were seen as turning their backs on Ukraine.


The OUN assassinated Polish Interior Minister Bronislaw Pieracki in 1934. Among those tried and convicted in 1936 for Pieracki’s murder, were OUN’s Stepan Bandera and Mykola Lebed. Both escaped when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. Support for the OUN increased as Polish persecution of Ukrainians continued. By the beginning of the Second World War, the OUN was estimated to have 20,000 active members and many times that number in sympathizers in Galicia. In 1940 the OUN would split into the OUN-M led by Andriy Melnyk, and OUN-B headed by Stepan Bandera which made up most of the membership in Galicia and consisted mainly of youth.

In August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the non-aggression pact known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, dividing Poland. Eastern Galicia and Volhynia were reunified with Ukraine, under the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In June 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded Western Ukraine, there were many Western Ukrainians who welcomed the invading Nazis as their ‘liberators.’ It should be noted here that this was not a sentiment predominantly shared by the rest of Ukraine, who fought in or alongside the Russian Red Army against the invading Nazis. Both the OUN-M and OUN-B would spend much of the war collaborating closely with the Germans. They had no issues with the Nazi ideology for they too believed that a solution was found in returning to a ‘pure race.’


In the case of Ukraine, this pure race consisted of a somewhat romanticised concept of ‘ethnic Ukrainian,’ based on the golden age of Kievan Rus’. The OUN believed that the ‘pure ethnic Ukrainian race’ were the only true descendants of the royal bloodline of the Rurik dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus’. And rather than looking at Belarusians and the Russians as their brothers and sisters who shared the same ancestry, the OUN viewed them more so as ‘ethnic impostors’ so to speak of this pure bloodline. This can be seen today with Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups attacking Ukrainian ethnic Russians for the past nine years in Ukraine.[1] An issue that is almost entirely ignored in the West.

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“Türkiye is among NATO’s oldest members, and people calling for its exit are “talking about destroying” the bloc..”

Türkiye To Be Out Of NATO In Months – Erdogan Ally (RT)

Türkiye could leave NATO within months, a politician there has claimed, citing “provocations” by the US-led military bloc against his nation. Ethem Sancak is a Turkish businessman of Arab descent who is active in politics and who local media describe as close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He was commenting on an anti-NATO campaign in Türkiye that the Vatan (Patriotic) Party, where he holds the position of vice chairman for foreign relations, has organized. “NATO forces us to take these actions with their provocations,” he stated, predicting that his party’s goal of getting Türkiye to leave the alliance may come to fruition “in five-to-six months.”

Speaking to the news website enbursa.com on Tuesday, Sancak noted that being part of the bloc puts Türkiye on a collision course with fellow member and longtime rival Greece, and also at risk of being pulled “into a whirlpool in the Middle East.” The recent Koran-burning stunts in some European nations make leaving NATO “a necessity,” he argued. The Danish-Swedish right-wing politician and activist Rasmus Paludan staged a protest last weekend in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, which involved the burning of the holy book of Islam. The incident sparked outrage in the Muslim world, while the Turkish president said Stockholm’s choice to permit the action meant that Ankara would not support Sweden’s request to join NATO.

Sancak said that Turks were increasingly perceiving the US as a nation that pursues “the most hostile and destructive policies.” At the same time they “feel great sympathy towards Russia.” A survey conducted by the Turkish pollster Gezici at the end of last year showed that 72.8% of Turks wanted their nation to have good relations with Russia. Less than a quarter said they believed Moscow to be hostile towards Türkiye. Omer Celik, the spokesman for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), rejected the idea, which he called “mind-blowing.” Türkiye is among NATO’s oldest members, and people calling for its exit are “talking about destroying” the bloc, he told journalists on Wednesday.

The Vatan Party believes that Türkiye would be better off if it dropped its attempts to become a member of the EU and forged good relations with China and Russia instead. It also advocates overcoming differences with Iran and Syria, nations that the US is targeting with crippling sanctions and other forms of pressure. Sancak joined the Vatan Party last year, though his involvement in politics goes back decades to his days as a university student and activist. His business interests include pharmaceuticals and cosmetics as well as media, with the TV channel 360 and the daily newspaper Star among his best-known acquisitions.

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“..4000-word New York Times opinion piece titled Nancy Pelosi, Liberated and Loving It by Maureen Dowd.”

The Worst Article You’ll Ever Read (Space Worm)

It’s not a pretty sight when pols lose power. They wilt, they crumple, they cling to the vestiges, they mourn their vanished entourage and perks. How can their day in the sun be over? One minute they’re running the world and the next, they’re in the room where it doesn’t happen. Donald Trump was so freaked out at losing power that he was willing to destroy the country to keep it. I went to lunch with Nancy Pelosi at the Four Seasons to find out how she was faring, now that she has gone from being one of the most powerful women in the world — second in line to the presidency — and one of the most formidable speakers in American history to a mere House backbencher. I was expecting King Lear, howling at the storm, but I found Gene Kelly, singing in the rain. Pelosi was not crying in her soup.

She was basking as she scarfed down French fries, a truffle-butter roll and chocolate-covered macadamia nuts — all before the main course. She was literally in the pink, ablaze in a hot-pink pantsuit and matching Jimmy Choo stilettos, shooting the breeze about Broadway, music and sports. Showing off her four-inch heels, the 82-year-old said, “I highly recommend suede because it’s like a bedroom slipper.” Fans dropped by our booth to thank Pelosi, and women in the restaurant gave me thumbs-ups, simply because I was sitting with her. “I wonder, Maureen, girl to girl, I keep thinking I should feel a little more, I don’t know,” she hesitated, looking for the right word. Over the course of our conversation, she said the word was “regretful,” and she thought about it in church, and during morning and night prayers, but she just wasn’t feeling it. “It’s just the time, and that’s it. Upward and onward. I’m thrilled with the transition. I think it was beautiful.”

Her daughter Alexandra, a documentary filmmaker, assured me that it’s not an act. “I can tell you, in my 52 years of being alive on this earth, I have never had the kind of weekend I’m having right now,” she said last Sunday. “My mother is at peak happiness. I’ve never seen her like this. It’s like she’s floating through the air. It’s fascinating for my kids because they don’t know this person. “I think you want to enjoy being old. I don’t think you want to spend your final days fighting with Kevin McCarthy about how many seats you get on Appropriations.” Before I could broach the humiliating spectacle of McCarthy abasing himself to the loonies on the far right and being tortured by preposterous Matt Gaetz, Nancy Pelosi brought up her successor. She looked at me, her brown eyes widening, and said: “I’m sad for Kevin that he couldn’t do that in a way that brought a little more dignity to the House of Representatives. It’s strange.” She added, “What happened was inexplicable.”

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“..opened the door for US and like-minded investment” in the respective countries’ vast “green” mineral wealth..”

US Africa Leaders Summit Promises More Exploitation For Africa (GZ)

The US Africa Leaders Summit held this December in Washington DC provided a platform for the Biden administration to advance its agenda across the African continent. With topics ranging from COVID-19 to climate change to “closing the digital divide,” to “strengthening democracy,” Washington’s agenda united around the belief that African collaboration with US multinational corporations would prove mutually beneficial, and advance long-term “progress.” The weekend of discussions was conducted Davos-style, with heads of US industry seated directly beside African heads of state and members of the Biden administration. At the top of the corporate titans’ agenda was the relaxation of regulatory requirements, which they argued would make the continent more “inviting” for outside investment.

One set of regulations that the US would especially like to loosen are those relating to the mining sector. This includes miners’ rights, child labor laws, slavery laws, environmental regulations and mineral tariffs. Deloitte, a US corporate giant and strategic partner of the World Economic Forum, published a paper in 2018, “The Future of Mining in Africa,” which spells out the agenda Washington is advancing across the continent. The paper argued that facilitating the digital transformation known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution would require African nations to loosen mining regulations intended to protect human rights and the environment. The paper lamented that the mining sector “continues to experience scrutiny by regulators in Africa,” which supposedly “creates uncertainty, delayed investment in mining expansion, and stops the development of new mines.”

Deloitte went on to argue that Africa needs “to move away from enforcing [regulatory] compliance for compliance sake and move toward delivering value.” It was clearly implied that that “value” would be determined by corporate America, and not necessarily the African people. The script put forward by Deloitte helped set the stage for the US Africa Leaders Summit this December. There, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented a memorandum of understanding to DRC Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula and Zambian Foreign Minister Stanley Kakubo. The agreement, according to Blinken, “opened the door for US and like-minded investment” in the respective countries’ vast “green” mineral wealth, referring to massive deposits of nickel, cobalt, and copper.

“The DRC produces more than 70 percent of the world’s cobalt. Zambia is the world’s sixth-largest copper producer, second-largest cobalt producer in Africa,” Blinken said. “Global demand for critical minerals is going to skyrocket over the next decades…Electric vehicles help reduce carbon emissions and they support the global response to the climate crisis,” the Secretary of State continued, draping the plundering of Africa’s wealth in friendly green-speak.

Mining

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“..the lead researcher said they were not going to publish these findings because it may affect funding from pharma..”

Breaking The Silence: Do mRNA Vaccine Harms Outweigh Benefits? (Sladden)

‘Double-jabbed’ Malhotra originally supported the program, until a series of events sent him digging into the evidence. What he discovered alarmed him and resulted in the publication of two evidence-based, peer-reviewed papers along with a call for the immediate suspension of the Covid mRNA roll-out. He tells his story: ‘Despite being one of pharma’s biggest critics I could not have expected or conceived of the possibility that these vaccines, these new vaccines, could cause harm. So very early on I was one of the first to have two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and I helped out at a vaccine centre in January 2021. About a month later I had a conversation with a friend of mine, film director Gurinder Chadha (who was) vaccine hesitant. I said to her, “Listen, traditional vaccines are still one of the safest pharmacological interventions in the history of medicine. That doesn’t mean that all vaccines are completely safe.

No drug is completely safe. But when you compare them to other pharmacological interventions I’ve talked about and campaigned on, for example diabetes drugs, blood pressure pills or statins, they are far, far safer.”’ Malhotra further explains his view during a Good Morning Britain interview. ‘I said, “There are rational concerns for vaccine hesitancy and irrational concerns. The rational concerns are when looking at what the pharmaceutical industry has done for years – they’ve been found guilty of fraud on many occasions – and prescribed medications are the third most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer.” So, I was being open, and I felt compassion for people who were vaccine hesitant. And I said, “In my opinion, as it stands at the moment, traditional vaccines are the safest.”

‘Six months later my father suffered an unexplained … cardiac arrest. The post-mortem didn’t make sense, he was a very fit guy, yet he had very severe narrowings of two of his coronary arteries. I had known his cardiac history inside out, we had done imaging on him a few years earlier. I found myself thinking “hold on a minute, he’s got a rapid progression of coronary artery disease when he’s doing really well during lockdown, walking 10,000 steps a day and eating well. This doesn’t make sense.“ And I could only attribute it at the time to stress, I couldn’t think of any other reason.’ Over following months, emerging data led Malhotra to question whether the vaccine was linked to his father’s death. The first was an abstract published in Circulation (November 8, 2021) by US cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr Steven Gundry, who followed several hundred of his patients after the mRNA (Moderna/Pfizer) jabs.

Gundry found that inflammatory markers correlated with heart disease risk went through the roof. On average, that change increased the risk of those people having a heart attack or stroke within the next five years, from 11 per cent up to 25 per cent. This increase in risk is massive. The next event raised more alarm bells for Malhotra. ‘Within two weeks of that abstract, a whistle-blower contacted me from a prestigious institution in the country, and said that a group of researchers had accidentally found through imaging studies that mRNA vaccines were increasing heart attack risk through inflammation, but the lead researcher said they were not going to publish these findings because it may affect funding from pharma. ‘I then felt a duty and contacted GB News saying, “There is a Circulation abstract but also something else I’ve heard,” and I spoke about it on GB news. That interview went viral … with me raising questions and saying, “We need to investigate this.”’ The push back was strong.

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“..most experts would estimate the all-cause mortality death toll from the COVID vaccines to be in the range of 500K to 600K. So the global cost of life from these vaccines is on the order of 10 to 12 million people..”

217,000 Americans Killed By The Covid Vaccines In Just The First Year (Kirsch)

A new peer-reviewed paper was just published that finally gets the truth out: Over 217,000 Americans were killed by the vaccine in the first year after rollout The rate of severe adverse events reported in the survey by the survey participants (13.4%) after adjusting by a factor of 2 for categorization error, is still 5X more than was reported by Pfizer in their Phase 3 trial. Since deaths from the vaccine were higher in 2022, most experts would estimate the all-cause mortality death toll from the COVID vaccines to be in the range of 500K to 600K. So the global cost of life from these vaccines is on the order of 10 to 12 million people. But nobody wants to talk about it because that’s the way science works. When you can’t argue with the data, you censor the speaker like the FDA and CDC did to me.


They are actively trying to get the paper retracted because it destroys the narrative. I’m certain they will succeed because journals are under intense pressure to censor any anti-narrative paper. The problem is that Mark’s survey was entirely consistent with my surveys. If they want to have the paper retracted they need to show us THEIR surveys. But of course, they don’t have any surveys because they are too afraid of the results. So they will use hand-waving arguments like “I don’t like the methodology” or some nonsense like that instead of gathering their own data. They will NEVER show us survey data that supports their narrative because it isn’t there. That’s why there are no success anecdotes. NOBODY can give me the name of a US geriatric practice where all-cause deaths plummeted after the vaccines rolled out. In every case, they went the wrong way. The narrative is unraveling at an accelerated pace but the medical community is still fighting the truth.

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“FBI has proven itself to be the Deep State’s brownshirts to DOJ’s Gestapo.”

We Have the Evidence; Time to Hold Government Criminals Accountable (Tom Renz)

How many more young people need to die before doctors and politicians stop pretending that they don’t know what’s going on? Here’s a selection of deaths in just the last two weeks: 16yo High School Flag Football Player 18yo Rugby Player 18yo Baseball Player 18yo Basketball Player 18yo Football Player 18yo MMA phenom 20yo College Tennis Player. But it’s not just young athletes that are literally dropping like flies. Recent “sudden deaths” include a 30yo former WWE and reality TV star, a 31yo American Idol singer, a 33yo TikTok celebrity, a 42yo former football player, a 48yo award-winning Scottish chef, a 54yo Filipino celebrity chef, a 56yo former supermodel, and a beloved 67yo character actor.

These aren’t the aged and infirm (although they’re dying in record numbers too). A 14yo boy has a heart attack. A 16yo girl “dies suddenly” in her sleep…TWO DAYS after her 36yo aunt! Mothers, Fathers-to-be, and toddlers are at risk too. “Vibrant” 33yo women are “dying suddenly.” Even “walking too briskly” to class is now deadly, if you’re a military academy football player that was forced to participate in the experiment. Sometimes people don’t even make it out the door after getting jabbed. And think you’re safe if you ran “vaccine” clinics and dosed thousands with the gene jab? Think again. The data are clear: these injections are killing people at an unprecedented rate. And what has the response been? More gaslighting. Raising money to pay the hospital responsible for losing your child. And urging people to learn CPR.

Maybe we’ll finally get some action now that politicians are dying too. Then again, its curious how it’s never the ones who have been behind this operation nor anyone in their families. It’s time for Republicans to heed calls to start standing up for We the People and demanding an end to this genocide and holding those responsible criminally accountable. If you still need further proof that our government is being run as a criminal enterprise, look no further than the FBI. Between doing its best to take down a sitting president to colluding with Big Tech to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election and agreeing to cover up Joe’s Top Secret document scandal until after last November’s midterms (while at the same time ginning one up to smear and further harass President Trump), FBI has proven itself to be the Deep State’s brownshirts to DOJ’s Gestapo.

It should be no surprise to anyone, then, that FBI director Christopher Wray was a Davos darling at the annual World Economic Forum gathering, braying about how FBI has embedded itself into Big Tech to expand its surveillance and censorship operations. It’s time to reinstate the Smith-Mundt Act and limit the federal government’s ability to surveil Americans without a court-ordered warrant specific enough to meet the Fourth Amendment standards.

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“When the Federal Parliament reconvenes in February, the Government will need to explain – in much more detail – when we can expect to see Mr. Assange return to Australia..”

Australia Has Not Written to US on Assange For 6 Months (Lauria)

A Freedom of Information request by a member of the Australian parliament has revealed that the Australian government has not engaged in correspondence with the United States regarding the case of imprisoned publisher Julian Assange for at least the last six months. MP Monique Ryan filed the requests with the offices of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus and Foreign Minister Penny Wong and no documents were returned, indicating that there has been no written communication with the U.S. over the fate of Assange since at least last May, reported former Australian Senator Rex Patrick in the Australian publication Michael West Media. The absence of written correspondence does not exclude that Australian officials may have engaged in verbal communications with U.S. counterparts about Assange over the past half year, though written notes are normally made on such meetings.

The freedom of information request asked for all correspondence or other records of communication sent after May 23, 2022 between Albanese and President Joe Biden; Dreyfus and U.S. Attorney General Marrick Garland and Wong and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Albanese raised Assange supporters’ hopes in November when he responded to a question in Parliament from MP Ryan by saying: “The government will continue to act in a diplomatic way, but can I assure the member for Kooyong that I have raised this personally with representatives of the United States government. My position is clear and has been made clear to the US administration that it is time that this matter be brought to a close.”

Hopes for Australian action on Assange were further raised when Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist John Lyons told an ABC program at the end of December that he understood Assange would be back home in Australia within two months. Ryan told Michael West Media: “If the Albanese Government was serious about working to secure an end to the US prosecution and Mr. Assange’s release, then he and his Ministers would have raised the matter formally, in writing, with their counterparts at the top levels of the US Government. It is now confirmed that they have not done so via any formal means.” Ryan said that she intends to question Albanese about the absence of written communication. “When the Federal Parliament reconvenes in February, the Government will need to explain – in much more detail – when we can expect to see Mr. Assange return to Australia,” she said.

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Color change
https://twitter.com/i/status/1618298413338234881

 

 

 

 

Pendulums

 

 

Flip-flop

 

 

Cats are awesome
https://twitter.com/i/status/1617980726502359040

 

 


In 2016, a study based on 28 Greenland sharks determined by radiocarbon dating of crystals within the lens of their eyes, that the oldest of the animals that they sampled had lived for 392±120 years and was consequently born between 1504 and 1744

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 282022
 
 October 28, 2022  Posted by at 8:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  47 Responses »


Salvador Dali Self portrait 1921

 

Musk Says He Bought Twitter For The Sake Of ‘Humanity’ (RT)
Twitter CEO, CFO, & Top Censor Escorted Out (ZH)
The West Has Nothing Left To Offer The World – Putin (RT)
Russia Is Not An Enemy Of The West – Putin (RT)
West Can’t Sit Out Crises It Caused – Putin (RT)
‘No One Can Sit Out The Coming Storm’ (RT)
Putin Says Russia Won’t Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine (Antiwar)
G7 Not Big Enough To Dictate Russian Oil Price – World Bank (RT)
Norway Opposes Russian Gas Price Cap (RT)
Saudi Arabia ‘Duped’ Washington On Secret Oil Deal – NYT (RT)
Kremlin Clarifies Reports On Putin’s ‘Message’ To Zelensky (RT)
Most Dangerous And Unpredictable Decade Since WWII Ahead – Putin (RT)
US Discredited Dollar By Weaponizing It – Putin (RT)
Ukraine Adds Billions To Its Military Budget (RT)
mRNA Vaccines Injure the Heart of ALL Vaccine Recipients (DS)
mRNA Vaccines: The CIA and National Defense (Malone)

 

 

Two main themes today.

1/ Elon Musk buys Twitter and fires executives.

2/ Putin’s speech at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow. Actually, he did the speech and then stayed for hours responding to questions. No teleprompter needed. RT divvied up the event in many articles, so a lot of RT today.

And at the end Robert Malone on CIA and mRNA.

 

 

 

 

Jamie Dimon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1585624304632283139

 

 

 

 

Putin Suleimani

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Traditional media outlets have fueled and catered to the polarized extremes as they relentlessly pursue higher ratings and profits..”

Musk Says He Bought Twitter For The Sake Of ‘Humanity’ (RT)

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has tried to calm advertiser concerns about his acquisition of Twitter, telling them that he’s buying the social media platform to help save human civilization and that he won’t let it become a “free-for-all hellscape.” Speaking on the eve of closing his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, Musk posted a message to advertisers explaining his rationale for the deal. “I didn’t do it to make more money,” he said. “I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility.” The Tesla CEO, who ranks as the world’s richest person with a fortune estimated by Forbes at more than $221 billion, made his takeover bid for Twitter in April.

At the time, he pledged to end censorship of conservative voices on the platform, saying free speech was a “societal imperative for a functioning democracy.” Critics, including Twitter employees, raised concerns that Musk would make the platform unsafe by allowing “harmful” content. In May, more than two dozen left-wing activist groups urged advertisers to boycott Twitter if Musk completed his takeover, saying he would make the social media giant a “direct threat to public safety.” Although Musk has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” his note to advertisers suggested that the conversations on Twitter won’t be completely unregulated under his ownership. “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences,” he said.

“In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences, just as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging from all ages to mature.” Musk said the social media industry currently faces a risk of splintering into far-right and far-left “echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.” Traditional media outlets have fueled and catered to the polarized extremes as they relentlessly pursue higher ratings and profits, he added. “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,”the billionaire said.

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“..other workers have moved to the likes of Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snap, and TikTok..”

Twitter CEO, CFO, & Top Censor Escorted Out (ZH)

As the bell tolls for the end of the first chapter of Twitter’s life as a deep state narrative-enabling machine, the firings have begun with Musk becoming ‘Chief Twit’. Just minutes after the world’s richest man has reportedly closed the $44 billion deal, The NYTimes reports that, according to sources that declined to be identified, the Twitter executives who were fired include: • Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief executive, • Ned Segal, the chief financial officer, • Sean Edgett, the general counsel, and • Vijaya Gadde, the top legal and policy executive, (or censorship czar).

As a reminder, having been with Twitter since 2011, Gadde was the key executive in charge of ‘trust and safety, legal and public policy functions’ – described by Politico as the company’s “moral authority.” Gadde holds one of the most controversial positions at Twitter: Her teams decide how to moderate content. That’s made her a target of right-wing criticism, particularly when Twitter blocked the distribution of a New York Post article about President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in 2020. She faced a renewed wave of criticism after multiple reports confirmed she was behind the decision to ban Trump from Twitter. -Politico. In other words, Gadde is likely the exec who signed off on ZeroHedge’s February 2020 ban for speculating that Covid-19 may have emerged from a Wuhan Lab, and President Trump’s January 2021 ban in connection with the capitol riot. And we are not surprised at the others…


At least one of the executives who was fired was escorted out of Twitter’s office, NYTimes reports. Please do not feel too bad for these poor, dejected executives, as Insider reports, through “change in control” provisions in employment contracts for top leadership, they will receive a certain amount of severance and an automatic acceleration of their shares, so long as Musk fires them. The provisions are disclosed in regulatory filings. Agrawal is set to receive the largest payout of $38.7 million, due largely to the entirety of his shares vesting upon his firing. Segal is set to receive a $25.4 million payout for getting fired. Gadde will leave with $12.5 million. As we detailed earlier, over 1,100 employees have left Twitter since Musk announced his intention to buy the company back in January, with almost a third going to Google or Meta. The figures come from a new analysis of LinkedIn data, with the report noting that other workers have moved to the likes of Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snap, and TikTok. We suspect, as Elon warned, it’s sinking now for some…

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Yeah, let it sink in.

“Simplification and the erasure of any and all differences have become almost the essence of the modern West. What is behind this simplification? First of all, this is the disappearance of the creative potential of the West itself..”

The West Has Nothing Left To Offer The World – Putin (RT)

Liberal democracy has changed beyond recognition and has gone from promoting freedom of speech and expression, to demanding the ‘cancelation’ of anyone with a different point of view, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a speech at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow on Thursday. Speaking about the major changes in the world in recent years, Putin noted that the West has continued its policy of escalating tensions across the globe, and is trying to subjugate the world under its “rules-based order.” He added that it remains unclear who invented these rules, what they are based on, or what exactly they even are. The only thing that is clear, according to the president, is that the rules are meant to allow those who hold global power to live “without any rules at all,” and allow them to get away with doing whatever they want.


“The West in recent years and especially in recent months has taken a number of steps towards escalation. They always play for escalation; there is nothing new here. This includes the incitement of war in Ukraine, provocations regarding Taiwan, and the destabilization of the world food and energy markets,” he said. Humanity now basically has two paths it can pursue, Putin stated. It can either be fractured and keep accumulating problems that will eventually bury it, or try to find “not ideal, but working” solutions to common issues. The president went on to stress the importance of preserving cultural diversity in the world, stating that the West is trying to flatten everything out to be identical and is blocking the “free creative development” of other civilizations and imposing its own style of development. “Simplification and the erasure of any and all differences have become almost the essence of the modern West. What is behind this simplification? First of all, this is the disappearance of the creative potential of the West itself,” Putin said.

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“On one hand, the traditional, primarily Christian West “is close to us in some ways,” he said, noting that “we have in many respects common and ancient roots.”

Russia Is Not An Enemy Of The West – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on Thursday that Russia is an “independent” civilization that does not consider itself an enemy of the West. Instead, he sees the “aggressive” and “neo-colonial” liberal elite in charge of the West as a foe. “In the current conditions of a tough conflict, I will say some things directly,” Putin told a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. “Russia, being an independent, original civilization, has never considered and does not consider itself an enemy of the West.” Hatred for American, British, French or German people “are the same form of racism as Russophobia and anti-Semitism,” he added. Putin went on to describe the West as two entities. On one hand, the traditional, primarily Christian West “is close to us in some ways,” he said, noting that “we have in many respects common and ancient roots.”

“But there is another West – aggressive, cosmopolitan, neo-colonial, acting as an instrument of neo-liberal ideas. It is precisely with the dictates of this West that Russia, of course, will never put up with,” he continued. While Putin undoubtedly sees the conflict in Ukraine as an existential struggle against the West – describing his forces as fighting the “entire Western military machine” and blaming the derailment of peace talks and sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines on the “Anglo-Saxons,” he has drawn a distinction between Western elites and Western society before. Speaking at a ceremony following the accession of four formerly Ukrainian regions into the Russian Federation last month, Putin declared that “the Western elites target all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves.”

While the West expands primarily to secure its “mercantile interest,” he stated at Thursday’s meeting, it also pushes its cultural exports on an unreceptive world. “If Western elites believe they can launch new trends like dozens of genders and gay parades, they have the right to do so,” he said. “But they don’t have the right to demand that others follow the same direction.” Putin also condemned the “pure Satanism” of Western liberal culture in his speech last month, noting that “many like-minded people in Europe and the United States” feel the same way. The Valdai Discussion Club is an annual international event in Russia conceived as a platform for floating ideas that the host nation considers important to discuss with other global players. The forum was created in 2004.

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“..new centers of power in the multipolar world and the West will have to start talking as equals about our common future.”

West Can’t Sit Out Crises It Caused – Putin (RT)

The West and its allies are playing a “dirty game,” the prize in which is global dominance, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. However, the US and its allies are not safe from the consequences of their own actions, he added. “Power over the world is what the West has put at stake in the game it plays. This game is certainly dangerous, bloody and I would call it dirty.” The Russian president’s comments came at a Valdai Discussion Club meeting outside Moscow on Thursday. He offered his view that Western nations deny others on the global scene the right to any kind of independence, be it political, economical or cultural. Last December, Russia’s proposals to address its concerns about national security were “tossed aside” by Washington, he noted.


“But in the modern world, sitting aside is hardly an option. He who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind, as the proverb says,” he said, pointing out that the ongoing global crisis affects everyone and all aspects of life. Humanity basically now has two paths it can pursue, Putin stated. It can either be fractured and keep accumulating problems that will eventually bury it, or try to find “may be not ideal, but working” solutions to common issues. Putin said he believes in common sense and is convinced that sooner or later “new centers of power in the multipolar world and the West will have to start talking as equals about our common future.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1585716564867047424

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“Where Nazis burned books, the Western “guardians of liberalism and progress” now ban Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky..”

‘No One Can Sit Out The Coming Storm’ (RT)

The world is entering a decade of tumult as the pursuit of a more just world order clashes with the arbitrary hegemony of the collective West, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, addressing the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. Putin’s speech ranged from biodiversity to “cancel culture,” the nature of what the West has to offer and Russia’s response, followed by hours of answering audience questions. Here are six key points from his opening remarks.

The West stokes conflict to preserve hegemony From inciting conflict in Ukraine and provocations around Taiwan to destabilizing the world food and energy markets, the US and its allies have been escalating tensions around the globe in recent years and especially in recent months, Putin said. “Ruling the world is what the so-called West has staked in this game, which is certainly dangerous, bloody and – I would say – dirty. It denies the sovereignty of countries and peoples, their identity and uniqueness, and disregards any interests of other states,” the Russian president explained. In their so-called “rules-based world order,” only those making the “rules” have any agency, while everyone else must simply obey. However, the West has “no constructive ideas and positive development, they simply have nothing to offer the world except the preservation of their dominance.”

Rules for thee but not for me The West insists its culture and worldview should be universal, Putin said. While not saying it outright, they behave as if these values must be unconditionally accepted by everyone else. Yet when some other countries, notably China, began benefiting from globalization, the West “immediately changed or completely canceled” many of the rules it long insisted were set in stone and sacred, Putin said, with free trade, economic openness, fair competition and even property rights “suddenly forgotten at once, completely.” “As soon as something becomes profitable for themselves, they change the rules immediately, on the go, in the course of the game.”

“Cancel culture” and canceling culture Believing themselves infallible, the rulers of the West desire to destroy – or “cancel” – those they dislike. Where Nazis burned books, the Western “guardians of liberalism and progress” now ban Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky, Putin said. Liberal democracy has transformed into something unrecognizable, declaring any alternative viewpoint as propaganda or a threat, he added. The so-called “cancel culture” destroys anything that is alive and creative, preventing any freedom of thought in culture, economics or politics alike. “History, of course, will put everything in its place,” Putin said, adding that the the self-conceit of those who seek to cancel them is off the charts, “but no one will even remember their names in a few years, while Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky and Pushkin will endure.”

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Not sure why Antiwar brings up the nukes again.

Putin Says Russia Won’t Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine (Antiwar)

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said that Moscow has no plans to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and warned the world is facing the most dangerous decade since World War II. “We see no need for that,” Putin said of the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine in a speech at the Valdai Club, a Moscow-based think tank. “There is no point in that, neither political, nor military.” Putin recently warned that Russia could use all the weapons at its disposal to defend its “territorial integrity,” and other Russian officials made clear that included nuclear weapons and applied to the territories Moscow recently annexed in Ukraine. But there’s been no sign that Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons, and he said Thursday that Russia’s recent talk of nuclear weapons was a reaction to remarks from Western officials.


Discussing current global tensions, Putin said that the world is facing “probably, the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade since the end of World War II.” The Russian leader criticized the US and other Western powers’ for resorting to force to control other nations by using measures such as sanctions, trade wars, and backing coups. One example he used was the US assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020. “They killed Soleimani, an Iranian general. You can think whatever you want about Soleimani, but he was a foreign state official. They killed him in a third country and assumed responsibility. What is that supposed to mean, for crying out loud?” he said.

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But, but… The G7 think they rule the world…

G7 Not Big Enough To Dictate Russian Oil Price – World Bank (RT)

The proposed plan by the Group of Seven (G7) to impose a maximum price restriction on the purchases of Russian oil could work only if major emerging markets and developing countries join the scheme, the World Bank has said. In its oil market outlook, issued on Wednesday, the bank highlighted the associated risks. It wrote that the upside risks are dominated by supply issues, including the extent to which Russia’s exports are impacted by new trade measures. “The proposed G7 oil price cap could affect the flow of oil from Russia, but it is an untested mechanism and would need the participation of large emerging markets and developing economies to achieve its objectives,” the report said.


It added that while significant disruption to Russia’s exports may occur in the short term as trade routes are disrupted, “market participants may find ways to circumvent the sanctions, as has often occurred with other sanction episodes.” The Group of Seven leading economies – the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and Japan – agreed last month to enforce a price ceiling on Russian oil in a bid to curb the country’s revenue from energy exports. The price limit hasn’t yet been decided. According to the plan, banking, insurance and shipping firms will be banned from providing services to Russian companies that sell oil at a price above the set limit. December 5 also marks the deadline for the EU to ban all imports of Russian seaborne crude. Moscow has said it will not export oil to countries participating in the price cap.

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“This could exacerbate the problem Europe already faces, namely gas shortages…”

Putin: Russia is ready to supply gas and oil to Europe, “if they don’t want it, it‘s their choice.”

Norway Opposes Russian Gas Price Cap (RT)

Norway is against the EU proposal of setting an artificial price ceiling on Russian natural gas, according to the country’s Oil and Energy Ministry. “This could exacerbate the problem Europe already faces, namely gas shortages,” Stein Grimsrud, a ministry spokesman, told the Izvestia news outlet. Norway has become a key gas supplier for the EU after Russian flows dwindled due to sanctions and technical problems. The share of gas imported to the bloc from Russia has dropped from 41% to 9% since the beginning of the year, European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson recently said. Norway used to be the EU’s second-largest gas supplier, covering around 20% of its needs. This summer Oslo approved permits for gas extraction at seven new offshore fields to increase gas production in 2022 by 8% compared with 2021.


The ministry also confirmed that it plans to supply about 122 billion cubic meters of gas to the EU this year. By comparison, prior to 2022, Russia used to supply about 130 billion cubic meters by pipeline and 20 billion cubic meters in the form of LNG to the bloc annually. Some analysts, however, note that Norway does not have the capacity to supply enough gas to the EU to cover the loss of Russian flows. “Norway is unable to solve the ongoing energy crisis because a serious expansion of its exports is impossible due to limited reserves. We also note that Norway has increased its profits due to rising gas prices and has no plans to participate in setting a ceiling on gas prices. Oslo offers its European partners to work on the basis of long-term contracts,” the Russian embassy in Norway told Izvestia.

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“There’s now a level of embarrassment as the Saudis merrily go on their way..”

Saudi Arabia ‘Duped’ Washington On Secret Oil Deal – NYT (RT)

President Joe Biden reportedly made his controversial July visit to Saudi Arabia, breaking a campaign promise to shun the kingdom, because his administration thought it had secured a secret deal for Riyadh to boost oil supplies. Instead, Riyadh did the opposite, leading OPEC in cutting output targets. The production increase was supposed to come from September through the end of this year, helping to ease inflation and justify Biden’s trip to Riyadh, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing interviews with unidentified US and Middle East government officials. Earlier this month, OPEC announced plans to cut production by two million barrels a day, creating more upward pressure on prices and potentially increasing the risk that the Biden-led Democratic Party will lose control of Congress in November’s US midterm elections.

Several US lawmakers responded by suggesting that Washington should punish Saudi Arabia by cutting off arms sales or removing its military support for the kingdom. Biden accused Riyadh of siding with Russia in the Ukraine conflict and warned of retribution, saying, “There will be consequences.” Members of Congress who had received classified briefings about the secret oil deal “have been left fuming that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman duped the administration,” the Times said. US officials told the newspaper that even days before the OPEC announcement, they had been assured by bin Salman that there would be no output cuts. When they later heard that Saudi Arabia had reversed its position on the issue, administration officials made a failed effort to “change minds in the royal court.”

Saudi officials said earlier this month that OPEC’s decision was based solely on economic considerations, not politics, and that Washington tried to delay the move for several weeks. Such a delay might have pushed the announcement past November 8, the date of the midterms. US inflation remains near a 40-year high and ranks as the top concern of American voters, according to polling. Biden said while campaigning for president in 2019 that he would treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” and would make them “pay the price” for the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Times said that even some of his strongest supporters have argued that Biden’s decision to meet with bin Salman anyway, after his administration thought it had a secret oil deal in May, was the latest example of “sacrificing principles for political expediency – and having little to show for it.”

“There’s now a level of embarrassment as the Saudis merrily go on their way,”said US Representative Gerald Connolly, a Virginia Democrat. Biden publicly denied in June that he would ask Saudi officials to boost oil supplies. “What happened over the last half-year is a story of handshake agreements, wishful thinking, missed signals and finger-pointing over broken promises,” the Times said.

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“Our colleague from the African state said he would have contacts [with Zelensky] and that he would relay Putin’s position to the Ukrainian side,” Peskov explained. “There was no specific message” involved.”

Kremlin Clarifies Reports On Putin’s ‘Message’ To Zelensky (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t ask the visiting head of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, to relay any special message to his Ukrainian counterpart, Vladimir Zelensky, the Kremlin has said. During Embalo’s visit to Moscow on Tuesday, Putin briefed him about how Russian-Ukrainian peace talks had collapsed after Kiev pulled out of them, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday. Among other things, the Russian leader reiterated that Moscow was ready for negotiations, provided that Kiev changes its stance on the issue. “Our colleague from the African state said he would have contacts [with Zelensky] and that he would relay Putin’s position to the Ukrainian side,” Peskov explained. “There was no specific message” involved.

Embalo met with Zelensky in Kiev on Wednesday and mentioned his talks with Putin during a joint press conference. The host described the words of his guest as “a signal from the Russian side” but dismissed the notion as mere rhetoric aimed at “nations that have not yet cut political ties” with Moscow. “For a dialogue to happen one nation has to respect another nation, respect its territorial integrity, sovereignty and borders,” he added. The position outlined by Peskov was voiced publicly by numerous other Russian officials, including the president. Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council last month banned any talks with Russia as long as Putin remains in power, a motion that Zelensky signed into law.

The Ukrainian president said that his country’s sole goal in the conflict was to defeat Russia on the battlefield and capture all territories that Kiev claims under its sovereignty. Peace talks can happen only after this objective is reached, he asserted. Zelensky is counting on the help of the US and its allies in supplying arms, intelligence and money to Ukraine for as long as it needs the support.

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“The crisis has taken on a truly global magnitude. It affects everyone, and we should not entertain any illusions otherwise.”

Most Dangerous And Unpredictable Decade Since WWII Ahead – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes the world stands at the precipice of a tumultuous decade that will bring the most danger and unpredictability in several generations as Western hegemony inevitably draws to a close. “We are standing on a historic frontier,” Putin said on Thursday at the Valdai Discussion Club’s annual meeting in Moscow. “Ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, important decade since the end of World War II.” Putin rebuked the West for playing a “dangerous, bloody and dirty” geopolitical game. He said the US and its NATO allies helped to incite the Russia-Ukraine conflict while at the same time stoking a crisis over China’s sovereignty in Taiwan to enforce its global dominance.

“I have always believed in the power of common sense, and I still do, so I am convinced that sooner or later, the new centers of the multipolar world and the West will have to embark on an equal dialogue about our shared future, and the sooner that happens, the better,” Putin said. The Russian leader noted that when Moscow laid out the security concerns that would need to be addressed to avert the Ukraine crisis last December, NATO cast the proposal aside. “It’s not going to be possible to sit this one out. Whoever sows the wind will reap the storm. The crisis has taken on a truly global magnitude. It affects everyone, and we should not entertain any illusions otherwise.”

Humanity essentially faces two options, Putin added. “Either we continue accumulating the burden of problems that is certain to crush all of us, or we can work together to find solutions – functional, if imperfect ones – solutions capable of rendering our world more stable and safer.” In any case, Putin said, “the historical period of the West’s undivided dominance over world affairs is coming to an end.” Citing a 1978 quote by Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, he said, “the West has a blindness of superiority.” “Almost half a century later, the blindness Solzhenitsyn spoke of, openly racist and neo-colonial in nature, has become simply ugly, especially after the emergence of the so-called unipolar world.”

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“Using the dollar as a weapon, the United States, and the West as a whole, discredited the institution of international financial reserves, first devaluing them due to inflation in the dollar and the Eurozone, and later completely pocketing our foreign exchange reserves.”

US Discredited Dollar By Weaponizing It – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday that the long reign of the dollar as the world’s trading benchmark is under threat. He forecast that settlements in national currencies will gain momentum and gradually become dominant across the globe. “The transition to settlements in national currencies will actively gain momentum. It is inevitable … Such transactions, of course, will gradually become dominant. That’s the logic of sovereign economic and financial policy of a multipolar world,” the president said. Putin also noted that the West has compromised the whole idea of a reserve currency system.


“Using the dollar as a weapon, the United States, and the West as a whole, discredited the institution of international financial reserves, first devaluing them due to inflation in the dollar and the Eurozone, and later completely pocketing our foreign exchange reserves.” The seizure of the Russian assets has made all nations think about whether to keep reserves in dollars, the president said. According to him, the international financial system should be independent and depoliticized. “… Sovereign development must be ensured for all countries; the choice of any country must be respected. This is also important even in relation to the financial system … Of course, it must be based on the financial systems of the world’s leading countries,” Putin stressed.

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YOUR billions.

Ukraine Adds Billions To Its Military Budget (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has introduced several amendments to the country’s 2022 budget, which raises the maximum limit on state internal borrowing and national debt and offers a significant boost to the nation’s defense expenses. The new budget was published on the Ukrainian parliament’s (Rada) website on Thursday and states that a total of 386.9 billion Ukrainian hryvnas ($10.5 billion) would be allocated to the country’s national security and defense sectors. The bulk of the funds, some $9.9 billion, will go to the Ministry of Defense, while the rest will be split up between the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Security Service, Main Intelligence Directorate, Foreign Intelligence Service and others.

It’s noted that the government has already started work on implementing budgetary procedures to ensure the use of these additional funds for the country’s defense and national security sectors. The announcement comes after Ukrainian MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak announced earlier this month that Ukraine had already spent its entire yearly budget amid the ongoing military conflict with Russia, while presidential aide Alexander Rodnyansky stated that Ukraine now needs to be provided with between four and five billion dollars a month to keep its budget afloat. In an article published by German media group Funke on Tuesday, Rodnyansky stated that Kiev expects the EU to cover roughly half of that sum – some $2 billion per month.

He also insisted Ukraine needed to get additional aid such as “thermal clothing, emergency power and diesel generators” after Russia carried out a series of attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. “We believe that Germany could take on about $500 million a month,”Rodnyansky told Funke, stressing that it would be especially necessary next year. “The state has to function, pensions have to be paid.” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal has put the total cost of repairing the country’s lost infrastructure and modernizing areas unaffected by the conflict at around $750 billion. The World Bank and the US have stated they believe the price to rebuild Ukraine was significantly lower, at around $350 billion, according to Funke.

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…and Cause Myocarditis in Up to 1 in 27..

mRNA Vaccines Injure the Heart of ALL Vaccine Recipients (DS)

New evidence has emerged that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are routinely injuring the heart of all vaccine recipients, raising further questions about their safety and their role in the recent elevated levels of heart-related deaths. The latest evidence comes in a study from Switzerland, which found elevated troponin levels – indicating heart injury – across all vaccinated people, with 2.8% showing levels associated with subclinical myocarditis. The official line on elevated heart injuries and deaths, where they are acknowledged, is that they are most likely caused by the virus as a post-Covid condition rather than the vaccines. However, expert group HART (Health Advisory and Recovery Team) has pointed to Australia as a “control group” on this question.


HART notes that even though Australia had not had significant Covid (only 30,000 reported infections and 910 deaths) prior to mid-2021, it still saw a trend in excess non-Covid deaths beginning in June 2021. HART notes that Australia “did not have prior Covid as a reason for seeing this rise in mortality and hospital pressure from spring 2021”. Instead, “the results from this control group indicate that the cause of this rise in deaths, particularly in young people, must be something in common with Australia, Europe and the USA”. In New Zealand, economist John Gibson found a temporal association between boosters and excess deaths, estimating “16 excess deaths per 100,000 booster doses”. He noted that the age distribution of the deaths corroborated the hypothesis: “The age groups most likely to use boosters show large rises in excess mortality after boosters are rolled out.”

[..] As to cause, Dr. Michael Palmer and Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi at Doctors for Covid Ethics have set out what they deem “irrefutable proof of causality” that mRNA vaccines are causing vascular and organ damage. From studies and autopsy evidence the medical experts show: • mRNA vaccines don’t stay at the injection site but instead travel throughout the body and accumulate in various organs; • mRNA-based Covid vaccines induce long-lasting expression of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in many organs; • Vaccine-induced expression of the spike protein induces autoimmune-like inflammation; • Vaccine-induced inflammation can cause grave organ damage, especially in vessels, sometimes with deadly outcome.


They explain that autopsy evidence shows that “the strong expression of spike protein in heart muscle after vaccination correlates with significant inflammation and tissue destruction”. They add that “vaccine-induced vascular damage will promote blood clotting, and clotting-related diseases such as heart attack, stroke, lung embolism are very common in the adverse events databases”.

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Subtitle: “This isn’t going to end well.”

mRNA Vaccines: The CIA and National Defense (Malone)

We have to have some technology to enable rapid response for special forces teams that are going to go in to wherever the bad guys are when we detect them and address that problem and take them out. Those special forces need to be protected. We need to have capabilities that can be deployed at the battalion level. We need to have capabilities that can be deployed at the population level. This RNA tech was one of the ones, together with monoclonal antibodies, that the government has long believed had huge potential to enable that type of rapid response. They actually like monoclonal antibodies better. The idea behind monoclonal antibodies that they really like is you can administer these products to a special forces group. They go in theater, do their business, come back out, go see their wife, monoclonal antibody is gone. It’s cleared. Yay.

The problem is that the technology just has not performed. The monoclonal antibody technology is too cludgy. It’s too cumbersome. What we’ve learned over the last three years is that viruses and pathogens can evolve to escape that fairly rapidly because they’re fairly specific. We’ve all seen the viral evolution in real time. We experienced it. That’s the unmet medical need and the justification underlying this. That there is an unmet need for some technology, that will now allow rapid response to both emerging pathogens and engineered pathogens such as bio-warfare or terrorism-based pathogens. I think we can all agree that we would like such a technology to exist. The truth is that DARPA, which is the operational development arm, basically the CIA, fell in love with the RNA technology over a decade ago.

They decided to capitalize it and force it into the market space. For instance, they’re the ones that have capitalized through In-Q-Tel, their investment arm, the new RNA manufacturing facilities up in Canada. This is a CIA program. There’s no ambiguity here. I’m not telling state secrets. The technology was basically pulled out of the trash can, because it had been suppressed by Merck after I developed it over 30 years ago. Then it was advanced very aggressively by DARPA. DARPA funded and basically built Moderna. They’re continuing to push all this. They’re pushing it through the government. What you’re seeing is the power of the intelligence community and the new bio-defense industrial complex that’s developed since the anthrax attacks and it really goes beyond that in being able to push their agenda through the government.

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Kermit

 

 

True story.

 

 

Brando

 

 


The Mir mine is an open pit diamond mine located in Mirny, Russia. The mine is 525 m deep (4th in the world) and has a diameter of 1,200 m.

 

 

Mushroom music

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 152022
 
 September 15, 2022  Posted by at 8:49 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  44 Responses »


Salvador Dali Neo-Cubist Academy (Composition with Three Figures) 1926

 

Moscow Outlines ‘Diabolical’ Plan By Washington (RT)
“Prologue To Third World War”: Kremlin Reacts To Security Guarantees For Ukraine (ZH)
US, Ukraine Are In Talks To Transfer Fighter Jets & Longer-Range Missiles (ZH)
The Kharkov Game-Changer (Escobar)
Why Russia Will Still Win, Despite Ukraine’s Gains (Scott Ritter)
Ukraine Has Put World On Brink Of ‘Nuclear Catastrophe’ – Moscow (RT)
Top Hungarian Official Predicts Easing Of Sanctions (RT)
EU May Punish Hungary (RT)
Summit With Putin, Xi Will Showcase Alternative To Western World: Kremlin (AFP)
Ukraine Had A Huge Influence On The Soviet Union (Negopodin)
End of Covid in Sight – WHO (RT)
Why Health Officials Won’t Let Scientists Examine mRNA Vaccine Vials (Mercola)
Denmark ENDS Covid Vaccinations For Almost Everyone Under 50 (Berenson)
Climate Emergency Not Supported by Data: 4 Leading Italian Scientists (DS)
UK Sports Body Tells People Not To Ride Bikes During Queen Funeral (RT)

 

 

Art Berman @aeberman12
The real energy transition is a reduction in energy use. This will never happen VOLUNTARILY. Another slide from my talk last night at Houston Geological Society.

 

 

 

 

Twitter whistleblower

 

 

 

 

The Fibonacci week. How long do the days feel?

 

 

 

 

“..the EU began as a group of nations that banded together for mutual economic benefit through the deregulation of trade. Now “they are being corralled together” so their lives will become “colder, poorer, and harder,” she said.”

Moscow Outlines ‘Diabolical’ Plan By Washington (RT)

Ukraine’s newly published proposal for Western security guarantees is an invitation for the economic self-immolation of the EU, according to Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry. The Russian diplomat believes that the proposed international agreement which Kiev released on Tuesday is an economic trap for EU nations set by the US with Ukraine’s assistance. Most of the measures included in the document “are already being implemented” by Kiev’s backers, but Washington’s EU allies are expected to pledge to keep the Ukraine aid money flowing for the foreseeable future, Zakharova said in an interview on Wednesday. If signed, the ‘Kiev Security Compact’ would mean “harsh slavery” for the bloc which it would not recover from anytime soon, she claimed.

“A total commitment to supporting the Kiev regime would simply mean immolation [for the EU]. And this proposal is addressed to nations that are debating how they can live through the winter,” Zakharova said, in reference to the energy shortages that EU member states are struggling to confront. Developed EU nations face an economic and humanitarian disaster after taking directions from the US on how to respond to the crisis in Ukraine, according to the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. The situation is ironic, she believes, as the EU began as a group of nations that banded together for mutual economic benefit through the deregulation of trade. Now “they are being corralled together” so their lives will become “colder, poorer, and harder,” she said.

This is Washington’s diabolical plan to destroy what was previously called the common European space. The Ukrainian security proposal was prepared by a group co-chaired by Andrey Yermak, the chief of staff of President Vladimir Zelensky, and former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The 10-page document outlines NATO-like security guarantees for Ukraine by the US and its allies that would benefit Kiev until it formally joins the Washington-led military bloc. It also calls for continued military and financial aid for Ukraine by the guarantors.

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“..a “multi-decade” plan of investment, military training, and intelligence sharing to bolster Ukraine’s defensive capabilities as the country pursues full NATO membership.”

“Prologue To Third World War”: Kremlin Reacts To Security Guarantees For Ukraine (ZH)

Ukraine wants a ‘NATO-esque’ bloc which can be called upon to immediately defend borders with Russia, which was proposed by a working group established by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Crucially it would include the United States and other NATO allies providing Ukraine with “security guarantees”. Kiev officials stressed in unveiling the plan Tuesday that it’s not meant as a replacement for NATO, but as a legally binding alliance to be in place while Ukraine eventually pursues full NATO membership, as Newsweek describes of the proposal: “The Kyiv Security Compact (KSC)—proposed by Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelensky’s office, and former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen—would also establish a “multi-decade” plan of investment, military training, and intelligence sharing to bolster Ukraine’s defensive capabilities as the country pursues full NATO membership.”

The Kremlin’s reaction has been swift and fierce, with Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev warning that it is “really a prologue to the Third World War” if it gets enacted. He described that nuclear holocaust would be the end result. According to a translation of Medvedev’s reaction in state media, which had been posted in a statement to Telegram, he blamed “dull idiots” from “stupid think tanks” for concocting such a “hysterical appeal”. Medvedev wrote: “And then the Western nations will not be able to sit in their clean homes, laughing at how they carefully weaken Russia by proxy. Everything will be on fire around them. Their people will harvest their grief in full. The land will be on fire and the concrete will melt.”

“Yet still the narrow-minded politicians and their stupid think tanks, thoughtfully twirling a glass of wine in their hands, talk about how they can deal with us without entering into a direct war. Dull idiots with a classical education.” He said that already the conflict in Ukraine is sliding into unknown, unpredictable territory of escalation due to the West’s “unrestrained pumping of the Kiev regime with the most dangerous types of weapons.” He added to the statements as follows according to a translation: “The Kyiv camarilla gave birth to a project of “security guarantees”, which are a prologue to the third world war. Of course, no one will give any “guarantees” to the Ukrainian Nazis. After all, this is almost the same as applying Article 5 of the North Atlantic Pact (Washington Treaty) to Ukraine. For NATO – the same shit, only a side view. Therefore, it’s scary.”

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Insanity squared.

US, Ukraine Are In Talks To Transfer Fighter Jets & Longer-Range Missiles (ZH)

The US and its allies are in talks over whether to send Ukraine more advanced weapons in the future, including fighter jets, US defense sources have said, according to the Financial Times. The Kharkiv counteroffensive has apparently emboldened Ukrainian officials to press Washington harder for more advanced and longer-range weapons, now that some degree of success in rolling back Russian forces can be demonstrated. The idea is that if Ukraine’s forces can prove they’ve taken back significant territory with what defense systems the US has provided so far, they can ultimately make the case that the whole of the east and south is within their reach – and even the potential to liberate Crimea while they’re at it – if longer range and more advanced arms are made available.

The Financial Times reports this week that active discussions between the US and Ukraine are underway concerning Kiev’s weapons wish list: “A senior US defense official said Washington and its allies were discussing Ukraine’s longer term needs, such as air defenses, and whether it might be appropriate to give Kyiv fighter aircraft in the “medium to longer term”. To date, the US and its allies have declined to do so. But interestingly and quite tellingly, the report immediately follows with the acknowledgement that Ukrainian leaders are perhaps naturally incentivize to exaggerate battlefield gains at this moment. Here’s more from the FT as the Pentagon offers a “cautiously optimistic” assessment of Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensives in the east and south:

“Ukrainian military officials have said in recent days they have taken more than 3,000 sq km of terrain in what has become Moscow’s biggest military setback since it was forced to scrap plans to conquer Kyiv. But late on Monday night President Volodymyr Zelenskyy practically doubled those claims as Ukraine’s forces continued to advance.” Something Ukraine has additionally long been asking for is longer-range missile systems. A Monday Wall Street Journal report detailed that Kiev is now requesting from the Pentagon the Army’s Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, a surface-to-surface missile system with the capability of reaching about 190 miles. This would be far and beyond the range of missiles transferred to Ukraine thus far in the conflict.

The Biden administration in the early months resisted sending longer range missiles, admitting its fears that doing so could draw the US and Russia into direct conflict – given longer range munitions means Ukrainian forces would have the capability of hitting inside Russian territory. This has already happened with Crimea, and even recently with bases inside Russia proper near the border. But now US defense officials are looking over a new strategy proposal and weapons request submitted by Valeriy Zaluzhny, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s force. WSJ details of the document: They argued that Russia has long-range cruise missiles that greatly outdistance the systems in the Ukrainian inventory. A turning point could come if the Ukrainians also had longer-range systems, they argued, specifically mentioning the ATACMS. “The only way to radically change the strategic situation is, without a doubt, for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to launch several consecutive, and ideally, simultaneous counterattacks during the 2023 campaign,” they wrote.

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“Sooner rather than later, gloves – velvet and otherwise – will be off. Exit SMO. Enter War.”

The Kharkov Game-Changer (Escobar)

Wars are not won by psyops. Ask Nazi Germany. Still, it’s been a howler to watch NATOstan media on Kharkov, gloating in unison about “the hammer blow that knocks out Putin”, “the Russians are in trouble”, and assorted inanities. Facts: Russian forces withdrew from the territory of Kharkov to the left bank of the Oskol river, where they are now entrenched. A Kharkov-Donetsk-Luhansk line seems to be stable. Krasny Liman is threatened, besieged by superior Ukrainian forces, but not lethally. No one – not even Maria Zakharova, the contemporary female equivalent of Hermes, the messenger of the Gods – knows what the Russian General Staff (RGS) plans, in this case and all others. If they say they do, they are lying.

As it stands, what may be inferred with a reasonable degree of certainty is that a line – Svyatogorsk-Krasny Liman-Yampol-Belogorovka – can hold out long enough with their current garrisons until fresh Russian forces are able to swoop in and force the Ukrainians back beyond the Seversky Donets line. All hell broke loose – virtually – on why Kharkov happened. The people’s republics and Russia never had enough men to defend a 1,000 km-long frontline. NATO’s entire intel capabilities noticed – and profited from it. There were no Russian Armed Forces in those settlements: only Rosgvardia, and these are not trained to fight military forces. Kiev attacked with an advantage of around 5 to 1. The allied forces retreated to avoid encirclement. There are no Russian troop losses because there were no Russian troops in the region.

Arguably this may have been a one-off. The NATO-run Kiev forces simply can’t do a replay anywhere in Donbass, or in Kherson, or in Mariupol. These are all protected by strong, regular Russian Army units. It’s practically a given that if the Ukrainians remain around Kharkov and Izyum they will be pulverized by massive Russian artillery. Military analyst Konstantin Sivkov maintains that, “most combat-ready formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are now being grounded (…) we managed to lure them into the open and are now systematically destroying them.” The NATO-run Ukrainian forces, crammed with NATO mercenaries, had spent 6 months hoarding equipment and reserving trained assets exactly for this Kharkov moment – while dispatching disposables into a massive meat grinder.

It will be very hard to sustain an assembly line of substantial prime assets to pull off something similar again. The next days will show whether Kharkov and Izyum are connected to a much larger NATO push. The mood in NATO-controlled EU is approaching Desperation Row. There’s a strong possibility this counter-offensive signifies NATO entering the war for good, while displaying quite tenuous plausible deniability: their veil of – fake – secrecy cannot disguise the presence of “advisers” and mercenaries all across the spectrum.[..] This is an existential war. A do or die affair. The American geopolitical /geoeconomic goal, to put it bluntly, is to destroy Russian unity, impose regime change and plunder all those immense natural resources. Ukrainians are nothing but cannon fodder: in a sort of twisted History remake, the modern equivalents of the pyramid of skulls Timur cemented into 120 towers when he razed Baghdad in 1401.sIf may take a “hammer blow” for the RSG to wake up. Sooner rather than later, gloves – velvet and otherwise – will be off. Exit SMO. Enter War.

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“Winning a battle is one thing; winning a war another.”

Why Russia Will Still Win, Despite Ukraine’s Gains (Scott Ritter)

The Ukrainian battle plan has “Made in Brussels” stamped all over it. The force composition was determined by NATO, as was the timing of the attacks and the direction of the attacks. NATO intelligence carefully located seams in the Russian defenses and identified critical command and control, logistics, and reserve concentration nodes that were targeted by Ukrainian artillery, which operates on a fire control plan created by NATO. In short, the Ukrainian army that Russia faced in Kherson and around Kharkov was unlike any Ukrainian opponent it had previously faced. Russia was no longer fighting a Ukrainian army equipped by NATO, but rather a NATO army manned by Ukrainians.

Ukraine continues to receive billions of dollars of military assistance, and currently has tens of thousands of troops undergoing extensive training in NATO nations. There will be a fourth phase, and a fifth phase … as many phases as necessary before Ukraine either exhausts its will to fight and die, NATO exhausts its ability to continue supplying the Ukrainian military, or Russia exhausts its willingness to fight an inconclusive conflict in Ukraine.

[..] In the end, I still believe the end game remains the same — Russia will win. But the cost for extending this war has become much higher for all parties involved. The successful Ukrainian counteroffensive needs to be put into a proper perspective. The casualties Ukraine suffered, and is still suffering, to achieve this victory are unsustainable. Ukraine has exhausted its strategic reserves, and they will have to be reconstituted if Ukraine were to have any aspirations of continuing an advance along these lines. This will take months. Russia, meanwhile, has lost nothing more than some indefensible space. Russian casualties were minimal, and equipment losses readily replaced.

Russia has actually strengthened its military posture by creating strong defensive lines in the north capable of withstanding any Ukrainian attack, while increasing combat power available to complete the task of liberating the remainder of the Donetsk People’s Republic under Ukrainian control. Russia has far more strategic depth than Ukraine. Russia is beginning to strike critical infrastructure targets, such as power stations, that will not only cripple the Ukrainian economy, but also their ability to move large amounts of troops rapidly via train. Russia will learn from the lessons the Kharkov defeat taught them and continue its stated mission objectives.

The bottom line – the Kharkov offensive was as good as it will get for Ukraine, while Russia hasn’t come close to hitting rock bottom. Changes need to be made by Russia to fix the problems identified through the Kharkov defeat. Winning a battle is one thing; winning a war another. For Ukraine, the huge losses suffered by their own forces, combined with the limited damage inflicted on Russia means the Kharkov offensive is, at best, a Pyrrhic victory, one that does not change the fundamental reality that Russia is winning, and will win, the conflict in Ukraine.

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The IAEA can’t speak. Ukraine=NATO.

Ukraine Has Put World On Brink Of ‘Nuclear Catastrophe’ – Moscow (RT)

Ukraine’s attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant are creating an unacceptable risk, the chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on Tuesday. Moscow will act to prevent a disaster from happening, while the US does not seem to care about the potential damage to Ukraine and its European NATO allies, the speaker of the Russian parliament has said. “Kiev’s terrorist actions are putting the world on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe. We cannot allow this to happen,” Volodin said, opening the legislature’s autumn session. While the US may be far away from the plant, “their NATO allies in Europe stand to suffer” in case of a radioactive release, Volodin noted, adding that the US government and EU parliaments are silent about the threat, but many other states around the world share Russia’s concern about the situation.

Russia has controlled Europe’s largest nuclear power plant since March. Attacks on the facility started in July, with the Russian Defense Ministry documenting more than 30 artillery and drone strikes, as well as two attempts by Ukrainian commandos to storm the plant, one during the visit of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission earlier this month. Kiev has accused Moscow of staging the shelling to make Ukraine look bad, even though its military eventually admitted to targeting the area.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, who personally led the mission to inspect the plant, said on Monday that both Russia and Ukraine are “interested” in a proposal for a local ceasefire and a security zone around the ZNPP. All of its six reactors are currently offline, due to the ongoing artillery threat. Moscow has rejected any notion of withdrawing its troops from the area, however, with the Kremlin saying that the only discussion at this time is “about forcing the Ukrainian side to stop the barbaric shelling” of the premises. In his remarks on Tuesday, Volodin said, “time has once again shown the correctness of the decision” by President Vladimir Putin to send troops into Ukraine in February.

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“The European Commission has reportedly backpedaled on the gas price cap and is currently working on a mechanism to tax the windfall profits of energy companies.”

Top Hungarian Official Predicts Easing Of Sanctions (RT)

The EU will review the sanctions on Russia and could lift some of them as soon as this autumn, Hungarian State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Trade Tamas Menczer predicts. The restrictions imposed on Russian trade to punish it for attacking Ukraine have failed to change Moscow’s behavior and actually rewarded it with increased revenues, after they triggered a spike in energy prices, the MP said during an appearance on M1 TV on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the European countries that imposed the sanctions are facing energy shortages. “Reality knocks on the door of every country,”Menczer said, explaining why he believes the sanctions will be lifted sooner rather than later. Member states are set to review their sanctions policies later in the autumn.


The Hungarian MP confirmed that his country, which criticized the EU’s drive to decouple the economy of the bloc from Russian energy, opposed the idea of introducing a price cap on gas bought from foreign nations. He called the proposal absurd and impractical, citing Moscow’s promises to cut supplies to customers that try to dictate the price. The European Commission has reportedly backpedaled on the gas price cap and is currently working on a mechanism to tax the windfall profits of energy companies. Brussels is also urging EU nations to impose various energy-saving measures to better prepare for peak consumption during the winter. Last week, Hungarian Parliament Speaker Laszlo Kover claimed that the EU is the “loser” in the Ukraine conflict due to the economic damage caused by the sanctions.

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“..as much as 70% of the funding due between 2021 and 2027 may be withheld from Hungary owing to non-compliance..”

EU May Punish Hungary (RT)

The European Commission will recommend withholding funds from the Hungarian government over allegations of corruption in the country, Bloomberg claimed on Wednesday, confirming earlier reports in the Hungarian press. The assessment is expected to be unveiled as soon as Sunday. The EU launched a probe against Hungary shortly after its prime minister, Viktor Orban, shored up his domestic position by winning the April general election in a landslide. The investigation was triggered under a recently adopted EU law that links payments of subsidies to member states to their compliance with the bloc’s rule-of-law norms.According to Bloomberg’s sources, the European Commission is almost ready to release its conclusions. The executive body is to recommend slashing the funding pending improvement in adherence to the norms, senior EU officials told the agency.

The final decision will be made within three months after the report is released, with a qualified majority of votes by the bloc’s members required to adopt it. Brussels may give Budapest a grace period of up to three months to follow its recommendations and to implement a number of measures that the Hungarian government promised to enact to alleviate the EU’s concerns, according to Bloomberg. According to EUobserver, a publication specializing in covering EU policies, as much as 70% of the funding due between 2021 and 2027 may be withheld from Hungary owing to non-compliance. The total sum would amount to over €40 billion, according to the Bloomberg report. The Orban government was blocked from accessing the EU money during the probe.

The anti-corruption measures that Budapest proposed in late August include creating a new authority to oversee the spending of EU funds and amending Hungarian laws on public procurements. The country’s justice minister, Judit Varga, met EU officials last week to discuss the package. The timeline for the release of the graft report was first revealed by the Hungarian newspaper Nepszava on Tuesday evening. Its sources said that 20% of EU subsidies were at risk of being suspended unless Budapest meets Brussels’ demands. The punishment, if implemented, would be the first case of its kind. The EU leadership has voiced concerns about the rule of law in several Eastern European countries, most notably Hungary and Poland.

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Half the world population.

Summit With Putin, Xi Will Showcase Alternative To Western World: Kremlin (AFP)

A regional summit this week where Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet China’s Xi Jinping and other Asian leaders will showcase an “alternative” to the Western world, the Kremlin said Tuesday. Putin and Xi will be joined by the leaders of India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and several other countries for the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Uzbek city of Samarkand on Thursday and Friday. The SCO — made up of China, Russia, India, Pakistan and four ex-Soviet Central Asian countries — was set up in 2001 as a political, economic and security organisation to rival Western institutions. The meeting will be part of Xi’s first trip abroad since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic and comes with relations between Russia and the West shattered by the conflict in Ukraine. “The SCO offers a real alternative to Western-centric organisations,” Kremlin foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Moscow.


“All members of the SCO stand for a just world order,” he said, describing the summit as taking place “against the background of large-scale geopolitical changes”. The SCO, he said, “is the largest organisation in the world, it includes half the population of our planet”. Putin will hold talks with Xi, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday, Ushakov said, before attending the main session of the summit on Friday. On Friday he will also meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev. “The meeting with Xi is of particular importance, major international and regional topics will be discussed,” including the conflict in Ukraine and growing Russia-China economic ties, Ushakov said.

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History lesson.

Ukraine Had A Huge Influence On The Soviet Union (Negopodin)

Even now, many pages in the history of the Soviet Union remain a mystery. One of these concerns the ethnic composition of the country’s leadership. Such information was not published by the Party’s Central Committee until 1989, and biographies of members of the governing bodies during the entire Soviet period were not released until 1990, just before the dissolution of the USSR. All of these documents confirmed that many of its statesmen, politicians, diplomats, as well as military and intelligence officers, had been born in Ukraine. However, information about their ethnic origin was often omitted. Also, many of those who originated from Ukraine were registered as ‘Russian’ or simply as ‘Soviet’. This is why it is so difficult to assess the full scope of political influence Ukrainians had on the decision-making process in the Soviet Union.

It is true that Ukrainians contributed a great deal to building socialism. If we round them all up, we see that there had always been very large numbers of people from Ukraine in the top tiers of power. Two of them, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, ruled the country as general secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. The country’s final ruler, Mikhail Gorbachev, was the descendant of Ukrainian peasants who had moved to Stavropol. [..] The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was managed by local elites, which is completely at odds with the modern myth of Ukraine having been an ‘oppressed nation’ in the Soviet Union. Moreover, so many Ukrainians held key positions in the Soviet government that any allegations made by the present-day Ukrainian authorities about the Ukrainian SSR struggling under the yoke of the Russian SFSR and being de facto Soviet Russia’s colony simply don’t have a leg to stand on.

On the contrary, by the 1950s, the Ukrainian SSR had become a full-fledged statelet that had its own constitution and flag and even parliament. In fact, its structure mirrored that of the government of the Soviet Union itself. Ukraine’s policy was determined by the Communist Party of Ukraine with the Politburo being its highest body of power; its legislative branch was represented by the Supreme Council (this later became the Verkhovna Rada); and executive power was wielded by the Council of Ministers.

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But vaccinate!

End of Covid in Sight – WHO (RT)

World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared on Wednesday that the end of the Covid-19 pandemic is close at hand. While the virus is still spreading at the same level as last year, despite mass vaccination, deaths have fallen significantly. “We are not there yet. But the end is in sight,”Tedros said at a press briefing. Claiming that vaccination and other public health measures have reduced the threat posed by the virus, the WHO chief called on governments to push for 100% vaccination of vulnerable people and healthcare workers, and 70% vaccination of the general public.

“A marathon runner does not stop when the finish line comes into view, she runs harder with all the energy that she has left,” he said. “Now is the worst time to stop running.” The impact of vaccines, masks, lockdowns, and other public health measures on the virus’ spread has been a controversial issue, with near-totally vaccinated countries like Singapore still experiencing waves of infection this summer that dwarfed similar spikes in 2021 and 2020. Some 3.1 million cases of Covid-19 were confirmed globally in the week ending September 5, compared to 3.9 million in the same week in 2021, and 1.9 million in the same week in 2020.

Deaths have fallen, however, with 11,000 linked to the virus in the week ending September 5, the lowest weekly total since March 16, 2020. Tedros announced that the WHO would release six policy briefs for governments later on Wednesday, outlining the steps the organization thinks are necessary to avoid “more variants, more deaths, more destruction and more uncertainty.” Among these steps are the aforementioned vaccination push, the maintenance of infection control measures in hospitals, increased testing and sequencing, and the administration of appropriate treatment to patients.

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“However, what it will do very effectively, if you got reasonably intact mRNA, is to cause you significant harm. You are playing a game of chance with your immune system and what is in the bottle.”

Why Health Officials Won’t Let Scientists Examine mRNA Vaccine Vials (Mercola)

A 14-minute video (below) that has been overlooked for nearly two years has now resurfaced, exposing stunning information about the COVID-19 jabs and why health officials don’t want individual vaccine vials examined by independent scientists. The reason, it turns out, is because the vials are all different — and the mRNA in the shots “is not intact.” Both of these pose potentially serious problems. In an Aug. 31 Substack article, Steve Kirsch explains: “Even if you are getting 100% intact mRNA which would be really rare, you’re still not getting anything that resembles the virus. So the efficacy as far as PROTECTING you will be next to nothing. “However, what it will do very effectively, if you got reasonably intact mRNA, is to cause you significant harm. You are playing a game of chance with your immune system and what is in the bottle.”

The video notes that members of the European Parliament were only allowed to read the contracts with the drug makers after they’d been heavily redacted. Why the heavy-handed secrecy, even toward legislators? The finding that the mRNA in the shots was of questionable quality was revealed in a British Medical Journal feature investigation article published in March 2021. As explained by the author, journalist Serena Tinari, cyber attackers retrieved more than 40 megabytes of Pfizer COVID-19 jab data from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in December 2020. The hacked data was subsequently sent to journalists and academics worldwide. It was also published on the dark web. Some of the documents show European regulators had significant concerns over the lack of intact mRNA in the commercial batches sampled.

Compared to the clinical batches, i.e., the shots used in the clinical trial, 55% to 78% of the commercial shots had “a significant difference in % RNA integrity/truncated species.” In one email, dated Nov. 23, 2020, a high-ranking EMA official noted that the commercial batches failed to meet expected specifications, and that the implications of this RNA integrity loss were unclear. In response to the findings, the EMA sent a list of questions and concerns to Pfizer. While we do not know if and how the EMA’s concerns were actually addressed and corrected, the EMA authorized Pfizer’s COVID-19 jab Dec. 21, 2020.

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Next please.

Denmark ENDS Covid Vaccinations For Almost Everyone Under 50 (Berenson)

Denmark will bar almost everyone under 50 from receiving more mRNA Covid jabs, the Danish Health Authority said yesterday. Denmark had already ended Covid shots for nearly everyone under 18. The new rules go much further. Danes under 50 will only be allowed to receive the shots if they are “higher risk of becoming severely [emphasis added] from Covid-19.” The Danish Health Authority has not yet defined those groups, but they will likely include only a handful of people, such as those receiving cancer treatments that suppress their immune systems. Pregnant women are unlikely to be included.

Denmark did not explicitly say the risks of mRNA jabs now outweigh their benefits for healthy people under 50. But that view is implicit in the announcement, which does not merely discourage but actually bans shots for those people, even though Denmark expects “a large wave of [Covid] infection” in the next few months. In other words, the health authority is not stopping shots because Covid has ended. It now believes most people are better off getting the coronavirus than taking more mRNA. The Danish move is particularly significant because Denmark has an excellent national health care system and has aggressively collected data on Covid and vaccines.

Denmark was among the first countries to stop giving Covid shots to healthy children and teenagers. Now other European countries are beginning to follow, with Britain ending mRNA shots for almost all children 10 and under. In yesterday’s announcement of the new policies, Denmark explicitly dropped any effort to halt the spread of the coronavirus and said that it will focus only on protecting people at very high risk: “We expect that a large part of the population will become infected with covid-19 during the autumn, and we therefore want to vaccinate those having the highest risk so that they are protected from severe illness.”

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It’s time for science. Before the climate lockdowns come.

Suppose the climate alarms follow the same pattern the Covid ones do. Take it from there.

Climate Emergency Not Supported by Data: 4 Leading Italian Scientists (DS)

Four leading Italian scientists have undertaken a major review of historical climate trends and concluded that declaring a ‘climate emergency’ is not supported by the data. Reviewing data from a wide range of weather phenomena, they say a ‘climate crisis’ of the kind people are becoming alarmed about “is not evident yet”. The scientists suggest that rather than burdening our children with anxiety about climate change, we should encourage them to think about issues like energy, food and health, and the challenges in each area, with a more “objective and constructive spirit” and not waste limited resources on “costly and ineffective solutions”.

During the course of their work, the scientists found that rainfall intensity and frequency is stationary in many parts of the world. Tropical hurricanes and cyclones show little change over the long term, and the same is true of U.S. tornadoes. Other meteorological categories including natural disasters, floods, droughts and ecosystem productivity show no “clear positive trend of extreme events”. Regarding ecosystems, the scientists note a considerable “greening” of global plant biomass in recent decades caused by higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Satellite data show “greening” trends over most of the planet, increasing food yields and pushing back deserts.

The four scientists are all highly qualified and include physics adjunct professor Gianluca Alimonti, agrometeorologist Luigi Mariani and physics professors Franco Prodi and Renato Angelo Ricci. The last two are signatories to the rapidly growing ‘World Climate Declaration’. This petition states that there is no climate emergency and calls for climate science to be more scientific. It also calls for liberation from the “naïve belief in immature climate models”. In future, it says, “climate research must give significantly more emphasis to empirical science”.

‘Extreme’ weather events attributed by climate models – somehow – to anthropogenic global warming are now the main staple of the climate alarmist industry. As the Daily Sceptic reported on Monday, Sir David Attenborough used a U.K. Met Office model forecast in the first episode of Frozen Planet II to claim that summer Arctic sea ice could be gone within 12 years. But the likelihood of hardy swimming galas over the North Pole by 2035 seems somewhat remote, not least because Arctic sea ice has been growing in many summers since 2012. According to a recent report from the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Center, at the end of August “sea ice extent is likely to remain higher than in recent years”.

EV-No

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The list of absurdities gets longer.

• 100 staff at Charles III residence sacked
• £200 million tax avoided by Charles on his inheritance
• 1,000 Cancer treatments cancelled for Monday
• Arrests for disapproving of unelected head of state
• Food banks closed on Monday

UK Sports Body Tells People Not To Ride Bikes During Queen Funeral (RT)

British Cycling has U-turned on its previous “strong recommendation” that people should refrain from using their bicycles during the Queen’s funeral next week. Though the UK government had stressed there was no obligation to cancel or postpone any events during a period of national mourning following the death of Queen Elizabeth II last Thursday, some sports such as football have widely postponed matches as a mark of respect to the monarch. Adopting a similar stance, British Cycling released guidance that said it “strongly recommends that anybody out riding their bike on the day of the state funeral does so outside of the timings of the funeral service and associated processions, which will be confirmed later this week.”

This caused consternation among cyclists, with one noting that the funeral on Monday, September 19, clashes with their work hours. “Is it OK with you if I don’t follow your absolutely ridiculous advice and bike to work? Or would you rather I, as a mark of respect, pollute the air with my car? Maybe I can honk the national anthem on my horn?” they asked.British Cycling has since deleted the section of its guidance that says people shouldn’t cycle at all during the funeral for the 96-year-old Queen, but fresh recommendations have insisted that amateur cyclists should not go on rides with their clubs on Monday. “As a mark of respect to Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, British Cycling’s guidance is that no formal domestic activities should take place on the day of the State Funeral, Monday 19 September,” it stated.

“This includes cycle sport events, club rides, coaching sessions and community programs (such as Breeze rides).”With good weather expected which often prompts long rides with clubs, this has also drawn criticism and has seen the organization dubbed a “joke” with conduct “worthy of the Stasi,” in reference to the former German state security service in operation from 1950 to 1990. Some cyclists have threatened to cancel their membership, with one balking that British Cycling is “an embarrassment at a time when hatred towards cycling feels at an all-time high.”

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Paul&Fauci

 

 

 

 

Wesley Clark

 

 


Bridge of Hands, Vietnam

 

 

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

 

 

 

Jul 042022
 


Salvador Dali Invisible Sleeping Woman, Horse, Lion 1930

 

Russia Claims Control Of Pivotal Eastern Ukrainian Province (AP)
To Avoid Civil War, Learn to Tolerate Different Laws in Different States
Yes, You CAN Blame Biden For High Energy Prices (Shellenberger)
Bezos Slams Biden Appeal For Lower Gasoline Prices (F24)
Supreme Court Marshal Calls on States To Crackdown on Protesters (Turley)
NY To Require 3 Years Of Social Media History For Gun Carry Permit (PM)
Text Messages Show Cassidy Hutchinson Referring To Jan 6 Committee As ‘BS’ (DC)
Are the Covid mRNA Vaccines Safe? (Kulldorff)
Spartacast 01 (Spartacus)
US Drag Queens Stand Their Ground Amid Intimidation By The Far Right (G.)

 

 

“France now imports more Russian liquefied natural gas than at any time in history, writes Welt.
The requirement to pay for gas in rubles does not apply to LNG supplies, and France has as many as four terminals for receiving such tankers.”

 

 

Dude

 

 

Myocarditis cases in USA, Ages 12-20:
2019: 16
2020: 9
2021: 2,301

 

 

 

 

 

 

The MSM still can’t do normal reporting on Ukraine. Because Russia keeps winning.

Russia Claims Control Of Pivotal Eastern Ukrainian Province (AP)

Russia claimed control Sunday over the last Ukrainian stronghold in an eastern province that is key to achieving a major goal of Moscow’s grinding war. The General Staff of Ukraine’s military reported that its forces had withdrawn from Lysychansk in Luhansk province. President Volodymr Zelenskyy acknowledged the withdrawal but said the fight for the city was still raging on its outskirts. If confirmed, Russia’s complete seizure of Luhansk would provide its troops with a stronger base from which to press their advance in the Donbas, a region of mines and factories that President Vladimir Putin is bent on capturing in a campaign that could determine the course of the entire war. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin that Russia’s troops, with a local separatist militia, “have established full control over the city of Lysychansk” and now hold all of Luhansk, according to a ministry statement published Sunday.

As is typical with such descriptions, the Russian statement characterized the victories as “the liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic.” Separatists in Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk, which make up the Donbas and are home to significant Russian-speaking populations, declared independence from Kyiv in 2014 and their forces have battled Ukrainian troops there ever since. Russia formally recognized the self-proclaimed republics days before its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian and Russian forces fought fiercely for Lysychansk in recent days after the neighboring city fell last week. On Sunday evening, the General Staff of Ukraine’s military confirmed on social media that its forces had withdrawn from Lysychansk “to preserve the lives of Ukrainian defenders.”

In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy noted the withdrawal. But he added that “Ukraine does not give anything back” and vowed to return with more modern weapons. Citing his forces’ success in recapturing other territory, he promised, “There will be a day when we will say the same about Donbas.” Earlier, Zelenskyy said Kyiv’s forces were still battling Russian soldiers on Lysychansk’s outskirts “in a very difficult and dangerous situation.” “We cannot give you the final judgment. Lysychansk is still being fought for,” Zelenskyy told a news conference in Kyiv given alongside Australia’s visiting prime minister. He noted that territory can move quickly from one side to the other.

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Good advice. And a good day for it too.

To Avoid Civil War, Learn to Tolerate Different Laws in Different States (Mises)

Most commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—which overturns Roe v. Wade—has focused on the decision’s effect on the legality of abortion in various states. That’s an important issue. It may be, however, that the Dobbs decision’s effect on political decentralization in the United States is a far bigger deal. After all, the ruling isn’t so much about abortion as it is about the federal government’s role in abortion. State governments are free to make abortion 100 percent legal within their own borders. Some states have already done so. The court’s ruling limits only the federal government’s prerogatives over abortion law, and this has the potential to lead to many other limitations on federal power as well. In this way, Dobbs is a victory for those seeking to limit federal power.

The decentralization is all to the good, and there’s nothing novel about it. Historically, state laws in the US have varied broadly on a variety of topics from alcohol consumption to divorce. This was also true of abortion before Roe v. Wade. Moreover, decentralizing abortion policy in this way actually works to defuse national conflict. This is becoming even more important as cultural divides in the United States are clearly accelerating and become more entrenched. Rather than fight with increasing alarm and aggression over who controls the federal government—and thus who imposes the winner’s preferences on everyone else—people in different states will have more choices in choosing whether to live under proabortion or antiabortion regimes.

In other words, decentralization forces policymakers to behave as they should in a confederation of states: they must tolerate people doing things differently across state lines. This will be essential in avoiding disaster, and laissez-faire liberals (i.e., “classical liberals”) have long supported decentralization as a key in avoiding dangerous political conflicts. Ludwig von Mises, for example, supported decentralization because, as he put it, it “is the only feasible and effective way of preventing revolutions and civil … wars.”

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Huh? “If Biden got America on a wartime footing, as he should be given Russia’s aggression in Europe, we would see the lowering of oil, gas and petroleum prices in less than one year.”

Yes, You CAN Blame Biden For High Energy Prices (Shellenberger)

This July 4th, as you fill up your car or truck, you might be tempted to blame President Joe Biden for high gasoline prices. You shouldn’t, say some experts. It’s Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fault, they say. The US had to cut off Russian oil imports to punish Putin for invading Ukraine. Meanwhile, Biden himself has blamed the American energy industry. “At a time of war,” Biden wrote in an open letter to the industry on June 15, “high refinery profit margins being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable… companies must take immediate actions to increase the supply of gasoline, diesel, and other refined product.” But US refineries are already operating at 94 percent of their capacity, with US refineries in the Gulf of Mexico running at 98 percent, which is the highest rate in 30 years.

Running refineries at a higher capacity than that risks damaging the equipment. As such, Biden isn’t just wrong, he insulted some of the hardest working people operating in one of the most dangerous industries in America. But, on May 12, Biden’s Interior Department blocked a proposal to open up more than one million acres of land in Alaska for oil and gas drilling. Two days later, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency blocked plans to expand an oil refinery in the US Virgin Islands. Biden and his defenders said he had to block the expansion of the Virgin Islands refinery, given how polluting it was. But had Biden’s EPA allowed the Virgin Island refinery to expand, the owners would have poured nearly $3 billion into retrofitting the plant so it produced gasoline and other products more cleanly, while significantly increasing production at the same time.

Furthermore, anybody who cares about air pollution and climate change should want more oil and gas drilling, not less. US emissions declined 22% between 2005 and 2020, mostly because cheap natural gas has replaced coal. In truth, there are many things Biden could have done, and still should do, to lower energy prices. He could invoke the National Defense Act to accelerate the rate of oil and gas permits. He could set a floor of $80/barrel for re-filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which would be a powerful incentive for the industry, because it would prevent prices from falling to unprofitable levels. Biden could announce trade agreements with American allies to supply them with liquified natural gas, which would incentivize more natural gas production and lower prices. If Biden got America on a wartime footing, as he should be given Russia’s aggression in Europe, we would see the lowering of oil, gas and petroleum prices in less than one year.

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“99% of gas stations in America are small business owned. The average gas station’s profit actually DROPPED from April to May. ”

Bezos Slams Biden Appeal For Lower Gasoline Prices (F24)

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has criticized President Joe Biden for calling on oil companies to lower sky-high gasoline prices, prompting the White House to come to the US leader’s defense on Sunday. “My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril,” Biden tweeted Saturday. “Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now,” Biden added. Bezos said Biden’s remarks amounted to “either straight ahead misdirection or a deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics.” “Ouch. Inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this,” the US billionaire tweeted Saturday.

Gasoline prices at the pump have become a symbol of broader price rises in the United States, and they are sapping Biden’s approval rating ahead of legislative elections in November. Biden has regularly attacked oil companies, saying they only care about profits and not the well-being of the average consumer. The companies say in turn they have increased production to try to tame prices but that these are set on the world market and are subject to dynamics that are not under the control of US oil giants. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Twitter Sunday that oil prices have dropped about $15 a barrel over the past month. “But prices at the pump have barely come down. That’s not ‘basic market dynamics.’ It’s a market that is failing the American consumer,” she wrote.

Gasoline prices have been above $5 a gallon since early June, which is unprecedented in the car-crazy nation. Prices have fallen slightly since, but remain far from the $3 a gallon level of a year ago. John Kirby, White House spokesman on national security issues, also defended the president Sunday in an appearance on Fox News. “The president is working very, very hard across many fronts… to try to bring that price down,” Kirby said.

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Governors refuse.

Supreme Court Marshal Calls on States To Crackdown on Protesters (Turley)

In a rare move, Supreme Court Marshal Gail Curley has sent letters to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich, and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin demanding that authorities put an end to picketing and “threatening activity” outside the homes of SCOTUS justices. The letter seeks to use state laws to achieve what the Justice Department has clearly rejected under federal law. If the letter prompts arrests, we could see a major free speech challenge in the courts. The timing of the letter, however, is particularly interesting and may reflect a recognition of the limits of the federal law. Like most Americans, I have denounced these protests targeting the homes of justices as excessive and reckless (though one law professor actually suggested that such protests could be more aggressive).

However, I have also questioned the use of a federal law to arrest protesters. Under a federal law, 18 U.S.C. 1507, any individual who “pickets or parades” with the “intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer” near a U.S. court or “near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer” will be fined or “imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” I believe that a court would declare the use of the federal law against protesters on public sidewalks to be unconstitutional. There are issues of free speech, assembly, and vagueness that would be likely raised in federal court. Indeed, if you apply the broad interpretation of the law, even protests outside of the Supreme Court building could result in arrests since courthouses are also included.

However, the timing is particularly interesting. After the release of the decision in in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, I noted that it would be even harder to use this law because the statute refers to “interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge … in the discharge of his duty.” With the release of the decision, there is no chance that the protesters are interfering, impeding, or influencing the decision. Thus, even if the constitutional arguments were rejected, a court could question whether the law can be read as applying to protests generally against the justices for their views. That is what makes the date so interesting. Dobbs came out on June 24, 2022. One week later, Curley sought enforcement of state laws as an alternative to federal enforcement.

It may reflect the view that, even if the law is constitutional to arrest protesters, it would be narrowly construed in light of the fact that Dobbs is now on the books. Since it was clear for weeks that the Justice Department would not enforce the law to arrest protesters outside of these homes, the timing of the letter could reflect a dwindling likelihood of enforcement in light of the end of the term. Curley wrote Gov. Hogan: “I would respectfully request that you direct the Maryland State Police to enforce Maryland and Montgomery County laws that squarely prohibit picketing at the homes of Supreme Court Justices who reside in Maryland.” Both the Maryland and Virginia governors responded by calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to use his authority under federal law to stop the protesters.

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That’s a first for me. Sounds crazy.

NY To Require 3 Years Of Social Media History For Gun Carry Permit (PM)

New York Governor Kathy Hochul once again signed sweeping gun legislation into law on Friday that created several severe new restrictions on obtaining a gun in the state, including drastically increasing concealed carry regulations and requiring applicants to turn over social media history. According to the the legislation, part of Hochul’s new criteria to obtain a concealed carry permit will be an applicant giving the government a list containing three years of history of their current and inactive social media accounts. Applicants must also have 16 hours of firearm training, provide four character references, and list the contact information for any domestic partners or adults of any kind they live with.

Potential applicants will also be required to show “good moral character,” meaning “the essential character, temperament and judgment necessary to be entrusted with a weapon and to use it only in a manner that does not endanger oneself and others. At a press conference regarding the new legislation, Hochul said “we are creating a definitive list of sensitive locations where individuals will not be able to carry firearms.” This list includes “schools, summer camps, libraries, daycares, parks and playgrounds, places children gather, theaters, museums, entertainment venues, places of worship for religious observation, polling places, educational institutions, and health medical facilities. Federal State Local government buildings, homeless and domestic violence shelters, places where alcohol is consumed, restaurants, bars, public transportation, subway buses, airports and at public demonstrations and rallies, and in Times Square.”

Another new rule is a “Default of No Concealed Carry on Private Property and Businesses Unless Deemed Permissible by Property Owners.” Hochul said of this law, “We are making ‘no open carry’ the default position for private businesses. That means that any business, grocery store, retail, private home, place that wants to allow guns on their premises will have to demonstrate that and establish that they put a sign out there that says concealed carry guns are welcome here.”

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She is a strange story.

Text Messages Show Cassidy Hutchinson Referring To Jan 6 Committee As ‘BS’ (DC)

The January 6 committee’s key witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, called the committee “bs” in a text message obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller. On Feb 1. Hutchinson sent a text to a conservative activist with connections to the First Amendment Fund, which is a group started by the American Conservative Union that helps Trump officials cover costs for Jan. 6 lawyers. Matt Schlapp said Hutchinson approached CPAC for help through the First Amendment Fund. Schlapp said he is happy they did not end up assisting her because she was relaying White House “hallway gossip as fact.” In the text message, Hutchinson says: “Hey (redacted)! This is Cassidy Hutchinson. Kind of a random question, but do you still work for the Schlapp’s at the ACU?” To which the person responded, “Hi, Yes!”


Hutchinson then said, “Do you happen to know a First Amendment fund POC I could reach out to? I was subpoenaed in early Nov., but the committee waited to serve me until last week (after Ben’s deposition).” “I had to accept service because the U.S. Marshalls came to my apartment last Wednesday, but I haven’t made contact with the Committee. I’m just on a tight timeline and just trying to figure out what my options are to deal with this bs,” Hutchinson added. In another text message reviewed by the Daily Caller, Hutchinson told the conservative activist that she does not want things to get “unnecessarily elevated” in regards to the Jan. 6 committee. Hutchinson made headlines after testifying before the Jan. 6 committee, where she claimed former President Donald Trump lunged for the steering wheel in an effort to reroute the car to the Capitol where protesters were gathering. Sources close to the Secret Service have denied her claims.

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Kulldorff tries too hard to sound reasonable. No, they are not safe. So say so.

Are the Covid mRNA Vaccines Safe? (Kulldorff)

Covid-recovered people have natural immunity that is stronger than vaccine-induced immunity. So, the benefit of vaccination is – at best – minimal. If the risk of adverse reactions is the same as in the randomized trials, there is a negative risk-benefit difference. Why are we mandating people in this group to be vaccinated? It is both unethical and damaging to public health. While everyone can get infected, children have a minuscule risk of covid mortality. There is very limited safety data from the trials on children. If the risk of adverse reactions is the same as for adults, the harms outweigh the risks. Children should not receive these vaccines. Older people above 70 have a much higher risk of covid mortality than the population in the Fraiman study. If their risk of adverse reaction is the same, then the benefits outweigh the harms.

Hence, older people who have never had covid and are not yet vaccinated may benefit from these vaccines. However, we do not know if they are better than the Johnson & Johnson and Astra-Zeneca vaccines. It is unclear from the clinical trial data whether the benefits outweigh the risks for working-age adults who have not been vaccinated and who have not already had covid. This is true both historically, for the original covid variants, and currently for the newer ones. The Fraiman study analyzes data after the first and second doses. Both risks and benefits may differ for booster shots, but no randomized trial has properly evaluated the trade-off. These results concern only the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines. Fraiman et al. did not analyze data on the adenovirus-vector vaccines marketed by Johnson & Johnson and Astra-Zeneca.

Benn et al. found that they reduced all-cause mortality (RR=0.37, 95% CI:0.19-0.70), but nobody has used trial data to analyze AESIs for these vaccines. Critically, the Fraiman and Benn studies had a follow-up of only a few months after the second dose because Pfizer and Moderna, unfortunately, terminated their randomized trials a few months after receiving emergency use authorization. Of course, a longer-term benefit can provide a basis to tolerate negative or neutral short-term risk-benefit differences. However, that is unlikely since we know from observational studies that mRNA vaccine efficacy deteriorates a few months after the second dose.

There may also be long-term adverse reactions to the vaccine regarding which we do not yet know. Since the randomized trials ended early, we must look at observational data to answer that question. The publicly available data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System is of low quality, with both under- and over-reporting. The best observational data is from CDCs Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) and FDA’s Biologics and Effectiveness Safety System (BEST), but there have only been limited reports from these systems. Fraiman and colleagues have produced the best evidence yet regarding the overall safety of the mRNA vaccines. The results are concerning. It is the responsibility of the manufacturers and FDA to ensure that benefits outweigh harms. They have failed to do so.

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Haven’t followed the Spartacus group for a bit.

Spartacast 01 (Spartacus)

SARS-CoV-2 was not the product of natural zoonosis. It was not the product of an accidental lab leak, either. It was the product of deliberate, willful bioterrorism by what I’ve come to call the Biodefense Mafia. This Biodefense Mafia grew out of an expansion of USAID, DARPA, BARDA, and DTRA-affiliated civilian biolabs, both in the US and elsewhere, thanks to the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program and Robert Kadlec’s expansion of biodefense after Amerithrax. That initial expansion of the Biodefense Mafia involved Kadlec awarding rigged contracts to Fuad El-Hibri’s company, BioPort, for anthrax vaccines. BioPort was a spinoff of DynPort, which, in turn, was spun off from the American mercenary company DynCorp in a partnership with Porton in the UK.

Yes, the same DynCorp that Kathryn Bolkovac blew the whistle on in Bosnia for sex trafficking of young girls, the same DynCorp that continued to receive US State Department contracts even after soliciting “dancing boys” in Afghanistan, and the same DynCorp whose OV-10 Bronco turboprops loaned from the US State Department for coca eradication crop dusting with RoundUp in Colombia happened to have the same tail number as a helicopter mentioned in Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs, N474AW, on one of the aircraft. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert Kadlec again awarded rigged contracts for COVID-19 vaccines to Fuad El-Hibri and Emergent BioSolutions, which is what BioPort renamed themselves to. Emergent BioSolutions came under fire due to the scandalous condition of their vaccine manufacturing facilities and the poor quality-control practices exercised there.

Throughout the 2000s, Michael Callahan was part of an effort by the US State Department called the BioIndustry Initiative, authorized in the Defense and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2002, where US scientists would visit various former Soviet biowarfare labs in Russia and discuss technologies the Soviets developed that could be patented, commercialized, marketed, and “peacefully” used in drugs and therapies. He was on the ground in Wuhan in 2019 and 2020, as DARPA’s “Man in Wuhan”, suggesting that the H2 blocker famotidine might be useful for treating COVID-19, based on observations of patient data.

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Nothing against drag queens, but don’t push them on little kids.

US Drag Queens Stand Their Ground Amid Intimidation By The Far Right (G.)

The drag queens were out in force across New York’s recent Pride parade triggering cheers and waves with their flamboyant and extravagant costumes. But this year the world of American drag has been marred by growing fears of violence and intimidation as they have been specifically targeted by conservatives and extremist far-right and militia groups amid a general rise in anti-LGBTQ hate. One of the main targets for rightwing ire has been Drag Queen Story Hour events where drag queens will read books to children at public libraries. Three weeks ago at a reading in a library in San Lorenzo, 30 miles from San Francisco, a group of men, one wearing a T-shirt stenciled with the image of an assault rifle, interrupted a drag performer reading The Kindness Book to pre-schoolers, frightening all.

Authorities said at least five men who appeared in the black and yellow uniform aligned with the extremist Proud Boy group hurled homophobic and transphobic slurs at the story hour’s performer, Panda Dulce, who later said the interruption was “a brazen act of vitriolic intimidation”. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime. Members of the same organisation – designated a hate group by The Southern Poverty Law Group – also disrupted a Pride story-time event in South Carolina where kids were being read Daddy and Dada and Heather Has Two Mommies. One parent was told they were a child abuser. Last week a drag event at a California bar, Mojos, was cancelled after protestors yelling homophobic abuse sought to enter the premises.

The pattern of intimidation, in cases not limited to the intimidation of drag queens, comes as Pride month itself has become a target for rightwing extremists in the US. Recently in Idaho a group of far-right Patriot Front extremists were arrested amid fears they intended to attack a Pride march in the state. Drag queens themselves, however, are standing their ground.

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Chinatown

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Jun 242022
 


Georges Seurat A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte 1884

 

Frustration Grows In Ukraine, Casualties Spike, Russia Wins Territory (NBC)
EU Leaders To Grant Ukraine Candidate Status In Blow To Putin (G.)
The Third Incarnation of Russia since 1721 (Batiushka)
German Economic Minister Announces Restart of Coal Power Plants (CTH)
The Supreme Court Hands Down Major Gun Rights Victory (Turley)
Liberal Policies Have Killed Black Communities: Clarence Thomas (NYP)
Joe Biden Flashes Official Cheat Sheet: ‘YOU Take YOUR Seat’ (JTN)
Biden Is Hiding His Plan To Rig The 2022 Midterm Elections (Fed.)
Prosecuting Trump: Being A Jerk Isn’t Criminal (Turley)
The CDC Just Pushed Fake News on Covid Child Mortality
Study Finds mRNA Vaccines Lead To Increase Of Serious Adverse Events (TCS)
Alarming Levels of 29 Chemicals Affecting Fertility Found in Men’s Urine (CHD)
Twitter Is Hiring An Alarming Number Of FBI Agents (MPN)

 

 

 

 

Clare Daly

 

 

 

 

“We are funding the Ukrainian government, if we stop funding everything would collapse, Mr Zelensky would climb on an airplane where he owns a mansion.”
– Colonel Douglas Macgregor.

 

 

 

 

No, no, NBC, this is not the official narrative…

Frustration Grows In Ukraine, Casualties Spike, Russia Wins Territory (NBC)

Russia’s invasion in February prompted a wave of public support for the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as millions of Ukrainians raced to help defend their homeland. Four months later — amid Russian advances and spiking casualties — anger and frustration over the handling of the war is swelling. In interviews with Ukrainians who have family members fighting the invaders, many said they were upset with the military leadership for deploying inexperienced people to the front lines, and at times sending them into battle without as much as a medical or a psychological examination. “I am ready to protest,” said Viktoriia Bilan-Rashchuk, 43, of Kyiv, whose husband, Volodymyr, a theater actor with no previous military experience, is fighting on the eastern front line in Sievierodonetsk.

Last month, she said, she raised money to send his unit protective headphones — standard military equipment used to prevent hearing loss for soldiers firing off rocket systems. “The government isn’t doing enough to support them. The longer this goes on, the more people will become upset,” Bilan-Rashchuk said in Ukrainian, speaking through a translator. Since Russia invaded in February, thousands of Ukrainians with no military background have volunteered to fight. To boost its war efforts, the Ukrainian government has also banned men ages 18 to 60 from leaving the country in case it needs to start a draft. In May, Zelenskyy said the country’s military had 700,000 service members, including women. Through a relentless campaign of appearances, interviews and statements, Zelenskyy has fought to keep morale high among troops and the general public and plead the country’s case to the international community.

But Russian artillery attacks have intensified in the east in recent months, pushing the Ukrainian military death toll to between 100 and 200 soldiers a day in combat, with another 500 injured every day, according to Ukrainian officials, the BBC reported earlier this month. In his daily address June 14, Zelenskyy called the losses “painful” but said Ukrainians “have to hold on.” Despite the high death toll, Ukrainian officials have maintained that troops are well taken care of, with sufficient training, food, equipment and rest. But as the war grinds on, what makes some Ukrainians especially angry is the lack of basic military equipment for those on the front lines. Some military families have been forced to organize donation drives to send medical supplies and military equipment to the front lines.

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It will be a blow to the EU.

EU Leaders To Grant Ukraine Candidate Status In Blow To Putin (G.)

European leaders are poised to grant Ukraine candidate status, in a historic decision that opens the door to EU membership for the war-torn country and deals a blow to Vladimir Putin. EU leaders meeting in Brussels are expected to approve Ukraine’s candidate status later on Thursday, nearly four months after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy launched his country’s bid to join the bloc in the early days of the Russian invasion. The move from applicant to candidate usually takes years, but the EU has dramatically accelerated the process, amid outrage over the brutality of the unprovoked Russian attack, and to show solidarity with Ukraine’s defenders.


“Ukraine is going through hell for a simple reason: its desire to join the EU,” tweeted the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on the eve of the summit. The commission last week called on EU leaders to grant Ukraine’s candidate status. “Our opinion acknowledges the immense progress that [Ukrainian] democracy has achieved since the Maidan protests of 2014,” Von der Leyen said. Welcoming the expected positive decision, Zelenskiy said: “This is like going into the light from the darkness.” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said candidate status would “draw a line under decades of ambiguity and set it in stone: Ukraine is Europe, not part of the ‘Russian world’”.

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Great history lesson.

“The break with the West and the ‘obsolete geopolitical illusions’ of its elite’s superiority complex, essentially a form of Nazism, is irreversible.”

The Third Incarnation of Russia since 1721 (Batiushka)

Until the whole of the Ukraine is demilitarised, and it is continually being remilitarised by the West, the liberation cannot stop. Moreover, with potential threats from NATO-armed Poland and Lithuania towards Kaliningrad and from Romania towards Moldova, from arms shipments from Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Lands and the Baltic States, especially from the US puppet-government in Lithuania, with threats from Sweden and Finland to join NATO, where will it stop? The West has to be freed from Nazism/woke liberalism (it is the same thing. As they say: there is nothing so intolerant as liberalism). True, Germany, France and Italy, their economies crippled by US-imposed, anti-Russian sanctions, are showing reason. This is unlike the laughable bluster coming from the militarily feeble Johnson-regime in the UK, which may well be toppled by popular internal discontent and a wave of strikes.

However, it is the economic aspect, with its international dedollarisation, of the Third Incarnation of Russia which is truly world-changing. In the light of the speech of Vladimir Putin at the Saint Petersburg Economic Forum of June 2022, we can say that Russia is returning to its historic path. It wants to leave aside the errors of the past, become a sovereign nation again and no longer be a Western colony. This is unlike the EU, which is clearly just a US vassal, both economically and politically. The future world order will be formed only by strong sovereign states, independent of the dollar and the massive debts of Western countries. These have been caused by their inflationary printing of money that is not based on real commodities such as cereals, oil, gas, minerals, metals, rare earth elements, fertilisers, timber, manufactured goods and gold.

The break with the West and the ‘obsolete geopolitical illusions’ of its elite’s superiority complex, essentially a form of Nazism, is irreversible. Russia will invest in internal economic development in microeconomic and macroeconomic terms, ensuring ‘technological sovereignty’ (which means for instance that Russia already has unique hypersonic missiles), encouraging free enterprise against bureaucracy, improving infrastructure, but also ensuring social justice, fighting against poverty and supporting the family, encouraging far more ‘families to have two, three or more children’. The ideal of social conservatism together with social justice is what is intended. Russia will also help nations in Africa and the Middle East to avoid Western-imposed famine. True, this is an ambitious programme for the future, but this Third Incarnation of Russia is beginning now.

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What a defeat. Trump warned them and they laughed…

German Economic Minister Announces Restart of Coal Power Plants (CTH)

To say the recent remarks from German Economic and Climate Minister Robert Habeck showcase the stupidity of the western sanctions would be an understatement. In a broad energy policy announcement to the German people, Minister Habeck has announced that natural gas is now urgently being stored and built up in order to survive next winter. Additionally, the German parliament is being called into emergency session to re-write climate laws allowing coal-fired electricity power plants to be brought back on-line. Essentially, years of German renewable energy investments and initiatives are now being reversed in order to maintain the commitment to NATO sanctions against Russia.

GERMANY – Minister Robert Habeck […] “The situation on the gas market has deteriorated in recent days. The missing quantities can still be replaced, and the gas storage tanks are still being filled, albeit at high prices. Security of supply is currently guaranteed. But the situation is serious. We are therefore further strengthening precautions and taking additional measures to reduce gas consumption. […] In order to reduce gas consumption, less gas is to be used to produce electricity. Instead, coal-fired power plants will have to be used more. […] That means, to be honest, more coal-fired power plants for a transitional period. That’s bitter, but in this situation it’s almost necessary to reduce gas consumption. We must and we will do everything we can to store as much gas as possible in summer and autumn. The gas storage tanks must be full in winter. That has top priority, ”said Habeck.

In order to unbuckle themselves from dependence on Russian pipelines, Habeck also announced that floating Liquified Natural Gas terminals will have to be created so they can source LNG from other nations. Currently Germany has no port system to offload LNG, they will be purchasing and leasing floating ships to act as LNG terminals. I am reminded of the prior warning to Germany from U.S. President Donald Trump. It’s worth remembering that U.S. media blasted President Trump for being so brutally honest in his NATO remarks where he warned about the danger of Germany being so dependent on Russia for oil and gas.

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JUSTICE THOMAS: “Nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms, and the definition of “bear” naturally encompasses public carry.”

The Supreme Court Hands Down Major Gun Rights Victory (Turley)

As predicted, the Supreme Court handed down a momentous opinion in favor of Second Amendment rights today in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. In what will likely prove one of the most important decisions in his illustrious career as a conservative jurist, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a 6-3 majority opinion that brought greater clarity to this and future challenges under the Second Amendment. In 2008, the Supreme Court recognized the right to bear arms as an individual right in District of Columbia v. Heller. Two years after Heller, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the court ruled that this right applied against the states.

This case concerned concealed-carry restrictions under N.Y. Penal Law § 400.00(2)(f) that require a showing of “proper cause.” Lower courts upheld the New York law, but there were ample constitutional concerns over its vague standard, such as showing that you are “of good moral character.” New York wanted to exercise discretion in deciding who needs to carry guns in public while gun owners believe that the law flips the constitutional presumption in favor of such a right. Thomas rejected the two-part analysis used by lower courts and held that the presumption must be in favor of the individual right to possess a handgun in public like other rights in the Bill of Rights. The Court held “consistent with Heller and McDonald, that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”

Accordingly, “because the State of New York issues public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution.” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul immediately declared “Shocking, absolutely shocking that they have taken away our right to have reasonable restrictions.” The Claude Rain moment aside, it was shocking that Hochul would be shocked. Many of us were predicting a major loss for over a year and New York, as usual, litigated a bad case and made more bad law for gun control advocates. Gov. Hochul added ““This is New York. We don’t back down.” That may be welcomed news for gun rights advocates given the record in cases like this one in reinforcing Second Amendment rights. As previously discussed, New York has proven a fountain of cases strengthening gun rights.

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“We didn’t want to be right; we wanted to be wrong. It wasn’t about winning an argument. No, we wanted to lose the argument. We did not want the damage to occur..”

Liberal Policies Have Killed Black Communities: Clarence Thomas (NYP)

Michael Pack: You have talked a little today about how life in the black community has not been improved by many well-intentioned social programs. Do you think, in some sense, it is worse than when you grew up? Clarence Thomas: It’s a disaster. When I grew up, you had family, you didn’t have drugs, you didn’t have gang-banging. You could walk down the street. There was a change in our society. I think that these programs certainly had an impact. Just go back to Savannah and take a look around you. Our worst fears were realized. We didn’t want to be right; we wanted to be wrong. It wasn’t about winning an argument. No, we wanted to lose the argument. We did not want the damage to occur; that’s why we were involved. I don’t particularly like public life; I never wanted to be in public life. I’d like to go to football games.

“I’d like not to make decisions about other people’s lives, but what drags you into it is when you see these principles being undermined, which leads to such destruction. The policies destroy people, and, ultimately, I think, we’re going to destroy the very thing that allows us to have liberty and to have a free society. MP: So the heirs to those movements, like Black Lives Matter, focus on other things: mass incarceration, police brutality. What do you think of the current movements for racial justice? CT: I don’t really follow the movements du jour. I don’t quite understand them. It’s fascinating to me that the radical groups in the sixties, that we all were aware of and fond of back then, like the Black Panthers — that’s kind of mainstream now.

But we knew they were more marginal back then. I don’t know what to say about this. But if you look at some of the things that still are problematic, like bad education, unsafe neighborhoods, drugs, alcohol, breakdown in families, it seems like these are things that we warned about back then. We were told, basically, take a long walk on the short pier. And I understand that. I understand people not wanting to hear an opposing view. But at the same time, we’re not taking ownership of these policies’ having a significant role in the damage that’s been done.

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Guess it’s a good thing he can still read..

Joe Biden Flashes Official Cheat Sheet: ‘YOU Take YOUR Seat’ (JTN)

President Joe Biden on Thursday accidentally displayed an official White House card with specific instructions telling him, “YOU take YOUR seat,” and other similar reminders. Biden, 79, flashed the card to the cameras while at a meeting with wind industry executives. He spoke for nearly eight minutes at the event despite the fact that the sheet also instructed him to speak for two minutes. The “Sequence of Events” sheet also tells him: “YOU enter the Roosevelt Room and say hello to participants.” The card then instructs him to ask AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler a question.


“YOU thank participants,” and “YOU depart,” the instructions conclude. Biden’s mental fitness for office has been under scrutiny since before his election. CNN’s Don Lemon asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the commander-in-chief’s cognitive abilities earlier this month. “Don, you’re asking me this question, Oh my gosh,” Jean-Pierre told Lemon. “He’s the president of the United States. … This is not a question that we should be even asking,” she responded.

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Susan Rice works in the shadows.

Biden Is Hiding His Plan To Rig The 2022 Midterm Elections (Fed.)

President Biden really does not want the public to know about his federal takeover of election administration. Dozens of members of Congress have repeatedly asked for details, to no avail. Good government groups, members of the media, and private citizens have filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Not a single one has been responded to. All signs indicate a concerted effort to keep the public in the dark until at least after the November midterm elections. The lack of transparency and responsiveness is so bad that the Department of Justice and some of its agencies have been repeatedly sued for the information.

When President Biden ordered all 600 federal agencies to “expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process” on March 7, 2021, Republican politicians, Constitutional scholars, and election integrity specialists began to worry exactly what was up his sleeve. They had good reason. The 2020 election had suffered from widespread and coordinated efforts by Democrat activists and donors to run “Get Out The Vote” operations from inside state and local government election offices, predominantly in the Democrat-leaning areas of swing states. Independent researchers have shown the effect of this takeover of government election offices was extremely partisan and favored Democrats overwhelmingly.

At the time the order was issued, Democrats were also hoping to pass H.R. 1, a continuation of the effort to destabilize elections throughout the country via a federalized takeover of state election administrations. Biden gave each agency 200 days to file their plans for approval by none other than Susan Rice, his hyperpartisan domestic policy advisor. Yet fully nine months after those plans were due, they are all being hidden from the public, even as evidence is emerging that the election operation is in full swing. There are several major problems with Biden’s secret plan, critics say. It’s unethical to tie federal benefits to election activity. It’s unconstitutional to have the federal government take authority that belongs to the states and which Congress has not granted. And, given that all 50 states have different laws and processes governing election administration, it’s a recipe for chaos, confusion, and fraud at a time when election security concerns are particularly fraught.

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“According to The New York Times, the hearings were framed with the intent to use the select committee largely to “recast the midterm message..”

Prosecuting Trump: Being A Jerk Isn’t Criminal (Turley)

“SECVNDINVS CACOR.” When those words were found recently on an ancient stone in Northumberland, England, there was great excitement about what might be revealed about Roman life in the 3rd Century. As it turned out, the painstakingly chiseled words (which were accompanied by the image of a giant phallus) simply said that a guy named Secundinus was … well … human fecal matter. The stone was an impressive effort just to establish for all posterity that Secundinus was a jerk. The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot is an equally impressive effort to painstakingly debunk election fraud claims and to show how former President Donald Trump refused to accept his electoral defeat. If the purpose were to proclaim “TRUMPUS CACOR,” it would likely get little argument, given the testimony about elected officials and election workers hiding out in their homes after being called out by name by the then-president.

The hearings have created a lasting, damning record leading up to Jan. 6. Yet, some members of the select committee have claimed they have established clear evidence of criminal acts by Trump. It has to be more than Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-Wyo.) insistence that the evidence would show Trump was not “an honorable man” on Jan. 6 — an assertion that even some Trump supporters might endorse. That claim is important to avoid confirmation of what was widely reported before the hearings. According to The New York Times, the hearings were framed with the intent to use the select committee largely to “recast the midterm message” and “give [Democrats] a platform for making a broader case about why they deserve to stay in power.” In other words, chiseling out “Trumpus Cacor” before the November election.

The fact is that this evidence is important for Americans to hear and see. Yet, the claims of established crimes this week seemed to run from the visceral to the recreational. On CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe declared that Trump can now be charged with the attempted murder of former Vice President Mike Pence “without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt, and the crimes are obvious.” In addition to declaring that he is certain Attorney General Merrick Garland will now charge Trump, Tribe said: “There are other crimes that have been proven. Those are plenty to start with.”

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“..babies and toddlers are 25 times likelier to die of an accident than of Covid.”

The CDC Just Pushed Fake News on Covid Child Mortality

Only because “an internet rando is more knowledgeable and paying closer attention than our top scientists and doctors” do we know that the CDC just publicized false information about the deadliness of Covid-19 to small children. This misinformation, presented at a conference among top experts, went viral and was promoted, notes Substack columnist Matt Shapiro, by dozens of well-known physicians and other media commentators and specialists, including CNN mainstay Dr. Leana Wen and a former surgeon general of the United States. Wen’s promotion of the false claim is still up on Twitter as of 6:45 p.m. on June 22. The CDC displayed a slide at a conference that falsely claimed Covid-19 was the fourth or fifth leading cause of death for all pediatric age groups.

A writer who is publicly known only by the name Kelley immediately saw that the claim was “completely and utterly false.” Among several errors, which are so blatant as to seem like intentional massaging of the numbers, Kelley discovered that all data from a 26-month period were being crammed into one year, and that deaths were attributed to Covid, regardless of whether the death was caused by Covid, if the disease was mentioned on the death certificate. The CDC slide, which cited a pre-publication British study that is now being re-examined, also bumped up the numbers by altering the definition of pediatric (ordinarily understood to mean under 18) to include 18- and 19-year-olds. The danger to children from Covid is very, very low. For instance, babies and toddlers are 25 times likelier to die of an accident than of Covid.

And all-cause pediatric mortality in the pandemic era for young children (up to 12) is 30 percent lower than it was a generation ago, in 1999. All-cause mortality for children over 12 has spiked in the pandemic era because of accidents, drug abuse, and other factors unrelated to disease. Covid barely registers as a cause of death for teens or small children. Writes Shapiro in his Substack column, Marginally Compelling: This is a massive data error, and yet it persisted through a supposedly rigorous data check from 11 authors and was selected by top-tier scientists for their landmark presentation to the most knowledgeable experts in the field. No one in any of these meetings recognized this error. This slide was presented uncritically to the nation’s top doctors and epidemiologists who are in charge of setting the national policy on COVID vaccines for children and no one even noticed it.

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“..mRNA vaccines pose a greater risk than the possibility of catching COVID..”

Study Finds mRNA Vaccines Lead To Increase Of Serious Adverse Events (TCS)

A new study has found that the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines were associated with “an increased risk of serious adverse events of special interest” that likely outweighs any benefit of taking them. As per the study’s results: “Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were associated with an increased risk of serious adverse events of special interest, with an absolute risk increase of 10.1 and 15.1 per 10,000 vaccinated over placebo baselines of 17.6 and 42.2 respectively.” “Combined, the mRNA vaccines were associated with an absolute risk increase of serious adverse events of special interest of 12.5 per 10,000. The excess risk of serious adverse events of special interest surpassed the risk reduction for COVID-19 hospitalization relative to the placebo group in both Pfizer and Moderna trials (2.3 and 6.4 per 10,000 participants, respectively).”

The study was undertaken by American researchers at several reputable institutions, including Stanford University, the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, and the Navarre Health Service. When undertaking the study, researchers analyzed journal publications and trial data on the FDA and Health Canada’s websites to locate serious adverse event results tables. These stemmed from Pfizer and Moderna’s one phase III randomized trials. However, researchers found proper long-term randomization became compromised as many placebo recipients in the trials were eventually offered the actual vaccine. Thus, to preserve randomization and the accuracy of their findings, researchers used the interim datasets that were the basis for emergency authorization in December 2020, approximately four months after trials commenced.

As for what researchers considered a severe adverse event, the following were considered: death; life-threatening at the time of the event; inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization; persistent or significant disability/incapacity; a congenital anomaly/birth defect; and medically important events, based on medical judgment. Overall, according to the researchers, who received no funding support, the excess risk of serious adverse events found in the study justifies future formal harm-benefit analysis, especially “those that are stratified according to risk of serious COVID-19 outcomes such as hospitalization or death.” Put simply, researchers found that mRNA vaccines pose a greater risk than the possibility of catching COVID and becoming seriously ill or dying.

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Just add an mRNA vaccine….

Alarming Levels of 29 Chemicals Affecting Fertility Found in Men’s Urine (CHD)

A study published last week in Environment International showed “alarming” amounts of 29 endocrine disruptors in the urine samples of 98 Danish men, EuroNews reported. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that affect human fertility by disrupting the normal functioning of the endocrine system. The team of researchers, led by Andreas Kortenkamp, Ph.D., professor of molecular toxicity at Brunel University London, conducted a chemical analysis of urine samples from 98 Danish men, ages 18-30. Prior research has shown a number of chemicals to be problematic for male reproductive health, but the new study was the first of its kind to measure the health risk produced by 29 total endocrine disruptors.


The researchers completed their analysis in three steps. First, they measured the amount of nine endocrine disruptors in the urine samples of the 98 men. Second, the researchers used existing data, mostly from the European Food Standards Agency (EFSA), to estimate the men’s likely exposure to 20 other endocrine disruptors. Finally, the team compared these measurements with exposure levels deemed acceptable according to the scientific literature. In doing so, the team was able to generate an overall risk measure — or “hazard index” — for the cocktail of compounds. The authors said they were “astonished” by their findings: The magnitude of the resulting hazard index showed exposure levels more than 100-fold greater than acceptable exposure rates.

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“..there now exists a “revolving door” between the FBI and the areas they are trying to regulate.”

Twitter Is Hiring An Alarming Number Of FBI Agents (MPN)

Twitter has been on a recruitment drive of late, hiring a host of former feds and spies. Studying a number of employment and recruitment websites, MintPress has ascertained that the social media giant has, in recent years, recruited dozens of individuals from the national security state to work in the fields of security, trust, safety and content. Chief amongst these is the Federal Bureau of Investigations. The FBI is generally known as a domestic security and intelligence force. However, it has recently expanded its remit into cyberspace. “The FBI’s investigative authority is the broadest of all federal law enforcement agencies,” the “About” section of its website informs readers. “The FBI has divided its investigations into a number of programs, such as domestic and international terrorism, foreign counterintelligence [and] cyber crime,” it adds.

For example, in 2019, Dawn Burton (the former director of Washington operations for Lockheed Martin) was poached from her job as senior innovation advisor to the director at the FBI to become senior director of strategy and operations for legal, public policy, trust and safety at Twitter. The following year, Karen Walsh went straight from 21 years at the bureau to become director of corporate resilience at the silicon valley giant. Twitter’s deputy general counsel and vice president of legal, Jim Baker, also spent four years at the FBI between 2014 and 2018, where his resumé notes he rose to the role of senior strategic advisor. Meanwhile, Mark Jaroszewski ended his 21-year posting as a supervisory special agent in the Bay Area to take up a position at Twitter, rising to become director of corporate security and risk.

And Douglas Turner spent 14 years as a senior special agent and SWAT Team leader before being recruited to serve in Twitter’s corporate and executive security services. Previously, Turner had also spent seven years as a secret service special agent with the Department of Homeland Security. When asked to comment by MintPress, former FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley said that she was “not surprised at all” to see FBI agents now working for the very tech companies the agency polices, stating that there now exists a “revolving door” between the FBI and the areas they are trying to regulate. This created a serious conflict of interests in her mind, as many agents have one eye on post-retirement jobs. “The truth is that at the FBI 50% of all the normal conversations that people had were about how you were going to make money after retirement,” she said.

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