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Debt Rattle March 2 2024

Mar 022024
 
 March 2, 2024  Posted by at 9:51 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  12 Responses »


Camille Corot Study for “The Destruction of Sodom” 1843

 

• Germany Launches Investigation Into Leaked Crimean Bridge Attack Talk (RT)
• France Considering Placing Special Forces In Ukraine – Le Monde (RT)
• Macron’s Idea to Send NATO Troops to Ukraine ‘Made Him Look Very Foolish’ (Sp.)
• NATO Troops Already Deployed to Ukraine, and Getting Killed (SCF)
• Austin: If Ukraine Is Defeated, NATO Will Be At War With Russia (ZH)
• Austin Talking About NATO-Russia War Means US Has A Plan For It – Lavrov (TASS)
• Putin Learned From His Mistakes and Today Gives Us Precious Lessons (Vasco)
• The Blob Quivers (Kunstler)
• The West Is Willing To Destroy Its Financial System To Punish Russia (RT)
• Biden Wants To Give Russian Central Bank Funds To Ukraine, France Resists (ZH)
• The Global South Converges to Multipolar Moscow (Pepe Escobar)
• Haley: Nominating Trump Means ‘Suicide for Our Country’ (RCP)
• Musk Sues ChatGPT Maker Over AI Threat (RT)
• The Truth is a Complete Defense (PO)

 

 

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This makes Germany a direct participant. We see both Germany and France getting more involved, and denying that at the same time.

The forces for forever war appear to be winning. But wait till their people understand this. They certainly don’t want it. Time for a major false flag?!

• Germany Launches Investigation Into Leaked Crimean Bridge Attack Talk (RT)

Berlin’s first reaction to Friday’s revelations that several German generals discussed helping Ukraine attack Russia was to launch an investigation into how the recording got out. RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan first published a transcript of the conversation between senior Luftwaffe officers discussing the matter, followed by a 38-minute audio recording. “We are checking whether communications within the Air Force were intercepted,” a spokesperson for the German Ministry of Defense told the outlet Bild. “We cannot say anything about the content of the communications that were apparently intercepted.” The Federal Office for Military Counterintelligence (BAMAD) has “initiated all necessary measures,” the ministry said in response to an inquiry from the state news agency DPA.

Meanwhile, the Bundeswehr has also resorted to censorship. Multiple accounts on X (formerly Twitter) that distributed the recording were blocked in Germany as of Friday evening. Bild claimed that “it seems obvious” Russian spies “or one of their partners” were behind the recording. The 38-minute audio was dated February 19 and features four officers of the German air force (Luftwaffe), including its head General Ingo Gerhartz and deputy chief of staff for operations, Brigadier-General Frank Graefe. The officers assumed that Germany would send up to 50 Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine and the ways in which the Luftwaffe could provide the Ukrainians with targeting information without appearing to be directly involved in the conflict with Russia.

They also noted the Ukrainians’ obsession with targeting the Kerch Strait bridge, noting its significance was primarily political rather than military. At one point, Gerhartz admitted that the missiles “won’t change the course of the war,” while another officer expressed doubt that even 20 Taurus hits could actually destroy the bridge. The Russian Foreign Ministry and parliament have both announced they would demand an explanation from Berlin. The government of Chancellor Olaf Sholz has not officially commented on the intercepted call.

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“They have, however, always “stopped at the Ukrainian border..”

• France Considering Placing Special Forces In Ukraine – Le Monde (RT)

The French government is mulling sending a small military force directly into Ukraine to serve as instructors for Kiev’s Armed Forces and as a “deterrent” to Moscow, newspaper Le Monde reported on Friday, citing its sources. The paper did not disclose the number of French military ‘instructors’ that could potentially be authorized to cross into Ukrainian territory but reported that their ranks could include some “conventional units.” According to Le Monde, France’s Special Forces were also involved in training Ukrainian soldiers in neighboring Poland and in escorting the nation’s arms deliveries to Kiev. They have, however, always “stopped at the Ukrainian border,” the outlet added. The training France would like to provide to Ukrainians “on the ground” includes handling air defense systems, Friday’s report said.

Kiev’s surface-to-air weapons installations are frequently targeted by Russian forces, it explained, adding that the “presence of French soldiers or [those] of other nations would potentially protect certain areas of the Ukrainian territory.” The French government allegedly views such a troop deployment as a way of posing a “strategic dilemma” for Moscow, the paper said, adding that it could “constrain” Russia’s targeting and strike capabilities. In particular, it may prove to be “essential” ahead of the arrival of US-made F-16 fighter jets, scheduled to take place later this year, the French daily added. So far, France has denied that any of its troops have been present in Ukraine during the conflict, the media outlet said. French President Emmanuel Macron sparked controversy on Monday when he told journalists that a potential NATO troop deployment to Ukraine could not be ruled out in the future.

“There’s no consensus today to send, in an official manner, troops on the ground,” he said. “In terms of dynamics, we cannot exclude anything. We will do everything necessary to prevent Russia from winning this war.” Macron’s comments prompted other members of the US-led bloc, including the US, UK, Germany and Italy, to clarify that they had no such plans. The French president’s remarks were seemingly supported by two Baltic nations – Estonia and Lithuania – who also said that such a move could not be ruled out. Moscow warned in response that deploying NATO forces to Ukraine would make a direct conflict between Russia and the military bloc inevitable. On Friday, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne denied that Paris was planning to send any combat units to Ukraine, adding that it would do “everything” to avoid a war with Russia. The French president himself doubled down on his comments on Thursday by saying his words had been “thought through and measured.”

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“..the Germans were incensed at the cheekiness of Macron to publish a new initiative which can easily lead to [an] escalation of the war and to Germany being targeted by Russian missiles.”

• Macron’s Idea to Send NATO Troops to Ukraine ‘Made Him Look Very Foolish’ (Sp.)

The past few days have seen Western media discuss “open display of discord” between French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. After Macron recently proclaimed that he refuses to rule out sending EU troops to Ukraine, Scholz rejected the idea by emphasizing that “there will be no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there” by European states or NATO members. “There has long been a certain antagonism” between Macron and Scholz, “and the issue of aid to Ukraine has only exacerbated the existing contradictions,” Dr. Gregor Spitzen, German political analyst and independent journalist, said in an interview with Sputnik “France’s ill-considered initiative to send NATO ground troops to Ukraine made Macron look very foolish. The initiative was not even supported by NATO’s main anti-Russian hawks – the UK and Poland. The idea was also viewed negatively in the US,” Spitzen clarified.

He also noted that while “passionate volunteers from the French Foreign Legion are already fighting and dying in Ukraine […], most soldiers in European armies are not eager to take part in modern warfare, where the risk of dying in a rocket attack without even seeing the enemy is high.” Dwelling on the repercussions from Macron’s remarks, Spitzen suggested that “We are likely to see European and American arms deliveries to Ukraine for some time to come.” At the end of the day, however, “the West, seeing that the war is lost, will increasingly tempt Ukraine to make a separate peace,” the analyst predicted. Spitzen was echoed by Gilbert Doctorow, an international relations and Russian affairs analyst, who said that he thinks “the Germans were incensed at the cheekiness of Macron to publish a new initiative which can easily lead to [an] escalation of the war and to Germany being targeted by Russian missiles.”

When asked whether European countries will avoid further confrontation with Russia after Macron’s statement, Doctorow argued they “will likely continue it but in less risky places”, and that if Donald Trump comes to power in the US, they “will have to come to terms with Moscow over a new security architecture for the Continent.” The comments come after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in his state of the nation address that NATO risks a nuclear conflict if it sends troops to support the Kiev regime. “There’s been talk of sending NATO military forces to Ukraine. We remember the fate of those who sent their contingents to our country before and this time the consequences for the potential interventionists will be far more tragic,” Putin said. He urged the US and Europe to acknowledge the fact that Russia possesses weapons capable of targeting their territories and that all this plainly poses the risk of a conflict involving nuclear weapons, and therefore “the destruction of civilization”.

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“..It is estimated that up to 20,000 foreign personnel have joined the so-called “international legionnaires” fighting on the side of the Kiev regime..”:

• NATO Troops Already Deployed to Ukraine, and Getting Killed (SCF)

NATO has been vigorously arming and training the NeoNazi regime that was installed in Kiev since 2014. Even Jens Stoltenberg and other NATO officials have openly admitted that background involvement. In admitting the NATO presence in Ukraine over the past decade that also corroborates Russia’s reasoning of why it was compelled to launch its military intervention two years ago. Of course, the Western powers and their servile media never go as far as conceding that. They prefer to adopt a position of double-think and hypocrisy, claiming that Russia’s military action was “unprovoked aggression”. Macron may have been shot down for now and made to look like a dangling clown. But as so often in the past, controversial NATO ideas are put forward and seemingly rejected out of hand, only to be adopted later.

As Macron pointed out, Germany and other NATO nations were only two years ago reluctant to send military equipment beyond helmets and sleeping bags. Now these same entities have sent battlefield tanks and anti-aircraft missiles and are debating sending long-range weapons to strike deep into Russian territory. US President Joe Biden once remarked on the unfeasibility of supplying fighter jets to Ukraine “because that would mean starting World War Three”. Well, Biden has ended up consenting to the supply of F-16s and his NATO side-kick Stoltenberg asserts that these warplanes could be used to hit deep Russian targets. In other words, Macron’s notions about NATO ground troops going to Ukraine may be rebuffed for now in public. But the inexorable dynamic over the past decade indicates that the idea could well become a reality shortly.

NATO’s involvement in Ukraine is a strategic wedge to attack, weaken, and eventually vanquish Russia. What starts as a thin quantity inevitably grows into a bigger contingency. NATO military personnel are already in Ukraine and have been since at least 2014 when they started training the NeoNazi brigades to terrorize the ethnic Russian populations in Crimea, Donbass, and Novorossiya. Many of these soldiers are deployed unofficially as mercenaries or ostensibly as security details for NATO diplomats. Numerous reports have attested to the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine in one form or another. A Russian air strike near Kharkov in January killed at least 60 French military officers who were reportedly serving as private contractors. Other reports have cited as many as 50 American military killed in action serving in Ukraine.

It is estimated that up to 20,000 foreign personnel have joined the so-called “international legionnaires” fighting on the side of the Kiev regime against Russian forces. A fair assumption is that most of these soldiers of fortune are temporarily “decommissioned” NATO troops. Germany’s Scholz let the cat out of the bag this week when he said he was opposed to sending long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine because that would mean the deployment of German troops to assist with operating the weapons. Scholz misspoke by inadvertently disclosing that the British and French had already dispatched special forces to assist with their missile systems, the Storm Shadow and Scalp, respectively.

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“..the already slim chances of jump-starting serious peace negotiations to end the war are slipping away fast.”

• Austin: If Ukraine Is Defeated, NATO Will Be At War With Russia (ZH)

This is the single most important, dangerous and highly revealing statement from a top defense official in the West in a long time… It also demonstrates the precarious urgency of the moment and the huge stakes going into the November US election. The world truly stands on the precipice of a nuclear nightmare with the following fresh assertion of Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who said before Congress on Thursday: “If Ukraine falls, I really believe that NATO will be in a fight with Russia,” Austin stated. What’s more is that this came the very day that Russian President Vladimir Putin warned things could easily spiral toward nuclear war in the scenario that NATO sends troops to Ukraine. [..] According to the fuller context of the Pentagon chief’s statements, he emphasized that more Washington funding is crucial for Ukraine in order to prevent a situation where “one country can redraw its neighbors’ boundaries and illegitimately take over its sovereign territory.”

“We know that if Putin is successful here, he will not stop. He will continue to take more aggressive actions in the region. And other leaders around the world, other autocrats around the world will look at this and will be encouraged by the fact that this happened and we failed to support a democracy,” he added. “If you are a Baltic state, you are really worried about whether you are next. They know Putin. They know what he is capable of. And, frankly, if Ukraine falls, I really believe that NATO will be in a fight with Russia,” Austin said. What is even more alarming about this statement is that everyone now knows that Ukraine forces are in retreat at this very moment, especially after the Russian capture of the city of Avdiivka, and surrounding villages.

Bloomberg on Thursday issued a report predicting total collapse of the Ukrainian front lines by summer, as the headline suggests (Ukraine Sees Risk of Russia Breaking Through Defenses by Summer): “Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russian advances could gain significant momentum by the summer unless their allies can increase the supply of ammunition, according to a person familiar with their analysis,” the report says. According to more from Bloomberg: “Internal assessments of the situation on the battlefield from Kyiv are growing increasingly bleak as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold off Russian attacks while rationing the number of shells they can fire. Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Thursday that mistakes by frontline commanders had compounded the problems facing Ukraine’s defenses around Avdiivka, which was captured by Russian forces this month. Syrskyi said he’d sent in more troops and ammunition to bolster Ukrainian positions.”

So the consensus narrative and belated mainstream media admission is that Ukraine’s military is a mere months away from clear defeat, and the top US defense chief just said NATO will go to war with Russia “if Ukraine falls”. The conflict has reached a dire and perilously unpredictable moment indeed, and clearly the already slim chances of jump-starting serious peace negotiations to end the war are slipping away fast.

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“..according to Mr. Austin’s open, unambiguous statement, it’s the other way round. We do not have such plans and cannot have them, but the Americans do..”

• Austin Talking About NATO-Russia War Means US Has A Plan For It – Lavrov (TASS)

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, by saying that NATO and Russia could end up fighting each other if Ukraine is defeated, proved that the US has a plan for it, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a diplomatic conference in Antalya. “The meaning of this statement is that if Ukraine loses, NATO will have to go against Russia. In a Freudian slip he blurted out what they had in mind. Before that, everyone was saying: We can’t let Ukraine lose, because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will not stop at this and will take over the Baltics, Poland, Finland. But it turns out, according to Mr. Austin’s open, unambiguous statement, it’s the other way round. We do not have such plans and cannot have them, but the Americans do,” the minister said. According to Lavrov, Europe is currently the main victim of the US policy of “dragging Ukraine into NATO.”

“All major expenses have been shifted to Europe. People are living increasingly worse, energy resouces have rocketed in price manyfold, compared with what it could have been if the Americans had not blown up the Nord Stream gas pipelines,” the minister said. He said the situation around Ukraine was devised by Washington to make sure that the European Union doesn’t become too strong of a rival to the US economy. “And this goal has been achieved. Europe is now no longer a competitor to the US at all. All the main businesses and manufacturing industry are moving to the US, where conditions are completely different and energy is much cheaper,” Lavrov said. Austin earlier said that he believed “NATO will be in a fight with Russia” if Ukraine was defeated. The US Defense Secretary made the statement at a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

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“..By 1998, eight out of ten farms had gone bankrupt and 70,000 state-owned factories had closed. In 1994, a third of Russians lived below the poverty line..”

• Putin Learned From His Mistakes and Today Gives Us Precious Lessons (Vasco)

In his interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, President Vladimir Putin mentioned a fact that, for those – like me – who didn’t follow international politics 20 years ago, seems surreal. The Russian leader referred to a meeting he had with then-American President Bill Clinton in the Moscow Kremlin. “I asked him, ‘Bill, if Russia raised the issue of NATO membership, do you think it would be possible?’” Putin told Carlson. “Clinton replied: ‘It would be interesting, I think so!’” he continued. On the evening of that same day, when the two met again for dinner, Clinton’s opinion had changed radically. “‘I talked to my team. It’s not possible now,’” Clinton told Putin, according to the latter. “If he had said ‘yes’, the process of getting closer would have started, and, in the end, this could have happened if we saw a sincere desire from the partners,” he explained to Carlson.

A few days after this famous interview that went around the world, the BBC aired an interview with a former head of NATO confirming Putin’s intentions to join the military alliance in the early 2000s. “We had a good relationship”, revealed George Robertson. The Putin he met “wanted to cooperate with NATO” and “was very, very different from this almost megalomaniac of today”, recalled the historic member of the British Labor Party, staunch defender of Scotland’s slavery under the English yoke – even though he is Scottish – and who doesn’t realize that he lacks absolute morality to criticize the Russian intervention in Ukraine. With all the arrogance of a British man who still thinks he owns the world, Robertson indicated that the imperialist powers that, under his mandate at the head of NATO, finished attacking Yugoslavia and began the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq did not want to deal with Russia as an equal, but rather as a vassal within the organization.

Putin may not have fully understood the message at the time. He did not yet realize NATO’s expansionist aspirations. He fought against Chechen Muslim separatists, who carried out terrorist attacks on Russian territory. Therefore, he felt the need to support George W. Bush’s infamous “war on terror”. In fact, until then relations between Russia and the West had been relatively good since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin was a darling of the “international community”, as had Gorbachev. But the economic devastation caused by the neoliberal shock did not please an important part of the Russian elite, particularly the military. The political, economic and social crisis was not resolved. By 1998, eight out of ten farms had gone bankrupt and 70,000 state-owned factories had closed. In 1994, a third of Russians lived below the poverty line and, even ten years later, 20% were still in this situation. Russia had lost 10% of its population due to capitalist savagery.

The rates of suicide, murder, alcoholism, drug use, sexually transmitted diseases and prostitution had increased exponentially. Huge street demonstrations expressed the population’s discontent, which almost led to the communist party’s return to power. The country’s president was a drunkard and the Chechen War threatened to spread to other regions and balkanize Russia – the division of Yugoslavia occurred in parallel with the Russian crisis. Putin rose to power as a natural successor to Yeltsin. But the real conditions in Russia (internal and external) forced him to take an opposite path. Internal social pressures were added to the second-class treatment received from Western powers and NATO’s moves towards its border. He began by stabilizing the internal situation. He renationalized key companies in the gas, oil and aviation sectors, such as Rosneft, Yukos (merged into Rosneft), Gazprom and Aeroflot and created RZD to control the transport system.

It also benefited national capitalists (or “oligarchs”, according to the propaganda of international bankers) to the detriment of foreigners. At the same time, he fought the separatists with an iron fist, regained control of the Caucasus, pacified the region and fully unified the country. Despite officially supporting Putin’s war against the Chechens, the U.S. actually had a dual policy. At the same time, it was in the interest of the imperialist powers to divide Russia to weaken it even more than they did with the fall of the USSR. After all, even if the government of a given country is an ally, it is always preferable to imperialism to reduce its territory to facilitate its domination. While they did not accept Russia’s integration, the imperialist powers bought Moscow’s former allies and integrated them into NATO. In 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined the alliance. In 2004, it was the turn of Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania. In 2009, Albania and Croatia.

Macgregor

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“The majority of the voters don’t seem receptive to a replay of this scam but the US government is at war with those voters..”

• The Blob Quivers (Kunstler)

Did the Blob get vaxxed and boosted? Does that explain the severe neurological damage it displays now as its hologram of lies about Ukraine and Russia Russia Russia flickers out in the blinding daylight of reality. First, there was the gigantic New York Times article published last Sunday blowing open the decade-long secret shadow war by the CIA in a sprawling network of underground bunkers on and around the Russian border. The story was a direct feed from Blob Central in Langley, VA, to Times errand boys Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz, longtime RussiaGate hoaxers, and obviously intended to get ahead of the real news that the neo-con project to turn Ukraine into a NATO forward base against Russia has collapsed. Read closely, the Times story appears to be an effort by current CIA chief William Burns to hang-out-to-dry his predecessors John Brennan, Mike Pompeo, and Gina Haspel for the failed eight-year-long operation. Why? Because it looks like Russia is fixing to shut down the war ASAP, before its March 15 presidential election.

As it happened, Russian diplomats and Ukraine President Zelensky took turns visiting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in Saudi Arabia this week, sparking rumors that these were peace talks with MBS playing mediator. The situation is delicate for all concerned. Ukraine itself verges on collapse with its army decimated, its ammo used up, and its coffers empty, awaiting the $60-plus-billion aid package that is stalled in Congress, meaning no salaries for Ukraine govt employees and no pensions. It’s delicate for the US because “Joe Biden” has declared our country won’t negotiate over Ukraine, despite the fact that there is nothing else to do now, or the end of the war will be negotiated without us. And remember, not many days ago Mr. Putin told Tucker Carlson that he was ready to talk to anybody. What this will demonstrate is that America has neither the ability to continue its proxy war nor the will or sense to engage in peace talks — all due to “Joe Biden’s” abject intransigence, and not a good look for someone pretending to run for re-election.

It’s delicate for Russia because such a humiliating loss for America could provoke “JB” and his NATO allies to some reckless and foolish act, say, sending NATO members’ ground troops directly into battle or a missile strike on Russian territory, setting off nuclear war. At the very least, the situation has already prompted the US government propaganda machine to kick-start Russia Russia Russia 3.0, the threadbare narrative that has been the accelerant of Democratic Party hallucinations about Russia interfering in US elections since 2016 — when it has actually been US spooks collaborating with a motley assortment of Ukrainian stooges, plus Marc Elias’s lawfare corps, plus the Intel Blob coercing social media to work its will. The majority of the voters don’t seem receptive to a replay of this scam but the US government is at war with those voters, so anything goes in the struggle to retain power.

While we await news out of those peace talks, a political firestorm rages around illegal immigrants from all over the world swarming across the US border. Nothing about that seems even remotely comprehensible, let alone defensible, anymore, as women fall prey to rape and murder by mutts released on-purpose into the US population, and cities groan under the financial burden of housing and supporting them. And so, it looks like the person directly responsible, Alejandro Mayorkas, might be riding his House impeachment bill into a senate trial — another bad look for the Democratic Party (of Chaos) going into the heart of election season.

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“..a particular type of paradoxical impulse that arises during times of momentous change..”

• The West Is Willing To Destroy Its Financial System To Punish Russia (RT)

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has become the latest to add her voice to the growing chorus of Western officials calling for the seizure of Russia’s $300 billion in frozen foreign-exchange reserves for the benefit of Ukraine. This comes after UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak penned an op-ed over the weekend in which he called for the West to be “bolder” in moving toward confiscating the assets. Notwithstanding the reticence being displayed in some quarters of Europe and various admonitions that such an action would be both blatantly illegal and also detrimental to the integrity of the financial system, the idea seems to be taking on a momentum of its own, particularly in Washington and London. What we are seeing is a vivid example of the type of thinking that places perceived short-term gains ahead of a commitment to preserve the integrity of an institution that derives its potency precisely from widespread confidence in that integrity.

It is also, as we will see, a manifestation of a particular type of paradoxical impulse that arises during times of momentous change. In this case, the institution in question is the Western-led global financial system, at the very heart of which is the US dollar. Outright confiscation of the Russian central bank reserves that have been immobilized since shortly after the Ukraine conflict began in February 2022 would deliver another jolting blow to the credibility of this system. Even as most of the assets are actually held in Europe, there would be no confusion about who was calling the shots and whose credibility is on the line. Of course, views differ about how much integrity the dollar-centric system ever had, and certainly the entire Bretton Woods framework established in the waning days of World War II very much served the interests of the victorious Americans.

But it cannot be disputed that for decades the dollar was widely viewed across the geopolitical spectrum as not just a market-determined reference point and currency for trade but as a safe store of value. As trade became increasingly liberalized, assumptions about a safe and dependable dollar system were built into all manner of economic and trade policies. Such assumptions became part of the very fabric of the global financial system. Where risks related to the dollar were understood to exist, they were largely seen as lying in the realm of interest-rate policy – in other words, these were market risks rather than risks inherent to the system itself. A series of emerging-market crises in the 1980s and ‘90s left many countries chastened about the perils of excessive dollar debt and the dangers that US interest-rate hikes can unleash.

But one of the conclusions that many countries drew from these episodes was the necessity of holding greater dollar reserves as a bulwark against shocks. Between 2000 and 2005, right on the heels of two decades of crises often triggered by rising dollar interest rates, emerging markets actually accumulated dollar reserves at a record pace of about $250 billion per annum, or 3.5% of GDP – a level five times higher than in the early 1990s. In other words, countries responded to shocks emanating from the dollar realm by increasing holdings of dollars. This only underscores the nature of how dollar-related risk was perceived at the time. It simply didn’t occur to anybody that greater exposure to the dollar was itself a risk. The idea that hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of reserves could simply be confiscated if a country found itself at odds with the overseers of the system didn’t factor into any of the equations.

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“This legal basis must be accepted not only by the European countries, not only by the G7 countries, but by all the member states of the world community..”

• Biden Wants To Give Russian Central Bank Funds To Ukraine, France Resists (ZH)

President Biden wants the G7 countries to develop a plan to eventually have Russia’s frozen sovereign assets handed over Ukraine in order to support the war effort, Bloomberg has reported. Bloomberg’s source have also said the US president has privately warned allies that Ukraine’s collapse, and a Russian victory, would signify the international order is effectively destroyed for at least the next half-century. “G-7 officials have been discussing options to use the $280 billion of immobilized Russian Central Bank assets, including using the money as collateral to raise debt or issuing guarantees against the frozen funds, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity,” according to the report. Biden reportedly wants a firm plan proposed by the time of the Italy G7 summit in June. The US has been working behind the scenes to build consensus. The UK and Canada are reportedly on board, but not Germany and France.

Earlier this week France firmly voiced its rejection of seizing the frozen Russian bank funds. “We don’t think this legal basis is sufficient,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said after the G7 finance ministers meeting in Brazil on Wednesday. “This legal basis must be accepted not only by the European countries, not only by the G7 countries, but by all the member states of the world community, and I mean by all the member states of the G20. We should not add any kind of division among the G20 countries.” Opponents, including of course Russian officials themselves, have highlighted that such a act would be outright and brazen theft. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has warned in response, “We have ways to respond. We have also frozen sufficient volumes of financial assets and investments of foreign investors in our securities, all of which transfers we carry out for the owners of our securities.”

Europe has to agree to any US push to freeze banks funds, since the bulk of Russia’s money – about $200 billion – is being held by European banks. In such a scenario Moscow may consider the ‘theft’ to be tantamount to an act of war. Still, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was undeterred when she was in Brazil this week. “It is necessary and urgent for our coalition to find a way to unlock the value of these immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction,” she had said from Sao Paulo, speaking to 20 finance ministers and central bank governors. “I believe there is a strong international law, economic, and moral case for moving forward. This would be a decisive response to Russia’s unprecedented threat to global stability,” she added.

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“..the Collective West has been isolated by the Global Rest. “Global Rest”, incidentally, is a misnomer: Global Majority is the name of the game.”

• The Global South Converges to Multipolar Moscow (Pepe Escobar)

These have been frantic multipolar days at the capital of the multipolar world. I had the honor to personally tell Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that virtually the whole Global South seemed to be represented in an auditorium of the Lomonosov innovation cluster on a Monday afternoon – a sort of informal UN and in several aspects way more effective when it comes to respecting the UN charter. His eyes gleamed. Lavrov, more than most, understands the true power of the Global Majority. Moscow hosted a back-to-back multipolar conference plus the second meeting of the International Russophiles Movement (MIR, in its French acronym, which means “world” in Russian). Taken together, the discussions and networking have offered auspicious hints on the building of a truly representative international order – away from the agenda-imposed doom and gloom of single unipolar culture and Forever Wars.

The opening plenary session in the first day fell under the star power of Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova – whose main message was crystal clear: “There can’t be freedom without free will”, which could easily become the new collective Global South motto. “Civilization-states” set the tone of the overall discussion – as they are meticulously designing the blueprints of economic, technological and cultural development in the post-Western hegemonic world. Professor of International Relations Zhang Weiwei at Fudan University’s China Institute in Shanghai summarized the four crucial points when it comes to Beijing propelling its role as a “new independent pole.” That reads like a concise marker of where we are now: 1/ Under the unipolar order, everything from dollars to computer chips can be weaponized. Wars and color revolutions are the norm. 2/ China has become the largest economy in the world by PPP; the largest trade and industrial economy; and it is currently at the forefront of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 3/ China proposes a model of “Unite and Prosper” instead of a Western model of “Divide and Rule”. 4/ The West tried to isolate Russia, but the Global Majority sympathizes with Russia. Thus, the Collective West has been isolated by the Global Rest.

“Global Rest”, incidentally, is a misnomer: Global Majority is the name of the game. The same applies to “golden billion”; those that profit from the unipolar moment, mostly across the collective West and as comprador elites in the satraps, are at best 200 million or so. Monday afternoon in Moscow featured three parallel sessions: on China and the multipolar world, where the star was Professor Weiwei; on the post-hegemony West, under the title “Is it possible to save the European civilization?” – attended by several dissident Europeans, academics, think tankers, activists; and the main treat – featuring the frontline actors of multipolarity.I had the honor to moderate the awesome Global South session, which ran for over three hours – it could have been the whole day, actually – and featured several stunning presentations by a stellar cast of Africans, Latin Americans and Asians, from Palestine to Venezuela, including Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla. That was the multipolar Global South in full flight – as my imperative was to open the floor to as many people as possible. Were the organizers to release a Greatest Hits of the presentations, that could easily become a global hit.

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“She’s not building a big movement. What she’s doing is lying in wait and hoping for disaster.”

• Haley: Nominating Trump Means ‘Suicide for Our Country’ (RCP)

As Nikki Haley stubbornly clings to life ahead of Super Tuesday, warning that nominating Donald Trump for president a third time would mean “suicide for our country,” some of her closest supporters take solace in the fact that the future is unknowable. Perhaps there is a “fatal landmine” that the former president “could step on at any minute” or a lurking controversy that could “land him deep in the bottom of a well,” speculated Michigan State Rep. Mark Tisdal, who served on Haley’s leadership team for that state. “She is an alternative,” added Utah state Sen. Todd Weiler, who campaigned with Haley earlier this week, “and nobody knows what the future holds with the lawsuits and the age of both of our leading candidates.” Such are the unrealized hopes of the anti-Trump coalition. He will turn 78 in June, just three years younger than President Biden. He faces 91 felony counts in total among his four criminal indictments.

He has swept the first six nominating contests regardless. And Trump has yet to trip into a proverbial well or stumble onto any of the aforementioned landmines. During the primary, that is. Haley has urged the GOP to look to November from the beginning, offering up a well-worn rebuttal to the chorus of party members calling on her to exit. Now she has some data to make that case: “He lost 40% of the primary vote in all of the early states.” An accountant before politics, Haley points to the percentages in her favor as evidence of Trump’s weakness. In Minnesota Monday, she told a crowd, “You can’t win the general election if you can’t win that 40%.” Of course, unless the arithmetic changes in a hurry, Haley can’t win a primary with those numbers, either. As one prominent GOP operative put it to RealClearPolitics, requesting anonymity to speak frankly, “She’s not building a big movement. What she’s doing is lying in wait and hoping for disaster.”

Her campaign rejects outright any suggestion that Haley is waiting for catastrophe, legal or otherwise, to fall on Trump. They point to her dogged cross-country schedule and her seven-figure national ad campaign as evidence she hasn’t adopted a rear-guard strategy. They say Haley plans to win. “There’s a lot at stake this election. Nikki is fighting for the future of the Republican Party and long-standing conservative principles like fiscal discipline and a strong national security,” said spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas. “If we don’t right the ship, Republicans are going to keep losing and that means Democrats and the far left will keep winning.” The substance of Haley’s fight has earned her comparisons to once-beloved Republican presidents. “She certainly represents the values and principal policy positions of a Reagan-Bush coalition,” said GOP strategist Whit Ayers.

But unless things change in a hurry, her campaign could be compared to also-rans such as Pat Buchanan in 1992 and Steve Forbes in 1996, said Ayers, who noted that “there are a lot of people who’ve run for reasons other than simply winning the nomination.” Writing in Politico, conservative columnist Henry Olsen speculated about one of those potential reasons to stay in the race. The more delegates Haley wins, the more influence she will have at the Republican National Convention “to get concessions from Trump on things she cares about, such as U.S. support for NATO.” Speculation is in season, and more than one pundit has already written the Haley obituary. For her part, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations sticks to her argument that if Republicans nominate her old boss, “we will lose. It is that simple.” She brought this message with her to Utah, where the Republican governor, Spencer Cox, argued that if his party nominates Haley, “or literally anyone else, we would win by 10 to 14 points.”

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“..the company ignored its own ban on the use of its technology for “military and warfare” purposes and partnered up with the Pentagon..”

• Musk Sues ChatGPT Maker Over AI Threat (RT)

US billionaire Elon Musk has taken OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research company he once helped to found, to court over an alleged breach of its original mission to develop AI technology not for profit but for the benefit of humanity. OpenAI, founded in 2015 as a non-profit research lab to develop an open-source Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), has now become a “closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world,” Musk’s legal team wrote in the suit filed on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court. The lawsuit claimed that Musk “has long recognized that AGI poses a grave threat to humanity – perhaps the greatest existential threat we face today.” “But where some like Mr. Musk see an existential threat in AGI, others see AGI as a source of profit and power,” it added.

“Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity.” Musk left the OpenAI board of directors in 2018 and has since grown critical of the firm, especially after Microsoft invested at least $13 billion to obtain a 49% stake in a for-profit branch of OpenAI. “Contrary to the founding agreement, defendants have chosen to use GPT-4 not for the benefit of humanity, but as proprietary technology to maximize profits for literally the largest company in the world,” the suit read. The lawsuit listed OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman and president Gregory Brockman as co-defendants in the case, and called for an injunction to block Microsoft from commercializing the tech.

AI technology has improved at a rapid pace over the last two years, with OpenAI’s GPT language model going from powering a chatbot program in late 2022 to performing in the 90th percentile on SAT exams just four months later. More than 1,100 researchers, tech luminaries and futurists argued last year that the AI race poses “profound risks to society and humanity.” Even Altman himself has previously acknowledged that he is “a little bit scared” of the technology’s potential, and barred customers from using OpenAI to “develop or use weapons.” However, the company ignored its own ban on the use of its technology for “military and warfare” purposes and partnered up with the Pentagon, announcing in January that it was working on several artificial intelligence projects with the US military.

https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1763471083838033941

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Sounds interesting, but I don’t quite know what to make of it.

“MASSIVE WIN FOR TRUMP IN PA! Greg Stenstrom and Leah Hoopes won their legal case in Pennsylvania with co-Defendant @realDonaldTrump and can now say there WAS ELECTION FRAUD in 2020. This is big and may reverse not just #J6 and show the intelligence agencies at fault but actually also show Pfizer and all those who failed to sign oaths of office at fault for Pfizer damage and lack of clinical efficacy docuements. STAY TUNED. THINGS ARE DEVELOPING FAST”

• The Truth is a Complete Defense (PO)

WE WON. “NO MAS!” The Truth is a Complete Defense. Our defamation suit in which we were codefendants with President Trump is over, with the exception of a motion for sanctions that we expect will still be heard tomorrow morning in Philadelphia. Plaintiff Savage and attorney J. Conor Corcoran have withdrawn their complaints less than 24 hours before they were scheduled to appear in Court with Leah Hoopes and myself to consider Motion for Summary Judgement in our Favor for our “truth is a complete defense” and our Motion for Sanctions against Savage and Corcoran. As those of you who have been following along know, we have submitted a large volume of filings with the Court in preparation for tomorrows hearing, and a discovery hearing that was scheduled for 25MAR2024, and were beating them to a pulp.

We have also filed similar Motions to Dismiss and for Sanctions against Delaware County and attorneys from Duane Morris LLP and are beating their brains in there too. Duane Morris officially withdrew as attorneys this week for Newsmax in other litigation that we called out in our motions as conflicts and criminal collusion. To our knowledge, this is the only case against President Trump and Rudy Giuliani in the country (in which we were codefendants with them) that they have won, and credit where credit is due, Leah and I did all the heavy lifting. Expect more “wins” in the near future in our march to show that the November 2020 election was stolen and to restore election integrity and transparency in PA. We’re going after Shapiro hard and not going to quit until they all say “No Mas.” Semper Fi.

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Seal safe

 

 

Martis

 

 

Great white

 

 

Lions
https://twitter.com/i/status/1763621701726720013

 

 

 

 

Billy Crystal

 

 

Keef

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 8 2023

Nov 082023
 
 November 8, 2023  Posted by at 9:23 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  56 Responses »


Paul Cézanne The Card Players 1895

 

• Israel’s Final Solution for the Palestinians (Chris Hedges)
• ‘We’re a War Machine as a Nation’ (Hedges/Kucinich)
• The Great Schism – Will It Be Quietly Ignored? (Alastair Crooke)
• Will the Hamas-Israel Conflict Spin Out of Control? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Israel Wants To Dump Palestinian Refugees On Canada (Marsden)
• Lavrov: West Pushing Middle East Towards Major War (Sp.)
• ‘Nuke Gaza’ Comment From Israeli Minister Raises Eyebrows In Moscow (Cradle)
• Stable Eurasia Important To Multipolar World – Putin (RT)
• US Senate Blocks Aid For Israel Over Ukraine (RT)
• Türkiye Warns US About ‘Tarnished Reputation’ – Media (RT)
• Europe ‘Powerless Against Kremlin Propaganda’ – Media (RT)
• PsyWar & Washington DC’s Bureaucracy (Robert Malone)

 

 

 

 

Levy

 

 

Nurse

 

 

Norman Finkelstein RESPONDS to Bernie Sanders statement OPPOSING GAZA CEASEFIRE

 

 

 

 

 

 

“[W]e see not just a growing Israeli fascism but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages.”

• Israel’s Final Solution for the Palestinians (Chris Hedges)

I covered the birth of Jewish fascism in Israel. I reported on the extremist Meir Kahane, who was barred from running for office and whose Kach Party was outlawed in 1994 and declared a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States. I attended political rallies held by Benjamin Netanyahu, who received lavish funding from rightwing Americans, when he ran against Yitzhak Rabin, who was negotiating a peace settlement with the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s supporters chanted “Death to Rabin.” They burned an effigy of Rabin dressed in a Nazi uniform. Netanyahu marched in front of a mock funeral for Rabin. Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995 by a Jewish fanatic. Rabin’s widow, Lehea, blamed Netanyahu and his supporters for her husband’s murder.

Netanyahu, who first became prime minister in 1996, has spent his political career nurturing Jewish extremists, including Avigdor Lieberman, Gideon Sa’ar, Naftali Bennett, and Ayelet Shaked. His father, Benzion — who worked as an assistant to the Zionist pioneer Vladimir Jabotinsky, who Benito Mussolini referred to as “a good fascist” — was a leader in the Herut Party that called on the Jewish state to seize all the land of historic Palestine. Many of those who formed the Herut Party carried out terrorist attacks during the 1948 war that established the state of Israel. Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook and other Jewish intellectuals, described the Herut Party in a statement published in The New York Times as a “political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to Nazi and Fascist parties.”

There has always been a strain of Jewish fascism within the Zionist project. Now it has taken control of the Israeli state. “The left is no longer capable of overcoming the toxic ultra-nationalism that has evolved here,” Zeev Sternhell, a Holocaust survivor and Israel’s foremost authority on fascism, warned in 2018, “the kind whose European strain almost wiped out a majority of the Jewish people.” Sternhell added, “[W]e see not just a growing Israeli fascism but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages.” The decision to obliterate Gaza has long been the dream of Israel’s crypto-fascists, heirs of Kahane’s movement. These Jewish extremists, which make up the ruling coaltion government, are orchestrating the genocide in Gaza, where hundreds of Palestinians are dying daily. They champion the iconography and language of their homegrown fascism.

Jewish identity and Jewish nationalism are the Zionist versions of blood and soil. Jewish supremacy is sanctified by God, as is the slaughter of the Palestinians, who Netanyahu compared to the Biblical Ammonites, massacred by the Israelites. Enemies — usually Muslims — slated for extinction are subhuman who embody evil. Violence and the threat of violence are the only forms of communication those outside the magical circle of Jewish nationalism understand. Millions of Muslims and Christians, including those with Israeli citizenship, are to be purged. A leaked 10-page document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence dated Oct. 13, 2023 recommends the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

It is a grave mistake not to take the blood curdling calls for the wholesale eradication and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians seriously. This rhetoric is not hyperbolic. It is a literal prescription. Netanyahu in a tweet, later removed, described the battle with Hamas as a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.”

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Kucinich is a longtime anti-war voice.

• ‘We’re a War Machine as a Nation’ (Hedges/Kucinich)

Israel’s ongoing massacre in Gaza has stirred worldwide calls for a ceasefire to stop the genocide unfolding. The United States has been no exception, which countless demonstrators taking to the streets in recent weeks. That hasn’t stopped the US government from backing Israel’s horrific campaign in Gaza to the hilt. The White House has refused to heed calls for a ceasefire and even deployed two aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean—not to defend Palestinians, but to dissuade regional powers from joining the fray to defend Palestine. As the possibility of a regional war looms with the entry of Yemen into the conflict, many wonder how the US might respond to such a scenario. Former US Congressperson Dennis Kucinich joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on the US war machine—what it is, how it works, and how it might respond should the war in Palestine spiral into a wider conflagration.

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“..the revolutionary spark lighting a transformation in the Middle Eastern and the Global South’s consciousness..”

• The Great Schism – Will It Be Quietly Ignored? (Alastair Crooke)

Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, who famously led France’s opposition to the Iraq war, recently described the term ‘Occidentalism’ (currently the prevalent sentiment in much of Europe) as being the notion that “the West, which for five centuries managed the world’s affairs, will be able to quietly continue to do so”. He continues: “There is this idea that, faced with what is currently happening in the Middle East, we must continue the fight even more, towards what might resemble a religious or a civilizational war”. “That is to say, to isolate ourselves even more on the international stage”. “They’ve gone “all in” on a certain moral and ethical framework of the world, and faced with a situation where the West’s moral fabric has been openly exposed and refuted, they find it extremely difficult—and perhaps fatally impossible—to withdraw”.

It is ditto for an Israel (which is umbilically linked to the West): Were Israel to imagine that its former Arab allies might look the other way, whilst the Jewish state attempts to annihilate resistance in Gaza,- and then expect these allies to help police and pay for a Gaza security apparatus to rule there, they would be guilty of wishfull thinking. And, if either Washington or Israel assume this ‘after-Gaza’ plan can unfold in the same moment that militant settlers on the other side of the terrain build their settlement kingdom with the express goal of founding Israel on the Land of Israel (thus expunging Palestine altogether), that notion too would constitute a fantasy, both strategically and morally incoherent. It won’t work. Israel will not be able to generate either the Palestinian partners, nor the global allies, it needs to co-operate in such a scheme. The situation in the Middle East has radically transformed. Whereas Palestine was about national liberation, today Palestine is the symbol of a wider civilisational re-awakening – the ‘end to centuries of Regional humiliation’.

Equally, whilst Zionism in Israel was largely a secular political project (Greater Israel), today it has become messianic and prophetic. The point here is that we continue to think about the Gaza issue in the ‘old way’ – through the prism of secular material rationalism. This leads to conclusions such as ‘Hamas objectively is weaker than Israel’s IDF’, and therefore rationally the latter must prevail as being the stronger party. In this way of thinking, though, there is only ‘one single reality’ with only the descriptions and interpretations of this ‘reality’ differing. Yet there is demonstrably more than ‘one reality’ as collectively, we progress from one consciousness to another. In one consciousness, for example, ‘Hamas is destined to fail’, and the discussion turns to US and Israeli notions of ‘what follows in Gaza’.

In another state of consciousness however – one becoming ever more prevalent in the region – the ‘reality’ is that any ‘rationally’ negotiated compromise between two clashing eschatological structures is impossible. The more so should the conflict escalate horizontally – overflowing the boundaries of Gaza. Other ‘fronts’ likely might open, as Gaza is seen – whether or not Hamas is crushed – as the revolutionary spark lighting a transformation in the Middle Eastern and the Global South’s consciousness (note the list of Global South states now cutting diplomatic ties with Israel). The West however, has opted to back itself in a silo of its own making – as defined by its demand for a singularity of messaging that all of Europe ‘stand with Israel’; refusing any ceasefire; and saying ‘no limit’ to Israeli action (subject to law).

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“.. Americans and Europeans are getting no help from their governments or media in understanding that Putin is doing his best to save them from a world war..”

• Will the Hamas-Israel Conflict Spin Out of Control? (Paul Craig Roberts)

According to Iran’s PressTV, the Iranian defense minister announced that the US “will be hit hard” it Israel’s war on Gaza does not halt. It is unclear why the defense minister’s target is the US and not Israel. By US he probably means US bases in Syria and Iraq. Add this puzzle to the growing collection. For example, if Iran and Hezbollah are behind Hamas’ October 7 attack, why wasn’t Hamas provided with air defense capability against what everyone had to know would be massive Israeli bombing of Gaza? Why did Russia provide Syria with the S-300 air defense system and prevent Syria from using it against Israeli and US aircraft that attack Syrian territory? I explained that the October 7 attack on Israel has the Biden regime’s neoconservatives and Netanyahu’s fingers all over it.

It is not only Palestine that is Netanhayu’s goal, but also Greater Israel which runs according to Zionists from the Nile to the Euphrates. The intent is to draw into the conflict Iran and Syria so that the neoconservatives can reopen the wars in the Middle East against Hezbollah’s suppliers. Without weapons and money from Iran and Syria, Hezbollah would not be able to prevent Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. I doubt that Biden understands this. Most likely the neoconservatives in the government told him that having a strong US military presence on the scene would keep things from getting out of hand. Many Americans think that the president knows everything and is in control, but the fact is that he only knows what his officials tell him, and the neoconservatives have their own agenda.

That the intent is to widen the conflict is supported by the enormous quantities of weapons, troops and air power that the US is assembling in the area. This concentration supplemented with German and French troops, according to media reports, go far beyond what is needed to subdue Hamas. The official explanation for this concentration of Western military resources is to protect Israel from Hezbollah and Iran. Adding to the collection of puzzles, if Israel is so vulnerable from attacking Gaza, why would Israel risk it. It makes no sense to risk defeat for the sake of revenge. Israel must have known in advance that US forces would instantly be on the scene. How did Israel know that if October 7 was a surprise?

Putin and it seems Biden have realized that if Iran and Hezbollah are enticed into the conflict a wider regional conflict will emerge that could result in World War III. Putin has been restraining the Muslims and Biden has tried to restrain Netanyahu. If Putin succeeds, the neoconservatives and Netanyahu will likely initiate a false flag attack on Israel and blame Hezbollah, and the neoconservatives who run the Biden regime will use the false flag attack to widen the war. Certainly Americans and Europeans are getting no help from their governments or media in understanding that Putin is doing his best to save them from a world war. Instead, hate continues to pour out against Putin.

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And why not…

• Israel Wants To Dump Palestinian Refugees On Canada (Marsden)

Israel’s Intelligence Ministry has come up with a creative solution for dealing with those displaced by the Gaza conflict, of which there are an estimated 1.4 million and counting: Go west — all the way to Canada. As Gaza residents were being directed by Israel to clear out and move towards the southern border with Egypt – while the IDF pelted the northern part of the enclave, where most Hamas forces are reportedly concentrated, with missiles – one of the big questions some of us asked was where over 2 million Palestinians would possibly go. Thanks to a leaked Israeli government document, dated October 13 and published by Israeli news site Sicha Mekomit, there’s now some insight into what at least some Israeli government officials have been floating. This paper, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says presents “initial thoughts” that won’t be considered until the war is over, envisions the refugees heading to Egypt first.

But, because Egypt has previously refused to absorb Gaza residents, it may ultimately just end up being used as a staging ground for their mass relocation to other countries. The proposal is for Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to at least provide financial support for this mass displacement, if not offer to take in some refugees themselves, either in the short or long term. But the real kicker is that one particular Western country – way over on the other side of the world from the conflict – is singled out for its “lenient” immigration policy, making it a place where Israeli officials figure the displaced Palestinians could feasibly be resettled. And that country is Canada. Because despite its strict points-based immigration system that selects for potential newcomers based on their skills and education, Canada still clearly has a reputation for being a refugee welcome mat – even though today’s reality is a far cry from this perception.

Not that our big-mouthed Canadian officials have helped. “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted in January 2017, in reaction to then-US President Donald Trump’s executive order banning refugees from a list of Muslim countries. But it wasn’t long before Trudeau had to send out members of his own administration to explain to these same migrant communities that his tweets were a bit more obtuse than official policy. Nor does the image of Canada as a freeloader’s paradise jibe with real life upon arrival in the country. By 2019, Canada had welcomed nearly 60,000 Syrian refugees amid the US-backed regime change war against President Bashar Assad.

Images abound of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau handing out winter jackets to arriving families at Toronto’s Pearson airport. “You’re safe at home now,” Trudeau told them. That was back in 2015. Just four years later, some provinces had ditched all aid for immigration and refugee programs and just 24% of male and 8% of female refugees from Syria had found employment, according to government data.

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“.. the ultimate result being the loss or weakening of statehood in these countries..”

• Lavrov: West Pushing Middle East Towards Major War (Sp.)

Western politicians are provoking a major conflict in the Middle East, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a marathon event at the Znanie Society within the framework of the Russia International Exhibition-Forum. Russia’s foreign minister has asserted that Western nations are actively steering Middle Eastern countries toward a potential large-scale conflict. Lavrov pointed out that historically, such “Anglo-Saxon strategies” have precipitated waves of terrorism and forced the migration of countless refugees. “Right now, we are witnessing how the Anglo-Saxons are literally pushing the Middle East to the brink of a major war,” he said. The consequences of this Western approach are evident in Ukraine, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, with the ultimate result being the loss or weakening of statehood in these countries, the top diplomat emphasized.

“Other consequences include a surge in terrorism and extremism, shattered human destinies, broken families and the massive influx of refugees,” Lavrov noted in his speech at the “Znanie” (lit. “Knowledge”) Society event. The methods used by the United States and its allies are sowing chaos in various regions of the world, fueling conflicts between countries and peoples, exacerbating inter-religious and inter-ethnic tensions. The West has grown accustomed to solving its own problems at the expense of others and exploiting other people’s resources and, contrary to global processes, hopes to rule the world by interfering in the internal affairs of states, Lavrov concluded.

In a recent flare-up, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict reignited on October 7 after a major rocket attack on Israel from Gaza. Subsequently, Hamas infiltrated the southern border areas, attacking military and civilian targets in Israel and taking hostages. In response, Israel launched Operation Swords of Iron in the Gaza Strip, taking control of border settlements, conducting airstrikes, including on civilian targets, and imposing a complete blockade, cutting off supplies of essential goods. Moscow has called on both sides to cease hostilities. Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Middle East crisis can only be resolved on the basis of the United Nations Security Council’s “two-state” formula, which calls for an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem.

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“..anyone waving a Palestinian or Hamas flag “shouldn’t continue living on the face of the earth.”

• ‘Nuke Gaza’ Comment From Israeli Minister Raises Eyebrows In Moscow (Cradle)

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on 7 November said that recent remarks by Israeli Minister of Heritage Amihai Eliyahu, in which he said dropping a nuclear bomb in the Gaza Strip is “a possibility,” raised a multitude of questions. “It raised a great number of questions. Question number one: Does this mean we are hearing an official statement acknowledging [Israel’s] possession of nuclear weapons? Accordingly, the next set of questions that everyone has is: Where are the international organizations, including the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]; where are the inspectors?” Zakharova said during a televised interview. Estimates of Israel’s nuclear stockpile range between 80 and 400 warheads, which can be delivered via aircraft, submarine-launched cruise missiles, and the Jericho series of intermediate to intercontinental-range ballistic missiles.

Its first deliverable nuclear weapon is thought to have been completed in late 1966 or early 1967, making it the sixth country in the world to have developed them. Israel has never openly tested its nuclear weapons nor signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), making it the world’s only unacknowledged atomic power. The country has also never been subjected to an inspection from the UN nuclear watchdog. Asked in an interview with Radio Kol Berama last week whether an atomic bomb should be dropped on Gaza, Israeli minister Eliyahu answered: “This is one of the possibilities.” Eliyahu, from the Jewish supremacist Religious Zionist party, stated further that “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza” and that, therefore, no humanitarian aid should be allowed into the besieged enclave.

He also expressed his support for depopulating Gaza and reconquering it to reestablish Jewish settlements there. Regarding the Palestinian population, he said: “They can go to Ireland or deserts; the monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves.” Eliyahu added that anyone waving a Palestinian or Hamas flag “shouldn’t continue living on the face of the earth.” In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended Eliyahu from participating in cabinet meetings and dismissed his statement, calling it “not based in reality.” Russia’s UN envoy has previously stated that, as an occupying state, Israel has “no right” to self-defense.

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Which is why the US is destabilizing it.

• Stable Eurasia Important To Multipolar World – Putin (RT)

Russia and Kazakhstan have a true strategic partnership and are working together to advance a more just and multi-faceted world order, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview on Tuesday. Putin spoke with the outlet Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, ahead of the planned visit to Astana later this week for talks with his Kazakh counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. “Development of a new and fairer world order based on the primacy of international law has been a prevailing trend,” Putin told the outlet. “Russia believes that establishment of a common peaceful, stable and prosperous Eurasian space is an integral part of this process.” He noted that Russia and Kazakhstan share the world’s longest land border – almost 7,600 kilometers – and that some 6,000 Russian companies have invested around $17 billion in the Central Asian neighbor.

The two countries’ partnership is “forward-looking, extensive and multifaceted, time-tested and developing in an upward direction,” the Russian president said. In addition to oil and natural gas exploration, Russia and Kazakhstan are also collaborating on uranium mining and nuclear power projects. Astana is currently considering the construction of an atomic power plant on Kazakh territory and should it decide to proceed, Russia’s state corporation Rosatom stands ready to develop it using “the most advanced technologies,” Putin noted. The Russian leader specifically addressed Kazakhstan’s presidency over the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). At the organization’s summit in July, Tokayev had introduced the Initiative on World Unity for Just Peace and Harmony.

“The SCO attracts with its focus on creation and multifaceted cooperation, mutual consideration of interests, equality, openness, and respect for cultural and civilizational diversity,” Putin said, which makes it superior to Western-promoted initiatives with but a handful of handpicked participants. He described cooperation within the SCO as “one of the key pillars for strategic relations of friendship and alliance” between Russia and Kazakhstan. “As for economic stability, the Eurasian Economic Union no doubt has a crucial role to play in this area,” Putin added. The Kremlin has confirmed that Putin will travel to Kazakhstan on Thursday, adding that his agenda will include talks with Tokayev, signing a number of agreements, and attending the 19th Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Forum.

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Lost cause.

• US Senate Blocks Aid For Israel Over Ukraine (RT)

Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a House bill that would have provided emergency aid to Israel without funding to Ukraine, demanding the Republicans agree to President Joe Biden’s $106 bundle request instead. The White House proposal has sought to combine the aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and migration policy – presented as “border security” – in order to overcome opposition by some Republicans to continued funding of Kiev. The Republican-majority House of Representatives, however, passed a $14 billion standalone package for Israel last week, to be offset by cuts to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). “Time is of the essence and it’s imperative that the Senate not delay delivering this crucial aid to Israel another day,” Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas said on Tuesday, urging the Democrats to agree to the House bill.

“Our allies in Ukraine can no more afford a delay than our allies in Israel,” replied Patty Murray of Washington, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Biden has already said he would veto the House bill were it somehow to be approved in the Senate, where Democrats control 51 out of the 100 seats. Unlike the simple-majority rules of the House, a bill requires 60 votes to pass in the Senate, meaning at least nine Republicans would need to cross the aisle. According to the Pentagon, the US has sent Ukraine over $44 billion in military aid since February 2022, including weapons, equipment and ammunition. The US has insisted this does not make it a party to the conflict with Russia, however. American taxpayers have also coughed up around $4 billion in humanitarian aid and almost $27 billion in “economic assistance,”including paying the salaries of Ukrainian government employees.

A secret deal with the White House to fund Ukraine cost the former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy his job in early October, leading to a three-week deadlock in the lower house of Congress. The new speaker, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, has voted against continued funding of Kiev and expressed support for single-item bills. The Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which the Pentagon has used to buy new equipment for Kiev from the US military industry, ran out earlier this week, according to the White House. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has told the Senate that Ukraine would lose the conflict with Russia without continued US assistance. Senate Democrats are reportedly working on their own funding proposal and hope to introduce it later this week, according to Reuters.

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Erdogan gets serious.

• Türkiye Warns US About ‘Tarnished Reputation’ – Media (RT)

Türkiye has told the US that its stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict has both tarnished its reputation and put the entire world community in a tough spot, Hurriyet reported on Tuesday. According to the Turkish daily, Ankara conveyed that message during a meeting between Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday, which concerned the current crisis in the Middle East. The sit-down came amid heightened tensions between Türkiye and Israel, Washington’s key ally in the region, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently accusing the Jewish state of “war crimes” in Gaza and denouncing its ground assault as “an open, vicious massacre.” Israel maintains that it has no intention of harming the civilian population in the Palestinian enclave, stressing that its main objective is to defeat Hamas, which launched a surprise attack on the country on October 7.

Hurriyet claimed that Fidan and his delegation “clearly explained” to Blinken what was happening in Gaza, and that the US vow to stand by Israel while refusing to call for a ceasefire, was “putting everyone in trouble.” “You are also putting your own image in trouble because you are seen as the patron of the crimes committed by Israel,” the delegation reportedly said. Following the meeting, the two sides did not issue a joint statement or hold a joint press conference. Speaking to reporters, however, Blinken said that he had a very “productive” conversation with Fidan, including about the need to “significantly expand humanitarian assistance” to Gaza and avoid escalating the conflict.

His remarks came after US President Joe Biden called for a humanitarian “pause” in hostilities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later signaled that his government was open to “little pauses” in the fighting. After Hamas attacked Israel last month, the latter responded with air and missile strikes on Gaza while announcing a “complete siege” of the enclave. To date, the fighting has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 Palestinians, and more than 1,400 Israelis. Meanwhile, Politico reported on Monday that a group of low- and mid-level US diplomats had urged the Biden administration to condemn Israel’s bombing of civilians and demand a ceasefire. They reportedly argued that failure to do so “contributes to regional public perceptions that the United States is a biased and dishonest actor.”

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“pro-Russian conspiracy narratives..”

• Europe ‘Powerless Against Kremlin Propaganda’ – Media (RT)

Despite the EU’s best efforts to sanction and ban Russian news outlets, Europeans can still read RT and Sputnik, and “pro-Russian conspiracy narratives” are becoming more popular, the editor-in-chief of Luxembourg’s Tageblatt complained in a recent op-ed. Less than a week after Russian troops entered Ukraine last year, the European Commission announced sanctions on RT and Sputnik, suspending their TV broadcasting licenses and blocking both websites for readers across the EU. Just as 11 rounds of sanctions failed to crater the Russian economy, the crackdown on RT and Sputnik “promised a lot and delivered little,” Tageblatt editor-in-chief Tobias Senzig wrote in an editorial on Monday.

“With just a few tricks – a simple change in the network settings of your computer is enough – you can easily access the RT and Sputnik websites,” he griped, referring to the fact that RT remains accessible to readers using a VPN, the Tor browser, or the Psiphon censorship-bypass tool. Although Senzig argued that free access to information is one of the “grassroots democratic principles that the internet rightly upholds,”he called the EU’s sanctions “long overdue.” RT and Sputnik are not “public broadcasters,” he claimed, but “pure offshoots of the Kremlin’s propaganda department.”

“Not only are they trying to represent the ‘Moscow view’ to the rest of the world, but they are also aggressively interfering in intra-European affairs,” he elaborated.“Our democracies are portrayed as broken and dysfunctional, and Moscow’s antagonists are constantly being attacked: Social Democrats, Greens, ‘do-gooders’, Brussels, Ukraine.” Moscow argues that the Western media outlets are working in lockstep with Western governments against Russia. These outlets “receive instructions and manuals from their special services, they get leaks of information – which are mostly, very often, specially and professionally prepared falsehoods – and do this round the clock,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in August.

Russia has set out to compete with them “very gingerly, but quite successfully,” he added. RT is “laughing up its sleeve,”Senzig declared, noting that according to a study published by German think tank Cemas last November, “approval ratings for pro-Russian conspiracy narratives surrounding the Ukraine war have increased ‘significantly’ among the overall German population since April 2022.” “In other words,” he explained, “more people in Germany believed Putin’s lies after the attack than before the war.” Senzig is not the first pundit or official to decry the apparent power of RT. The commander of United States Southern Command Gen. Laura Richardson, complained last month that the US is losing the “conflict in the information domain” to RT, Sputnik, and TeleSUR in Latin America.

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Malone ventures away from vaccines.

• PsyWar & Washington DC’s Bureaucracy (Robert Malone)

In many ways the modern American Administrative and Deep State, with its “public-private partnerships”, has come to resemble the 17th through 19th century British monarchy, with an entrenched bureaucracy (the permanent administrative state) functionally managed by a largely hereditary elite, surrounded by the concentric status rings of courtiers which comprise the Deep State (in the current embodiment). Within the growing hereditary ruling American oligarchy there is some degree of turnover and palace intrigue, as the fortunes of some wane while others rise. As with the rise of the British bourgeoisie and mixing of gentry with financially successful upper middle castes, this often reflects broader financial and technological trends within the overall geo-political and geo-economic context in which a globalized oligarchy competes.

The obvious irony being that this type of system was precisely what the American Revolution was intended to overturn, and precisely what the US Constitution was written to prevent. And above all of this, we have now added a transcendently powerful new capability to the Leviathan of old. The rise of the CIA and its “Mockingbird/Mighty Wurlitzer” infiltration of both media and academia, the FBI and its politically weaponized COINTELPRO-type surveillance, infiltration and disruption capabilities, the DoD and its PsyOps/PsyWar capabilities designed for offshore conflicts but turned against domestic citizenry to support executive branch-defined “crisis” management, and the explosive growth of a new censorship-industrial complex has yielded a “Leviathan” with reality-bending information control capabilities the likes of which the historic British monarchy could only dream of. Propaganda has come a long way from the days of Edward Bernays’ seminal 1928 book by the same name.

The Washington DC-based Administrative/Deep State has emerged as a separate entity unto itself, with its own culture, purpose, privileges and prerogatives. A key characteristic of this separate cultural phenomenon and mindset- often geographically referred to as the “inside the beltway” set (referring to the I 495 freeway loop encircling DC and environs)- is a focus on self-preservation and personal advancement, rather than on achieving a mission, producing a deliverable, or serving the needs of outside-the-beltway flyover state serfdom. Imperial DC beltway denizens form an incestuous culture, much like any historic imperial court. Passive-aggressive “slow walking” of initiatives has been refined to a fine art. Sexual favors are routinely exchanged to seal short-term alliances, both within agencies and between contractors and “Govies”.

Nuances of administrative regulations are weaponized to enable petty counterproductive one-upmanship. “Beltway Bandit” corporations, lobbyists (registered and unregistered) and “think tanks” cultivate, collect and support Deep State “swamp monsters” when the political wing they are allied with is out of power for a period, anticipating that these courtiers will be rotated back in with the next political shift or Executive branch “change” in leadership. And all are tied together in a revolving maypole dance. Together, they collectively weave a Uniparty in which the commonalities of shared commitment to advancing the interests of the Administrative/Deep State court are far more important and lasting than any inconvenient superficial narrative about serving the interests of the general electorate and citizenry. In this beltway culture, actually solving national problems takes a back bench to the pageantry and Machiavellian machinations of the elite courtiers and their allies.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Letitia

 

 

 

 

Grok is Elon’s new AI toy.

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 7 2023

Oct 072023
 
 October 7, 2023  Posted by at 9:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  53 Responses »


Fra Filippo Lippi The Virgin Mary 1450-65

 

• Biden Calls for More War, Putin Calls for Peaceful World (SCF Op-ed)
• And So It Begins… The Great Unravelling (Finian Cunningham)
• Putin and the Magic Multipolar Mountain (Pepe Escobar)
• Comes the Dancing Skeleton (Kunstler)
• US Escalation Pushes Russia To Take Extreme Measures – Lukashenko (TASS)
• Ukrainian Forces Acknowledge Total Dependence On US (TASS)
• Juncker Spreads ‘Russian Narrative’ – Zelensky (RT)
• Von der Leyen Backtracks On Ukraine Pledge (RT)
• Backing Ukraine Bid for EU Membership Simply Suicidal – Polish Journo (Sp.)
• McCarthy Mutiny Reveals Cracks in Constellation of Pro-Trump Universe (RCW)
• Deprogramming the “Deplorables”: Hillary Clinton (Turley)
• Hunter Biden Claims Immunity, Seeks Dismissal of Federal Gun Charges (Sp.)
• Trump Accused of Leaking Submarine Secrets (RT)

 

 

 

 

Putin: who even are you?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1709967555668881522

Putin Germany

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

Biden past

 

 

 

 

Yank my licence
https://twitter.com/i/status/1709882701799428571

 

 

Mar-a-Lago 1986

Greg Price: Just so we’re keeping score: The Biden DOJ is suing SpaceX for not hiring refugees, the DOJ and SEC are investigating Tesla, the EEOC is also suing Tesla, the FTC demanded @elonmusk hand over internal Twitter comms and the SEC is now investigating Elon’s purchase of Twitter.

 

 

Travis_in_Flint: Judge Engoron has ordered that Trump and members of his family must disclose all entities they own to a court monitor. The court monitor is Bill Clinton appointed former Judge Barbara Jones. NY AG Leticia James and Judge Engoron are able to work together and completely take control over the assets of Donald Trump and his two sons for a simple civil infraction when he doesn’t even get a day in court or present and defense. This is the worst case of injustice we’ve witnessed in this country. If they can do this to a former President and his family, imagine what they’ll do to you!

leslibless: Biased NYC Dem Judge Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over Trumps civil trial, just blocked Trump & his family from transferring their money or property to any entities. They also must provide a list by next week of every entity they own and to ‘what extent any third party may have in ownership or interests of their entities.’ This is a complete abomination of the Justice system!

 

 

 

 

“The Kiev regime – headed by a Nazi-saluting Jewish puppet president – has committed atrocity after atrocity to smear Russia, thanks to the indulgence of the Western propaganda media.”

• Biden Calls for More War, Putin Calls for Peaceful World (SCF Op-ed)

Ukraine’s slaughter is the culmination of this historical destructive process. The association between Western self-proclaimed “democracies” and a corrupt NeoNazi regime in Kiev is the ultimate organic outcome of the fascism that lies at the heart of Western imperialism, with its pseudo-liberal face. The present conflict in Ukraine is the historical nemesis of Western imperialist power. The Second World War was but a punctuation mark that lapsed into the Cold War and eventually its revival which the world is now being subjected to again. President Putin presented a positive and hopeful vision of the world this week during a speech delivered at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi. He portrayed “harmonious coexistence” and peace based on principles of equality and justice between nations. In that regard, Putin was reiterating the foundational vision of the United Nations established in 1945 following the devastation of the Second World War.

“The Ukraine crisis is not a territorial conflict,” said Putin. “The issue is much broader and more fundamental and is about the principles underlying the new international order.” Biden and his Western vassals and their mendacious media keep repeating the baseless lie that Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine is an “unprovoked aggression”. This narrative is a brazen denial of the history of the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 and the NATO weaponization of a NeoNazi regime that was killing ethnic Russians in former Ukraine for nine years. The Kiev regime – headed by a Nazi-saluting Jewish puppet president – has committed atrocity after atrocity to smear Russia, thanks to the indulgence of the Western propaganda media. The Bucha massacre in March 2022, the missile attacks on Kramatorsk in April 2022, Poland in November 2022, and in Konstantinovka last month.

This week saw a massacre of 51 people in the village of Hroza in Kharkov region that was immediately blamed on Russia, but which has the hallmarks of another Kiev false-flag provocation. This is the kind of filthy and fiendish regime that epitomizes the U.S.-led NATO war machine. Putin laid out clearly how a peaceful international order can be achieved by repudiating “artificial geopolitical associations” and Cold War-style “blocs” being “forced onto the world”. “Lasting peace will only be possible when everyone feels safe and secure, understands that their opinions are respected and that there is a balance in the world where no one can unilaterally force or compel others to live or behave as a hegemon pleases even when it contradicts the sovereignty, genuine interests, traditions, or customs of peoples and countries,” said the Russian president.

Putin added: “Russia was, is and will be one of the foundations of this new world system, ready for constructive interaction with everyone who strives for peace and prosperity, but ready for tough opposition against those who profess the principles of dictatorship and violence. We believe that pragmatism and common sense will prevail, and a multipolar world will be established.” The world is literally changing before our eyes and by our own hands, as Putin also noted. The emergence of a multipolar world, the G20, the BRICS+, and so on, are the fulfilment of a vision for international peace, justice, sovereignty, equality and development.

Read more …

“When Uncle Sam does a runner, and he will, the game is finally up for him and all his vassals. The great unravelling of Western imperialist power is underway and is accelerating.”

• And So It Begins… The Great Unravelling (Finian Cunningham)

The biggest fear among America’s vassals in Europe, Canada, Japan and elsewhere is that Washington will abruptly jettison the failed proxy war in Ukraine. Not out of principle, but rather political expediency, thereby leaving them high and dry. The United States and the European Union have committed up to $200 billion in military and other economic aid to Ukraine since the conflict with Russia erupted 20 months ago in February 2022. Europe has been impacted much more badly than the U.S. from the loss of Russia’s energy supplies and from the influx of millions of Ukrainian refugees. Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, asserts that Europe will continue to support Ukraine even if the United States were to halt its aid. Borrell is indulging in delusional fantasy.

Already European NATO members are becoming leery and reluctant about the endless financial largesse doled out to prop up the corrupt Kiev regime. Hungary and now Slovakia are vowing to cut off the weapons supply and other funding. Mass protests are occurring in Germany and other EU countries against the NATO-fueled war. European political leaders are increasingly seen as feckless Yes-Men for Washington and betraying their national interests. Biden and the warmongering U.S. establishment are deeply committed to the proxy war against Russia. The war function is the engine of American capitalism and imperialist ambitions. But if the economy is fundamentally broken – and it surely is with an unsustainable $33 trillion national debt – the reality of bankruptcy and political/public opposition becomes untenable.

Biden’s “assurances” to the NATO vassals are embarrassingly worthless after he was blindsided by the ensuing chaos in his own Congress. The American president is in no position to pledge anything. The Pentagon and the European militaries are also complaining they don’t have any more weapons to give to Ukraine, their arsenals having been depleted by reckless donations to the squandering, incompetent Kiev regime. The already nervy Europeans and other NATO partners are no doubt having flashbacks of the treacherous way that Biden and Washington abruptly and unilaterally pulled the plug on Afghanistan. The NATO allies were stunned by that fast move to exit the quagmire. Biden didn’t even give them a heads-up, never mind consulting with them.

For eight decades after the Second World War, NATO and later the European Union were always a handy vehicle for American imperialism. The vassals were held together by the relative strength of the U.S. empire. That empire is now unravelling from endless wars, bankruptcy and endemic corruption in Washington. The last episode of the historic failure is being played out in the fraudulent proxy war in Ukraine – sold to the Western public by the lying mainstream media as yet another “noble cause” to allegedly defend democracy (how absurd!). The ultimate degeneracy is evident from the “moralizing”, “superior” Western powers being found in bed with a Nazi regime. And along with that degeneracy, financial debts are off the charts and a grievous insult to the onerous democratic needs of the Western public. When Uncle Sam does a runner, and he will, the game is finally up for him and all his vassals. The great unravelling of Western imperialist power is underway and is accelerating.

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“There’s no situation when something can threaten the existence of the Russian state. No sane person would consider the use of nuclear weapons against Russia.”

• Putin and the Magic Multipolar Mountain (Pepe Escobar)

It was clear to the overwhelming majority of analysts at Valdai that the concept of Russian civilization is an “existential challenge” to the collective West. Especially because it includes, historically, the radical universality of the Soviet Union. Now is time for Russian thinkers to work hard on refining the internationalist aspect. Alexander Prokhanov came up with another startling formulation. He compared the Russian dream with a cathedral on the top of a hill, whereas the Anglo-Saxon dream is a fortress on the top of the hill, engaged in constant surveillance. And if you misbehave, you “will receive some Tomahawks”.

The conclusion: “We will always be in conflict with the West”. So what? The future, as I discussed off the record with Grandmaster Sergey Karaganov, one of the founders of Valdai, is in the East. And it was Karaganov who arguably posed the most challenging question to Putin. He stressed how nuclear deterrence does not work anymore. So should we lower the nuclear threshold?” Putin replied, “I am well aware of your position. Let me remind you the Russian military doctrine has two reasons for the possible use of nuclear weapons. The first is if nuclear weapons are used against us – as retaliation. The response is absolutely unacceptable for any potential aggressor.

Because from the moment a missile launch is detected, no matter where it comes from – anywhere in the world’s oceans or from any territory – in a retaliatory strike, so many, so many hundreds of our missiles appear in the air that no enemy will have a chance of survival, and in several directions at once.” The second reason is “a threat to the existence of the Russian state even if only conventional weapons are used.” And then came the clincher – actually a veiled message to the characters whose dream is “victory” via a first strike: “Do we need to change that? Why? I see no point. There’s no situation when something can threaten the existence of the Russian state. No sane person would consider the use of nuclear weapons against Russia.”

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“..the sobering moment when all the preposterous, mendacious, criminally insane propositions of recent years stand nakedly exposed. That’s when “Joe Biden” begins to be seen as a dancing skeleton.”

• Comes the Dancing Skeleton (Kunstler)

This Halloween month, America looks super-busy preparing for the death of something, maybe itself. Surely many now live in terror of the malevolent blob that the US government has become, led by a very paragon of ghouls, “Joe Biden.” This week, the blob declared in a “leak” to Newsweek magazine, that supporters of Donald Trump, the Golden Golem of Greatness, are now officially deemed to be enemies of the state. So, the blob that has lately subsumed the state, explicitly targets Trumpists (the MAGA crowd) for wholesale persecution, cancellation, de-personing, and incarceration. That is, opponents of the blob regime organizing for the coming election will be systematically neutralized and / or liquidated, taken off the game-board one way or another, by any means necessary.

The blobistas would do well to take heed of those Halloween lawn displays. A stupendous, howling rage is building across this land in revolt against the blob’s monumental insults to a once proud and productive people. Soon, that plastic totem army of stock mythological monsters cavorting in the front yards will be superseded by real flesh-and-blood Americans aiming to shred the blob and scatter its quivering tatters to the four winds — as John F. Kennedy once remarked of the CIA in 1962, before it killed him in retaliation.

Coincidentally, a scion of the JFK generation now running for president on an as-yet-to-be-specified independent party seeks to do exactly what his uncle promised to do. As you gaze on this developing battlefield, you will now see two sizable armies marshaling against the unholy hosts of blobbery — Mr. Trump’s MAGAs and Bobby Kennedy’s emerging division representing the old stoic virtues betrayed by vicious blob tyrants. The plausible outcomes on this battlefield are in flux thirteen months before the election. But it looks a little like the blob is outflanked; hence, its growing desperation.

The psychodrama in the House of Representatives this week looked like a possible inflection point in the blob’s war against the American people. Mr. Gaetz evicted the quisling Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a rather brave gambit, opening up the possibility of unifying his party against the programmatic wickedness of the post-Covid-19 era — the suicidal spending, the insane and unnecessary Ukraine proxy war, traitorous refusal to control the southern border, the official DOJ lawfare waged against half the citizenry, the disgusting official censorship campaign, and the ongoing criminal conspiracy between the pharma companies, the US public health officialdom, and shadowy globalist forces embedded in the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, and scores of sinister multinational organizations ranging from George Soros’s Atlantic Council to the Sinaloa Cartel.

In the background of all that — a true-life horror — lies the crumbling bond market, the foundation of the money-and-banking system that is supposed to support the on-the-ground economy that produces things of value like food and roofing shingles. The bond market is wobbling badly. As rates rise, banks’ collateral melts away and they go bust, liquidation moves to stock markets, derivatives implode, and the vast reservoirs of capital vanish. There’s your stealth true Halloween psychodrama sneaking up on the scene. Gradually, then all at once, the quarreling nation finds itself stone broke, and even the blob shrinks from the scene in horror. It will be hard to gaslight the country anymore when that happens. That will be the sobering moment when all the preposterous, mendacious, criminally insane propositions of recent years stand nakedly exposed. That’s when “Joe Biden” begins to be seen as a dancing skeleton.

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“ust imagine powerful missiles hitting 300 kilometers deep inside Russian territory. Do you think that the Russian president and military will be calmly watching this?”

“Once again, some fools think they’ll stay safe across the ocean..”

• US Escalation Pushes Russia To Take Extreme Measures – Lukashenko (TASS)

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that escalation on the part of the United States is pushing Russia to use extreme measures. “The fanning of tensions and escalation will lead to a situation where they [Russia] will take the red button and put it on the table,” Lukashenko said during a visit to the Defense Ministry’s training facility Resistance Node in the Brest Region, the Telegram channel Pul_1, close to the presidential press service reports. It explains that the Belarusian leader thus pointed out it was the United States that was pushing Russia to use extreme measures. He has an impression that the Americans are “pushing the Russians to use the most terrible weapons.”

“Vladimir Zelensky and his army may be armed with long-range missiles. Let it be even those with a range of 300 kilometers. Just imagine powerful missiles hitting 300 kilometers deep inside Russian territory. Do you think that the Russian president and military will be calmly watching this?” Lukashenko asked. The BelTA news agency quotes him as saying “the response will be colossal.” “Once again, some fools think they’ll stay safe across the ocean. They’ll drag the whole world into this grave war,” the Belarusian leader warned. Earlier, Lukashenko urged the US and Europe not to supply modern weapons to Ukraine. He emphasized that it was the US that had initiated all military conflicts in the European region and benefited from them.

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“..the US’ 45-day budget solution, which does not include aid for Ukraine, means Kiev will not be able to continue the hostilities and will lead to the “fall of the regime.”

• Ukrainian Forces Acknowledge Total Dependence On US (TASS)

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are totally dependent on the US, and further arms shipments are extremely necessary, says Ukrainian General Staff Colonel Gennady Kovalenko. On Thursday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky connected Washington’s reduction in support to Kiev to the growing “political storm” in the US and urged EU nations to act independently in these circumstances. However, EU High Representative Josep Borrell has already said that the EU will not be able to compensate for the aid suspended by the US. “We are 100% dependent on the United States,” Kovalenko told The Washington Post. According to the colonel, the Ukrainian Army requires continued and probably even expanded arms shipments from the US, as he believes hostilities are not likely to end any time soon.

Meanwhile, the former Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavel Klimkin told the newspaper that regular Ukrainians are tired of the conflict. According to the ex-minister, in 2022, the Ukrainian people were gung-ho going into the conflict, but now everyone realizes that the hostilities are being carried out to attrition. Western media increasingly frequently report that Kiev’s allies are growing weary of Ukraine, and in particular of leader Vladimir Zelensky. On October 4, Le Monde noted that the “Zelensky magic” is fading, as his words now either fall on deaf ears or annoy partners who are tired of hearing that they are not giving enough. During the October 4 Warsaw Security Forum, Chair of the NATO Military Committee Rob Bauer stated that the stockpile of weapons for Ukraine is running out. Meanwhile, some analysts say that the US’ 45-day budget solution, which does not include aid for Ukraine, means Kiev will not be able to continue the hostilities and will lead to the “fall of the regime.”

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Zero corruption in Ukraine. It’s all just a story.

• Juncker Spreads ‘Russian Narrative’ – Zelensky (RT)

Allegations of rampant corruption in Ukraine are a “Russian narrative” designed to erode Western support for Kiev, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed on Friday. Speaking after the summit of the bloc’s leaders in the Spanish city of Granada, Zelensky accused former president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, of spreading Russian propaganda about Ukraine. Earlier this week, Juncker said Ukraine was plagued by corruption “at all levels of society” and should not be accepted into the bloc any time soon. Zelensky insisted that “not a single dollar was stolen from our partners” amid the conflict with Russia, but admitted that there were “different people and cases.”

“First of all, it is the well-known Russian narrative about corruption. They understand that they cannot split the overall unity of Europe and support for Ukraine. The US and its intelligence services learned about the roots of the idea, how to undermine society, support in the world,” Zelensky said. Instead of spreading the purported “Russian narrative” about Ukraine’s corruption, Juncker should have personally done more for Ukraine, Zelensky suggested. “That is of no interest for him? Now he decided to write some Russian narratives since everyone has forgotten who he is? I think it’s stupid,” Zelensky said.

Juncker, who chaired the European Commission between 2014 and 2019, made the controversial remarks in an interview with Germany’s Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper, published earlier this week. He argued that Ukraine should undergo “massive” reforms before it can join the EU, while Brussels “should not make any false promises to the people in Ukraine who are up to their neck in suffering.” “Those who have dealt with Ukraine know that this is a country that is corrupt at all levels of society,” Juncker had said.

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Either backtrack or look stupid.

• Von der Leyen Backtracks On Ukraine Pledge (RT)

Countries aspiring to join the EU must follow the “merit-based” accession process and reach the milestones outlined by the bloc’s rules, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday. The EU chief made the remarks during a press conference following a summit of the bloc’s leaders in the Spanish city of Granada. Von der Leyen touched upon the accession process of prospective members, stating that all of them must follow due procedures. “The process is merit-based,” the EU Commission head explained. “There are clear rules, there are milestones that have to be achieved.” Such a stance was included in the joint declaration that was adopted during the summit.

While the document reiterated the bloc’s readiness to “continue to support Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes,” it also warned that potential new members will be given no shortcuts during the accession process. “Aspiring members need to step up their reform efforts, notably in the area of rule of law, in line with the merit-based nature of the accession process and with the assistance of the EU. In parallel, the Union needs to lay the necessary internal groundwork and reforms,” the declaration reads. While the document did not provide any timeframe for when an expansion will actually happen, the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, said the bloc should be ready to expand by 2030.

“What’s important is to stop procrastinating,” he said during the press conference. The remarks by the top EU officials come in contrast to earlier statements about the prospects for Ukraine’s accession. In mid-September, for instance, von der Leyen said Ukraine would “complete” the bloc and claimed that the move would not necessarily require an amendment to the Treaties of the European Union, the legal foundation for its existence. Joining the EU has been a key talking point for pro-West Ukrainian politicians for decades, yet little actual progress on that path was achieved before the conflict between Kiev and Moscow broke out in February 2022.

However, the hostilities have seemingly re-invigorated the process, with top Ukraine officials repeatedly demanding the country be accepted into the bloc as soon as possible due to its perceived role in defending the EU from an allegedly looming Russian invasion. However, in recent weeks, numerous current and former EU officials have warned against fast-tracking Ukraine’s admission, arguing, for various reasons, that it might do more harm than good to the bloc itself. Perhaps the most damning opinion was voiced by Jean-Claude Juncker, a former president of the European Commission, who argued that Ukraine was simply way too corrupt to join the EU anytime soon. “Those who have dealt with Ukraine know that this is a country that is corrupt at all levels of society,” Juncker said in an interview with Germany’s Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.

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“..amazement over Polish politicians’ apparent willingness to be led along like sheep..”

• Backing Ukraine Bid for EU Membership Simply Suicidal – Polish Journo (Sp.)

Anonymous diplomats told media this week that Brussels is preparing to kick off formal talks on Ukraine’s accession into the European Union, with an announcement on the matter expected as soon as December. The news has prompted senior serving and former EU officials to give contradictory views on the potential consequences of such a radical move. Ukrainian membership in the EU would fundamentally undermine Poland’s economic interests and constitute a form of political suicide, independent Polish journalist and commentator Lukasz Warzecha has warned. “Please imagine this: in a few years, in the perspective new budget, Poles will be made to pay not only gigantic amounts of money due to the EU’s absurd climate policy, but be informed that tens of billions of euros’ worth of our money will be flowing to Ukraine, which will be our direct rival in the bloc,” Warzecha wrote. “The course of supporting Ukrainian membership is simply suicidal, and goes against Polish interests. Moreover, these is no trace of debate on the matter in our country,” the journalist added.

Pointing to media revelations this week that the EU would have to dole out €186 billion to Kiev to fill the massive holes in Ukraine’s budget if it became an EU member, which would turn Eastern European net recipients of EU aid into donors, Warzecha expressed amazement over Polish politicians’ apparent willingness to be led along like sheep, “without a trace of reflection about the consequences for Poland, to immediately begin to support Ukraine’s admission, which would bring the greatest benefit for Germany.” Warzecha’s warning comes amid reports that EU leaders plan to green light talks for Ukraine’s accession into the European Union, and news that the bloc may be preparing to unfreeze €13 billion euros in monies owed to Hungary by Brussels over a “rule of law” dispute, in exchange for Hungarian support for Kiev. Budapest has called the blockage of funds attempted “blackmail.”

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I think the opposite is happening. Finally people are standing up against RINOs.

• McCarthy Mutiny Reveals Cracks in Constellation of Pro-Trump Universe (RCW)

While lining up support for his bid for speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, all but endorsed Donald Trump, and sat with congressional allies of the former president. The California Republican spoke admirably of Trump, who offered his blessing at the 11th hour earlier this year and who had even bestowed on him a not entirely negative nickname. But when the McCarthy mutiny began in earnest, Trump didn’t ride to the rescue of “My Kevin.” The larger pro-Trump constellation was split as the right flank ran McCarthy out of office: Some groups condemned the mutiny, at least one worked behind the scenes to pull it off, but most said nothing as the latest populist vacuum enveloped the Grand Old Party.

For his part, the former president only offered tepid support, writing in a social media post: “Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among themselves, why aren’t they fighting the Radical Left Democrats who are destroying our country?” The statement did nothing to quell passions, and it didn’t give Republicans on Capitol Hill any indication of what Trump preferred. Some insisted he was more candid in private. His conversations, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz told Laura Ingraham on Fox News, “I’m going to keep to us, but I think I’m in pretty good stead with the former president.” Added the architect of the McCarthy mutiny, “You will see me on the campaign trail with him soon.” Just hours earlier, Gaetz filed a motion to vacate. With the unanimous support of Democrats and eight Republicans, it passed 216 to 210.

McCarthy became the first speaker removed from office. He lasted nine months. Even Stephen Miller had warned Republicans not to do this. Miller worked in the Trump White House as a senior advisor, and the founder of America First Legal remains close to the former president. His message to those mulling the mutiny: “I understand all the emotions that are playing out right now.” But Miller added during the interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, “For the love of God, we are losing this country, and we are losing it fast.” Miller and others stressed the most basic political reality: Republicans only control the House. With a slim majority, hardliners would “have to agree to spending levels you might not like, but to get the policy that you want.”

This kind of compromise was untenable for Russ Vought, a former White House colleague and ideological ally of Miller. It was Vought’s ultra-conservative Center for Renewing America that served as a nerve center for the foot soldiers of the first McCarthy mutiny. It was Vought who handed rank-and-file conservatives a strategy used to force McCarthy into making key concessions to become speaker. Less than 24 hours after the midterms failed to produce a wide majority for Republicans, he said that the hardline House Freedom Caucus “was made for this moment.” In the weeks that followed, CRA offered both parliamentary advice and public cover for the revolt.

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“What is ironic is to watch Amanpour and Clinton denounce the right for reckless rhetoric and anti-democratic sentiments as they voice voice intolerant and inflammatory views.”

• Deprogramming the “Deplorables”: Hillary Clinton (Turley)

Hillary Clinton has caused another stir by suggesting that the millions of Trump supporters may require a “formal deprogramming” in a CNN interview. It was a moment clearly enjoyed by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who previously suggested that the FBI should have stopped Trump from making certain campaign statements. Even former FBI Director James Comey balked at Amanpour’s suggested censorship. Now, Amanpour has clearly found a kindred spirit. My concern over the comment is less whether Hillary Clinton is serious. (I really do not know). I am more concerned by the continued reckless rhetoric from national leaders. I previously objected to other comments by Trump. Yet, the media rarely applies the same level of scrutiny to such comments or personal attacks from figures on the left.

Discussing the recent vacating of the position of the Speaker by all of the Democrats and eight Republicans, Clinton said that Democrats had to groom selected Republicans while treating the rest as sick cultists: “[S]adly, so many of those extremists, those MAGA extremists take their marching orders from Donald Trump, who has no credibility left by any measure. He’s only in it for himself. He’s now defending himself in civil actions and criminal actions. And when do they break with him? Because at some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members, but something needs to happen.” It appears that the “basket of deplorables” are now a cabal of cultists due to “emotional, psychological needs and desires.”

Amanpour was clearly bemused by the suggestion, but the combination of the two is chilling for those of us concerned about free speech in this age of rage. Many countries have historically treated dissenters as mentally ill or requiring reeducation. The media has long embraced the need to educate the public to accept its views. Former President Barack Obama joined a number of journalists in discussing how to reeducate the public. Obama denounced “anger-based journalism while promoting an advocacy-journalism model in which the media shape the news for citizens who supposedly need help to properly frame ideas. The fact that Amanpour elicited these comments only magnified the unease over the underlying intolerance for opposing viewpoints. In an interview with James Comey, Amanpour pressed Comey on why the FBI did not “shut down” President Donald Trump’s “hate speech” during the 2016 presidential election.

Comey correctly pushed back on Amanpour by noting that she was suggesting something grossly improper and unconstitutional: “That’s not a role for government to play. The beauty of this country is people can say what they want even if it’s misleading and it’s demagoguery.” Neither CNN nor Amanpour ever addressed a CNN host suggesting the use of the FBI to shutdown political debate. Now, however, Amanpour has found a leader who is willing to treat political opponents as sick cultists. The sense of smug superiority is precisely why Hillary remains one of the least popular political figures in America. What is ironic is to watch Amanpour and Clinton denounce the right for reckless rhetoric and anti-democratic sentiments as they voice voice intolerant and inflammatory views.

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Back to the plea deal the judge laughed out of court.

• Hunter Biden Claims Immunity, Seeks Dismissal of Federal Gun Charges (Sp.)

Hunter Biden, the businessman son of US President Joe Biden, has pleaded not guilty to federal gun charges, telling the judge he would seek their dismissal due to an earlier plea agreement. The charges allege Biden lied to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) by claiming he had no addiction, when he was actually struggling with a cocaine habit. Biden faces a maximum of 25 years in prison if convicted on all three charges. According to a Thursday filing in a Delaware US District Court, Biden’s lawyers argued that a July plea deal or “diversion agreement that both parties signed remains in force, and he will seek to dismiss the indictment against him pursuant to the immunity provisions of that agreement.”

Officials further argue that special counsel David Weiss was only “permitted to bring” one charge against Biden: the misdemeanor tax charges that have already been dismissed as a consequence of the collapse of the plea deal.
“If the special counsel no longer wishes to pursue that charge, it has the right to do that,” Biden’s lawyers wrote. According to that deal, Biden would have pleaded guilty to two tax misdemeanors and entered a diversion program on the gun charge, in which he would have performed community service and accepted other limitations, such as a curfew, for a duration of time. It would also have given him broad immunity from further charges.

After two years of probation, the deal would have expunged Biden’s record. However, Weiss argued in another filing on Wednesday that the “proposed diversion agreement” hadn’t been signed by a court official, so “it did not enter into effect.” Pre-trial motions are set for November 3, although it’s unclear when Biden’s next court appearance will be booked. The trial has begun amid a congressional impeachment investigation focused in part on the relationship between President Biden and Hunter Biden’s business life and suspicions about unethical behavior. No charges have been recommended in the probe thus far.

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A nothingburger the size of a submarine.

• Trump Accused of Leaking Submarine Secrets (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has reportedly been accused of discussing sensitive information about the nation’s nuclear submarines while chatting with an Australian businessman at his Mar-a-Lago country club in Florida. The conversation with billionaire Anthony Pratt occurred in April 2021, three months after Trump left office, and it allegedly included references to how many warheads US submarines carry and how close they can get to a Russian vessel without being detected, ABC News reported on Thursday. Pratt, who runs packaging company Pratt Industries, allegedly shared the information with more than a dozen Australian officials, as well as journalists and some of his employees, the outlet said, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

ABC conceded that it’s not clear whether Trump’s comments about US submarines were accurate; nor did the outlet’s anonymous sources specifically claim that the information was classified. However, US prosecutors and FBI agents have interviewed Pratt at least twice this year about his conversation with Trump, and investigators urged the businessman not to spread the information any further because it was potentially sensitive. The allegations were reported to US special counsel Jack Smith’s team of investigators. Smith is prosecuting Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents and has filed a separate indictment against the ex-president for trying to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. The indictment on handling of classified documents didn’t include any allegations related to Trump’s conversation with Pratt.

Earlier this year, CNN aired a recording of Trump allegedly discussing US military secrets at his New Jersey country club. The outlet also reported in May that Trump had admitted to retaining a classified document detailing the US military’s plans for a potential attack on Iran. Pratt, a Mar-a-Lago member, told investigators that he was trying to make conversation with Trump when he brought up US nuclear submarines. The billionaire suggested that Australia should start buying its submarines from the US. Trump responded by making claims about the capabilities of the US vessels. Pratt added that Trump didn’t show him any government documents.

The conversation came at a time when Australia was negotiating with President Joe Biden’s administration to buy US nuclear-powered submarines. The deal was completed earlier this year, with Australia agreeing to purchase three of the subs. Pratt said he told others about the conversation with Trump to show how he was advocating for Australia’s interests in the US. A Trump spokesperson denied any wrongdoing on the former president’s part, ABC reported. The accusations concerning the conversation with Pratt lack “proper context and relevant information,” the spokesperson said.

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Formerly known as Twitter

 

 

Picasso

 

 

 

 

Lizard
https://twitter.com/i/status/1710401255716098541

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 6 2023

Oct 062023
 
 October 6, 2023  Posted by at 8:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  26 Responses »


Andrei Rublev Trinity 1411

 

• The Police State Targets Trump and Trump Americans (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Divine intervention and The End of The War in Ukraine (Doctorow)
• Ukraine’s Backers Blinded By Russia Hate – Jeffrey Sachs (RT)
• No ‘End of History’ in Ukraine (Scott Ritter)
• Americans Souring On Military Aid To Ukraine – Poll (RT)
• Biden Weighing Use of State Department Grants to Afford Ukraine Aid (DeMartino)
• EU Can’t Compensate Ukraine For Missing Us Aid – Borrell (RT)
• Ukraine ‘Corrupt at All Levels’, ‘Not Eligible’ to Join EU – Juncker (Sp.)
• Depleted Ukrainium (Patrick Lawrence)
• Putin’s Valdai Speech: Multipolar Future Has Arrived (Sp.)
• MAGA Power Rocks The US Establishment (Blankenship)
• Trump Slams Biden’s Border Crisis, Says ‘Our Country is Being Invaded’ (Sp.)
• The Largest Healthcare Strike in U.S. History (Pappas)
• Europe Could Become Energy Self-Sufficient In $2 Trillion Push – Study (RT)

 

 

 

 

47

 

 

RFK Housing

 

 

Matt Gaetz: “I agree with all of these reforms.”

 

 

Letitia

 

 

Orban

Orban

 

 

 

 

 

 

“This is America today as misgoverned by Democrats, hard left security agencies, and a Woke military establishment. Don’t expect them to allow themselves to be overthrown by an election.”

• The Police State Targets Trump and Trump Americans (Paul Craig Roberts)

In the Democrats ongoing efforts to interfere in the upcoming election the Criminals Have Set the FBI after Trump Supporters and the IRS on Trump Donors. The presstitute Newsweek Magazine reports that “Exclusive: Donald Trump Followers Targeted by FBI as 2024 Election Nears” Zero Hedge reports that the IRS has brought five audits against Mike Lindell’s company, MyPillow. The Newsweek story reads like one handed to presstitute William M. Arkin by the FBI itself. In Newsweek’s opening lines, Arkin sets up Trump Supporters as “domestic terrorists.” “The federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbances around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers.”

But not so quietly as to keep it from Newsweek. Arkin adds: “the vast majority of its current ‘anti-government’ investigations are of Trump supporters, according to classified data obtained by Newsweek.” If you doubt the narrative, you are anti-government. Where is the ACLU and Congress when freedom of speech is being criminalized? An anonymous FBI official cries on Arkin’s shoulder, explaining that the FBI simply has to prevent domestic terrorism and insurrections by Trump supporters, but by doing so “runs the risk of provoking the very anti-government activists that the terrorism agencies hope to counter.” In other words, the FBI is going to create the threat it warns about. According to Newsweek, Homeland Security and the FBI are discussing whether to employ against MAGA Republicans “the methods of counterterrorism developed over the past decade in response to Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups.”

In other words, mass roundups, suspension of habeas corpus and due process, execution on suspicion alone. Bush/Cheney/Obama put these unconstitutional rules in place by presidential edicts. They built the foundation for the police state that is springing up around us. To be sure we get the message that Trump supporters are even a greater threat to Washington than Russia, China, and Iran combined, Arkin quotes the FBI: “”The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly.” Have you seen this threat? Where is it? What building has the threat blown up? What person has the threat assassinated? What city’s business center has it looted and burnt down? All the domestic violence has been committed by Black Lives Matter and Antifa and the Democrats gave them a pass. Instead of arrests, blue cities awarded the real domestic terrorists millions of dollars for being arrested for violating curfews.

According to Arkin, the FBI now officially recognizes “Trump and his army of supporters” as “a distinct category of domestic violent extremists.” This makes clear why the FBI created the January 6 “Insurrection” hoax and why the presstitutes hyped it to the hilt. Not even Gobbles could have turned a couple hundred unarmed people into an Insurrection, but the US media did. This orchestrated “Insurrection” is the basis for the demonization of Trump and half or more of US voters as “domestic extremists.” [..] This is America today as misgoverned by Democrats, hard left security agencies, and a Woke military establishment. Don’t expect them to allow themselves to be overthrown by an election.

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“..the collapse of support for Ukraine will be attributable to the true collapse of American political culture..”

• Divine intervention and The End of The War in Ukraine (Doctorow)

CNN, EuroNews, the BBC: their broadcasts this morning were all about the vote yesterday in the U.S. House of Representatives to “vacate” the position of the Speaker, meaning the removal of Kevin McCarthy. Specialists on U.S. constitutional law have been given the microphone to explain what the duties and powers of the Speaker are, to tell us how this is unprecedented, the first time in U.S. history that a Speaker has been removed from office. Political analysts have spoken on air at great length on who were the eight who precipitated the vote that brought down the Speaker. They have been described as trouble makers, rabble rousers who want only to obstruct the working of the federal government.

Some have taken this line of conduct back to the Tea Party rebels within the Republican Party, and to the later emergence of the most fervent Trump supporters who sought to overthrow the consensus of America’s ruling elites. There is a lot of truth in these characterizations, but they do not consider the positive side to the removal of the House leader and effective shutdown of the legislative branch of government. I will try to address that here. The most positive element is that it all validates the “checks and balances” notion of governance that was a guiding principle of the nation’s founders. The whole country has been run under successive Democratic administrations as if there is no alternative, as if “checks and balances” were not applicable to those who are the heralds of progressive humanity, meaning themselves.

All of those who have disagreed with the Democratic party positions on everything and anything are, in the apt words of candidate Hilary Clinton in 2016 “deplorables.” Well, yesterday the deplorables had their day in court and they won. Why am I saying all of this in a newsletter that is dedicated to foreign policy issues? Because the net result of the removal of Mr. McCarthy yesterday is to halt for an indefinite time all substantive work to restore to the federal budget the $6 billion or so of the total $24 billion for 2024 that was deleted from the compromise budget bill that passed Congress this past weekend and was signed by the President to finance the working of the federal government for the coming 45 days. I take “indefinite time” to be rather prolonged, given that the internecine war going on within the Republican party on Capitol Hill is fierce and uncompromising.

This creates the real possibility that there will be no stratagem, no dirty trick that Biden and his fellow war criminals in power can turn to continue assistance to Ukraine. Absent this oxygen, the Ukrainian war effort will shut down rather swiftly. Europe will be aghast but is unable to fill in for the missing American contribution. The irony of these developments is that the Ukrainian war may end for entirely arbitrary reasons within the U.S. power structure. All the efforts of Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer that brought to the attention of millions of youtube watchers the guilt of the West for this supposedly “unprovoked” war will have played no role in the denouement. Nor will one even be able to say that those in Congress who opposed further aid to Ukraine did so not because they are peace-niks but because they prefer to do battle with China. No, the collapse of support for Ukraine will be attributable to the true collapse of American political culture.

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“We have stoked so much provocation in this, so much anxiety, overthrowing governments, starting multiple wars, pushing NATO enlargement, abandoning nuclear agreements, and then saying, ‘Oh, he doesn’t want to negotiate..’”

• Ukraine’s Backers Blinded By Russia Hate – Jeffrey Sachs (RT)

Kiev’s globalist and neo-conservative supporters in the West are so driven by their hatred of Russia that they completely disregard the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who are dying in a futile effort to defeat Moscow’s forces, US public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs has argued. Sachs, an award-winning economist who advised the Russian and Ukrainian governments following the breakup of the Soviet Union, made his comments in an interview posted on Thursday by US podcast host Andrew Napolitano. Asked how the US and its NATO allies can ignore the catastrophic destruction of Ukraine while prolonging the conflict and making false claims of battlefield successes, Sachs said they are “blinded” by their hatred of Russia.

“They are not counting the Ukrainian dead,” the analyst said. “They have lied to the public all along about the military situation . . . . They want so much to fight Russia and have someone else do the fighting and the dying that they want another massive recruitment of the remaining Ukrainian young men that can be grabbed off the streets and be thrown into the killing fields.” More than 83,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed during a Donbass counteroffensive that began in June, according to an estimate released by the Russian Defense Ministry last month. Despite knowing that the Ukrainians have no chance of making major gains on the battlefield amid Russia’s air superiority and artillery dominance, Kiev’s benefactors have shown a “grotesque” disregard for the heavy casualties, Sachs said.

He argued that the UK, in particular, has championed the counteroffensive because of London’s centuries-long and deeply embedded desire to crush Russia. sSachs, now a UN adviser and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, has argued that NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe helped trigger the current crisis. He said Washington and its allies missed many opportunities to avoid the current conflict, then kept it going by discouraging Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky from finalizing a peace deal with Russia in March 2022. Responding to claims by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that critics of Washington’s Ukraine policy are “siding with” Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sachs argued that he’s showing concern for the Ukrainian people.

“I don’t want Ukraine to be completely destroyed by these neocons, by their fantasy world, by their desire to throw Ukrainians by the hundreds of thousands to their deaths,” he said. He added, “This isn’t siding with Putin or siding with anybody. This is trying to protect Ukraine from American zealots.” Sachs claimed that US President Joe Biden must reach out to Putin to negotiate an end to the bloodshed, which would involve ruling out adding Ukraine to NATO, as well as addressing Russia’s legitimate security concerns. “We have stoked so much provocation in this, so much anxiety, overthrowing governments, starting multiple wars, pushing NATO enlargement, abandoning nuclear agreements, and then saying, ‘Oh, he doesn’t want to negotiate,’” the analyst said.

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“Francis Fukuyama’s triumphalist post-Cold War vision of liberal democracy — published in 1989 — had a major blindspot. It omitted history.”

• No ‘End of History’ in Ukraine (Scott Ritter)

Of the many points of conflict occurring in the world today, one stands out as a manifestation of the ongoing fascination liberal democracy adherents have with the victory over communism, which they thought was won more than three decades ago, namely, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Political scientists in the Fukuyama “end of history” school view this conflict as being derived by the resistance of the remnants of Soviet regional hegemony (i.e., modern-day Russia, led by its president, Vladimir Putin) over the inevitability of liberal democracy taking hold. But a closer examination of the Russian-Ukraine conflict points to the present conflicts being born of not simply the incomplete divorce of Ukraine from the Soviet/Russian orbit that occurred at the end of the Cold War, but also the detritus from the collapse of previous ruling systems, especially the Tsarist Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

Indeed, the current conflict in Ukraine has nothing to do with any modern-day manifestation of the Cold War bipolarity, and everything to do with the resurrection of national identities which existed, however imperfectly, centuries before the Cold War even began. To understand the roots of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, one needs to study German actions after the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the rise and fall of Symon Petliura and the Polish-Soviet War — all of which predated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the dissection of Galicia that took place in 1939 and 1945. These actions were all triggered by the collapse of Tsarist and Austro-Hungarian power, and then united by violent efforts to allow local realities to shape the final disposition of a region frozen in place by the rise of Soviet power.

The dislocation felt by many Ukrainians today from all things Russian can be traced to the failed attempt at forming a nascent Ukrainian nation in the chaotic aftermath of the First World War and the collapse of both Tsarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire – all prior to the consolidation of both Polish and Bolshevik power. The Ukrainian People’s Republic, led by the nationalist Symon Petliura, proclaimed its independence from Russia in January 1918. It did so backed the German army, which occupied the Republic after the Central Powers, led by Germany, signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Ukraine in February 1918. (Russia and the Central Powers signed a separate Brest-Litovsk Treaty in March 1918). The German military occupiers then dissolved the socialist, Ukrainian People’s Republic in April 1918, replacing it with the Ukrainian State, also known as the Second Hetmanate. (The First Hetmanate was a Ukrainian Cossack State that existed in the Zaporizhian region from 1648 until 1764).

But the Ukrainian State survived only until December 1918, when forces loyal to the deposed Ukrainian People’s Republic, led by Petliura, overthrew the Second Hetmanate, and reclaimed control over Ukraine. During this time the physical dimensions of the Ukrainian People’s Republic was in constant flux. In the short first tenure of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, two territories claimed as Ukrainian — centered round Odessa and Kharkov — declared their independence from the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and instead opted to join Russia [as four regions today have similarly opted to join Russia].

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And fast.

• Americans Souring On Military Aid To Ukraine – Poll (RT)

A growing number of Americans are opposed to supplying additional military aid to Ukraine, according to a new Reuters-Ipsos survey, with Democratic support taking a nosedive since the start of Kiev’s counteroffensive in June. Published on Thursday, the poll shows just 41% of respondents agreed that the US government “should provide weapons to Ukraine,” while 35% said they disagreed and the rest stating they were “unsure.” The figures mark a sharp decline compared to a prior Reuters poll conducted in June, which showed 65% support for further arming Ukraine. While Democrats have been more vocal in backing arms shipments to Kiev, support appears to be waning within the party. A slim majority of 52% said they still supported military aid in the latest poll – a steep drop from the 81% recorded in June, around the time Ukrainian forces began a major counter-offensive.

Some 35% of Republican respondents said they backed weapons transfers in the new survey, down from 56% in June. Continued aid to Kiev has become a political flashpoint in the US Congress, as lawmakers battle over a long-term spending package to avert a government shutdown before November 17. Though a stopgap measure was originally slated to include billions in aid for Ukraine, Republicans successfully pushed to remove that funding from the legislation. Despite assurances from the Pentagon that a federal budget crisis would not impact US aid to Ukraine, senior administration officials have indicated otherwise, sounding alarms over a potential “lapse in support” in the event of a shutdown.

“As the Congress works through its various mechanisms and procedures, we cannot under any circumstances allow America’s support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters on Wednesday, adding that even a brief delay could “make all the difference in the battlefield.” President Joe Biden has suggested that officials are looking for “workaround methods” to keep the aid flowing should lawmakers fail to reach a deal by their November deadline. On Wednesday, he said he would address Congress on the importance of continued support for Kiev, insisting that it is “overwhelmingly in the interests of the United States of America that Ukraine succeed.”

Washington has supplied more than $45 billion in direct military aid to Ukraine since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022, including tanks, artillery, air defense systems, drones and munitions. Moscow has repeatedly condemned foreign arms transfers, arguing they would do little to deter its military objectives and only prolong the fighting. Commenting on the budget impasse in the US, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the dispute was merely a “temporary phenomenon,”suggesting Washington would remain deeply involved in the conflict going forward.

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Creative accounting. It won’t be nearly enough.

• Biden Weighing Use of State Department Grants to Afford Ukraine Aid (DeMartino)

A critical feature of the US government is the balance of powers. A major part of Congress, known as the legislative branch, is deciding what does, and does not, get funded. The Biden administration is considering using a State Department grant to send aid to Ukraine after the president’s funding request failed to get through Congress as part of the stopgap bill that temporarily averted a partial government shutdown. The new findings come from two anonymous US officials speaking to a US media outlet. While making remarks on student loan aid on Wednesday, Biden promised a “major speech” on funding the Kiev regime and hinted he had “another” way to get funding to Ukraine without congressional approval. “There is another means by which we may be able to find funding for that. But I’m not going to get into that now,” Biden said while promising more details during the speech.

According to one of the officials, the Biden administration is considering using a State Department program that provides financing for foreign governments buying US-made weapons known as the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. It typically provides loans or grants to foreign governments. The State Department has allocated $4.65 billion for the FMS program to support Ukraine and other countries impacted by the conflict. According to a State Department factsheet dated September 21, roughly $650 million of that allotment remains. One official added that even if the Biden administration uses this method, they will still ask Congress for additional funding. Last month, Biden requested $24 billion in additional funding for Ukraine. A smaller package was initially put into a stopgap funding bill intended to keep the government open while Congress debates a full funding bill.

But that bill was unable to pass in the House of Representatives until the Ukraine funding was stripped out of it. Rumors spread around Washington that then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made a “secret side deal” with Democrats on Ukraine funding to get the funding bill passed, which led Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to launch a successful motion to vacate the speakership. As such, no bills, for funding Ukraine or otherwise, will be taken up until a new speaker is selected. House Republicans are expected to meet on October 11, when they are expected to discuss potential replacements. Sometime after that, a formal vote will be held in the House.

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Borrell is stuck.

• EU Can’t Compensate Ukraine For Missing Us Aid – Borrell (RT)

The EU cannot fully replace US support for Ukraine even if it boosts its aid programs, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said. The warning comes after the US Congress declined to include Ukraine assistance in a stopgap spending bill last week. “Ukraine needs the support of the European Union, which will certainly be increased, but also the support of the United States,” the senior official said on Thursday as he arrived at the European Political Community summit in Granada, Spain. He stressed that Europe could not fill the gap left by the US and expressed hope that Washington would reverse the situation. The flow of American funding was disrupted last week after a Republican push to reduce budgetary spending. A 45-day temporary budget, which was adopted as a compromise solution, allocated no money for Ukraine at all.

In August, the administration of US President Joe Biden asked lawmakers to provide an additional $24 billion to support Kiev. Amid the congressional deadlock, the White House sought to ensure that the flow of cash would not be interrupted. The crisis in the US was exacerbated this week when Kevin McCarthy was ousted as House speaker. Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced a motion to remove him from the position over an alleged secret deal with the Biden administration to keep Ukraine assistance flowing. Meanwhile, the EU is also struggling to maintain a consensus on sending money to its eastern neighbor. Last week, Hungary suggested splitting a proposed €50 billion ($52.4 billion) aid package in the bloc’s long-term budget into two installments, with the second half pending further evaluation, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Budapest has been blocking €500 million in military aid for Ukraine since May. The European Commission is reportedly willing to release billions of euros in funds for Hungary in order to get the country on board. The funds were frozen last December over rule-of-law criticisms. Borrell announced that Brussels was seeking to add €5 billion in multi-year defense assistance when he met Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba on Monday. He also vowed to maintain the assistance regardless of what happens in Washington. EU leaders are meeting in Granada to discuss the bloc’s future spending and plans for future expansion. A reform supported by Germany and France would introduce a multi-tier membership system to accommodate candidates based on their merits. Ukraine, which aspires to become a member, has insisted on full-fledged participation, saying it cannot accept anything less.

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“..We have had bad experiences with some so-called new members, for example when it comes to the rule of law. “This cannot be repeated again..”

• Ukraine ‘Corrupt at All Levels’, ‘Not Eligible’ to Join EU – Juncker (Sp.)

Ukraine in its current state is corrupt to the core and absolutely ineligible to join the European Union, former European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has said. “One mustn’t make false promises to the people of Ukraine who are up to their necks in suffering. I am very angry about the presence of some voices in Europe who are telling the Ukrainians that they can become members immediately,” Juncker said in an extensive interview with German media on Thursday. “That would not be of any good for the EU nor for Ukraine. Anyone who has anything to do with Ukraine knows that this is a country that is corrupt at all levels of society. Despite its efforts to date, it is not eligible to join, and needs massive internal reforms. We have had bad experiences with some so-called new members, for example when it comes to the rule of law. “This cannot be repeated again,” the politician, who served as EC chief between 2014 and 2019, and dealt with Ukraine-related matters repeatedly over that time, added.

“The European prospects for Moldova and Ukraine, which is defending itself so virtuously and defending European values, must be maintained, but must not be linked to a hope that this can be achieved overnight at the push of a button,” Juncker said. Instead, he proposed, countries like Ukraine should be able to “take part” in projects aimed at partial integration. “We should work toward making something like partial accession possible, or an intelligent form of near-enlargement,” Juncker proposed, without elaborating. The former European Commission boss, who warned during his time in office that Ukraine would “certainly not become” an EU member over the next “20 to 25 years,” and that the country was “not European in the sense of the European Union,” repeatedly dashed the hopes of the Euromaidan coup plotters, who overthrew Ukraine’s government in 2014 and launched a civil war in the Donbass to try to set the country on a path to Europe.

The crisis escalated into a full-on NATO-sponsored proxy war on Ukrainian territory in 2022 as Moscow attempted to preempt plans by Kiev to reabsorb the Donbass by force. Juncker is the latest high-level European politician to put a damper on Ukraine’s EU prospects amid reports that bloc leaders are planning to initiate formal accession talks before the end of the year, despite the ongoing largescale conflict in the country. Late last month, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola warned that the “economic model” that the bloc has today would not survive enlargement, and proposed a number of stopgap integrative processes short of membership, such as telephone and internet roaming, the lifting of trade barriers, access to some EU funds, Ukrainian access to European universities, etc. European Council President Charles Michel also hinted this week that Ukraine could become a member of the EU no sooner than 2030, and even then only if “both sides do their homework.”

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“The first front in any war is the home front, where it is imperative the battle is won. And those running the war in Ukraine are slowly but surely losing on this side of the conflict.”

• Depleted Ukrainium (Patrick Lawrence)

In results announced in Bratislava Sunday, a leftist party whose primary platform plank is opposition to the war in Ukraine won 23 percent of the vote. On Monday the Slovakian president, Zuzana Caputova, formally asked Robert Fico, who leads the SMER party, to form a government. It looks like he will do so in a coalition with either Voice, a social-democratic party that took 15 percent of the vote, or with Progressive Slovakia, a liberal-centrist party that finished with 18 percent of the vote. Fico is an interesting figure. He has served as prime minister twice over the course of a decade, during which time he proved sufficiently European to bring Slovakia into the euro. To one or another extent, his likely coalition partners favor keeping Slovakia as a card-carrying member of the Western coalition supporting Ukraine.

But they did not win the election: Fico did. And Fico is all business in his opposition to Slovakia’s support for the U.S. proxy war tearing Ukraine and its people to pieces. SMER’s platform assigns the West and Ukraine equal responsibility for the war—a purposeful rip into the “unprovoked” charade—and promises an immediate end to all Slovakian arms shipments to the war effort. Speaking after the election results were announced, Fico pointedly pledged to press Kiev and its backers to begin peace talks with Moscow. “More killing is not going to help anyone,” he declared. There are two things to say about Robert Fico’s return to the top of Slovakian politics. One, we find once again that the U.S. is a victim of its old, Manichean habit of dividing the whole of humanity into good guys and bad guys.

The headline on CNN’s report on the elections reads, “Pro–Russian politician wins Slovakia’s parliamentary election.” The New York Times head is, “Unease in the West as Slovakia Appears Set to Join the Putin Sympathizers.” Tell me, which of these is more pathetic? “Pro–Russian?” “Putin sympathizers?” This is infantile—apart from being false, I mean. Fico simply articulates an independent, perfectly sound position on the war. CNN and The Times are infantilizing their viewers and readers as they reduce this position to the simplistic binary of a Saturday-morning cartoon. The insidious thing here, and let us be ever vigilant on this point, is that these media are inserting into our brains the thought that any deviation from the Russophobic orthodoxy amounts to support for the Kremlin’s demonized occupant.

Two, “unease” is too mild a word for the reigning sentiment among the war-mongering elites in Washington and the European capitals. An incipient panic is closer to the reality as public support for the war—and here and here official support—ever more visibly wobbles and wanes. The first front in any war is the home front, where it is imperative the battle is won. And those running the war in Ukraine are slowly but surely losing on this side of the conflict.

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“..that Americans, particularly in Washington, make these terrible mistakes is because they do not see that the world has changed around them already..”

• Putin’s Valdai Speech: Multipolar Future Has Arrived (Sp.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech on October 5 at the plenary session of the 20th meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi emphasizing the tectonic and irreversible shifts taking place in the global order. [..] The moment of truth has come, and US hegemony is fading in front of our eyes while a new multipolar world is emerging, per Professor Joe Siracusa, political scientist and dean of Global Futures, Curtin University. “In many, many ways, the future that Mr. Putin is talking about has already arrived,” Siracusa told Sputnik. “What he’s kind of saying between the lines is it’s already here. Now we have to see it. The world has changed. And the reason he thinks that the Americans, particularly in Washington, make these terrible mistakes is because they do not see that the world has changed around them already. The world, the future is changing in front of them and they fail to see it. He thinks that might be the cause of the conflict.

During his Valdai speech, Putin outlined six principles Russia wants to adhere to and offers other nations to join it.
• “First, we want to live in an open, interconnected world, in which no one will ever try to erect artificial barriers to people’s communication, their creative realization, and prosperity. There must be a barrier-free environment,” Putin said.
• The second principle is the diversity of the world, which should not only be preserved, but should also be the foundation of universal development.
• The third principle, according to the Russian head of state, is maximum representativeness: “No one has the right or can rule the world for others or on behalf of others. The world of the future is a world of collective decisions,” the president emphasized.
• Fourth is universal security and lasting peace that takes into account the interests of great states and small countries equally. To achieve this, it is important to free international relations from the bloc mentality and the dark legacy of the colonial era and Cold War, according to Putin.
• The fifth principle is justice for all: “The era of exploitation of anyone – I have already said this twice – is a thing of the past. Countries and peoples are clearly aware of their interests and capabilities and are ready to rely on themselves, and this multiplies their strength. Everyone must be provided with access to the benefits of modern development,” Putin emphasized.
• The sixth principle is equality: no one should be forced to obey those who are richer or more powerful at the cost of their own development and national interests, according to the Russian president.

“The ‘civilizational model’ referred to in Putin’s speech seems anchored on ‘principles’ – such as non-colonial relations; non-patronizing attitudes; respectful of diversity rooted in the diverse traditions – that will require a huge work to generate new shared international norms,” Paolo Raffone, a strategic analyst and director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels, told Sputnik. “The Western ‘rules-based liberal international order’ is unilateral, and it could be imposed in a specific time in history leveraging on the power and prominence of a small group of colonial powers that after the liberal model crisis and civil war (1914-1945) has been inherited by a distant but super-powerful country (US). In a nutshell, I can say that the ‘civilizational model’ approach probably aims at structuring a shared world ‘software,’ while the ‘liberal rules-based order’ has been aiming at building an imposed ‘hardware’ defended by ‘rules’ serving the financial and military hegemony.”

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“Without a speaker, the impeachment process is halted. ”

“Follow your heart, but take your brain with you. The American people expect us to govern. I also advise my House colleagues to be sure and take your meds..”

• MAGA Power Rocks The US Establishment (Blankenship)

Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry adjourned the House, since pretty much the only thing he can do is form a session to specifically vote for a new speaker (this has never happened before and the rules are vague). With the House adjourned, no congressional hearings can happen, subpoenas can’t go through, and committees can’t convene. This is telling because the same Republicans who ousted McCarthy are also leading an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. Without a speaker, the impeachment process is halted. Given this, it was foolish for these lawmakers to vote out McCarthy. And that’s especially the case when it took nearly two months of negotiations to install him in the first place back in January. Now, there’s no telling where things will go or how long it will take to cut deals and find a new speaker.

If it takes even the same amount of time as before, then a government shutdown would be inevitable. That level of dysfunction from the GOP is not only poor governance but also bad politics, since it would allow Democrats to look good by contrast. “Follow your heart, but take your brain with you. The American people expect us to govern. I also advise my House colleagues to be sure and take your meds,” Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, a Republican, said to the press after McCarthy was booted. At the same time, this situation demonstrates quite clearly that the establishment – especially during a period of intense partisan divide – is not truly safe. Even powerful figures such as McCarthy can be dethroned by a small contingent of representatives. That shows that people like Jimmy Dore, a well-known YouTube personality, are unfortunately correct for once.

The so-called comedian called on progressives to refuse to vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker when Democrats controlled the House until a vote was taken on Medicare for All. It turns out he was completely correct on that. If ‘The Squad’ (a team of relatively young Democratic lawmakers who got into the House on a super-progressive platform) had any backbone, as Gaetz and his gang of rebels have shown, they could have forced a vote on that important issue and many others. They certainly have squeezed out concessions from Pelosi and the political establishment, making her understand that her position on the pedestal is contingent on the support of progressives and not the other way around. The fact that they, who are supposed to be more savvy and calculated than the MAGA mutineers, didn’t do that indicates, at the very least, a lack of commitment to the values that got them elected.

For their part, the MAGA wing of the Republican Party is making waves: they have made Ukraine funding a hot-button issue, censured Rep. Adam Schiff (a mortal enemy of their cause), put ‘the border’ and fake allegations of election fraud front and center, shouldered out establishment Republicans such as Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, and they’re building their own media ecosystem. Even though their self-imposed speaker debacle clearly lacks any serious intent, MAGA is flexing its muscles – even if, at times, for nothing. Will those who are supposedly fighting for the working class in Congress ever exert the same pressure? Doubtful, and it’s also doubtful if these people have any serious commitment to doing that in the first place, since they have the very same tools as Gaetz and his friends yet refuse to wield them. Undoubtedly, however, the political situation in the US is getting a whole hell of a lot more interesting.

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Not long ago, the Biden admin sold $300 million worth of wall building material for $2 million. Now they have to buy more.

• Trump Slams Biden’s Border Crisis, Says ‘Our Country is Being Invaded’ (Sp.)

About 210,000 migrants were apprehended in the US in September for crossing the country’s southern border illegally, a record for 2023, according to preliminary government data, as the Biden administration continues to flounder in its attempts to handle the raging crisis. Donald Trump has pummeled the Joe Biden administration over the ongoing crisis on the US-Mexico border that the current occupant of the White House has failed to get under control. The only reason the Democratic POTUS was suddenly ready to embrace the border wall project – and idea from the Trump era – was because of the relentless surge of illegal migrants, said the former president in a US media interview. “Biden sees our country is being invaded… What is he going to do about the 15 million people from prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums, and terrorists that have already come into our country?.. What has happened to our country?” the 45th POTUS fumed, as he called upon the Biden administration to “go back to Trump policies”.

Trump’s signature border wall construction had been brought to a screeching halt on 20 January 2021, when Joe Biden ordered a pause on all wall-related efforts at the southern US border. The commanding frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination seized upon the recent remarks by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who said that “high illegal entry” required urgently waiving dozens of federal laws to allow for the construction of a border wall in south Texas. As more than 245,000 migrant encounters have been recorded in the Rio Grande Valley Sector this year, Trump slammed his successor for having reversed many of his policies and thus caused the crisis at the southern border. “He has to reinstate Remain in Mexico and Title 42… He has to do all of the other things that we were doing,” said Donald Trump.

A Trump campaign spokesman was quick to endorse his leader: “President Trump is always right. That’s why he built close to 500 miles of a powerful new wall on the border and it would have been finished by now… Instead, crooked Joe Biden turned our country into one giant sanctuary for dangerous criminal aliens.” Earlier, Mayorkas said that he would use his authority to waive 26 federal laws, including the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act, to allow for construction in Starr County in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) sector. An announcement about this was posted on Wednesday on the US Federal Register by the Department of Homeland Security. “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas pursuant to sections 102(a) and 102(b) of [the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996],” Mayorkas said.

Though in the past the Biden administration worked on shuttering gaps in the wall, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced in June that there were plans to build up to 20 miles (32 kilometers) of wall in the RGV Sector in June. The construction is funded by Homeland Security’s full-year 2019 appropriations bill.

Darien gap

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“..more than 75,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job this morning..”

• The Largest Healthcare Strike in U.S. History (Pappas)

The largest health care strike in U.S. history has begun, as more than 75,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job this morning. The scheduled three-day labor stoppage comes after Kaiser failed to meet the demands of workers, continuing to prioritize their profits over patient care. The striking coalition includes eight unions representing health care workers from a variety of job descriptions and covers Kaiser facilities in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, and Washington City. This represents about 40% of all Kaiser Permanente staff, according to spokeswoman Renee Saldana of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare (SEIU-UHW)—the largest union in the coalition.

The union’s contract with the company expired over the weekend, and workers are demanding a significant staffing increase, alleviation of grueling work hours, wage increases that outpace inflation, and benefits for retired staff in the industry. Additionally, they are noting that their poor working conditions lead to poor patient care. This represents a common theme for healthcare workers attempting to provide quality patient care in a capitalist healthcare system that continually puts profit over patient wellbeing. Healthcare workers are becoming increasingly fed up with the working conditions imposed by the U.S. healthcare system. They are tired of seeing the wellbeing of patients being sacrificed at the altar of profit. They are also tired of having their own well being destroyed by the continual exploitation they face under this system.

One healthcare worker preparing to picket outside a Kaiser Hospital location in North Hollywood said, “We just can’t go on with this staffing crisis.” Kaiser Permanente is the largest private hospital and healthcare management consortium in the United States, bringing together a broad spectrum of healthcare workers including nurses, X-ray technicians, pharmacists, optometrists, and other job titles. The company serves 12.7 million people in California, Washington, Oregon, Georgia, Hawaii, Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia. The private health care corporation has reported more than $3 billion in profits in the first half of 2023 and has paid at least 49 corporate executives salaries in excess of $1 million a year. Despite these profits, the company continues to impose strenuous working conditions on staff, continually under-staffing and under-paying.

While this initial strike is planned for just three days, the SEIU-UHW union said the coalition is prepared to launch a “longer and stronger” strike in November, when another contract expires in Washington State. This could extend the stoppage to even more workers. Healthcare workers at Kaiser are joining a wave of strikes sweeping the United States—hundreds of thousands of workers have walked off the job. We are seeing worker action in sectors ranging from the auto industry—with the struggle of the 146,000 members of the UAW union against Ford, GM, and Stellantis—to Hollywood screenwriters and actors, to the 53,000 hotel workers in Las Vegas who voted last week to strike.

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“..European countries are estimated to have spent additional 792 billion euros in the last year just on the status quo system to protect consumers from the effects of the energy crisis introduced by the conflict in Ukraine..”

• Europe Could Become Energy Self-Sufficient In $2 Trillion Push – Study (RT)

Europe could wean itself off fossil fuels and create a self-sustainable energy sector by spending around 2 trillion euros ($2.1 trillion) on solar, wind and other regenerative sources by 2040, according to a new study, Report informs via Reuters. The report, led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the continent would require annual investments of 140 billion euros by 2030 and 100 billion a year in the decade thereafter to get there. While most of the sum would be needed for onshore wind expansion, solar, hydrogen and geothermal resources would be additional pillars of a strategy that would enable Europe’s electricity needs to be powered exclusively from renewables by 2030.

It would take another decade to convert the entire energy system, including things such as heating currently powered by oil or gas, to renewables, according to the study, which was shared with Reuters. The study said that these figures are considerable, but it is important to remember that the European countries are estimated to have spent additional 792 billion euros in the last year just on the status quo system to protect consumers from the effects of the energy crisis introduced by the conflict in Ukraine.

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Biden kicks dog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby giraffe

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 5 2023

Oct 052023
 
 October 5, 2023  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


Jan van Eyck Saint Barbara 1437

 

• Is McCarthy Saga A Bipartisan Strategy To Quietly End Aid To Ukraine? (Reade)
• Apparently, Kevin McCarthy’s Ouster Is Putin’s Fault (Marsden)
• Office Purge Follows Ouster Of US House Speaker (RT)
• Ukraine Could Reap $200 Billion EU Bonanza – FT (RT)
• Ukraine ‘Very Cheap Way’ To Fight Russia – Dutch Defense Minister (RT)
• US Funding for Ukraine Gov’t Reportedly to ‘Run Dry by November’ (Sp.)
• Ukraine Fatigue Is Worrying NATO Elites (Cunningham)
• Tunisia Rejects EU Financial Aid (RT)
• Creation of Multipolar World Inevitable, Necessary – Putin (Sp.)
• Quoting RT Plays Into Putin’s Hands – Hillary Clinton (RT)
• Biden’s “Secret Money Machine” (ZH)
• Gagging Trump – Shows Fear (AMAC)
• Trump Says Will Testify ‘At The Appropriate Time’ In NY Civil Fraud Trial (RT)
• Dianne Feinstein’s Replacement Cranks Her Problems Up To 11 (Blankenship)
• Alarming Covid Jab Contamination Shocks Scientists (Mercola)

 

 

 

 

Nap Macgregor

 

 

I was asked for 60 second answers for social media. I was horrified, my style is more discursive. I did my best but thought the result would be bad. But I love this.

 

 

 

 

Tucker Moritz

 

 

Something’s afoot…

 

 

RFK

 

 

 

 

“What is happening to President Donald Trump has never been done in the history of the United States. Liberals, put your anger aside for one moment and read this: The AG couldn’t find a crime, so she’s charging a criminal case covered as a Civil matter. The Judge is working in conjunction with her and they decided Trump is guilty, and the AG has submitted a motion for Summary Judgement.

He doesn’t get to defend himself in court. The gag order doesn’t allow him to defend himself publicly. The Judge decided before the case that he was guilty, and is now attempting to strip his businesses and properties. None of this has been done before. This is one of the biggest abuses of power we’ve ever witnessed as American Citizens. They’ve taken the leading candidate for President of the United States and refuse to give him a fair trial.

Disbarring the Judge and AG isn’t enough. The punishment should be the most severe allowed by the Justice System. If you’re on the left or on the fence or even a conservative and you’re supporting this, you’ve lost your moral compass. Your blind anger is causing you to sit back and watch as this country crumbles. ”

 

 

 

 

“It also conveniently provides Democrats with a scapegoat if the government shuts down and legislation gets stuck, causing further economic harm.”

• Is McCarthy Saga A Bipartisan Strategy To Quietly End Aid To Ukraine? (Reade)

For the first time in US history, the speaker of the US House of Representatives has been ousted. Rep. Kevin McCarthy had only graced the speaker seat for nine months before a bold move by Representative Matt Gaetz, a fellow Republican, pushed him out. A few days before the vote to end McCarthy’s leadership, Gaetz had been making rounds on social and legacy media discussing his push to end McCarthy’s short tenure. He accused McCarthy of striking a secret deal with Democrats to allow for aid to Ukraine to be included in the government funding bill to avoid a government shutdown. Gaetz spoke about the debt crisis, McCarthy lying to his own party and lack of desire to investigate US President Joe Biden for corruption as some of the reasons he was leading the call for McCarthy’s removal. When asked what would happen if the Democrats saved McCarthy, Gaetz brashly replied, “…they can have him.”

The Democrats did not save McCarthy. In fact, 208 Democrats and eight Republicans voted to unseat him (only five Republican votes were needed). All this signals that whatever deal McCarthy may have brokered, the chaos is more politically advantageous to the elites and provides much-needed cover for what is actually happening to the country economically. On the surface, this looks like another chapter in the chaotic Congressional saga about the divide between RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) and the America First group in the Republican party. It also conveniently provides Democrats with a scapegoat if the government shuts down and legislation gets stuck, causing further economic harm. However, this may also be the uniparty exit strategy for ending the flow of billions of dollars to Ukraine.

A recent Politico article cited a leak of information that the White House is concerned about the corruption in Ukraine and sustainability of continued funding. Most likely, this was a purposeful leak by intelligence to prepare an off-ramp away from more spending into the bottomless pit that is Kiev. The growing dissent regarding more billions to Ukraine, a country most Americans cannot find on a map, is getting louder. This all happening as the US heads for an election year is another significant factor. However, the actors keep playing their roles in this political theater, welcoming Zelensky’s begging and propping up his propaganda. Biden made a stern, if slightly slurred, statement demanding Congress “stop playing games” and authorize the additional $24 billion he had requested, bringing the total spent on aid to Ukraine to over $137 billion. All this as Biden and other Democrats’ polling numbers are lower than ever, hovering at 30% or worse.

The interim speaker’s first action was to tell Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and herself a former speaker, to vacate her office in the Capitol building within a week. Allowing a former speaker to keep using their office in the building is a tradition, one that McCarthy apparently hadn’t bucked. Rumors are floating around as to who will be the new speaker. According to the Constitution, it doesn’t technically have to be a sitting member of the House, and there is even talk about nominating Donald Trump for the seat. While the wild days ahead will reveal the new leadership in Congress, perhaps they will also bring about an end to the blank checks for Ukraine.

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“McCarthy has denied the backroom dealing, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck… ”

• Apparently, Kevin McCarthy’s Ouster Is Putin’s Fault (Marsden)

In a vote of 216-210, Republicans voted with 208 Democrats in the US House of Representatives to regime-change one of their own — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). McCarthy had tried appeasing the establishment over Ukraine funding while also paying lip-service to the populists to whom he owed his job as House speaker – and has just been rewarded with the honor of being the first dethroned speaker in US history. It’s a victory for the average American — unless you’re an establishment hack, in which case it’s all about Russia. “The Chinese are happy, the Russians are happy, the Iranians are happy. Americans should be mad as hell that these eight people did this to our country,” said Rep. Dan Bacon (R-NE). How dare anyone derail the establishment policies when they’ve made everything so great for the average American.

McCarthy’s supporters accuse opponents within his own party of fundraising off his ouster. If Americans are willing to reward the ouster by donating to those responsible, then it would seem that they aren’t actually “mad as hell” and it’s establishment Republicans who are offside.How fitting is it that the last straw in McCarthy’s case seems to be allegations, evoked by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) that he had gone behind the GOP’s back to the Biden administration to work something out on the continued stream of aid to Ukraine, which had been shamelessly tacked on to the budget legislation that would keep the federal government running for at least another 45 days. The Ukraine funding provision had been the sticking point that had been preventing Republicans from approving the bill until McCarthy stripped it out. But then Gaetz accused McCarthy of making a deal with Biden to revive a vote on yet another round of aid for Ukraine in a separate House vote.

If Biden wanted to take the risk of tacking support for Ukraine on to the bill that he figured that lawmakers would be forced to pass lest the alternative be a shutdown of the whole government, then he should have had to assume the full consequences of that gamble. Let the government shut down because the American president figured that its funding is as important as Ukraine’s – and that paying American bureaucrats would be directly tied to lawmakers’ willingness to keep paying Kiev’s. Then when those who feel that they best represent the growing constituency of American voters who are increasingly against more cash for Kiev as they feel the pinch of their own worsening economic situation brought about by misguided establishment policies reject the two-headed legislative abomination – then let them place the blame squarely in Biden’s lap for even taking the risk of conjuring it up in the first place.

McCarthy has denied the backroom dealing, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck… McCarthy arguably wouldn’t have even been in the job had it not been for promising the populist faction of the GOP – the Freedom Caucus – that he wouldn’t give Ukraine a “blank check.” But he seemed influenced by the criticism of establishment GOP fixtures like Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY). “The idea that the party is now no longer going to support the Ukrainian people. For somebody who has the picture of Ronald Reagan on his wall in his office in the Capitol, the notion that now Kevin McCarthy is going to make himself the leader of the pro-Putin wing of my party is just a stunning thing,” Cheney said in an interview last year.

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“Now that she and other Democrats have caused there to be an immediately preceding speaker, she has removed herself from that office.”

• Office Purge Follows Ouster Of US House Speaker (RT)

Two former top Democrats in the US Congress lost their “hideaway offices” on Wednesday, as the acting speaker of the House reassigned them to Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who lost his leadership position on Tuesday in a historic vote. Congressman Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, sent an email within 90 minutes of becoming speaker pro tempore on Tuesday, ordering Representatives Nancy Pelosi to “vacate the space tomorrow,” Axios has revealed. “The office that Pelosi currently occupies is the office of the preceding speaker,” Congressman Garret Graves, a Louisiana Republican, told the outlet. “Now that she and other Democrats have caused there to be an immediately preceding speaker, she has removed herself from that office.”

Graves was referring to the fact that every Democrat present at Tuesday’s session voted with eight of the Republicans to vacate the speakership, making McCarthy the first-ever speaker to be voted out in the 234-year history of the House of Representatives. There are approximately 100 secret offices in the US Capitol complex, mainly used by senators as private spaces for confidential business or personal matters. They are called “hideaways” because they are unlisted in official directories and are marked only with a room number. Pelosi did not actually vote against McCarthy, because she was back in California for the funeral of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein. She released a statement on Wednesday denouncing McHenry’s decision as “a sharp departure from tradition.”

“As Speaker, I gave former Speaker [Dennis] Hastert a significantly larger suite of offices for as long as he wished,” Pelosi said, further lamenting that she was “unable to retrieve my belongings” due to being out of town. Axios reported that staffers for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, helped evacuate Pelosi’s hideaway office, as well as that of Jeffries’ predecessor, Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer, also ordered out by McHenry. Pelosi and Hoyer stepped down from leadership posts – but remained members of Congress – after Republicans retook the House in the 2022 midterm elections.

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“All member states will have to pay more to and receive less from the EU budget; many member states who are currently net receivers will become net contributors..”

• Ukraine Could Reap $200 Billion EU Bonanza – FT (RT)

Ukraine could receive billions of euros in subsidies from the EU upon the country’s accession to the bloc, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing an internal study by the secretariat of the EU Council. According to the report, Kiev would be entitled to €96.5 billion ($101 billion) in payments from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. Ukraine would also be eligible for €61 billion ($64 billion) in subsidies from the EU’s cohesion funds, dedicated to improving infrastructure in poorer member states. In total, the bloc may have to allocate roughly €186 billion ($195 billion) for Ukraine in the seven years following its entry. The paper notes that this would greatly affect the EU’s agricultural subsidy regime. According to calculations, Ukraine has 41.1 million hectares of utilized agricultural area, and would become the bloc’s largest recipient of subsidies.

This would force a cut in payments for existing recipients by some 20.3% per 1 hectare of farmland. Experts say the changes may be too high a price to admit Ukraine as a member, unless adjustments are made to the EU budget. “These numbers aren’t going to work for anyone. They make clear that root and branch reform of the EU budget and its major policies will be needed if Ukraine is to ever join, or that the entire Ukraine question will have to be dealt with innovatively and outside of existing EU budget structures,” Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group, told the news outlet. The EU Council based its study on the bloc simultaneously accepting nine additional members: Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and six western Balkan states.

According to the analysis, the cost of adding them all to the EU’s existing budget would amount to roughly €256.8 billion ($269 billion). The study warned that the entry of new members would cause a drastic redistribution of funds within the union. For instance, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Cyprus, and Malta would no longer be eligible for cohesion funding. All member states will have to pay more to and receive less from the EU budget; many member states who are currently net receivers will become net contributors, the document stated. It added that whilst for several policies, opportunities may outweigh the costs/risks, the enlargement would bring very significant challenges for the EU budget, which would need to be addressed as soon as possible. According to reports, the EU is ready to start membership negotiations with Ukraine, which could be announced by the end of the year. The head of the European Council, Charles Michel, earlier stated that Ukraine could become a member of the bloc by 2030.

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These people belong in mental institutions. If you call 400,000 deaths “very cheap”, you are retarted.

• Ukraine ‘Very Cheap Way’ To Fight Russia – Dutch Defense Minister (RT)

Arming Kiev is a cost-effective way of preventing Moscow from threatening NATO, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren argued on Wednesday at the Warsaw Security Forum. Ollongren was asked whether the US and its allies can continue supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” given the political in-fighting in Washington. “We cannot pretend that we’ll just wait and see how the American elections are going,” she said. “Because they have the same interest, in a way. Of course, supporting Ukraine is a very cheap way to make sure that Russia with this regime is not a threat to the NATO alliance. And it’s vital to continue that support.” “It is very much in our interest to support Ukraine, because they are fighting this war, we are not fighting it,” Ollongren noted, while admitting that NATO had “skin in the game.”

Ollongren explained that she had recently visited the US and that political developments there are cause for concern, but that Western Europeans need to talk with their American colleagues and persuade them to stay the course. “I think that we are capable of a lot, and we have proven that in the past year and a half, and the only thing we have to do is keep it up,” the minister said, adding that the scale of military assistance to Kiev has surprised Ukraine, Russia and even NATO itself. The US and its allies have channeled a large amount of money, weapons, ammunition and supplies to Ukraine since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell revealed earlier this week that the bloc has sent Ukraine €85 billion ($89.8 billion) so far, of which more than €25 billion ($26.4 billion) was military aid.

The most recent estimates of US spending were from the end of July, and amounted to $46.6 billion in military aid, $3.9 billion in humanitarian aid, and about $26.4 billion in loans and cash payments to keep the government in Kiev going. Moscow has repeatedly warned that the deliveries of heavy weapons and other aid are tantamount to direct involvement in the hostilities. Washington and Brussels, however, insist they were not actually a party to the conflict. Russia said foreign arms would not change the course of the fighting and would not deter Moscow from achieving its goals in Ukraine. Russian officials also repeatedly cited NATO’s expansion eastward as one of the root causes of its current conflict with Ukraine and the standoff with the West.

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“..without additional funding, the US will be forced to delay or slash supply of air defense weapons, ammunition, drones, and demolition equipment.”

• US Funding for Ukraine Gov’t Reportedly to ‘Run Dry by November’ (Sp.)

Without another abundant infusion of cash from Congress, US funding for Ukraine’s government expenditures will run dry by November, a report citing officials in Washington and Kiev says. Congress passed a temporary funding bill to keep the federal government running until November 17 and dodge a shutdown by leaving out $6 billion for Ukraine. The sum was part of the $24 billion in emergency aid for Kiev requested by President Joe Biden, on top of the over $100 billion in assistance already provided to the regime. While Ukraine’s Finance Ministry has resources to cover the budget needs for October, “beyond November the government could face decisions about what services or salaries to cut, or whether to attempt to borrow,” a Ukrainian official was cited as saying.

The source voiced concerns that ending payments to Ukraine’s government could trigger discontent in the country and “potentially put political pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky, who would face louder criticism from rival factions.” Meanwhile, one Washington official revealed that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will process an October funds transfer of $1.15 billion through the World Bank program, “assuming Ukraine shows that it has appropriately spent the previous transfer.” Future disbursements are unclear, it was added in the report. After October, the government in Kiev could dip into other funds “earlier than planned,” which would tide them over through November and December, but “without fresh funding the picture turns darker in 2024,” the US report cited a Ukrainian source as saying.

The World Bank’s Public Expenditures for Administrative Capacity Endurance (“PEACE”) program has sent Ukraine $23.4 billion, all told, with $20.2 billion funded by the US and $2 billion from the UK. Since the Ukraine conflict escalated, overall US aid to Ukraine totals $72.8 billion, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the report noted. The debate over economic aid to Ukraine has divided Congress. Republicans who oppose funding for Ukraine have argued the need to put domestic priorities first, instead of sinking cash into NATO’s proxy war with Russia. Ukraine’s botched counteroffensive has added to doubts, along with soaring prices and borrowing costs, economic slowdown, and inflation. An August survey found that 55 percent of Americans thought lawmakers should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine.

Furthermore, the Pentagon recently issued a warning to Congress, saying it is rapidly running out of funds to replace its weapons stockpile, including artillery, rockets, and missiles, due to the rush to fulfill shipments to Ukraine. In a letter viewed by US media, Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord earlier informed House and Senate leadership that out of the $25.9 billion allocated by Congress to replenish US military stocks provided to Ukraine, only $1.6 billion remains. Long-term funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative for Kiev has been entirely depleted, McCord warned, saying that without additional funding, the US will be forced to delay or slash supply of air defense weapons, ammunition, drones, and demolition equipment.

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“All that largesse that is billed to U.S. and European taxpayers has resulted in a slaughter in Europe not seen since the Second World War – and a failed Ukrainian state.”

• Ukraine Fatigue Is Worrying NATO Elites (Cunningham)

On both sides of the Atlantic, there is now discernible fatigue and anger among citizens over the bottomless money pit that is NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. The only wonder is that it has taken so long for the Western public to get wise to the scam. The disgraceful adulation of a Nazi war criminal by the whole Canadian parliament in a perverse show of solidarity with Ukraine against Russia has helped focus public attention on the obscenity of the NATO proxy war. All told, since the NATO-induced conflict blew up in February last year, the American and European establishments have thrown up to €200 billion into Ukraine to prop up an odious Nazi-infested regime. All that largesse that is billed to U.S. and European taxpayers has resulted in a slaughter in Europe not seen since the Second World War – and a failed Ukrainian state.

And of course huge profits for the NATO military-industrial complex that bankrolls the elite politicians. Times are changing though. In the United States, the financially conservative Republicans have had enough of the blank checks to the Kiev regime. The U.S. Congress finally showed a modicum of sanity to prevent a government financial shutdown – by dropping military aid to Ukraine. That shows how twisted Washington’s priorities have become when national self-interest has to wrestle with funding for a Nazi regime. And then following the Congressional vote to temporarily end funding for Ukraine, the Kiev regime’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba dared to reprimand American lawmakers: “We are now working with both sides of Congress to make sure that it does not (get) repeated under any circumstances.”

Meanwhile in Europe, Slovakian citizens have voted for a new government to end the military fueling of war in Ukraine. The Smer-SD party led by Robert Fico won the parliamentary elections primarily on the vow to shut off any further weapons supply to the Kiev regime. This week also saw massive protests in Germany against Olaf Scholz’s coalition government over the latter’s abject pro-war policies in Ukraine. German Unity Day on October 3 prompted a mass rally in Berlin denouncing the NATO proxy war in Ukraine and calling for peace negotiations to end the conflict. There were also unprecedented protests across Poland in Warsaw, Lodz and other cities against the PiS government’s slavish implementation of the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

Faced with millions of Ukrainian refugees and neglect of social needs for Poles, the PiS ruling party has recently threatened to end weapons supply to Kiev – a move less about principle and more about trying to buy votes in the forthcoming election on October 15. Nevertheless, the belated move by the Polish government illustrates the concern among European leaders about growing public disdain over the seemingly endless financial aid allocated to Ukraine. Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, says it is a “worrying” sign that Washington for the first time closed the coffers for Ukraine.

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Rutte and Von Der Leyen flew to Tunisia to make a deal to stop refugee flows to Lampedusa, and turned their backs on it as soon as they got back home.

• Tunisia Rejects EU Financial Aid (RT)

Tunisian President Kais Saied has rejected financial aid from the European Union intended to support the country’s budget and address a migration crisis, claiming that the bloc violated agreements signed earlier this year. “Tunisia rejects what the EU announced, not because of the small amount… but because this proposal contradicts the memorandum of understanding signed in July,” Saied said on Monday, according to a statement published by national broadcaster TAP. The EU signed a partnership agreement with Saied in July, pledging more than 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) to the North African country to help its battered economy and curb irregular migration from the Tunisian coast to Europe.

However, the European Commission announced last month that it would disburse 127 million euros ($133 million) in aid to the country, with the majority of the funds earmarked for addressing migration issues, including facilitating the deportation of migrants to their home countries. In response to the EU announcement, Tunisia’s president said on Monday that he would not accept the “small amount” because it “lacks respect.” “Tunisia, which accepts cooperation, does not accept anything that resembles charity or handouts,” Saied was quoted as saying by TAP during a meeting with Nabil Ammar, the country’s minister of foreign affairs and migration. In an interview with RT on Tuesday, international relations researcher Bechir Jouini said Tunisia’s rejection of the EU offer centered on the bloc’s handling of the agreement, which appears to prioritize financial aspects over other considerations.

If the EU wants to address the immigration crisis, Jouini believes it should prioritize genuine investments in African economies over exploiting the continent’s resources. “We are not just demanding money,” he said, arguing that “if there’s no stability, if there’s no growth in Africa, there’s no stability in all of Europe.” Migration has remained a source of disagreement within the EU since 2015, with an influx of migrants fleeing poverty and conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. Member states, including Hungary and Poland, have strongly opposed Brussels’ attempts to compel them to accept and settle migrants. Last month, Italian authorities reported the arrival of thousands of African migrants from Tunisia on the island of Lampedusa, prompting a state of emergency.

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“But I can tell you that such things are done by self-confident adults, uncles and aunts, who, apparently, are not very clever..”

• Creation of Multipolar World Inevitable, Necessary – Putin (Sp.)

The creation of a multipolar world, more honest and fair for the majority of people, is inevitable and historically necessary, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated, addressing the Third International Olympiad on Financial Security in the Sirius federal territory near Sochi on Wednesday, October 4. “The process of building a multipolar world order – more democratic, more honest, fair for the majority of mankind – is simply inevitable and historically necessary. This fully applies to the creation of strong economic foundations of such a world order,” Putin stressed. In addition, the Russian president emphasized that those who seize other people’s assets are apparently not exceptionally intelligent. During his speech, Putin spoke about a joint project between a number of central banks in Asia and the Middle East that allows them to issue and exchange digital currencies.

“That is, no third party has any possibility for abuse and for interfering with payments. Including blocking, for example, a transaction, arresting accounts, appropriating someone else’s money or assets. And this, unfortunately, happens in the modern world. These are very young people sitting here. But I can tell you that such things are done by self-confident adults, uncles and aunts, who, apparently, are not very clever, if they commit such erroneous actions that ultimately harm themselves,” the president stressed. Moreover, the world is gradually getting rid of the dictatorship of an economic model where entire regions of the world are driven into bondage and loans, Putin said. “The world is gradually getting rid of the dictatorship of such a financial and economic model, the purpose of which is only to drive into debt, into bondage, turn into economic colonies, deprive entire regions of the world of resources for development,” the president highlighted, adding that “few people will like such a future.”

In addition, Putin emphasized that mutual trust and respect for each other’s interests are extremely important in terms of international economic cooperation. “You are well aware that the financial sphere is now undergoing rapid development of advanced solutions, advanced technologies. This is digital currency, digital financial assets, new payment services and financial settlement models. This includes the use of blockchain technologies, the so-called distributed ledger. I would like to say once again that in this area, especially when it comes to international economic cooperation, mutual trust and respect for the interests of partners and each other’s interests are extremely important,” the president said.

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Unstoppable.

• Quoting RT Plays Into Putin’s Hands – Hillary Clinton (RT)

Former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin is “thrilled” by the growing political divide in Washington over aid to Ukraine. She also alleged that the Russian leader “scores points”whenever Americans reference views shared by outlets such as RT. In an interview with PBS’s Geoff Bennett released on Tuesday, the former secretary of state and principal architect of the Russiagate conspiracy theory was asked how she thinks Russia perceives the growing opposition among US lawmakers to funding for Kiev. Clinton suggested that Putin was not only pleased with the rift among American politicians, but was also “fomenting” it in order to “undermine democracy” and “suborn political leaders.” “When I see people parroting Russian talking points that first showed up on Russia Today [RT] or first showed up in a speech from a Russian official, that’s a big point scored for Putin,” Clinton said.

She went on to suggest that despite the “ideological” and “partisan” political divide, the US Congress must work through its issues and ultimately pass legislation that would ensure continued aid for Ukraine. “This fight is our fight,” Clinton claimed, adding that she fails to understand how any Americans can “side” with Putin. “But we have seen it, and we have heard it, and we have to fight against it,”she declared. The former secretary of state’s comments come after the US Congress approved a last-minute 45-day stopgap government funding bill on Saturday that omitted any financial support for Kiev. The vote followed demands from Republican senators for military aid for Ukraine to be dropped from the spending bill, threatening to initiate a government shutdown.

Last week, Clinton also claimed during a speech at the State Department that Putin was personally to blame for NATO’s continued eastward expansion, which she insisted was a consequence of Russian policies. “Too bad, Vladimir. You brought it on yourself,” she said. Moscow responded by arguing that Clinton was well known “for her attempts to turn everything upside down and change concepts.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Western countries have repeatedly refused to discuss any of Russia’s proposals regarding security guarantees. At the same time, NATO has continued to launch “numerous waves” of expansion and has moved its military infrastructure right up to Russia’s borders. “It is absolutely clear what the underlying reasons were for Russia’s special military operation,” Peskov said.

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“According to a wide-ranging new book by Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow [..] the Biden family has a second, virtually unknown institute..”

• Biden’s “Secret Money Machine” (ZH)

On December 11, 2018, the University of Delaware announced that it was naming its public policy school after Vice President Biden. Emails show that this move was orchestrated by members of UD’s Biden Institute. It was on the day of the announcement that Hunter Biden received a text message from his aunt and former Joe Biden campaign manager, Valerie Owens (who chairs the Biden Institute), crediting him for the deepening partnership with between the Biden family and the university: “Bravo Hunter—UD was your baby and you made sure I was part of it.” The University of Delaware Biden Institute was Hunter’s “baby.” And this was the type of baby the family most certainly was not going to ignore. -Breitbart

What’s more, the UD Biden Institute became home to at least 12 future Biden administration appointees, including soon-to-be senior Biden advisor Mike Donilon and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, while UD President Dennis Assanis would be named to Biden’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. But perhaps most intriguing is that soon after forging its partnership with the Bidens, the University of Delaware (UD) disclosed receiving funds from China. Assanis notably “has deep and long-standing ties to China,” according to Marlow, who reports that in addition to serving as the founding director of the US-China Clean Energy Research Center and Clean Vehicle Consortium (CERC-CVC) since 2003, Assanis has served as both a guest professor and an advisory professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) – which has a partnership with the Chinese military, and which has been identified as the source of cyberattacks on American companies.

And then the Chinese funds start flowing… As Marlow reports; The University of Delaware had never disclosed receiving funds from China until April 2018, when it accepted over $3.2 million for a contract with an unnamed Chinese entity. This came two months after the Penn Biden Center opened its DC office. Then, in December 2018, UD received $1.9 million from an unnamed Chinese entity. In 2019, UD received another $625,000 from China. In 2020, UD initiated three contracts with the Chinese entities and received over $1 million in funds. In sum, UD has received over $6.7 million from unnamed Chinese sources, including a substantial amount from the Chinese government. All these funds started flowing to UD after the Biden Institute was announced and increased immediately after the launch of the Penn Biden Center.

In addition to the obvious pay-for-play implications, the influx of Chinese money is even more alarming in light of UD’s thirty-seven international partnerships with Chinese universities – including several which are involved in the development of Chinese military technology. Concern over UD’s relationship with Chinese entities is such a concern that on Feb. 8, 2022, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) wrote Assanis to ask him to terminate the institution’s academic and research partnership with Xiamen University, an active component of the CCP military-industrial complex, and which allegedly conspired with Huawei to perform corporate espionage against a US semiconductor start-up. According to the report, UD has worked with at least four other universities linked to CCP defense laboratories.

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“..they want him silenced. They fear his use of the 1st Amendment to defend himself. And that…is EXACTLY why we have a 1st Amendment.”

• Gagging Trump – Shows Fear (AMAC)

Think hard: Why, after allowing two state and two federal indictments of Donald Trump, each transparently political, would a federal prosecutor seek the rare step of “gagging” a former president, who also happens to be the leading GOP candidate? Only one reason: fear. The reason for this highly unusual step seems deeper than analysts are looking. On one hand, protecting a national security secret might justify a gag order, but there is none here. Jury pools are continuously exposed to public information, thus methodically sifted in “voir dire,” a process that assures jurors selected will be “fair and impartial.” Gagging a defendant is never done for that reason, no matter how well-known the defendant is. See if you can find a case recently, even historically, to silence a defendant protesting his innocence.

Nor is a gag order sought, let alone granted, because a prosecutor fears the defendant will speak publicly about his innocence and try to defend himself or herself to the public. Far from it, defendants are typically told by their own counsel NOT to speak openly since anything said could be used against them by the prosecutor, no matter the allegations. Notably, the federal prosecutor here, Mr. Jack Smith, was previously censured by the US Supreme Court (9-0) for misapplying federal law, specifically for political overreach. Yet, by all indications, here we are again. We have questionable, seemingly political indictments. One is arguably based on evidence pulled in a violation of 4th Amendment guarantees – a “general warrant,” with armed agents swarming the former president’s home. The other appears to mock the 1st Amendment, criminalizing political speech – as never before alleged.

We see in these indictments, paired with two state indictments, the play of politics. Incredibly, briefing schedules sought by prosecutors mirror the presidential primary calendar, making the process – by all appearances and definition – deliberate “election interference.” Ironically, against this backdrop and rather unexpectedly for the White House, Justice, and Democrat prosecutors, Mr. Trump – their target – has rocketed to the top of polls. He has climbed so high that, combining Republican, Independent, and Democrat voters, he would decisively beat Mr. Biden – if the race were today. All this should give Americans pause. It is also embarrassing for Mr. Smith, Mr. Garland, and Mr. Biden, not to mention state political prosecutors. They all have egg on their face, a mess.

So, the answer? Apparently, their latest flash of brilliance is to officially “gag” put a legal towel in the mouth of Mr. Trump. They want to stop him from speaking at all, as his words might “disparage the process” of being prosecuted or persecuted. Like something out of Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland or the former Soviet Union’s definition of due process, the prosecutor’s request is to prevent Mr. Trump from speaking. The irony is too rich and has not escaped Americans on both sides of the aisle. If not for such moments, what perchance is the 1st Amendment for? This order is wild overreach, panic. Traditionally, the reason federal prosecutors do not seek “gag orders” against defendants, whether Al Capone, John Mitchell, or others, is that the credibility of the prosecutor, the credibility of the Justice Department, is presumed to be higher than that of any defendant.

Put differently: This federal prosecutor and Justice Department are afraid. They fear their constitutionally questionable, highly offensive actions will not hold up in public discourse. Pointedly: They think Mr. Trump’s credibility supersedes – is higher than – theirs. Thus, they want him silenced. They fear his use of the 1st Amendment to defend himself. And that…is EXACTLY why we have a 1st Amendment.

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“The assets are much more valuable as opposed to less valuable than earlier statements.”

• Trump Says Will Testify ‘At The Appropriate Time’ In NY Civil Fraud Trial (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will testify as part of an ongoing civil fraud trial that could see his business operations come to a halt in New York, according to Anadolu Agency. Asked if he would take the stand in the non-jury trial, Trump said: “Yes, I will. At the appropriate time I will be. “I think it’s going very well,” Trump said at the New York courthouse where proceedings are taking place. “The assets are much more valuable as opposed to less valuable than earlier statements.” “There was absolutely no fraud,” he added. New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $250 million in damages as part of a lawsuit tied to Trump and his organization’s business practices, alleging that they systemically overvalued their assets to enrich themselves.

Trump, who is voluntarily attending the trial, has alleged that the case is politically motivated and is part of efforts to hamper his 2024 election prospects, and he has sought to discredit the presiding judge as being a “rogue” who is biased against him, and calling James a “racist.” New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the case, ruled in late September that Trump and his company committed repeated acts of fraud for years. Engoron found that Trump and his company deceived banks by submitting “fraudulent valuations” for assets that were then used by himself, his sons and his business to secure better loan and insurance terms. The judge immediately canceled all of Trump and his co-defendants’ business certificates in New York and ordered that they must recommend no more than three potential independent receivers to manage the dissolution of the canceled limited liability companies within 10 days.

Trump’s legal team said they plan to appeal. “For years, Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth to enrich himself and cheat the system. We won the foundation of our case last week and proved that his purported net worth has long been rooted in incredible fraud,” James said in a statement Monday. “In this country, there are consequences for this type of persistent fraud, and we look forward to demonstrating the full extent of his fraud and illegality during trial,” she added. Engoron will now rule on six other claims brought by James’ office in the lawsuit. It also seeks a ban on Trump doing business in the state where he made his brand as a high-profile real estate developer.

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“..it would seem that the Golden State deserved a solid senator that understands its issues. Or at least, compared to the twilight years of Feinstein’s career, just knows where they are at any given moment.”

• Dianne Feinstein’s Replacement Cranks Her Problems Up To 11 (Blankenship)

US Senator Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving female senator in American history, passed away on September 29 after a long, trailblazing career in politics. With her death, California Governor Gavin Newsom was entitled to make yet another political appointment, this time promising to fill the role with a black woman. Indeed, the governor delivered – and big time. He appointed a gay black woman named Laphonza Butler. But read the fine print because Newsom never said he would appoint a Californian, as Butler actually resides in Maryland. And what are her credentials? Well, she’s apparently a “veteran organizer” who, after years of union work, was co-opted by Uber to help manage the company’s labor relations at a time when its partners sought full-employment status. She basically helped screw over a bunch of gig workers.

Since 2021, Butler has also served as the president of Emily’s List, a major Democratic Party donor network that helps raise money for women candidates who support abortion rights. The new California senator is a union-buster: check. She can raise money: check. She’s a black lesbian: check, check. (But she’s not from California, as if that matters.) In the Southern United States, we have an endearing term for a politician who settles in a place that they’re not originally from to seek office – “carpetbagger.” While this is a regional term that doesn’t apply with its historical usage, the way people use it today applies. Elected representatives are supposed to have a connection to the locality or state from which they are elected and vote on behalf of that region’s citizens. Having no connection to a place, or never having lived there, necessarily means one has no familiarity with important local issues.

Where I grew up, in Kentucky, we’ve had this happen a few times. Former Republican Governor Matt Bevin was elected in 2015 in a shocking vote that saw Democrats lose the Governor’s Mansion for the first time in nearly a generation. While Bevin’s victory was mainly a repudiation of the national Democratic Party and foreshadowed former President Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, he was a businessman from New England who essentially made a vanity run in a backwater state he thought he could win in. In addition to his myriad corruption scandals and his horrible policies for the commonwealth, the fact that he was a “carpetbagger” was a major factor in his defeat to Andy Beshear, the son of Governor Steve Beshear, in 2019. I also worked on congressional hopeful Amy McGrath’s campaign for a spell in 2018, and while she was a Kentucky native, she was a newcomer to the district she sought to win, which was a massive point of contention from locals and a factor in her defeat to Congressman Andy Barr. (I heard people call her a “carpetbagger”all the time when I was knocking on doors.)

So, needless to say, there are certainly a lot of Americans who view obvious political careerism with contempt. Add the fact that Butler is a longtime labor friend-turned-pro-employer stooge, and her token identity as an LGBTQ black woman, and you have a situation where pretty much anyone would agree that her appointment is nothing more than paper-thin corporate identitarianism. Having just endured over 31 years of representation from Feinstein, who was certainly not loved by organized labor or the working class of California (or the US) in general but was heralded as a trailblazer for the act of being a woman, it would seem that the Golden State deserved a solid senator that understands its issues. Or at least, compared to the twilight years of Feinstein’s career, just knows where they are at any given moment.

Alas, it was not to be. While Feinstein represented all of the things wrong with the Democratic Party – vanity, careerism, greed, and a general lack of authenticity – Butler cranks this up to 11. Perhaps, if she can survive a special election in five months and then win re-election six times in a row, she too can be a multi-millionaire through insider training like her predecessor – hell, maybe she can be the first gay black billionaire in Congress. Wouldn’t that be something? Jokes aside, there is far more to so-called public service than just supporting the national party on major issues. A lot of mundane things happen in the halls of Congress, much of which involves supporting one’s district or state on fairly trivial issues that locals appreciate. Given Butler’s lack of familiarity with Californian politics, anything she does will have to be communicated to her from somewhere else, which is just about the last thing people want from their leaders. Politics, in any case, shouldn’t be about such blatant opportunism.

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“there is a very real hazard” of the dsDNA integrating into a person’s genome and becoming a “permanent fixture of the cell” that can result in autoimmune problems and cancers,,”

• Alarming Covid Jab Contamination Shocks Scientists (Mercola)

In early April 2023, microbiologist Kevin McKernan — a former researcher and team leader for the MIT Human Genome project1 — posted a preprint paper2 detailing massive DNA contamination in Pfizer’s and Moderna’s bivalent COVID booster shots. As explained in the abstract: “Several methods were deployed to assess the nucleic acid composition of four expired vials of the Moderna and Pfizer bivalent mRNA vaccines. Two vials from each vendor were evaluated … Multiple assays support DNA contamination that exceeds the European Medicines Agency (EMA) 330ng/mg requirement and the FDAs 10ng/dose requirements …” The highest level of DNA contamination found was 30%, meaning nearly one-third of the content of certain vials was plasmid DNA, the presence of which dramatically increases the likelihood of genomic integration and cancer.

What this means, in plain English, is that the shots could potentially alter your DNA, which is something vaccine makers, health authorities and fact checkers have vehemently denied and written off as “impossible.” Yet here we are, with inconvenient facts staring us in the face yet again. In a May 20, 2023, Substack article,8 McKernan pointed out that regulatory agencies were clearly aware of this problem early on, as Pfizer submitted documents to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) showing sampled lots had a broad range of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) in them. The EMA’s limit for dsDNA is 330 nanograms per milligram (ng/mg), and Pfizer’s data show sampled lots had anywhere from 1 ng/mg to 815 ng/mg of DNA. And, according to McKernan, the EMA’s limit may be too high to begin with, as “lower limits should be applied if the DNA is packaged in transfection ready lipid nanoparticles,” as they are in the shots.

In a sane regulatory environment, this kind of contamination would have resulted in a massive recall, considering the known and suspected dangers of dsDNA contaminants. Yet nothing was done about it. Since McKernan’s paper was posted, others have confirmed the presence of dsDNA contaminants in the COVID shots. To be clear, DNA should not be present in a commercial product that has been made under good manufacturing practices. Obviously, Pfizer and Moderna have not perfected their commercial process, or have taken shortcuts they shouldn’t have. As a result, countless millions have been injected with unnecessarily risky COVID shots. University of South Carolina professor Phillip Buckhaults has since confirmed the presence of dsDNA in the COVID shots. September 13, 2023, he testified10 to this before the South Carolina Senate Medical Affairs Ad-Hoc Committee on the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC).

Buckhaults is a molecular biologist and cancer geneticist with extensive experience in DNA sequencing, and initially set out to debunk McKernan’s claims. To his shock, he replicated McKernan’s findings instead. In his testimony, he explained how these DNA contaminants can integrate into your genome and disrupt the function of other genes, either long term or permanently, and may be passed on to offspring for generations. He told the senators he was “alarmed about this DNA being in the vaccine,” as “there is a very real hazard” of the dsDNA integrating into a person’s genome and becoming a “permanent fixture of the cell” that can result in autoimmune problems and cancers.11 Buckhaults suspects high levels of DNA contaminants may also be causing some of the more serious side effects of the jabs, such as lethal cardiac arrest.12 Of the two lots he analyzed, he found between 5 nanograms and 20 ng of plasmid DNA — ranging from one to 200 base pairs long — per 300 microliter dose, and he points out that having a multitude of tiny fragments is far riskier than having one big piece of DNA.

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Dog tunes
https://twitter.com/i/status/1709528796955574629

 

 

Hyperion

 

 

Octopus
https://twitter.com/i/status/1709451435845276152

 

 

Cat

 

 

Elephant

 

 

 

 

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Momentum

Jul 082023
 
 July 8, 2023  Posted by at 5:28 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


Andy Warhol Shot Sage Blue Marilyn 1964 (must read article!)

 

 

An article at RT made me realize today – all the more- how out of touch with reality the “west” is. It talks about how Joe Biden warns Xi Jinping about economic consequences of China’s alliance with Russia. Thing is, that ship has long sailed. And Xi, even if he would have wanted to -there are no signs of that-, cannot turn it around, It has gained “momentum”.

And it’s “Joe Biden”s own doing. Xi and Putin would have happily continued using the USD in their international trade. But the sanctions made that impossible. And then it took off. From BRICS(+) to SCO to INSTC, various groups that had been formed, now found a reason to exist and flourish. And there’s nothing Xi can do to stop that process, even if he would want to. it’s bigger than him, and China. But even then, why would he?

• Biden Told China’s Xi To ‘Be Careful’ After Putin Meeting

US President Joe Biden called on his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping ‘to be careful’ after Xi visited Moscow back in March, the American leader has told CNN. In extracts from the interview released on Saturday, Biden said he had highlighted what he called the Asian giant’s dependence on European and US investments.“I said: This is not a threat. This is an observation,” Biden told CNN. “Since Russia went into Ukraine, 600 American corporations have pulled out of Russia. And you have told me that your economy depends on investment from Europe and the United States. And be careful. Be careful,” he added.

Following their Moscow talks, Putin and Xi signed documents on deepening the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership and economic cooperation. Both governments emphasized their readiness to work towards a trade volume of $200 billion or higher, with national currencies increasingly being used in a bid to de-dollarize trade. The conflict in Ukraine was discussed during the Moscow visit as well, with China maintaining its neutral position. Beijing has repeatedly criticized the West’s “abuse” of unilateral economic sanctions and has made efforts toward a peaceful resolution in Ukraine, proposing a twelve-point peace plan. In May, a Chinese special envoy visited several countries, including Russia and Ukraine, in an effort to broker an end to the conflict.

Biden’s CNN interview comes as US relations with China are far from calm, with Taiwan and security concerns in the Asia-Pacific region among the key issues exacerbating strained ties. President Biden himself provoked a diplomatic incident in June, when he called his Chinese counterpart a “dictator” during a speech. While the US president dismissed concerns that his comment could hinder efforts to improve relations, the Chinese embassy issued a formal protest in response, and foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning denounced the remark as an “open political provocation.”

It makes no difference anymore what Biden, or any American/western person says. The sanctions have introduced the rest of the world to a feeling, a system, of freedom. And not even Xi can halt that. He could hinder it a bit, sure, but why would he? If the “global globe” can’t use the yuan in trade, they’ll switch to the rupee, which India has loudly announced as being ready for the role. Or the new gold backed currency BRICS/SCO is touting.

Whichever choice they arrive upon, Biden threatening Xi can only backfire. China already has a huge part of the world population, BRICS/SCO is much bigger than that, in many ways. And they sense/smell freedom. Xi would be crazy to move against that. And why would he? Because Biden threatens to take away some exports from him?

Xi doesn’t need the US or EU. He knows that because the “collective west’s” anti-Russia sanctions have only made Russia stronger. And the “collective west” is incapable of beating Russia on the battlefield. So what does Xi have to fear?

We live in a new world, a greatly changed one. The last place where you would find out about that is the west, where we live. Where all media and politicians carry on as if nothing has changed. We can’t know the truth about Trump, or about Covid, or about Ukraine, and now we can’t know how our position has changed in global power politics. They want us to believe we’re still no. 1. Well, they are not, and we are not. Get used to it. Get used to being one power in a world with multiple powers. Multipolar.

We cannot fight the global momentum we ourselves unleashed.

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 17 2023

Jun 172023
 
 June 17, 2023  Posted by at 8:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  59 Responses »


Paul Klee Sicilian Landscape1924

 

• Putin Predicts Fate Of F-16 In Ukraine (RT)
• Kiev ‘Facing Tough Resistance’ From Russian Troops – Zelensky (RT)
• Putin: Kiev Has Lost 186 Tanks, 418 Armored Vehicles, Losses Mounting (Sp.)
• Orban Claims Only Trump Can Stop Ukraine Conflict (Sp.)
• Zelensky ‘A Disgrace To The Jewish People’ – Putin (RT)
• The World Will Be Different When The Ukraine Conflict Ends – Lavrov (RT)
• Russia’s New Roadmap for Multipolar World (Pepe Escobar)
• Anglo-Saxons Control Collective West – Lavrov (RT)
• Poland Covets Western Ukraine – Putin (RT)
• Zelensky Offers Zero Flexibility To African Leaders (RT)
• Some Peace Proposals On Ukraine Have Ideas That Could Work – Zakharova (TASS)
• Putin and What Really Matters in the Chessboard (Escobar)
• China’s Xi Jinping Welcomes ‘Old Friend’ Bill Gates in Beijing (Sp.)
• Germany Has No More Money For EU – Finance Minister (RT)
• Unprecedented Funding Crisis: UN To Cut Food Aid For 2.5 Million In Syria (MEE)

 

 


RIP Daniel Ellsberg

 

 

Ellsberg
https://twitter.com/i/status/1669804346668720128

 

 

 

 

 

 

Milley

 

 

 

 

The F-16s will have to be stationed in Germany and Poland. And Russia will not wait till they show up in Ukraine airspace. Dangerous development.

“In case Kiev gets some F-16s and stations them at bases outside Ukraine, “we will need to look at how and where we can hit those assets..”

• Putin Predicts Fate Of F-16 In Ukraine (RT)

Any F-16 fighters the West sends to Kiev will be destroyed just like the tanks they have already delivered, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. In case they are based outside of Ukraine, that may lead to open war with NATO, he added. Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Putin described how the much-heralded Ukrainian offensive, using Western heavy equipment delivered for the purpose, was actually going. “Tanks are burning. Among them are the Leopards. They burn. So will the F-16s. There is no doubt,”the Russian president said.

Kiev has repeatedly demanded F-16s from the US and its allies. Ukrainian pilots are already being trained on the fourth-generation jets, though none have yet been delivered. The US-made fighter requires very specific airfield conditions, however, which Ukraine may not be able to provide. In case Kiev gets some F-16s and stations them at bases outside Ukraine, “we will need to look at how and where we can hit those assets used in combat operations against us,” Putin said at SPIEF. “This is a serious danger of further dragging NATO into this armed conflict.”

Moscow has repeatedly warned NATO that sending weapons to Kiev only prolongs the conflict and risks open confrontation. The US and its allies insist they are not a party to the hostilities, but only supplying Ukraine with money, weapons, ammunition, equipment, intelligence and advice in order to “defeat Russia.” Though the F-16s do not pose a serious challenge to the Russian air force, Moscow has raised concerns with the UN Security Council over their possible deployment because the planes are capable of carrying tactical nuclear bombs. Earlier this month, one influential US think-tank advocated giving such weapons to Ukraine.

Read more …

aka we’re getting butchered.

• Kiev ‘Facing Tough Resistance’ From Russian Troops – Zelensky (RT)

Russian troops are responding fiercely to Ukrainian attempts to break through their defenses amid Kiev’s long-anticipated counteroffensive, President Vladimir Zelensky admitted in an interview aired on Thursday. Speaking to NBC News, the Ukrainian leader said Ukrainian troops “are facing very tough resistance” and claimed that “for Russia to lose this campaign to Ukraine… actually means losing the war.” Despite the apparent difficulties, Zelensky attempted to put an optimistic spin on the battlefield situation, describing the news from the front line as “generally positive, but it’s very difficult.” The Ukrainian president also reiterated calls for supplies of F-16 fighter jets to Kiev, arguing that deliveries are being hindered by bureaucracy.

“We are losing time, we are losing people, and, the most important thing, we are losing our advantage,” Zelensky said, insisting that without Ukraine being given modern Western aircraft, “Russia is controlling the air.” Zelensky’s remarks came as the Washington Post cited officials in Kiev as saying that Ukraine was reluctant to delay its attacks on Russia. According to the outlet, Ukraine wants to demonstrate real battlefield progress before the winter, in order to assure its Western backers that it can prevail. However, the Post’s sources warned that offensive action would result in heavy losses in personnel and equipment, which they claimed would be exacerbated by the lack of Western-made jets and long-range artillery needed to attack Russian targets far from the front line.

Ukrainian forces launched a large-scale offensive on June 4, repeatedly attempting to breach Russian lines in several sections of the front. Their efforts have been to no avail, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. On Wednesday, Moscow estimated Ukrainian frontline losses to be 7,500 soldiers killed or wounded since the start of the offensive. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin also claimed that Ukraine was “taking heavy casualties,” which he said were greater than Russia’s by a factor of ten. He claimed that Kiev had failed to gain any ground and had lost up to 30% of its Western-supplied equipment.

Read more …

Tough Resistance. How tough?

• Putin: Kiev Has Lost 186 Tanks, 418 Armored Vehicles, Losses Mounting (Sp.)

Ukrainian forces launched a long-awaited counteroffensive earlier this month after stocking up on NATO weapons, including Leopard heavy tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. The offensive has stalled after running into well-prepared Russian defensive lines, with even Kiev’s Western backers expressing concerns about Ukraine’s heavy losses. Ukraine has failed to reach any strategic objectives amid its ongoing counteroffensive, losing 186 tanks and 418 armored vehicles to date as losses continue to mount, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. “In some places Ukrainian forces manage to reach the first line of defense, in some places not. That’s not the question,” Putin said, speaking to reporters during the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.

“The question revolves around the fact that they are using their so-called strategic reserves, which consist of several components. The first is meant to be used to break [Russian] defenses, the second to use forces to entrench their foothold over territory. They have not reached their goals at a single section of the front. This is what is important,” he said. “Their losses are indeed very large, even more than ten to one compared to the Russian army. This is a fact. In terms of equipment, losses are mounting daily. As of today, this includes 186 tanks lost and 418 armored vehicles of various classes,” Putin said. Russia’s defense enterprises are working round-the-clock to supply the military with weapons, working double or even triple shifts, Putin said. “We have increased the output of military production by 2.7 times, and when it comes to the most needed equipment – by 10 times.”

As for Ukrainian forces, Putin predicted that “soon they will stop using its own equipment” entirely because it’s being systematically destroyed. “Everything they’re using to do battle, and everything they’re using is coming from abroad. One can’t fight that way for long,” he said. Putin also once again took the opportunity to delve into the root causes of the present crisis, saying “the war in Ukraine, in southeastern Ukraine, was started by the Kiev regime with the support of their Western sponsors in 2014. But everyone in the West tries not to speak about this. I am forced to remind them that aviation, tanks, artillery were used used against the Donbass [back then]. What is this if not a war?”

Kiev “refused” to entertain an end to the Donbass crisis using peaceful means, Putin said, “forcing us to use our armed forces to attempt to put an end to this war.” It wasn’t Russia that led its Western partners “by the nose” between 2015 and 2022 by signing the Minsk peace deal for Donbass, “without any plans to implement it, as they publicly admitted recently,” he added, referring to recent revelations by the former Ukrainian, German and French leaders that they only signed the Minsk deal to give Kiev time to rearm and prepare for war with Russia.

Read more …

“..Hungary is interested in seeing a supporter of peace as the head of the United States..”

• Orban Claims Only Trump Can Stop Ukraine Conflict (Sp.)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban once again voiced his support for Donald Trump on Friday and argued that only the former US president could stop the conflict in Ukraine. “If there is a person in the Western world who can stop this war and make peace, it is former US President Donald Trump, and Hungary is interested in seeing a supporter of peace as the head of the United States,” Orban said on Kossuth Radio After the conflict, “the truth will remain with the supporters of a peace settlement,” including Hungary, whose position has “moral righteousness,” the Hungarian prime minister added.


Trump has claimed on numerous occasions that had he been the US president he would have settled the conflict in Ukraine within 24 hours. Ukraine’s Western donors have repeatedly called on Russia to hold peace talks, while Ukraine has enshrined its refusal to negotiate in law. Moscow said it would be open to peace talks as long as Ukraine recognizes the territorial changes that have taken place in the course of the conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace plan, on the other hand, insists on the restoration of Ukraine’s full territorial integrity.

Read more …

“..the current Ukrainian authorities openly celebrate Nazi figures, most notably supporters of Stepan Bandera..”

• Zelensky ‘A Disgrace To The Jewish People’ – Putin (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky brings shame on the entire Jewish people, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, pointing to Kiev’s turning a blind eye to neo-Nazi ideology. Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), the Russian leader was asked to comment on the criticism of Russia’s stated goal to “denazify” Ukraine, with Western experts arguing that such an aspiration is ridiculous because Zelensky himself is Jewish. Putin responded by saying that his friends in the Jewish community do not share this view. “They say that Zelensky is not a Jew, he is a disgrace to the Jewish people. I’m not joking, this is not irony,” Putin said. He pointed to the fact that the current Ukrainian authorities openly celebrate Nazi figures, most notably supporters of Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the Third Reich during World War II.


The Russian leader recalled that out of six million Jews killed during the Holocaust, 1.5 million were from Ukraine, with Ukrainian nationalists being heavily involved in mass executions. However, nobody wants to hear about Bandera being an anti-Semite, because Zelensky himself is a Jew, Putin said. “But with his actions, he provides cover for this scum,” the Russian leader said. On Tuesday, Putin blasted Kiev’s decision to remove Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin – who he says basically founded Ukraine – from public squares and replace him with Bandera, whom he referred to as “a scoundrel and a fascist.” At the time, he said he was “surprised” by the move, pointing to Zelensky’s Jewish roots.

Read more …

“..autonomy and independence of any structures on the global arena that are related to the West are becoming the main trend today.”

• The World Will Be Different When The Ukraine Conflict Ends – Lavrov (RT)

By the time the conflict in Ukraine is resolved, Kiev will respect the loss of its former territories, and Western-led globalization will be dead, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told RT Arabic on Friday. Speaking on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Lavrov described the West’s proxy war with Russia as “a geopolitical conflict,” in which the US was attempting to eliminate a powerful competitor and “preserve its hegemonic position by all means.” “The attempt is futile, and we all know this,” Lavrov stated, adding that Ukraine and its backers will be forced to accept new “concrete realities” before a ceasefire is reached.

Firstly, Kiev must accept that any potential peace agreement will need to take into account the loss of the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye Regions, which voted to join the Russian Federation last year. Before sending its military into Ukraine, Moscow offered more generous terms, and Lavrov warned on Friday that “the longer they put off talks, the more difficult it will be for them to reach an agreement with us.” Ukraine and its European backers have admitted that the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements – under which Kiev promised to grant limited autonomy to Donetsk and Lugansk – were a ruse to buy Ukraine time to prepare for war with Russia. This situation will never be repeated, Lavrov told RT. “We won’t be prepared to let security guarantees be based on more pledges and promises or even documents the West may offer us,” he said. “We must guarantee our national security on our own.”

“We fully understand that we can only rely on ourselves and build relations only with countries open to an equal and mutually beneficial partnership,” Lavrov continued. “This is not what we see in the West these days.” Lastly, Lavrov declared the era in which the US and its allies control the institutions of globalization – primarily development banks and multilateral organizations – will come to a close. Aside from hosting the SPIEF, which drew thousands of delegations from more than 100 countries this week, Russia plays a leading role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Greater Eurasian Partnership, as well as the expanding BRICS group. “Today, there is an understanding that growth processes need to be regionalized and this vision prevails,” Lavrov said. “All the countries of this vast continent should use their God- and nature-given advantages to develop mutually beneficial logistic, financial, and transport chains.”

The foreign minister added that Russia would “leave all doors open” for partnership with European countries who realize that their interests are better served by cooperation with Russia rather than by playing Washignton’s “ideological and geopolitical games.” “The world will be different,”Russia’s top diplomat concluded. “And the processes we see unfolding today were whipped up by the West’s response to Russia’s Special Military Operation, when we accepted the challenge that they flung at us. These processes clearly show that autonomy and independence of any structures on the global arena that are related to the West are becoming the main trend today.”

Read more …

“The West chooses itself as the only subject. It holds a system of values deemed to be universal – that everybody else must follow.”

• Russia’s New Roadmap for Multipolar World (Pepe Escobar)

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is not only the premier platform for discussing everything that matters in business and geoeconomics concerning Russia and the wider Eurasia. It’s a privileged space where trends of the past, present and future are explored in detail: a microcosm of multipolarity at work. The business program is usually an intellectual feast. It’s impossible to convey its breadth and reach in only a few lines, not to mention the exhilarating atmosphere of jumping from room to room in search of the perfect expose. What follows could be regarded as a sort of incomplete Greatest Hits of the Thursday, June 15 sessions – packing enough punch to drive multipolarity-heavy debates for weeks if not months ahead.

The heavyweight-laden panel How The Russian Economy Will Develop featured Governor of the Russian Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina, Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov and top Putin aide Maksim Oreshkin. The unflappable Nabiullina stressed now “inter-operability” will help “the Russian paying system to be integrated in the global system”. She remains in favor of “selected privatization”, keeping “confidence in capital markets”, and low inflation. Siluanov was keen on the “need to change the paradigm”; the importance of the State creating demand; and the need to reduce subsidies. Macro-stability is important – “but we should not overdo it.” Oreshkin agrees: the government should get rid of assets “it does not really need”. A De-Dollarization panel debated the plausibility of transitioning from the US dollar towards a “fundamentally new supranational currency, overseen by a broad consortium of states operating on principles of partnership”. That’s essentially what’s being discussed at the heart of both the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and BRICS.

The future of Russia was at the center of the Horizon 2040 debate. Andrey Bezrukov, president of the Technological Sovereignty Exports Association and a professor at MGIMO, stressed how in 2024 Russia holds the chairmanship of BRICS: it’s time, right now, to “turn it not only into an alliance of equal partners but also a financial, technological and economic force.” Alexander Dugin engaged in a stunning presentation, explaining paths towards development in parallel to how Russians should understand identity. That led to an inevitable critique of ethnocentrism: “The West chooses itself as the only subject. It holds a system of values deemed to be universal – that everybody else must follow.” That’s “the West as the whole of humankind”, coupled with a drive to “de-subjectify the rest. The global subjectivity of the West is built in”. Dugin described it as “a virus”, developed “over centuries.”

Integration in the Global West, according to Dugin, “leaves Russia without a future.” Rather, Russia should declare the West to be “one force among several. Not an existential threat.” Russia can “proclaim itself as a sovereign state. Exercise a “mental de-colonization of society.” That’s how a “civilization-state that defines its own goals” should act. Showing a diagram in three steps, “between red and lilac”, Dugin illustrated how Russia can perform the transition from “understanding itself in the Western world” towards “sovereign development.”

Read more …

“..saying that Western values are being protected in Ukraine is the same as saying that Nazism is your mode of existence..”

• Anglo-Saxons Control Collective West – Lavrov (RT)

London and Washington run the show in the “rules-based world order,” trying to dictate policy to their own allies as well as countries outside the West, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told RT on Friday. Russia fully understands that building relations with other countries needs to be based on mutual benefits and equal partnerships, Lavrov said in an interview with RT at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). “This is not what we see in the West these days. The Anglo-Saxons are basically running the show, controlling the rest of the collective West. They are using the current situation, which they created through Ukraine – this war against Russia – to remove competition,” Lavrov elaborated.

“They see us as a competitor, they see China as a competitor. Their doctrinal documents clearly state that. But they are also removing their competition in continental Europe. It’s obvious. The economic and social processes in Germany are grim. Other countries are not much better off,” the Russian foreign minister added. The only Western state benefiting from the current situation is the US, Lavrov said, “and the UK is always somewhere around, helping America reach its selfish goals.” According to Lavrov, the “Anglo-Saxons and their allies” are currently trying to pressure countries around the world to side with them against Russia, including the Arab world, using methods he can only describe as “rude.”

“You see, when they talk about these ‘rules’ on which the international order must be based, what they really mean is their diktat,” Lavrov told RT. “Colonial instincts – live at the expense of others. Nothing else.” Lavrov took particular exception to Western proclamations that their support for Kiev is “defending democracy” and that Ukraine is fighting for “Western values” in the conflict with Russia. “First of all, if they really see it that way, I cannot but be convinced that they are holding on to Nazi views. Because saying that Western values are being protected in Ukraine is the same as saying that Nazism is your mode of existence,” the diplomat told RT. As for democracy, he added, “they only speak about democracy when they teach others how to live,” but not when it comes to respecting the sovereign equality of other states, per the UN Charter.

Read more …

“..Warsaw is considering submitting restitution demands to Kiev for the 1943 Volhynia massacres, which saw over 100,000 Poles killed..”

• Poland Covets Western Ukraine – Putin (RT)

Poland has its own ambitions in the Ukraine conflict and is seeking to claim parts of the country’s territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed during a discussion at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday. “The Poles have their own goals, they sleep and dream of seeing the return of western Ukraine, and, apparently, they are gradually moving towards this,” the Russian leader told participants of the forum, noting that Poland has still not forgotten the genocide of its people by Ukrainian ultranationalists during World War II. The president’s comments come after several Russian officials have suggested that Warsaw is secretly planning to annex parts of western Ukraine, primarily the so-called ‘Eastern Borderlands’, which were controlled by Poland between the two world wars and include four regions of modern Ukraine: Lviv, Volyn, Ivano-Frankovsk, and Ternopol.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy chairman of the National Security Council, claimed back in January that Poland’s decision to send Western main battle tanks to Ukraine was a secret ploy to partition the country. Last year, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, suggested that Polish President Andrzej Duda had already instructed the “relevant services” to come up with a justifiable basis to claim those territories. He also stated that he had received intelligence suggesting that Warsaw is considering submitting restitution demands to Kiev for the 1943 Volhynia massacres, which saw over 100,000 Poles killed by the Nazi-allied Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists led by Stepan Bandera. Kiev currently considers the Nazi collaborator a national hero.

Warsaw, however, has repeatedly denied claims that it plans to take over Ukrainian territory, dismissing it as a Russian disinformation operation. Nevertheless, Duda has expressed hope that a time will come when both Poland and Ukraine will live “together on this land, building and rebuilding our common happiness and common strength that will allow us to resist every danger.” In early March of 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky stated that “effectively, we no longer have a border with Poland, with a friendly Poland,” referring to how welcoming Warsaw had been to Ukrainian refugees.

Read more …

Remarkable: “According to Zelensky, Russia “deceived” the world for years with the Minsk process and is trying to do so again..”

• Zelensky Offers Zero Flexibility To African Leaders (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky brushed off the African Union peace initiative on Friday, insisting there can be no negotiations with Russia. The high-ranking delegation, led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, visited Kiev and is headed to Moscow next. “I have said clearly and many times during our meeting today that allowing any talks with Russia while the occupiers are still on our land means freezing the conflict, the pain and the suffering,” Zelensky said at the press conference afterward. According to Zelensky, Russia “deceived” the world for years with the Minsk process and is trying to do so again. For peace to happen, he argued, “Russian troops need to leave our entire independent territory.”

The Franco-German proposal Ukraine had agreed to in 2015 was supposed to bring peace in the Donbass, but former German chancellor Angela Merkel admitted last year that its true intent was to buy time for NATO to arm Ukraine. Former French president Francois Hollande has confirmed Merkel’s account. Russian President Vladimir Putin reacted with disappointment, saying he believed for years that Berlin and Paris had been sincere. Zelensky also told reporters that Ukraine was greatly helping African nations with food security and setting up “grain hubs” on the continent “with our partners,” accusing Russia of using hunger and social instability as a tool of political pressure. The grain Kiev exported under the terms of the Black Sea Initiative, however, has mostly gone to the EU and ended up as animal feed.

Meanwhile, the UN has failed to unblock the export of Russian food and fertilizer to Africa, which used to account for a far greater share of the continent’s needs. The African Union mission got off to an inauspicious start in Warsaw, when Polish authorities held up Ramaphosa’s security detail. While in Kiev on Friday, the visitors were reportedly told to take shelter from incoming “Russian missiles.” Ukrainian authorities later claimed to have shot down six Russian hypersonic rockets. “There’s obviously some deliberate misinformation being spread here,” Ramaphosa’s spokesman Vincent Magwenya later told South African media, adding that the delegation didn’t hear any explosions or see anything out of the ordinary.

Zelensky has previously turned down the Vatican’s offer to mediate a ceasefire as well, telling the papal envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi earlier this month that he would only accept the terms of his own Ukrainian “peace formula.” The list of ten demands includes Russia’s withdrawal from all territories Kiev claims as its own, payment of reparations, war crimes trials and NATO membership for Ukraine. Moscow has dismissed it as delusional and said that any peace talks will be with Zelensky’s “masters” in the West, rather than their puppet.

Read more …

“They [Washington] also humiliate and cause problems for the European Union as much as they can while considering them [EU] as reliable partners, allies and dear friends..”

• Some Peace Proposals On Ukraine Have Ideas That Could Work – Zakharova (TASS)

Peace initiatives on the Ukrainian conflict settlement proposed by various countries contain ideas that could work, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an interview with TASS. Asked by a TASS correspondent at the 2023 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) whether there were viable ideas in the peaceful settlement plans proposed by other countries, Zakharova replied “of course there are.” “I reiterate that we are thankful to every country, every state or every public figure – because many initiatives were personally proposed by prominent figures, internationalists; we are grateful to everyone, who speaks about peace, who speaks about [peaceful] settlement and, who wants to be useful regarding this issue,” she said.

“There are interesting ideas, which may work. There are ideas that are in sync with our approaches, and, for instance, it includes the Chinese initiative,” she continued. Zakharova stressed that the main problem is that such initiatives are being blocked “by the Kiev regime, which banned itself” from holding any negotiations with Russia. “All of it was blocked by [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky, because this concept was laid out by Washington. Washington pursues the concept of ‘kill as many Russians as possible.’ This concept was voiced by prominent representatives of the US political establishment including [ex-US President] George Bush Jr and Senator [Lindsey] Graham,” Zakharova said. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman added that that Washington adhered to the concept of utter domination in the world and strategic defeat of Russia.

“They used to speak about it and documented it as dismemberment. But now, they are somehow trying to publicly rewind it back – I mean previously voiced statements and concepts of US diplomats – as they now say that this is not dismemberment of Russia, but some kind of punishment for Russia,” she stated. “Although it may seem not to be important, they have shaped it up with a precise formulation,” Zakharova said. “This is why this issue is not about the essence of the proposed initiatives, but about the inability of Ukraine to move towards the peace because of the block set by political scientists from Washington. They [US political scientists] have a totally different view of Ukraine’s future,” she continued.

According to her, the United States has no interest in the flourishing and, moreover, independent Ukraine as they view this country as a tool of influence upon Russia and the region on the whole.”Therefore, we see its relevant projection on China and the European Union,” she continued. “It’s because Russia is not the final aim at all for Washington in this game. Their aim is definitely China, and they [Washington] go insane over their [Chinese] rate of their economic growth, with their technological development, with their independent course, with their capabilities, with their determination, with their inked partnership with other countries,” Zakharova said. “They [Washington] also humiliate and cause problems for the European Union as much as they can while considering them [EU] as reliable partners, allies and dear friends,” Zakharova added.

Read more …

“Putin clearly sees how the chessboard has been laid out. And he also sees how “Ukraine” does not even exist anymore..”

• Putin and What Really Matters in the Chessboard (Escobar)

It’s been a long way since Putin examined the chessboard in the early 2000s and then unleashed a crash missile program for defensive and offensive missiles. Over the next 23 years Russia developed hypersonic missiles, advanced ICBMs, and the most advanced defensive missiles on the planet. Russia won the missile race. Period. The Hegemon – obsessed by its own manufactured war against Islam – was completely blindsided and made no material missile advances in nearly two and a half decades. Now the “strategy” is to invent a Taiwan Question out of nothing, which is configuring the chessboard as the ante-chamber of no holds barred Hybrid War against Russia-China.

The proxy attack – via Kiev hyenas – against Russophone Donbass, egged on by the Straussian neocon psychos in charge of US foreign policy, murdered at least 14,000 men, women and children between 2014 to 2022. That was also an attack on China. The ultimate aim of this Divide and Rule gambit was to inflict defeat on China’s ally in the Heartland, so Beijing would be isolated. According to the neocon wet dream, all of the above would have enabled the Hegemon, once it had taken over Russia again as it did with Yeltsin, to blockade China from Russian natural resources using eleven US aircraft carrier task forces plus numerous submarines. Obviously military science-impaired neocons are oblivious to the fact that Russia is now the strongest military power on the planet.

In Ukraine, the neocons were hoping that a provocation would cause Moscow to deploy other secret weapons apart from hypersonic missiles, so Washington could better prepare for all-out war. All those elaborate plans may have miserably floundered. But a corollary remains: the Straussian neocons firmly believe they may instrumentalize a few million Europeans – who’s next? Poles? Estonians? Latvians? Lithuanians? And why not Germans? – as cannon fodder as the US did in WWI and WWII, fought over the bodies of Europeans (including Russians) sacrificed to the same old Mackinder Anglo-Saxon power grab.

Hordes of European 5th columnists make it so much easier to “trust” the US to protect them, while only a few with an IQ over room temperature have understood who really bombed Nord Stream 1 and 2, with the connivance of the Liver Sausage German Chancellor. The bottom line is that the Hegemon simply cannot accept a sovereign, self-sufficient Europe; only a dependent vassal, hostage to the seas that the US control. Putin clearly sees how the chessboard has been laid out. And he also sees how “Ukraine” does not even exist anymore. While no one was paying attention, last month the Kiev gang sold Ukraine to $8.5 trillion-worth BlackRock. Just like that. The deal was sealed between the Government of Ukraine and BlackRock’s VP Philipp Hildebrand.

They are setting up a Ukrainian Development Fund (UDF) for “reconstruction”, focused on energy, infrastructure, agriculture, industry and IT. All remaining valuable assets in what will be a rump Ukraine will be gobbled up by BlackRock: from Metinvest, DTEK (energy) and MJP (agriculture) to Naftogaz, Ukrainian Railways, Ukravtodor and Ukrenergo. What’s the point in going to Kiev then? High-grade toxic neoliberalism is already partying on the spot.

Read more …

Xi is interested in the WHO and its new lockdown plans. And Gates=WHO.

• China’s Xi Jinping Welcomes ‘Old Friend’ Bill Gates in Beijing (Sp.)

US billionaire Bill Gates met with China’s leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday. “On June 16, President Xi Jinping met the American Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation co-chairperson Bill Gates in Beijing,” Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported. “You are the first American friend I have met in Beijing this year. We have always placed our hopes on the American people, and hoped for continued friendship between the peoples of the two countries,” Xi reportedly told Gates. Gates was cited as saying he was “very honoured to have this chance to meet”. The Microsoft co-founder is believed to have last met with the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2015, on the sidelines of the Boao forum for Asia in Hainan province.


[..] The visit by Bill Gates to China comes against the backdrop of spriralling geopolitical tensions that have brought Washington-Beijing ties to one of their lowest points in decades. However, the world’s second-largest economy has been making efforts to attract foreign investors to reinvigorate the economy post-lockdowns. A flurry of stopovers have been made in China by tech bosses. Apple CEO Tim Cook was in the country to attend the China Development Forum.The CEO of CEO of JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank in terms of assets, Jamie Dimon, also recently went to China. Most recently, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk visited China, meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, and vowing that his electric carmaker would continue to expand operations in the world’s largest EV market.

At this point it is worth noting that the China visits feed into the rivalry between Gates and Musk. The owner of Twitter met in person with three senior government officials: China’s foreign, commerce and industry ministers, and reportedly conferred with Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang.” However, Bill Gates scored a major win over the South African-born American entrepreneur by wecuring a sit-down with the Chinese leader, Xi Jingping. “It is worth noting that on my recent trip to China I went to senior leadership there. I think we had some very productive discussions on artificial intelligence risks, and the need for some oversight or regulation,” Elon Musk said on Twitter Spaces on June 5.


The two tech gurus who have been vying for the role of the world’s richest man (according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Elon Musk recently regained the title, surpassing LVMH’s Bernard Arnault) have been recently verbally sparring on Twitter. Musk slammed the fellow billionaire for holding a short position on Tesla shares worth around $2 billion. After a series of viral exchanges, in an interview with a French YouTuber, Gates spoke of his record on climate change philanthropy and questioned the benefit of electric vehicles. In response, Musk tweeted, ‘Sigh.”

Read more …

But we stand with Ukraine…

• Germany Has No More Money For EU – Finance Minister (RT)

Germany cannot afford to pay more money into the EU budget, Finance Minister Christian Lindner told the newspaper Die Welt on Friday. Although Germany is the bloc’s largest contributor, it has been forced to make cutbacks as its economy contracts. “In view of the necessary cuts in our national budget, we are currently unable to make any additional contributions to the budget of the European Union,” Linder told reporters in Brussels, adding that other member states have come to the same realization. Lindner explained that the EU has maxed out its long-term budget through 2027, largely as a result of the bloc’s lavish aid packages to Ukraine.

According to the latest figures from Brussels, the EU has given Kiev €72 billion ($79 billion) in economic, military, and humanitarian aid since Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began last February. Despite this unprecedented outflow draining its coffers, the European Commission is reportedly readying an additional €72 billion financial aid package to keep the Ukrainian economy limping along to 2027. According to Lindner, the commission will release a report next week asking member states for more money to cover the bill. Germany is the EU’s largest net contributor, giving €21.4 billion ($23.4 billion) to the bloc’s budget in 2021. Its next-door neighbor, Poland, is the largest net drain on the budget, receiving €12.9 billion ($14.2 billion) in 2021.

Once regarded as Europe’s industrial powerhouse and the EU’s most resilient economy, Germany is currently experiencing deindustrialization as a consequence of its decision to cut itself off from cheap Russian gas and transition to more expensive green energy. The German economy fell into recession in the first three months of this year, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is planning to reveal around €20 billion ($21.8 billion) in budget cuts later this month. However, a vote on the budget may be delayed, as Scholz and Lindner’s coalition partners in the Green party argue for tax hikes instead of spending cuts.

Read more …

The west wants Syria to be off balance and suffer..

• Unprecedented Funding Crisis: UN To Cut Food Aid For 2.5 Million In Syria (MEE)

The UN has warned that due to an unprecedented funding crisis, it will be cutting food aid to at least 2.5 million Syrians. More than 5.5 million Syrians rely on the UN World Food Programme (WFP) for their basic food needs. The WFP is in the process of drawing up plans to prioritise the remaining three million Syrians who are unable to make it from one week to the next without food assistance. The UN body warned that if it continued to provide aid to all the 5.5 million people in need it would run out of food completely by October. “Instead of scaling up or even keeping pace with increasing needs, we’re facing the bleak scenario of taking assistance away from people, right when they need it the most,” said WFP Representative and Country Director in Syria, Kenn Crossley, in a statement. Finding hard cash for Syrians amid the war in Ukraine, a growing humanitarian crisis in Sudan, and a long-simmering one in Yemen might be difficult.


The amount of money needed to feed Syrians alone is staggering, with the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently pleading for more money. “We are asking for $11.1 billion, our largest appeal worldwide. We have no time to spare,” he warned. “There are nutritional supplies which are distributed exclusively by the WFP,” said Dr Mahmod Asaad, the nutritional officer at the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), speaking to Middle East Eye. If there is a reduction in support then “we should expect a high incidence of malnutrition from pregnant and lactating women and high rates of anaemia in women in general, which is currently 53 percent and is classified as phase five which is very critical or catastrophic. “High incidence of malnutrition in children and an increase in the incidence of children stunting, which currently reached 28.6 percent and is classified as phase four critical or severe,” he added.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Tesla

 

 

 

 

Eagle

 

 

Humming

 

 

extroverts vs introverts

 

 

 

 

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No Conspiracy: Left & Right Working Together

Apr 262023
 
 April 26, 2023  Posted by at 11:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  5 Responses »


Mark Chagall Peace window, UN 1967

 
 
 

Andrew Korybko:

 

The US’ Weaponization Of Anti-Russian Fake News Against Germany

The Washington Post (WaPo) pushed several conspiracy theories in their recent piece alleging that “Kremlin tries to build antiwar coalition in Germany, documents show”. Citing what they claim to be “a trove of sensitive Russian documents largely dated from July to November that were obtained by a European intelligence service”, WaPo reported that elements within Germany’s left-aligned Die Linke and its right-leaning AfD are cooperating due to some shadowy Kremlin plot.

All three parties denied this accusation, which builds upon Reuters’ similarly conspiratorial report from early January alleging that “Pro-Putin operatives in Germany work to turn Berlin against Ukraine”. Taken together, these two articles can be interpreted as part of a wider information warfare offensive aimed at discrediting the natural trend of political forces pragmatically putting aside their differences on specific issues in order to cooperate on shared ones like ending NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine.

Three Interconnected Conspiracy Theories

This development was first observed over the last decade, during which time three interconnected conspiracy theories were invented by those gatekeepers with a self-interested stake in perpetuating traditional partisan divisions. They claimed that this is all due to the mischievous work of Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who supposedly weaponized the so-called “horseshoe theory” in order to assemble what’s been smeared as the “red-brown alliance”.

The first-mentioned forms the basis of countless conspiracy theories due to the false claim that he’s “Putin’s brain”, which preconditioned targeted audiences to extend credence to the wildest claims about him and his work. The second concept, meanwhile, refers to the theory that the far left and far right are secretly aligned. As for the third, those previously mentioned gatekeepers throw this term around in order to discredit all instances of left-right cooperation as supposedly being due to Dugin’s meddling.

Unipolar Liberal-Globalism vs. Multipolar Conservative-Sovereigntism

In reality, the global systemic transition has shattered the previous polarization between the left and right by giving birth to two different diametrically opposed concepts: unipolar liberal-globalism (ULG) and multipolar conservative-sovereigntism (MCS). This analysis here explains the differences between them more at length, but the present piece will now summarize them for the reader’s convenience due to its relevance in debunking the conspiracy theories pushed by Reuters and WaPo.

ULG believe in the “hegemonic stability theory” (unipolarity), are against any restrictions on socio-cultural issues like the aggressive imposition of LGBT+ propaganda onto children (liberalism), and want to force everyone to follow their models (globalism). By contrast, MCS believe in decentralizing International Relations (multipolarity), restricting some socio-cultural issues like the aforesaid example (conservatism), and respect every society’s right to choose their own models (sovereigntism).

The Real Reason For Growing Left-Right Cooperation In Germany

The genuine left and right, and not those ULG gatekeepers who masquerade as either (but mostly as leftists), generally embrace MCS. Even if they differ on economic and socio-cultural issues, they’re united in opposing unipolarity and globalism since those two concepts represent an existential threat to their respective ideological interests. Accordingly, they’re increasingly cooperating on shared MCS interests such as bringing an end to NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine as soon as possible.

This explains the latest trend in Germany that Reuters and WaPo are trying to discredit through their tacit weaponization of those three earlier described interconnected conspiracy theories. Both US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets are ULG to the core, which is why they’re waging their information warfare campaign against Germans’ embrace of MCS, especially since its emerging manifestation there could have far-reaching strategic consequences if it fully matures.

The electoral rise of any MCS movement in that country could lead to them recalibrating its foreign policy in a much more strategically autonomous direction exactly of the sort that French President Macron regularly suggests and most recently talked about after his latest trip to China. The consequence of the EU’s de facto leader doing such a thing is that American hegemony over Europe would be immensely weakened if Germany finally began putting its own interests and the continent’s over the US’.

The Patriotic Motivations Driving The Latest Trend

By failing to do so over the past year, Chancellor Scholz and Foreign Minister Baerbock – both of whom are diehard ULG – inflicted crippling damage to their country’s economic model that was responsible for its astronomical rise in the first place. Germany no longer receives affordable energy from Russia, which in turn raises the costs of doing business in all respects, thus eroding its global competitiveness. Die Linke and the AfD are patriotic parties that keenly understand this, unlike the ruling ULG in berlin.

Elements within them are increasingly cooperating precisely because ending NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine holds the chance of reviving Germany’s prior energy cooperation with Russia and thus restoring its global economic competitiveness. Viewed from this perspective, their motivations are therefore purely patriotic and not due to any shadowy Kremlin plot or so-called “Duginist meddling”. The only people who push those conspiracy theories are ULG gatekeepers in the media and among the left.

Exposing The “Compatible Left”

Regarding the latter, the reader should be informed of the CIA’s decades-long attempt to manufacture a so-called “compatible left”, which is envisaged as doing the US’ bidding in a “plausibly deniable” way by serving as a “controlled opposition”. This mission has made enormous progress over the years and especially since 2016 after Trump’s election. “Sleeper cells” within the left awoke at that time and began actively allying their movements with the US Democrats, who are the standard-bearers of ULG.

This explains why the three interconnected conspiracy theories regarding “horseshoes”, the “red-brown alliance”, and “Duginism” all emerged from superficially leftist figures who are really bonafide ULG in disguise. They receive media approval and sometimes even tangible privileges like academic tenures and book deals from their ideological overlords for pushing Russophobia while simultaneously securing their status as faux leftist gatekeepers by manipulating the dogma of their movements’ members.

Debunking The “Compatible Left’s” McCarthyist Witch Hunt Narratives

To that second-mentioned end, they regularly carry out McCarthyist witch hunts against those genuine leftists who express any foreign policy views similar to those shared by someone who influential figures in their movement earlier smeared as “fascist”. Those gatekeepers “justify” these never-ending purges, which have the effect of pressuring people into self-censoring their views out of fear that they’ll become the next target of their toxic ad hominem attacks, on the basis of ensuring “ideological integrity”.

According to them, “no true leftist would ever have any idea in common with anyone who isn’t an official member of a (ULG gatekeeper-approved) leftist movement”, thus making those who do supposedly “fake leftists” at best or (“Duginist”) “fascist infiltrators” at worst. In reality, most traditional leftist movements (especially in the West) were hijacked by ULG “sleeper cells” after Trump’s election and turned into “compatible leftist” ones, thus dealing unprecedented damage to the genuinely leftist cause.

Germany Might Be Pioneering The Next Pan-Continental Political Trend

Elements within Die Linke realized this and are therefore doing their utmost to liberate the German left from US-controlled ULG for patriotic reasons related to ultimately restoring their country’s strategic autonomy after its current rulers crippled it by capitulating to America’s demands over the past year. For that to happen, however, they must pragmatically cooperate with likeminded MCS elements from movements like the AfD in order to eventually have a chance of changing Germany’s relevant policies.

This isn’t due to the “horseshoe theory”, which is discredited upon reconceptualizing the New Cold War’s ideological dichotomy as being between ULG and MCS instead of left and right like during the Old Cold War, nor is it attributable to the “red-brown alliance” and “Duginist” conspiracy theories either. It’s simple patriotic pragmatism that’s driving those two’s increasing cooperation on issues of shared interests, which is setting a powerful example that might soon be emulated all throughout Europe.

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle April 1 2023

Apr 012023
 
 April 1, 2023  Posted by at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Willem de Kooning Door to the river 1960

 

• The Capital of the Multipolar World: A Moscow Diary (Pepe Escobar)
• US Urges Americans To Leave Russia ‘Immediately’ (RT)
• Nebenzya: Without Russia the UN Will Lose Its Meaning (TASS)
• ICC’s Putin Arrest Warrant Based On US-funded Report That Debunked Itself (GZ)
• Europe Needs Russia To Survive – Lukashenko (RT)
• China’s Xi Is Right: Changes Not Seen For A Century (Lukyanov)
• From Iraq War To Arming Ukraine. Where Will This Lead? (Sushenstov)
• Comparing Beijing, Minsk Peace Plans In Ukraine Inappropriate – Kremlin (TASS)
• West Can’t Sweep Nord Stream Sabotage Under The Carpet – Diplomat (TASS)
• Russian Needs Major Effort In Bakhmut Despite Heavy Kiev Losses – Wagner (TASS)
• EU Underestimates Russian Economic Capacity – Orban (RT)
• Norway’s Wealth Fund Unable To Withdraw Funds From Russia (RT)
• ‘Peacekeepers’ Deployed To Ukraine Without Russia’s Consent – Medvedev (TASS)
• Did They Light Up a Cigarette Afterward? (Kunstler)
• Manhattan Assistant DA Nukes Twitter Account After Anti-Trump Bias Exposed (ZH)
• The Trump Indictment: Making History in the Worst Possible Way (Turley)
• Stirrings of Euro Eco-rebellion (Higgie)

 

 

 

 

Dowd

 

 

“Gates, the WHO, a ton of these universities: they’re all talking about including mRNA vaccinations as part of the food. They’re gonna modify the genes of these foods to make them mRNA vaccines,” warned attorney @TomRenz. Missouri HB 1169 seeks to counter such an effort. It’s been described as “one of the most controversial bills in history,” but all it is – is a labeling bill. If a food product is a gene therapy product, you have every right to know. So, if this bill gets passed, it’s a major victory not just for our well-being — but also for discovery, too.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1641990297142829056

 

 

 

 

Trump team
https://twitter.com/i/status/1641827495426113536

 

 

Tucker Trump

 

 

Beck
https://twitter.com/i/status/1641603632100524035

 

 

 

 

Ursula

 

 

Kneissl

 

 

 

 

 

 

Western media refuse to report on the major changes happening. How does that serve their audience?

• The Capital of the Multipolar World: A Moscow Diary (Pepe Escobar)

How sharp was good ol’ Lenin, prime modernist, when he mused, “there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”. This global nomad now addressing you has enjoyed the privilege of spending four astonishing weeks in Moscow at the heart of an historical crossroads – culminating with the Putin-Xi geopolitical game-changing summit at the Kremlin. [..] The initial gut feeling the day I arrived, after a seven-hour walk under snow flurries, was confirmed: this is the capital of the multipolar world. I saw it among the West Asians at the Valdai. I saw it talking to visiting Iranians, Turks and Chinese. I saw it when over 40 African delegations took over the whole area around the Duma – the day Xi arrived in town. I saw it throughout the reception across the Global South to what Xi and Putin are proposing to the overwhelming majority of the planet.

In Moscow you feel no crisis. No effects of sanctions. No unemployment. No homeless people in the streets. Minimal inflation. Import substitution in all areas, especially agriculture, has been a resounding success. Supermarkets have everything – and more – compared to the West. There’s an abundance of first-rate restaurants. You can buy a Bentley or a Loro Pianna cashmere coat you can’t even find in Italy. We laughed about it chatting with managers at the TSUM department store. At the BiblioGlobus bookstore, one of them told me, “We are the Resistance.”

By the way, I had the honor to deliver a talk on the war in Ukraine at the coolest bookshop in town, Bunker, mediated by my dear friend, immensely knowledgeable Dima Babich. A huge responsibility. Especially because Vladimir L. was in the audience. He’s Ukrainian, and spent 8 years, up to 2022, telling it like it really was to Russian radio, until he managed to leave – after being held at gunpoint – using an internal Ukrainian passport. Later we went to a Czech beer hall where he detailed his extraordinary story. In Moscow, their toxic ghosts are always lurking in the background. Yet one cannot but feel sorry for the psycho Straussian neocons and neoliberal-cons who now barely qualify as Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s puny orphans.

In the late 1990s, Brzezinski pontificated that, “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical center because its very existence as an independent state helps transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.” With or without a demilitarized and denazified Ukraine, Russia has already changed the narrative. This is not about becoming a Eurasian empire again. This is about leading the long, complex process of Eurasia integration – already in effect – in parallel to supporting true, sovereign independence across the Global South.

Read more …

This is hilarious. Blinken and Jean-Pierre tell everyone to “depart immediately”, and then “National Security Council spokesperson” Kirby “explained Washington was not actually calling upon all Americans to literally leave Russia and was not encouraging news outlets to withdraw their correspondents from the country.”

Leave, but not literally?! Do note Russia says they caught Gershkovich “red-handed”…

• US Urges Americans To Leave Russia ‘Immediately’ (RT)

Washington has called upon Americans who are traveling to or residing in Russia to leave the country “immediately” in the aftermath of the arrest of Wall Street Journal (WSJ) correspondent Evan Gershkovich. While Moscow said he was caught “red-handed” trying to obtain state secrets, the US has condemned the arrest as an assault on “press freedom.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “deeply concerned” about the development, adding that “in the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish journalists and civil society voices.”

“We reiterate our strong warnings about the danger posed to US citizens inside the Russian Federation. US citizens residing or traveling in Russia should depart immediately,” the top diplomat said in a statement. A similar message was conveyed by the White House, with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stating that the “targeting of American citizens by the Russian government is unacceptable.” “We also condemn the Russian government’s continued targeting and repression of journalists and freedom of the press,” she added, urging Americans to “heed the US government’s warning to not travel to Russia” or leave should they happen to already be in the country.

The call was somewhat watered down by US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, who explained Washington was not actually calling upon all Americans to literally leave Russia and was not encouraging news outlets to withdraw their correspondents from the country. Gershkovich, a WSJ correspondent who covers news from Russia, Ukraine, and the former USSR, was detained in the city of Ekaterinburg on suspicion of espionage, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced earlier in the day. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the journalist was caught “red-handed” while trying to obtain Russian state secrets.

Read more …

“Apparently, the collective West’s thinking is that children, in particular, orphans, are better left in the war zone.”

• Nebenzya: Without Russia the UN Will Lose Its Meaning (TASS)

Will the informal meeting of the UN Security Council on the “Arria formula” on children evacuated from the Ukrainian conflict zone touch upon the issue of their return, as you mentioned at the press conference? The “Arria formula” meeting is designed to bring to the international community first-hand information about evacuated children from the war zone in Donbass and Ukraine and dispel the false narrative spread by the Western media about the alleged “abductions” of children from Ukraine and attempts to “destroy their identity.” I would like to emphasize once again that we are talking about evacuation from the war zone in full compliance with the obligations under International Humanitarian Law, as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Apparently, the collective West’s thinking is that children, in particular, orphans, are better left in the war zone.

From the beginning of the special military operation to the present, millions of people have been evacuated in this way, including children, who in the overwhelming majority of cases arrived on the territory of Russia with their parents, guardians and trustees. Only a small number of evacuated children were in institutions for orphans and children left without parental care. Children who were pupils at institutions located within the administrative boundaries of the DPR and LPR at the time of recognition of their independence by the Russian Federation were transferred under guardianship. Great attention was paid to the placement of minors in the families of blood relatives living in Russia. The Westerners’ use of the term “adoption” in this context is deliberately misleading. In reality, we are talking about temporary preliminary guardianship or temporary guardianship.

The main goal is for children to be in families, not orphanages. This form was chosen specifically taking into account the potential reunification of minors with their blood relatives, if any are found. The Russian side does not prevent children from maintaining contact and communication with their relatives and friends, regardless of their place of residence. To simplify the reunification process, parents can seek help finding their child directly from the office of the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights. To this day, with the participation of the Commissioner for Children’s Rights, 15 children from 8 families have already been reunited with their relatives. We have held a number of meetings with representatives of the Regional Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, who also decided to facilitate the reunification of children with parents outside the Russian Federation and Ukraine (in Poland, Portugal and Norway), within the framework of the organization’s mandate.

Read more …

Jeremy Loffredo and Max Blumenthal for the Grayzone.

• ICC’s Putin Arrest Warrant Based On US-funded Report That Debunked Itself (GZ)

On March 17, the Prosecutor General of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, introduced an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Llova-Belova. The warrant, which accused Putin and Lolva-Belova of conducting the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children to a “network of camps” across the Russian Federation, inspired a wave of incendiary commentary in the West. US Sen. Lindsey Graham, perhaps the most aggressive cheerleader in Congress for war with Russia, proclaimed: “The ICC has an arrest warrant for Putin because he has organized the kidnapping of at least 16,000 Ukrainian children from their families and sent them to Russia. It is exactly what Hitler did in World War II.” CNN’s Fareed Zakaria echoed Graham, declaring the ICC warrant revealed that Putin “is in fact following parts of Hitler’s playbook.”

The ICC prosecutor appeared to have based his arrest warrant on research produced by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL). Yale HRL’s work was funded and guided by the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, an entity the Biden administration established in May 2022 to advance the prosecution of Russian officials. During an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Yale HRL’s executive director, Nathaniel Raymond, claimed his report provided proof that “thousands of children are in a hostage situation.” Invoking the Holocaust, Raymond asserted, “We are dealing with the largest network of children camps seen in the 21st century.”

Yet in an interview with Jeremy Loffredo, the co-author of this report, and in his own paper for Yale HRL, Raymond contradicted many of the bombastic claims he made to the media about child hostages. During a phone conversation with Loffredo, Raymond acknowledged that “a large amount” of the camps his team investigated were “primarily cultural education – like, I would say, teddy bear.” Yale HRL’s report similarly acknowledges that most of the camps it profiled provided free recreational programs for disadvantaged youth whose parents sought “to protect their children from ongoing fighting” and “ensure they had nutritious food of the sort unavailable where they live.” Nearly all of the campers returned home in a timely manner after attending with the consent of their parents, according to the paper. The State Department-funded report further concedes that it found “no documentation of child mistreatment.”

Yale HRL based its research entirely on Maxar satellite data, Telegram postings, and Russian media reports, relying on Google translate to interpret them and at times misrepresented the articles in its citations. The State Department-funded unit conceded that it performed no field research for its paper, stating that it “does not conduct ground-level investigations and therefore did not request access to the camps.” Unlike the Yale investigators who inspired the ICC’s arrest warrant, Loffredo gained unfettered access to a Russian government camp in Moscow that houses youth from the war-torn Donbas region. Though it is precisely the kind of center that Yale HRL – and by extension, the ICC – have portrayed as a “re-education camp” for Ukrainian child hostages, he found a hotel full of happy campers receiving free classical music lessons in their native Russian language from first-class instructors – a “teddy bear,” as Raymond called it.

At The Donbas Express music camp located just outside of Moscow, youth told Loffredo they were grateful to have found refuge from the Ukrainian army’s years-long campaign of shelling and besiegement of their homeland. By fleeing the war in Donbas, these children had escaped a nightmarish military conflict for which Yale HRL and the ICC have demonstrated little to no concern.

Read more …

The UN needs Russia, and Europe needs Russia.

• Europe Needs Russia To Survive – Lukashenko (RT)

The world is currently witnessing “the destruction of Europe,”Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told the national parliament in an annual address on Friday. The continent is losing its independence because Western nations are turning into US satellites, the Belarusian leader believes. Only uniting with Moscow could stop that, he said. “The policy of the European Union, both foreign and internal, has become totally subordinated to US interests,” Lukashenko said, as he accused European leaders of lacking the political will to make their nations truly independent in international affairs. According to Lukashenko, the US has long been pursuing a policy of economic suppression against the EU. The emergence of Europe’s own competitive currency, the euro, has prompted the US to start “suffocating” its “subjects,” he stated.

Washington is also using the ongoing conflict in Ukraine to “stall” Europe, the Belarusian president added. The only way out for Europe is to join forces with Russia, Lukashenko said. “Europe can survive only together with us, primarily with Russia,” he told the lawmakers. “If Russia and Europe unite, it will be a powerhouse no one can beat.” The statements were made as Russia unveiled its revised foreign policy concept. The document, which outlines the nation’s strategic priorities, called the “anti-Russian policy” of the US a major threat to international peace. At the same time, Moscow maintained that it did not consider Western nations to be adversaries and was ready for dialogue and cooperation on the basis of mutual respect.

The developments came amid the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in which the EU followed the US in supporting Kiev with both military and financial aid while slapping Moscow with unprecedented sanctions. The EU has also tried to get rid of Russian oil and gas imports, which has negatively impacted European nations that were previously heavily dependent on Russian energy imports, like Germany. Although the German government announced in January that the country would narrowly avoid a recession this year, credit ratings agency Fitch predicted earlier this month that the German economy would enter recession by late 2023.

Read more …

“We will take our cue from Xi, who sees the changes taking place as a sign of necessary renewal. And we will manage the costs somehow.”

• China’s Xi Is Right: Changes Not Seen For A Century (Lukyanov)

The second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first have been very comfortable times for the world as a whole. In terms of the overall geopolitical arrangement, we saw first a rather strong balance based on bipolar confrontation, then a relatively stable hegemony. But there has also been progress in the social and economic senses. Many positive changes took place after the Second World War. The welfare state model spread across most of Europe, and even the United States, with its more modest traditions in this sphere, made great strides. Similar changes also took place on the other side of the Iron Curtain, with a focus on improving living standards and consumer diversity added to the traditional priorities of defence. In the Third World, as colonial possessions were disappearing there was an enthusiasm for freedom and a belief in the future. Even if many of the new states carried little heft.

The end of the Cold War brought with it new expectations. The ‘free world’ enjoyed a ‘peace dividend’ (reduced military spending) and the opportunity to extend its economic expansion into previously closed areas. The former socialist countries took advantage of the opening up in every way they could and – at least for individuals – there were more opportunities than before. This was often to the detriment of state capacity, but it was believed that this was the general trend – the individual was more important. Eventually, the former Third World tried to take advantage of both. Many countries in Asia, for example, have benefited greatly from globalization. Meanwhile, a lot of people from states which have underachieved have chosen to move to wealthier locations.

Both periods had one thing in common – a widespread feeling that tomorrow would be better than yesterday. However, now, just like that, it’s over. At present, it’s commonplace to accuse political elites of unprofessionalism and bad governance. Without making excuses for individual politicians, the current generation – which grew up in these very favourable conditions – has had to deal with shifts of a tectonic nature. The exhaustion of the previous financial model of the capitalist economy, the communications revolution (one of the main results of which is the mental divide between the mature and the young), technological change with inevitable consequences for the labour market, an ageing population in the developed countries, and a rejuvenation in previously troubled states is creating a completely different international environment.

Moreover, the interconnectedness of the planet does not allow anyone to isolate themselves from the general instability, which spills over national borders in various forms. Moreover, as was the case a century ago, the growth of socio-political activism among the masses is leading to the radicalization of political groups. And with traditional parties and ideologies in deep crisis, radicalization can take quite archaic forms. We will take our cue from Xi, who sees the changes taking place as a sign of necessary renewal. And we will manage the costs somehow.

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“America at the Apex.”

• From Iraq War To Arming Ukraine. Where Will This Lead? (Sushenstov)

This year’s twentieth anniversary of the illegal Iraq invasion paradoxically coincided with major international events. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, was in Moscow on the day, while a Russia-Africa Parliamentary Forum opened at the same time. In 2003, at the height of its power, the US proclaimed its “unipolar moment” in which it would dominate unchallenged, needing no allies and tolerating no objections from adversaries. History, it was believed, had a single purpose, and they would stop at nothing to achieve it. Indeed, American military, political and economic dominance seemed total at the time, echoing the sentiments of Henry Kissinger, who a few years earlier had written that “America at the Apex.”

Twenty years later, we are witnessing the flowering of multi-polarity: in Moscow, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China talking to the Russian President, two countries contributing to a change the world has not seen in a hundred years. This transience of world history shows how quickly historical cycles change, but it is also important that the US itself, through its actions in different parts of the world, is accelerating its course. One of the most important strategic mistakes made by Washington was the invasion of Iraq. Based on a false pretext and deliberately misleading the international community, it led to a series of serious war crimes, a catastrophic civil war, the shattering of Iraqi statehood and significant repercussions for the entire Middle East.

Just a few years of American presence in Iraq resulted in huge numbers civilian deaths, indiscriminate use of force, and the destruction of several cities, including Mosul. During the evacuation of the Russian embassy during the 2003 US invasion, a convoy of diplomats came under US fire and several were injured. US private military contractors, who at one point had the same presence in the country as official troops, committed a number of war crimes. The abuse of prisoners by the US military at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad has been well documented. When the International Criminal Court raised the question of the responsibility of American citizens being charged over offenses in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US responded by saying that it would prosecute the judges who raised the issue and that they should withdraw their initiatives immediately. Arguably the greatest crime of the US in Iraq has been to create a civil war that has resulted in a terrible number of casualties with estimates ranging from 600,000 to one million.

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“..a number of provisions of China’s plan were unlikely to materialize right away, as Kiev was unable to disobey the West.”

• Comparing Beijing, Minsk Peace Plans In Ukraine Inappropriate – Kremlin (TASS)

It will be inappropriate to compare the two sets of ideas for a peace settlement in Ukraine, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Friday. “We believe it will be hardly appropriate to compare these two sets of ideas, I mean the plan that was voiced by [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] and the one that [Belarusian] President Alexander] Lukashenko has just mentioned,” the Kremlin spokesman said. He also noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin had discussed with Xi the plan proposed by China and some of its individual provisions. At the same time, according to Peskov, a number of provisions of China’s plan were unlikely to materialize right away, as Kiev was unable to disobey the West.

“The plan [peace plan proposed by China] has not been put on hold, but there are certain provisions that, so to say, cannot be implemented for now due to the inability of the Ukrainian side to disobey its patrons, its commanders,” Peskov said. “These commanders, as we know, are not in Kiev. They insist that the war should continue,” he added. On March 20-22, Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Moscow. Among other things he discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin China’s plan for a peace settlement in Ukraine. The Russian leader said afterwards that many of the provisions of that plan were in line with Russia’s own approaches and could be used as the basis for a peace settlement, when the West and Kiev were ready for it.

Earlier on Friday, Lukashenko, in his address to the people and parliament of Belarus, called for declaring truce in Ukraine “without the right to move and regroup troops on both sides and without the right to move weapons and ammunition, manpower and equipment.” Lukashenko explained that in such a situation, “if the West once again tries to use the pause to deceitfully strengthen its positions, Russia will be obliged to use the entire strength of its military-industrial complex and the army to prevent an escalation of the conflict.”

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Nebenzya comes to the front. Yet another erudite spokesman.

• West Can’t Sweep Nord Stream Sabotage Under The Carpet – Diplomat (TASS)

The West will not be able to “sweep under the carpet” the topic of sabotage on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said in an exclusive interview with TASS. Russia will take the chair of the UN Security Council in April. According to the diplomat, when voting on March 27 in the UN Security Council on a draft resolution on the establishment of an international commission to investigate the circumstances of sabotage, the United States and its allies “preferred to hide behind the “front” of convenient national investigations in Germany, Denmark and Sweden.” “The tactics of our Western colleagues do not surprise us – after all, as we once again became convinced from the recent investigation of the autoritative American journalist Seymour Hersh, all the evidence points to who is behind the explosions on the Nord Stream,” Nebenzya said.

“The behavior of the United States and Western countries during the discussion of this topic at the Council platform, including the eloquent silence of the American delegates in response to the reminder of the threats against the gas pipeline from the American leadership, only reinforces these suspicions. But unfortunately for their Western colleagues they will not be able to “sweep under the carpet” this topic. We will continue to strive to ensure that the true circumstances of what happened are established, and all those responsible are punished,” the diplomat stressed.

Nebenzya noted that during the discussion of this initiative, Russia’s representatives showed “the most flexible and responsible approach, and a balanced text was put to a vote, taking into account the concerns expressed by states.” “Its adoption was supported by such major players as China and Brazil. However, the United States and its allies, of course, did not come out in favor,” the diplomat stated. He noted that “investigations in Germany, Denmark and Sweden, whose objectivity is questionable” for Russia “given that the authorities of these countries, without any clear reason, refused to cooperate” with the Russian competent authorities.

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The fields are mud. Russia is not in a hurry.

• Russian Needs Major Effort In Bakhmut Despite Heavy Kiev Losses – Wagner (TASS)

The Ukrainian military is suffering serious casualties in Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine) but Russian troops still have to take enormous efforts in that area, Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military company, said on Friday. “No, the Ukrainian army is not fleeing anywhere. The Ukrainian army is engaged in bloody battles and is defending Artyomovsk at the expense of serious casualties,” the Wagner press office quoted Prigozhin as saying on its Telegram channel. “Another important aspect that should be mentioned is the need to hold the flanks,” he stressed. “Today we need to concentrate efforts in the city because this is an enormous amount of combat work to do. The flanks should not let us down and allied units should hold them,” Prigozhin said.

Russian forces “are moving forward and taking every building, every building entrance and every garage between buildings,” he said. “In Bakhmut, there are about 800 high-rise buildings. If we tell about each [building] entrance, you will be tired of hearing it. When we take Bakhmut, then we will talk about that,” the Wagner founder said. Artyomovsk is located on the Kiev-controlled part of the Donetsk People’s Republic and is a major transportation hub for the Ukrainian army’s supplies in Donbass. Fierce fighting for the city is underway.

Yan Gagin, military-political expert and adviser to the acting head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said on March 22 that the city had been practically sealed off by Russian forces and all approaches to Artyomovsk were under Russian artillery control. He earlier said that Russian forces controlled about 70% of the city. Acting DPR Head Denis Pushilin has repeatedly said that there is no evidence of the Ukrainian army’s plans to leave Artyomovsk. Meanwhile, Kiev claims that the city’s defense will be bolstered. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky earlier said that Ukrainian troops would not surrender Artyomovsk and would fight for it as long as they could.

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“Russia’s foreign trade grew by more than 8% last year, while inflation is expected at around 4% this year. This comes as “other Europeans” are trying “to convince everyone of the imminent collapse of the Russian economy..”

• EU Underestimates Russian Economic Capacity – Orban (RT)

Western countries are making a mistake by underestimating Russia’s ability to adapt to sanctions, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated on Friday. According to Orban, Moscow demonstrated it could adjust its economy to restrictions following the first wave of Western sanctions, introduced after Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine and to reunify with Russia. “I remember well that in 2015 we exported a lot of food products to Russia…In three years, Russia has built its agriculture and food industry to such an extent that if Hungary wanted to export food there today, it would either not work or be much more difficult than before the imposition of sanctions,” the politician told Kossuth Radio.

The Russian economy has shown its resilience to sanctions and “underestimating” the ability of a country as “huge” as Russia to adapt to restrictions is a “fatal mistake,” Orban added. The Hungarian premier is a vocal critic of the bloc’s approach to the conflict in Ukraine, and has repeatedly argued that sanctions are hurting the EU more than they hurt Russia. Earlier, Orban said that the punitive measures “were supposed to hit Russia, but hit Europe.” The anti-Russia measures have had a devastating impact on Budapest, by sending energy prices soaring and raising costs throughout the economy.

According to the prime minister, EU sanctions introduced against Russia over its military operation in Ukraine have cost Hungary’s economy €10 billion but have failed to stop the conflict. Meanwhile, Russia has survived the loss of Western markets and its economy is developing in a new way, with GDP expected to grow as soon as the second quarter of this year, President Vladimir Putin said earlier in March. Russia’s foreign trade grew by more than 8% last year, while inflation is expected at around 4% this year. This comes as “other Europeans” are trying “to convince everyone of the imminent collapse of the Russian economy,” even though EU inflation rates are higher, the Russian president noted.

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“..a wrapped gift to the oligarchs who buy our shares.”

• Norway’s Wealth Fund Unable To Withdraw Funds From Russia (RT)

Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund, one of the world’s largest investors, is still unable to divest its holdings in Russia as the custodian bank is under Western sanctions, the Norwegian Finance Ministry said on Friday. The Oslo-based Government Pension Fund is the world’s biggest owner of publicly traded companies with a portfolio of about 9,000 stocks. It has around 0.2% of its assets invested in Russia. “The market for trading in Russian financial instruments is still subject to comprehensive sanctions and has not been normalized as of March 2023,” the ministry said in a statement. The Nordic country’s authorities decided to sell Russian stocks right after the start of the military operation in Ukraine.

The fund held shares in 47 Russian companies and government bonds valued at 25 billion Norwegian crowns ($2.4 billion) at the end of 2021. However, at that time the fund’s management was resisting pressure to shed Russian assets, with CEO Nicolai Tangen saying it would be “a wrapped gift to the oligarchs who buy our shares.” Since then, Western nations have imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia which now prevent the Norwegian pension fund from divesting its assets. “The concrete and practical problem is that the custodian bank that we use is under sanctions, and can’t assist us with settlement of transactions, and neither with voting on shares” in Russian companies, deputy CEO, Trond Grande said in January.

The situation is “deadlocked” he noted, adding that “there is no way we can either sell or buy or vote on these shares.” Details of the fund’s portfolio at the end of 2022 released in January revealed a loss of about $2.8 billion from Russian holdings, compared to their value at the end of 2021. Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly warned that sanctions imposed on the country would backfire. Earlier this month, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Western nations would “suffer from their own restrictions” while being “disappointed” by Russia’s resilience.

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A pretty crazy plan, if you ask me. Do they really think Russia will let armed troops wander around?

• ‘Peacekeepers’ Deployed To Ukraine Without Russia’s Consent – Medvedev (TASS)

So-called peacekeepers, whose deployment to Ukraine under NATO auspices is currently being mooted in Europe, will be eliminated should any appear at the frontlines without Russia’s consent, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dimity Medvedev said on Friday. “It is obvious that such ‘peacekeepers’ are our unvarnished enemies, wolves in sheep’s clothing. They would be a legitimate target for our armed forces should they be deployed at the frontlines, without Russia’s consent, with weapons in hand and presenting a direct threat to us,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel. According to Medvedev, “those ‘peacekeepers’” must be destroyed mercilessly as they are the “soldiers of the enemy.”

“They will die in the course of combat,” the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council stated with confidence. “Is Europe prepared for a long line of coffins holding its ‘peacekeepers’?” he asked rhetorically. “Their (NATO member countries’ – TASS) true intentions are crystal clear – to impose a peace that is favorable to them on the line of contact from a position of strength and to station their ‘peacekeeping’ troops in Ukraine, who would be armed with assault rifles and riding on tanks, and would be wearing some sort of blue helmets with yellow stars,” the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council said.

Medvedev recalled that the potential results of such actions can be seen in the “history of operations conducted by the United States and its allies in various regions of the world, [including] the tragedies of Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and numerous African countries.” “It is clear that the so-called NATO peacekeepers are simply preparing to enter the conflict on the side of our enemies in order to make hay out of this, bringing the situation to the point of no return, and to unleash that World War III they claim to be so afraid of.”.

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“It’s a little early to assess the knock-on effects of the Left’s ecstatic Trumpgasm..”

• Did They Light Up a Cigarette Afterward? (Kunstler)

The New York Times enjoyed its long-delayed tantric Trumpgasm so much today that it rolled out the full-page banner headline format usually reserved for the commencement of world wars. (They took the banner down before seven o’clock this morning.) For many of the cat-ladies employed as “reporters” at the once-august paper, it was the first Trumpgasm they’ve ever experienced in a lifetime of emotional displacement, over-eating, and furious knitting of pink polyester hats for the crusade to root out patriarchal wickedness. This fulfillment of a years-long psychodrama, starring the feared and loathed occult persona of a gold-coiffed “Daddy” figure who once presided in the political household, came at the hands of dragon-slayer Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, archetype of the many long-oppressed victims worked to death in the bilges of our slave ship of state — now turned righteous Woke deliverer of cosmic vengeance!

This, of course, is brought to you by the party of hoaxes, flimflams, and mandated death shots, so it’s amusing here on the sidelines to see The Times’s op-ed writers squirm with post-coital pleasure underneath the full-page Trumpgasmic headline. The lead editorial declares: “Even Donald Trump Should Be Held Accountable”— overlooking the utter absence of accountability that has been the norm in every recent insult to the nation’s dignity from wholesale and repeat election fraud, to six years of lawless depravity in the FBI, to overt support of Antifa and BLM street havoc, to the forced, deceitful administration of deadly “vaccines.” “How a President’s Arrest Can Strengthen a Democracy,” honorary cat-lady Nicholas Kristoff opined, repeating the bad-faith trope that his legions of Wokery have an interest in political rectitude — when, in fact, they are solely preoccupied with coercing, censoring, cancelling, persecuting, punishing, and defenestrating anyone who objects to their grifts and hustles.

“Only love and a leap of faith can break through distrust. That is why a credible form of patriotism is so important right now,” explained The Times’s official Superintendent of Platitudes, David Brooks, to soothe consciences grated by this loutish gambit to shove a political adversary off the game board in advance of an election. “Joe Biden may not be your cup of tea,” Mr. Brooks summed up his civics lesson, “but he’s restored sanity, effectiveness and decency to the White House.” [..] It’s a little early to assess the knock-on effects of the Left’s ecstatic Trumpgasm. A common theme flying across the Web is that Alvin Bragg’s jerry-rigged case will only make a martyr of Mr. Trump, neatly illustrating and personifying the government’s apparent war against its own citizens — making it clear that they will stop at nothing and no one to enforce the corrupt bureaucracy’s will against the public — and that the net result will be to ensure Mr. Trump’s reelection in 2024.

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There are tons of Trump-haters in positions of power. A new one very day.

• Manhattan Assistant DA Nukes Twitter Account After Anti-Trump Bias Exposed (ZH)

Less than 24 hours after the Gateway Pundit exposed Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Meg Reiss’ public hatred of Donald Trump on Twitter, Reiss – who’s been accused of masterminding the case against the former president, locked and then deleted her account. As TGP documented Thursday morning, Reiss ‘liked’ several anti-Trump tweets, exposing her absolute bias against the man her office is about to indict over hush money paid to former adult actress Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford). Of note, Trump’s alleged payment to Daniels through former lawyer Michael Cohen would normally be a misdemeanor which falls outside the statute of limitations. Not for Bragg’s office. Not for Reiss. For comparison, Hillary Clinton was allowed to pay a fine to the FEC for actual election interference with the Steele Dossier hoax her campaign paid for and then boosted throughout the media.


As TGP further notes; The Institute for Innovation in Prosecution (IIP) which is a research center out of the Soros-funded John Jay College has tagged her dozens of times. Reiss served as the Executive Director for the IIP.” DA of Brooklyn Eric Gonzalez also tagged Reiss, who previously served in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office as the Chief of Social Justice, on several occasions too. Most of these tweets Reiss liked were while she served in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office as the Chief of Social Justice and as she served as the director of the IIP. However, her political bias extends into her time at the Manhattan DA’s office as well. Earlier in the year as she was serving as Manhattan’s Chief Assistant District Attorney she retweeted a video of Democrat representative Hakeem Jeffries giving a speech at the State of the Union. At one point during the video Reiss shared, Rep. Jeffries says Democrats will put “Maturity over Mar-a-Lago”.

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“Bragg ran on his pledge to bag Trump and Pomerantz ramped up the political base to demand an indictment for a crime. It really did not matter what that crime might be.”

• The Trump Indictment: Making History in the Worst Possible Way (Turley)

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has finally made history. He has indicted former President Donald Trump as part of an investigation, possibly for hush money payments. We are all waiting to see the text of the indictment to confirm the basis for this unprecedented act. But history in this case — and in this country — is not on Bragg’s side. The only crime that has been discussed in this case is an unprecedented attempt to revive a misdemeanor for falsifying business documents that expired years ago. If that is still the basis of Thursday’s indictment, Bragg could not have raised a weaker basis to prosecute a former president. If reports are accurate, he may attempt to “bootstrap” the misdemeanor into a felony (and longer statute of limitations) by alleging an effort to evade federal election charges.

While Trump will be the first former president indicted, he will not be the last if that is the standard for prosecution. It is still hard to believe that Bragg would primarily proceed on such a basis. There have been no other crimes discussed over months, but we will have to wait to read the indictment to confirm the grounds. What we do know is the checkered history leading to this moment. The Justice Department itself declined to prosecute the federal election claim against Trump. There was ample reason to decline. The Justice Department went down this road before and it did not go well. They tried to prosecute former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on stronger grounds (which I also criticized) and failed. In that case, campaign officials and donors were directly involved in covering up an affair that produced a child.

At the time, Edwards’ wife was suffering from cancer. The prosecution still collapsed. The reason is that you need to show the sole purpose for paying hush money in such a scandal. For any married man, let alone a celebrity, there are various reasons to want to bury a sexual scandal. For Trump, there was an upcoming election but he was also married man allegedly involved in an affair with a porn star. He was also a television celebrity who is subject to the standard “morals clause” that’s triggered by criminal conduct or conduct that brings “public disrepute, scandal, or embarrassment.” These clauses are written broadly to protect the news organizations and their “brand.”

Various presidents from Warren Harding to Bill Clinton have been involved in efforts to hush up affairs. They also had different reasons for burying such scandals, including politics. However, scandals are messy matters with a complex set of motivations. Showing that Trump only acted with the future election in mind — rather than his current marriage or television contracts — is implausible. That was likely the same calculus made by the Justice Department. That is also why the use of the “bootstrapping” theory as the primary charge would be an indictment of the prosecution and its own conduct. The office has already been tarnished by the conduct of the prosecutors who pushed this theory.

When Bragg initially balked at this theory and stopped the investigation, two prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, then resigned from the Manhattan DA’s office. Pomerantz then did something that some of us view as a highly unprofessional and improper act. He published a book on the case against Trump — a person who was still under investigation and not charged, let alone convicted, of any crime. It worked. Bragg ran on his pledge to bag Trump and Pomerantz ramped up the political base to demand an indictment for a crime. It really did not matter what that crime might be.

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Save the world by destroying society. Sounds like a plan.

• Stirrings of Euro Eco-rebellion (Higgie)

It’s not often that a development in north-western Tasmania looms large on the international stage. But a site near Burnie is set to be a key part of Germany’s resistance to Green pressure to abandon internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in favour of electric cars. Porsche is the driving force behind the A$1 billion investment in the HIF (Highly Innovative Fuels) plant now in development – one of three such e-fuel plants globally – as part of a move to mass production by 2026. E-fuel, not yet commercially available, is a combination of hydrogen with carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere which ICE vehicles can run on. While the use of e-fuel produces carbon emissions, these are offset according to producers by the CO2 sucked from the atmosphere to make the fuel. Germany’s car producers are touting ICE vehicles using e-fuel – with the price eventually expected to be around A$2 a litre – as an alternative to battery-powered cars.

Germany’s insistence that ICE vehicles can and must remain into the future has shown that even for its Green-Left government, economics can eventually trump environmental political correctness. The country remains by far Europe’s largest car producer and is the world’s largest car exporter by value, employing 800,000, 5 per cent of the workforce. Car production has in large part powered Germany’s modern economy and more than a little Teutonic pride is inspired by the fact that one of their own, Karl Benz, pioneered the first reliable petrol engine and commercial production of ICE vehicles. Torpedoing the EU plan to ban the sale of new ICE vehicles will allow car producers to continue using their existing products and infrastructure.

Germany’s position has thrown a spanner in the works of what the EU had proclaimed as a landmark step in its climate change activism. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government last year signed off on an EU commitment for all new vehicles sold from 2035 to have zero emissions. In February the European parliament, including representives of Germany’s coalition parties, passed legislation to that effect. To be confirmed as EU law, the measure needs to be approved by the European Council, the EU member-state leaders. But at the eleventh hour, the one non-Green-Left element in Germany’s ruling coalition, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), began echoing through its Porsche-driving transport minister, Volker Wissing, fierce objections of the country’s car producers to an all-electric vehicle future. The FDP has long been a strong backer of the car industry, including through its resistance to efforts by the other main parties to end Germany’s status as Europe’s only country without a general motorway speed limit. Despite objections from the Greens, Scholz has backed the FDP’s objections to the EU’s planned 2035 law.

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Latest photo of Julian Assange. Now I want to cry.

 

 


Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, Jimmy Durante and Buster Keaton in 1932.

 

 

Gervais

 

 

Burnt tree
https://twitter.com/i/status/1641750060965715969

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 24 2023

Jan 242023
 
 January 24, 2023  Posted by at 9:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  79 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884

 

• Russia and West On Verge Of ‘Real War’ – Lavrov (RT)
• War Between West, Russia No Longer Hybrid, But Real, Says Lavrov (TASS)
• Why the End of the American Empire Was Delayed (Batiushka)
• US Plans Threatened WWIII And Forced Moscow’s Hand – Medvedev (RT)
• Germany Rewrites History To Blame Russia For Its Own Bad Decisions (Marsden)
• Hungary To Oppose EU’s Anti-Russian Nuclear Sanctions – Foreign Minister (TASS)
• Italy’s New Foreign Policy And A Multipolar World Order (Papalia)
• Poland Considered Partitioning Ukraine – Former FM (RT)
• Wagner Founder Gives Explanation For US Hostility (RT)
• Meta/Facebook Takes Azov Regiment Off Its Dangerous Organizations List (EG)
• The 2024 Election and the “Get Out of Jail Free” Vote (Turley)
• Mar-A-Lago Raid Was Just Another Russia-Collusion Hoax (Fed.)
• FDA Panel To Consider Annual Covid-19 Vaccine Shots (Hill)
• Collapse Is Not An Event, But A Process (Ugo Bardi)
• Temperatures in Northern Hemisphere Due to Fall Over Next 25 Years (DS)
• Carbon Credits Are the Biggest Scam Since Indulgences (IM)

 

 

???? “To be published June 6 2023”.

 

 

Zelensky Addressing a Chambers of Commerce meeting in Boca Raton

 

 

 

 

Gonzalo F-16s

 

 

 

 

Wagenknecht
https://twitter.com/i/status/1617331636433035264

 

 

Shellenberger

 

 

 

 

EU Foreign Ministers will discuss the allocation of a new tranche of military aid to Ukraine from the “European Peace Fund” – Josep Borrell

 

 

Stating the obvious.

• Russia and West On Verge Of ‘Real War’ – Lavrov (RT)

The current situation in Ukraine shows that the conflict between Russia and the West can no longer be defined as a “hybrid war” but is instead approaching being a real one, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. Speaking at a press conference following a meeting with his South African counterpart, Naledi Pandor, Lavrov also noted that this “almost real” war was something that the West “has been preparing for a long time against Russia.” The minister claimed that Western powers are seeking to destroy everything Russian, from the language to the culture that had existed in Ukraine for centuries, and even forbid people from speaking their native language.

Lavrov went on to point out that such practices have become commonplace throughout Ukraine and that the country’s last two presidents, Pyotr Poroshenko and current leader Vladimir Zelensky, have both turned into “presidents of war” and “Russophobic leaders” after gaining power, despite running their presidential campaigns under the promise of establishing peace. The minister also recalled that Ukraine has adopted laws that prohibit using the Russian language in education, media, and even in everyday life. “And this is all supported by the West,” Lavrov said, adding that this support extends to neo-Nazi marches with swastikas and symbols of banned Nazi divisions being held across the country. He also accused the West of turning a blind eye to the fact that Kiev’s forces continue to deliberately choose targets and carry out attacks in such a way as to terrorize the civilian population.

“The West knows perfectly well that the Ukrainian regime deliberately bombs cities and towns using Western-supplied weapons,” the minister said. Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s position that it has not carried out attacks in Ukraine against civilian infrastructure, and that the damage to it is attributable to Kiev’s regular practice of deploying heavy weapons and air defense systems in residential areas. Despite the spiraling tensions, Lavrov noted that Moscow remains open to negotiations with Kiev, and warned that those who refuse talks should understand that the longer they are delayed, the harder it will be to find a solution. The minister also asked the Ukrainian government to explain, perhaps through a third party, how it sees the situation in the country playing out and the possibility of negotiations with Russia.

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Same issue, but different words.

• War Between West, Russia No Longer Hybrid, But Real, Says Lavrov (TASS)

What is going on in Ukraine is no longer a hybrid war, but a real war between the West and Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. “When we talk about what is going on in Ukraine, we are talking about the fact that this is no longer a hybrid war, but a real one, the West has been preparing for a long time against Russia, trying to destroy everything Russian: from language to culture, which has been in Ukraine for centuries, and forbidding people to speak their native language,” he said at a press conference following talks with South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor.


“In Ukraine, this is all common practice. Both the former president [of Ukraine, Pyotr] Poroshenko and the current one [Vladimir] Zelensky, who were elected under the slogan of establishing peace, immediately after being elected turned into war presidents, Russophobe presidents,” Lavrov said. The Russian top diplomat recalled that Ukraine has adopted laws that prohibit education in Russian, media in Russian, including such media in Ukraine, laws that even, in fact, prohibit the use of the Russian language in everyday life. “Any cultural contacts related to the Russian language are prohibited. And this is all supported by the West. Just like the West supports the regular marches of neo-Nazis with swastikas, with symbols of division which were banned by the Nuremberg Tribunal, recognized as criminal. The West supports all this,” Lavrov said.

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“..it never really grasped how completely underhand and perfidious the West is..”

• Why the End of the American Empire Was Delayed (Batiushka)

Why did President Putin and the Russian Federation as a whole allow the White House to take over Kiev and then most of the Donbass in 2014-2015? As a result, Russian forces have been faced since 2022 with the far worse task of liberating, demilitarising and denazifying the Ukraine. Worse still, because Washington has forced Kiev to reject any peace negotiations with Moscow and is sending the Ukraine much of what it has through its NATO proxies, Russian forces are faced with the even worse task of liberating, demilitarising and denazifying the whole of the US-run NATO. President Putin has himself admitted that he made a mistake in not acting in 2015. So why this delay in resistance and bringing about the collapse of the American Reich? There are three clear reasons:

1. In 2014-15 the Russian Federation was far too weak militarily, economically and politically to stand up to the bully of the Western world. A war of liberation initiated then could have ended up very badly for Russia, which had suffered greatly from Western ‘sanctions’ just for its liberation of the Crimea.

2. The Russian Federation government had too little support inside its Westernised self to resist. CIA assets, including treacherous followers of the Vlasovtsy (5), had infiltrated all its institutions, including even the Russian Orthodox Church. This was already clear in 1993 during the October Coup, Black October, in which probably thousands of Russian patriots were massacred by the pro-Western Yeltsin regime. Five years ago, I met a former US marine, who had been sent in 1993 to a base outside Moscow, together with 4,000 other marines, who had been instructed that they might be needed to put down an anti-American revolt in Moscow. (In the end, they were not). 4,000 US troops around Moscow in 1993 at the invitation of its drunken ruler? Yes. A fifth column of Russian Westernisers, pussy rioters, liberals, journalists, actors, musicians, oligarchs, politicians, educationalists? Yes. All Russian institutions infiltrated by traitors? Yes. Only in 2022 was the Russian Federation ready to resist the American bully. It had taken it until 2022 to get ready, and even then the traitors were there in abundance, though soon running away to Israel, Finland, Georgia and elsewhere (6).

3. Western readers should not underestimate the incredible naivety of Russians towards the West. The Russians did not think that the West would forbid Kiev to reject a peace agreement in March/April 2022, thus forcing Kiev and Western economies to commit suicide, like a spoilt child who hurts himself just in order to spite his parents. As a result the limited operation to free the Donbass had to be entirely rethought. Again, President Putin was quite recently shocked to learn that he had been lied to by the German Merkel and the French Hollande. He had been tricked into believing that the West was sincere and that it was actually going to implement the Minsk Accords to protect the Donbass. As those two Western leaders recently admitted, the Minsk accords had only been playing for time to allow the Kiev Army to prepare, dig in, arm, train and then invade. Western leaders are liars. Fact. The origin of this extraordinary Russian naivety seems to be because between 1917 and 1991 Russia was cut off from the West, it lived in a bubble, so that it never really grasped how completely underhand and perfidious the West is. I have been living in Western Europe for too long not to know it. Ten years ago a Muscovite put it to me very well: ‘We knew that the Communists were lieing to us about Communism. What we didn’t know is that they were telling us the truth about Capitalism’.

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..“serious crisis” at the UN and other international institutions, which were created to resolve international disputes but have been turned into a battlefield by the West instead.”

• US Plans Threatened WWIII And Forced Moscow’s Hand – Medvedev (RT)

The US and its allies almost ignited a third world war by preparing to attack Russia, which had no choice but to do something about it, former president Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday, addressing the leadership of the ruling United Russia party in Moscow. “Our party should help the people around the world understand that the ongoing special operation was a forced and last-resort response to preparations for aggression by the US and its satellites,” Medvedev said. “It is obvious that the world came close to the threat of WWIII because of what was happening,” he added. Medvedev also described a “serious crisis” at the UN and other international institutions, which were created to resolve international disputes but have been turned into a battlefield by the West instead.


“Our opponents are trying to enlist as many votes as possible in support of their anti-Russian initiatives, using underhanded means such as economic pressure, extortion and political bribery,” Medvedev said, adding that the main mission of Russian diplomacy remained countering this “cynical line” by the West. Medvedev was president of Russia between 2008 and 2012, when he became the chairman of the ruling party and prime minister. He stepped down as PM in 2020 to run the national security council. Though the West considered him a “liberal” during his presidency, Medvedev has been blunt and outspoken about the special military operation in Ukraine since it was launched in February 2022. Just last week, he ridiculed the World Economic Forum in Davos and warned the West that the current conflict is existential in nature for Russia, which should be kept in mind when it comes to nuclear weapons and their possible use.

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The Greens play a curious role in Germany. They have a lot of power.

• Germany Rewrites History To Blame Russia For Its Own Bad Decisions (Marsden)

The German town of Brunsbuttel, near Hamburg, received a new floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on Friday, another step in the country’s search to replace the gas supplies it now can’t get from Russia. Small protests in the vicinity of the port held by locals unhappy with the new facility belied the official fanfare. Meanwhile, wider criticism has been levelled against Berlin’s efforts to boost gas imports by both land and sea, which climate activists believe to be very environmentally unfriendly. German Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck, of the Green Party, said the new terminal was necessary because “half of the gas supply to Germany stopped, because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has cut it off. Now the supply has been stopped completely and it will not come back to us.”

Except that’s not how it all went down. Nearly a year ago, just before the Ukraine conflict turned hot and as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stopped the approval process for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany and into Europe, Habeck was already keen to give Russian gas the boot. He told public radio that the country could go without it. The comment promptly raised eyebrows in the Western press, with Bloomberg, for example, calling the proposition “tricky.” Habeck’s Greens, and the German government more generally, have long been obsessed with renewables. The Ukraine conflict was merely an excuse to double down. Even the International Energy Agency took note of this back in March 2022. “Progress towards net zero ambitions in Europe will bring down gas use and imports over time,” according to an IEA report.

In April, Habeck said, “We are working actively to become independent on fossil fuels from Russia,” and cited “great progress.” Not once, but twice, Habeck publicly declared that he had reduced his shower time, in hat had become both a means of saving energy and also of sticking it to Putin, a gesture reminiscent of the folks who pull on escalator handrails thinking that they’re helping move all the people to the top. Habeck said that such measures would “annoy Putin.” Actually, it mostly just annoyed Germans and Europeans. Habeck appeared alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a meeting of bloc representatives in Versailles on March 8, when she said, “We must become independent from Russian oil, coal and gas.” Habeck echoed the sentiment: “All the German government’s, the country’s, efforts are going toward reducing this dependency as quickly as possible and then using the energy policy room for maneuver we have gained, including in security policy terms.”

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“Hungary will not support any EU sanctions that would potentially limit cooperation with Russia in the nuclear field..”

• Hungary To Oppose EU’s Anti-Russian Nuclear Sanctions – Foreign Minister (TASS)

Hungary will not support any EU sanctions that would potentially limit cooperation with Russia in the nuclear field, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters during a break at a meeting of EU Foreign Ministers in Brussels Monday. “Hungary will not support any sanctions that in any way limit nuclear cooperation with Russia,” Szijjarto said. The Minister noted that “the European Commission has, obviously, commenced the development of the 10th sanctions package.” However, Hungary warned that it will not support any proposals “if they include restrictions on cooperation with Russia in the nuclear area,” Szijjarto said.


“This would cause enormous damage to our country and violate its energy security,” he underscored. “I made it clear that nuclear energy is crucial for Hungary’s power supply,” the Foreign Minister said, noting that the Paks Nuclear Power plant, which uses Russian nuclear fuel, provides half of the country’s energy supply. “Without the Paks NPP, the current power supply in Hungary would be impossible. Just as it would be impossible to ensure Hungary’s power security in the upcoming decades without construction of new reactor units at the Paks NPP,” Szijjarto said.

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‘Italy’s posture must return to the defence of its national interests … It doesn’t mean having a negative stance toward others, it means having a positive one for ourselves … because everyone else is doing it’

• Italy’s New Foreign Policy And A Multipolar World Order (Papalia)

In recent developments Meloni’s foreign policy has been pointing away from the EU and NATO. She and her political allies have publicly supported Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbàn, who has attacked the sanctions against Russia, following the EU’s condemnation of his authoritarian policies; Hungary is a NATO member but has signed a separate deal with Gazprom to secure supplies of Russian gas. Meloni’s party is also allied to the governing nationalist Right in Poland, the Czech Republic’s governing Civic Democratic Party, and the far right Sweden Democrats Party that triumphed in elections in September 2022. The German far right Alternative für Deutschland Party was ‘jubilant’ over Meloni’s success; it too has opposed sanctions against Russia and its vote is also on the rise.

As in the 1930s, one should not discount ideological and political affinities across national borders, particularly when national interests also align. As Bhadrakumar warns: ‘Do not underestimate the “Meloni effect”. The heart of the matter is that far-right forces invariably have more to offer to the electorate in times of insecurity and economic hardship.’ In the current era, these affinities can be gathered under the broad ideological umbrella of ‘sovereigntism’, putting EU unity at risk. Should Italy distance itself from NATO or leave it altogether, particularly in the light of Turkey’s ambivalent stance and the possibility of a Russian victory in Ukraine, it is doubtful that the alliance would be able to survive. This is not as far-fetched a thought as it might seem.

According to retired Italian General Fabio Mini, former commander of the NATO-led KFOR mission in Kosovo (2002–03), NATO’s expansion to Eastern Europe over recent decades, promoted by the United States, has further undermined the alliance’s cohesion and unity of purpose. The Ukraine–Russia crisis, as pointed out by Thomas Hughes, a scholar of international and defence policy, ‘marks an existential crisis for NATO’. Under these circumstances the United States would find it increasingly difficult to maintain a military presence in Italy. On 1 October 2022, following news that Germany’s Social Democrat-led government had rejected Italy’s proposed Europe-wide price cap on gas and that Italy would no longer receive gas from Russia through Austria, Meloni addressed a crowd of angry farmers in Milan: ‘Italy’s posture must return to the defence of its national interests … It doesn’t mean having a negative stance toward others, it means having a positive one for ourselves … because everyone else is doing it’.

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Poles falling over each other to be the most belligerent.

• Poland Considered Partitioning Ukraine – Former FM (RT)

Former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has suggested that the government in Warsaw considered partitioning Ukraine in the first weeks of the military conflict between Kiev and Moscow. His comments came in an interview with Radio ZET on Monday, prompting a strong retort from the country’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki. Sikorski was asked if the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) government had ever entertained the idea of dividing up Ukraine. He replied by stating that there was “a moment of hesitation in the first 10 days of the war, when we all didn’t know how it would go, that maybe Ukraine would fall.” “Had it not been for the heroism of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and the help of the West, things could have been different,” Sikorski said.

His remarks soon drew a reaction from Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who accused Sikorski of behaving “like a Russian propagandist.” “The former foreign minister must weigh his words. I expect these disgraceful statements to be withdrawn. I call on the opposition to dissociate themselves from Radoslaw Sikorski’s declaration,” Morawiecki tweeted. It is not the first time Sikorski has been at odds with the government in Warsaw. In September, the ex-minister tweeted “Thank you, USA” alongside a photo of a massive gas leak caused by the sabotage of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

Sikorski further congratulated those responsible for the act, saying the severe damage caused to the natural gas pipelines would force Russia to talk to Poland and Ukraine if it wanted to continue delivering gas to Europe. “Good work,” he concluded in a second tweet. He later deleted both tweets. Russia responded to the former FM’s post by calling it an “official statement” confirming the Nord Stream incident was a “terrorist attack.” It still remains unclear who exactly was behind the sabotage as both Ukraine and Washington and its allies have denied responsibility.

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“..Of course, if you’re doing a reversal of concepts, you can make anyone look bad.”

• Wagner Founder Gives Explanation For US Hostility (RT)

The Wagner Group scares the US because it is willing to oppose American atrocities around the world, the private military company’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed on Monday, answering a question from RT. Washington said last week that it would designate the Russian PMC as an international criminal organization, accusing it of “widespread atrocities and human rights abuses.” “Unlike American paramilitary structures,” Prigozhin said in a written response to RT, “Wagner PMC only goes after the enemies of peace, and does not commit crimes. Of course, if you’re doing a reversal of concepts, you can make anyone look bad.”

The US is the only country to use nuclear weapons in history, and “organized wars and revolutions” in “Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Mozambique, Central Africa and so on,” Prigozhin noted, adding that in some of those countries Wagner came in and “stopped the wars with an iron fist.” Calling the US “a powerful criminal syndicate subsisting on the money of the entire world,” Prigozhin said Wagner was “more like the vice police” in relation. Washington “trained bandits and terrorists all over the world so that there would be unrest everywhere,” while the “fantasy island called the USA” lives in peace, he added. Used to people not fighting back or getting intimidated by name-calling, the Americans don’t know what to do with Wagner, who “looks into the eyes of the personification of world evil without fear.”

Prigozhin said the US objective is to break up Russia just as it did to the USSR, then take on China, in order to maintain its global hegemony. The Wagner Group was originally established in 2014. Over the past year, its fighters have taken part in battles against the Ukrainian military in the Donbass. Earlier this month, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged Wagner’s role in capturing the key town of Soledar. US authorities have accused the PMC of unspecified “human rights violations” in Syria and the Central African Republic, where Wagner helped the government against jihadist insurgents. Last month, the State Department declared Wagner an “entity of particular concern” for religious freedom in Africa, in the same category as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS).

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Why?

• Meta/Facebook Takes Azov Regiment Off Its Dangerous Organizations List (EG)

Facebook parent company Meta has removed the Azov Regiment, a controversial unit within the Ukrainian National Guard with alleged far-right political leanings, from its list of dangerous individuals and organizations. The move, first reported by The Kyiv Independent, means members of the unit can now create Facebook and Instagram accounts and post without Meta automatically flagging and removing their content. Additionally, unaffiliated users can praise the Azov Regiment, provided they abide by the company’s Community Standards. “The war in Ukraine has meant changing circumstances in many areas and it has become clear that the Azov Regiment does not meet our strict criteria for designation as a dangerous organization,” a company spokesperson told The Kyiv Independent.

Sharing more information on the policy change, Meta told The Washington Post it recently began to view the Azov Regiment as a separate entity from other groups associated with the far-right nationalist Azov Movement. Specifically, the company pointed to Ukraine’s National Corp political party and founder Andriy Biletsky, noting they’re still on its list of dangerous individuals and organizations. “Hate speech, hate symbols, calls for violence and any other content which violates our Community Standards are still banned, and we will remove this content if we find it,” Meta said. The Azov Regiment was founded in 2014 by Biletsky following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the start of the Donbas War that same year. Before the unit was integrated into Ukraine’s National Guard in November 2014, it was controversial for its adherence to neo-Nazi ideology.

In 2015, a spokesperson for the Azov Regiment said 10 to 20 percent of the unit’s recruits were self-professed Nazis. At the start of the 2022 conflict, Ukrainian officials said the Azov Regiment still had some extremists among its ranks but claimed the unit had largely become depoliticized. During the months-long siege of Mariupol, the Azov Regiment played a prominent role in the city’s defense. Russia captured many of the battalion’s fighters at the end of the battle. The change underscores just how much Meta’s content moderation policies have changed since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Partway through last year, the company began temporarily allowing people in Ukraine and a handful of other countries to call for violence against Russian soldiers. After the decision created controversy, Meta said it would turn to the Oversight Board for policy guidance, a request the company later withdrew, citing “ongoing safety and security concerns” related to the war.

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“..Both of these investigations could easily take a year or more.”

• The 2024 Election and the “Get Out of Jail Free” Vote (Turley)

President Biden has declared that the criminal investigation into his possession of classified material ultimately will fizzle out because “there is no ‘there’ there.” To the contrary, there obviously is a great deal “there,” enough that a special counsel was appointed to investigate a classified documents trail from a D.C. office closet to Biden’s Delaware garage. Although the president wants Americans to look down the road past images of classified documents next to his vintage Corvette, we may be heading into one of the most bizarre, unsettling moments in our constitutional history. There is now a distinct possibility we will have not just two leading candidates campaigning for the presidency with their own respective special counsels in tow, but two candidates who could be indicted or close to indictment at the time of the election. That would present some novel political and constitutional questions.

A great deal already has been written about comparisons of the two cases and the obvious differences. The Justice Department’s Trump investigation includes not only accusations of mishandling classified material but also of false statements and obstruction; far more documents are involved, too. Yet enough similarities exist that Justice could weigh charges in both cases, even if only misdemeanors. Moreover, the Biden allegations are serious in their own way. The documents in Donald Trump’s possession at Mar-a-Lago were largely housed in a locked storage room with security added at the FBI’s request; there was ’round-the-clock Secret Service protection and camera surveillance. That is not ideal — but it is better than a dozen documents scattered around a closet, garage and library in different states.

There is no question of gross mishandling in Biden’s case. There is only the question of who was responsible. If the evidence shows that Joe Biden used any of these clearly marked documents to write his book or other projects, his insistence on “inadvertent” possession will take on a more sinister meaning as an effort to deceive the public and the FBI. Both of these investigations could easily take a year or more. The average time of a special counsel investigation of a president is over 900 days. These two investigations should take less than the average — but they are starting in 2023, with a presidential election in 2024. Trump has already announced, and Biden is expected to do so soon.

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Equal justice?

• Mar-A-Lago Raid Was Just Another Russia-Collusion Hoax (Fed.)

The search of Biden’s home followed the discovery in November 2022 of at least 10 classified documents, including ones reportedly marked “top secret.” Those documents also dated back to his days as vice president under Barack Obama and were stored in a closet at a private office building in D.C. But the so-called “think tank” where they were stored, the Penn Biden Center, did not open until February 2018, meaning Biden had kept the classified documents found there at another location for the year following his time as vice president. That the classified documents Biden removed from the White House and earlier the Senate were not missed at the time and are only now being discovered — at least a decade later for some — and then only after multiple searches of different locations, contrasts sharply with what happened following Trump’s time in office.

According to then-archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero, he watched “the Trumps leave the White House and getting off in the helicopter” at the end of Trump’s term. Ferriero recalled someone was “carrying a white banker box,” prompting Ferriero to ask himself, “What the hell’s in that box?” Ferriero claimed, “[T]hat began a whole process of trying to determine whether any records had not been turned over to the Archives,” with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) “going through materials transferred from the White House in the chaotic final days of Trump’s presidency.” According to The Washington Post, “officials had noticed that certain high-profile documents were missing,” such as “Trump’s correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that he had termed ‘love letters.’”

The NARA also could not locate the “National Weather Service map of Hurricane Dorian, which Trump had famously marked up with a black Sharpie pen to extend to Alabama,” or the letter Obama had left for Trump upon the change in administrations. NARA sought the return of these documents, and in January 2022, Trump representatives worked with NARA employees to arrange for 15 boxes of presidential papers to be returned to the archive. Within those boxes were some documents marked “classified,” which led NARA to refer the matter to the Department of Justice. The DOJ then launched an investigation into Trump, even though when alerted to Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified documents, NARA made no such referral.

A grand jury later issued a subpoena for any presidential documents, and following a search of Mar-a-Lago by Trump’s representatives, those documents were turned over. However, after a source told the DOJ that some documents remained at Mar-a-Lago, the FBI obtained a search warrant and executed a surprise raid on the former president’s home. This entire sequence began because NARA went looking for missing documents and then, rather than work with Trump to establish his presidential library and to arrange for the documents to be stored under the auspices of NARA’s custody at a mutually agreeable location — something NARA had done for Obama — NARA created a federal criminal case out of the matter.

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Maybe 1% will take them.

• FDA Panel To Consider Annual Covid-19 Vaccine Shots (Hill)

The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) advisory panel on vaccines is set to consider an annual schedule for the coronavirus vaccine, akin to how flu vaccines are administered, when it meets this week. The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) will meet Thursday to discuss how to simplify and streamline the COVID-19 vaccination process, including the composition of coronavirus vaccines and the recommended scheduling for these shots. The rapid evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, resulting in variants with an improved ability to escape immune protection, means that “periodically updating the composition of COVID-19 vaccines as needed,” as was done with the updated bivalent booster, requires consideration, according to panel documents posted Monday.


The panel said it anticipates evaluating the composition of the COVID-19 vaccine annually in June and making a recommendation for the following year — though it acknowledged the difficulties of mounting a globally coordinated vaccine recommendation. “FDA anticipates conducting an assessment of SARS-CoV-2 strains at least annually and to engage VRBPAC in about early June of each year regarding strain selection for the fall season,” the VRBPAC documents said. While acknowledging that COVID-19 and the flu are not identical, VRBPAC said the deployment of the bivalent COVID-19 boosters, created to target both the ancestral strain of the virus as well as the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants, was “analogous” to annual flu vaccinations.

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“There is nothing definitive in the universe, and collapses exist because the old must leave space for the new. ”

• Collapse Is Not An Event, But A Process (Ugo Bardi)

About ten years ago, my friend and colleague Massimo Nicolazzi wrote that the inversion of the declining trend of oil production in the US could not be neglected any longer. I commented by saying that it was a short-lived flare that couldn’t last for long. It turned out that Nicolazzi was right and I was wrong. By now, the growth of the US oil production curve has been lasting for more than ten years and is still ongoing — it was not just a short-lived flare. Of course, it cannot last forever but, for the time being, it changed everything. Among others, it propeled the American Empire back to the path of world domination that the Neocons theorized in the 1990s.

Does that mean that Hubbert’s “peak oil” theory is wrong and must be discarded? Of course not. It only means reinforcing some of the basic rules of complex systems. For instance, the one that goes “complex systems always surprise you,” and also, “never take an example as a rule.” So, when dealing with collapse (that I call the “Seneca Cliff) we should always remember that collapse is not an event, it is a process. Collapses have a history, they are the result of the interaction of several factors, and the same processes that generate collapse can also generate its opposite, which I tend to call the “Seneca Rebound.” It is normal. There is nothing definitive in the universe, and collapses exist because the old must leave space for the new.

Recently, for another unexpected change, I identified a new trend: the rapid growth of renewable energy production worldwide. A trend that can be well described by some recent studies in terms of the EROI (energy returned for energy invested) of renewables having become several times larger than that of fossil fuels. No wonder we are seeing — or we’ll soon see — a revolving door effect in energy production. Fossils are out, renewables are in. History rhymes, as it usually does! Then, just like Nicolazzi’s statement about tight oil was not believed by peak-oil hardliners (including me), my statements on renewables were understood as a mortal offense by catastrophistic hardliners. You can’t believe how nasty their comments have been: apart from branding me an incompetent, an idiot, and ignorant of the basic laws of physics, catastrophism seems to be strictly linked to conspirationism, so people have been writing that I cannot tell the truth because I am blackmailed by the powers that be (no, really, someone wrote exactly that!).

The problem is the science of complex systems is never black or white. It doesn’t allow for absolute truths, nor it is sympathetic to people choosing between complacency and panic (the two functioning modes of human beings according to James Schlesinger). The science of complex systems is, well, a little complex and it needs a little mental flexibility to be understood. Not that it takes superhuman mental capabilities, not at all. It is just that you need to free yourself from the schematic way of reasoning that’s normally imposed on all of us by the media.

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“..the North Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, an important sea current that has been pumping warmer water into the Arctic, is weakening and that’s leading to a cooler North Atlantic area and lower temperatures, as was observed in the period 1950-1970.”

• Temperatures in Northern Hemisphere Due to Fall Over Next 25 Years (DS)

Whisper it quietly – and don’t tell Al ‘Boiling Oceans’ Gore – but the Northern hemisphere may be entering a temperature cooling phase until the 2050s with a decline up to 0.3°C. By extension, the rest of the globe will also be cooled. These sensational findings, ignored by the mainstream media, were released last year and are the work of six top international scientists led by Nour-Eddine Omrani of the Norwegian Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research. Published in the Nature journal Climate and Atmospheric Science, the scientists say that the North Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, an important sea current that has been pumping warmer water into the Arctic, is weakening and that’s leading to a cooler North Atlantic area and lower temperatures, as was observed in the period 1950-1970.

Certainly, current observations back up these suggestions. As we reported recently, Arctic summer sea ice stopped declining about a decade ago and has shown recent growth. The Greenland surface ice sheet grew by almost 500 billion tonnes in the year to August 2022, and this was nearly equivalent to its estimated annual loss. Of course, climate alarmists have not quite caught up with these recent trends, with Sir David Attenborough telling his BBC Frozen Planet II audience that the summer sea ice could all be gone within 12 years.

Interestingly, the six scientists, whose work has helped debunk the ‘settled’ science myth, still attribute some global warming to human causes. The Northern hemisphere is characterised by “several multidecadal climate trends that have been attributed to anthropogenic climate change”. But producing work that predicts 30 years of global cooling puts them outside the ‘settled’ narrative that claims human-produced carbon dioxide is the main – possibly the only – determinant of global and local temperatures. At the very least, it dials down the hysteria pushing for almost immediate punitive net-Zero measures. Lead author Omrani is reported to have said that the expected warming pause “gives us time to work out technical, political and economic solutions before the next warming phase, which will take over again from 2050”.

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“..there’s a growing push to implement the carbon credit scam worldwide. And that’s not a coincidence.”

• Carbon Credits Are the Biggest Scam Since Indulgences (IM)

In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church convinced the commoners to buy indulgences to alleviate their sins. And they made a fortune in the process. Similarly, today, our overlords—the mainstream media, central bankers, and their political allies—are working overtime to convince the commoners to pay for their alleged climate sins. Enter carbon credits, government-issued permits that grant you the privilege to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide. Although advocates promote them as a way to “save the environment,” in reality, carbon credits are nothing more than a devious mechanism to tax, regulate, and control you. It’s not a coincidence that the most philosophically and ethically bent people are promoting them.


For example, at a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, participants revealed and touted an “individual carbon footprint tracker.” It will track where people travel, how they travel, what they eat, and what they consume. Carbon accounting is already creeping into many places, like Google Flights. A federal carbon tax is already a reality in Trudeau’s Canada, and it’s causing the price of food and other goods and services to soar. But Canadians haven’t seen anything yet—the federal carbon tax will triple by 2030. In short, there’s a growing push to implement the carbon credit scam worldwide. And that’s not a coincidence. Remember, central banks only exist to harvest wealth from the populace through inflation and redirect it to the politically connected, an insidious practice known as seigniorage.

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Pfizer India
https://twitter.com/i/status/1617493297735270400

 

 


‘Girls in the Windows’ – New York (1960) – Ormond Gigli
The building was knocked down the next day

 

 

Kafka

 

 


This iconic picture by Masa Ushioda is now famous as the ‘whale’s high five’ and was taken off the coast of Hona, Hawaii in 2018

 

 

Limit

 

 


Lifeguards working in Croatia.

 

 

Pelican landing
https://twitter.com/i/status/1617631392644628480

 

 


Alligator lurking in the duckweed. Photo: Cole Frechou

 

 

 

 

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