Mar 122025
 


James Ensor The intrigue 1890

 

Ukraine Open To ‘Immediate’ 30-Day Ceasefire If Russia Agrees: State Dept (JTN)
30-Day Truce: US Lifts Pause On Intel & Military Aid To Ukraine (ZH)
What Should Trump Do? (Paul Craig Roberts)
Kremlin Warns Russians Not To See Trump Through ‘Rose-Colored Glasses’ (ZH)
Trump Moves To His Primordial Objective – The Global Reset (Alastair Crooke)
Ontario Caves to Trump on Tariffs (Margolis)
Musk: DOGE Will Cut $1 TRILLION in Spending ‘Unless We’re Stopped’ (Green)
USAID Staff Rush To Shred And Burn Documents (RT)
Brace Yourselves: The Next Media BIG LIE Is About to Drop (Green)
The Right is Being Shut Out of Government Across Europe (DS)
Europe Seizing Russian FX Reserves Would Reset Global Financial System (Every)
Macron’s Napoleon Cosplay Could Come At A Grave Cost (RT)
The French Despite Clear Warning Brought The Camp of the Saints to France (PCR)
Hungary Accuses Ukraine Of Threatening Its Sovereignty (RT)
Trump Finds an Epic Way to Repurpose Biden’s CBP One App for Ilegals (Margolis)
Judge Declines Bid to Force Federal Gov’t to Restore Foreign Aid Contracts (ET)
Moscow Reproaches Western Media For Silence Over Gonzalo Lira’s Death (RT)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/1899243456800973262

Miller

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1899640782702723406

Stew Peters

Alina
https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/1899524695588036956

 

 

 

 

What Russia wants -at least- has been obvious forever. But Rubio has a meeting wih Ukraine and more or less tells Putin ‘take it or leave it’. Russia will not accept a short term or partial ceasefire that can be used to rearm Ukraine. Russia has the momentum. They will not squander it. Russian troops have died to achieve the present situation. Their memories will be honored.

Ukraine Open To ‘Immediate’ 30-Day Ceasefire If Russia Agrees: State Dept (JTN)

Ukrainian diplomats signaled their willingness to agree to a 30-day preliminary ceasefire with Russia as part of their negotiations with American officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. “Ukraine expressed readiness to accept the U.S. proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation,” the State Department said in a joint statement with Ukrainian officials, according to CBS News. “The United States will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace,” they said. The United States also announced it would end a pause on military aid and intelligence sharing as a result of the talks.

After the negotiations, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the effort a “concrete step” from Ukraine and expressed “hope that the Russians will reciprocate.” The Russians have not agreed to a ceasefire as of press time. They are unlikely to do so, however, without significant concessions, as the Russian army is currently making significant gains in the Kursk region against Ukrainian troops that occupied the border area. In the meantime, Russian offensives in Zaporizhzhia and the Donbas have posted modest gains in recent days and a spring offensive in expected to materialize soon.

https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1899585186624675845

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All Ukraine troops must withdraw from Crimea and the four regions. There must be a signed (not by Zelensky!) document that says Ukraine will not be part of NATO. Only then can a truce maybe be considered.

30-Day Truce: US Lifts Pause On Intel & Military Aid To Ukraine (ZH)

An apparent breakthrough in Jedda talks between the US and Ukraine, as the United States has announced it “will immediately lift the pause on intelligence sharing and resume security assistance to Ukraine.” The Zelensky government has also “expressed readiness to accept the U.S. proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation,” the statement said.

“The United States will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace,” it added. This comes after a reported over eight hour-long meeting between the US and Ukrainian delegations in the Saudi port city on Tuesday. No doubt, the Ukrainians came hat in hand, ready to please Trump after relations had fallen off a cliff with the Zelensky Oval Office confrontation earlier this month. Shortly before the announced US-Ukraine agreement for a 30-day ceasefire, a TASS headline said that the Kremlin has no information on any details coming out of the Jeddah meeting.

But will Putin agree? There’s as yet little incentive for him to enact a temporary ceasefire, given as Trump recently admitted… he has all the cards (and Zelensky doesn’t). By all accounts the Russians are fast taking back territory in Kursk and advancing along front lines in the Donbas. Likely Russia fears that Kiev could simply use this ceasefire as an opportunity to rearm, rest, resupply and regroup – especially given Washington just said the US arms and intel pipeline is back on. Moscow is likely to see this is simply a matter between Washington and Kiev, and it appears to be a version of Zelensky’s ‘partial ceasefire’ which demands a halt to all air assaults.

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“Trump should immediately remove all sanctions, not only against Russia but against every country. This will boost the dollar’s role as the international medium of exchange, save the basis of American power, and reassure the Kremlin that the Cold War is indeed over.”

What Should Trump Do? (Paul Craig Roberts)

Trump should end America’s unconditional support of Israel. To enable genoide with weapons, money, and diplomatic cover is not making America great. If under Trump Israel maintains or increases its determination of US policy at home and abroad, it is Israel, not America, that will be made great. Is that Trump’s role, to make Israel great? American Christian Zionists, none of whom are Christians as they worship Israel, not Christ, say yes. The position of Christian Zionists is that God’s purpose for America is to protect Israeli Zionism. As so many of these are MAGA Americans, who really rules America? Trump or Israel? What should Trump do about Ukraine? To end the conflict Trump doesn’t need to be holding meetings and talking about meetings with Putin, Zelensky, EU or anyone. It is extremely simple for Trump to end the conflict as far as the US is concerned.

All he has to do is to make the hold he has put on delivery of weapons permanent and withdraw all US operatives in the proxy conflict with Russia. Without the US supplying weapons, intelligence, targeting information and money to keep the conflict alive, the conflict will quickly end.This is what Trump needs to tell Putin: “I know Washington is responsible for this conflict. I am withdrawing Washington’s participation. The conflict would not have happened if the Democrats had not stolen the 2020 election. I am cancelling the sanctions. I will be accused by the Democrats and the presstitutes of selling out Ukraine to you. Your job is to be merciful to Ukraine. As the US is responsible for the conflict, the US will help you to rebuild a demilitarized Ukraine in which economic advancement takes precedent over war. You must not fail my good intentions, or the Cold War will resume.”

Can Trump do this? Or is Trump compelled by anti-Russian propaganda to force some form of submission from Putin as a demonstration of American power? If Trump can do what is required, Zelensky will then have to deal with Putin. After all, what has it to do with us? If the Europeans want to line up with a loser, let them. There is no reason for Trump, whom they hate, to rescue the Europeans. To demonstrate to Putin that the US proxy war with Russia, started by Zionist Neoconservatives, is over, Trump should immediately remove all sanctions, not only against Russia but against every country. This will boost the dollar’s role as the international medium of exchange, save the basis of American power, and reassure the Kremlin that the Cold War is indeed over.

Trump should get off China’s back. It is not China’s fault that Wall Street drove American manufacturing jobs offshore to China and to other parts of Asia and Mexico. This was the greed for profits by lowering labor costs by leaving the American manufacturing working class without remunerative employment and our former manufacturing cities without a tax base. This is what Wall Street and the corporations did to America. Is it Trump’s role to protect these American adversaries by blaming China? It has never been clear what Trump wants from China. He should tells us so that we can assess his intention. As China has jurisdiction over a large segment of US manufacturing which is situated in China, it makes little sense to provoke confrontation with China.

It is Wall Street and the greedy self-serving corporate executives and boards who received huge renumeration for offshoring the jobs of the working class. When the products of the offshored jobs come back to the US to be marketed, they come in as imports. It is the offshored production of American corporations that is the cause of the trade deficit with China. It is not the fault of China. Why is Trump picking on the wrong source of the problem? If people in the Trump administration are deceiving Trump about this, he had best replace them. Being great has moral meaning. It does not suffice to be successful in business, to make successful deals, to avoid wars. To be great you have to stand up for Truth. You have to stand up for Justice. You have to stand up for the US Constitution.

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“..Moscow is signaling it is not in a hurry – and won’t be rushing to the negotiating table just because Trump wants it.”

Kremlin Warns Russians Not To See Trump Through ‘Rose-Colored Glasses’ (ZH)

Earlier in the Trump presidency, and especially as his spat with Ukraine’s Zelensky played out more directly and out in the open, Russian media and Kremlin officials seemed almost gleeful. A slew of positive statements agreeing with Trump were issued from Moscow – for example enthusiastically backing Trump’s words that Zelensky is a “dictator without elections”. But it seems Russian leadership wants to pull in the reigns a bit on its generally positive Trump commentary, as intense negotiations for peace settlement in Ukraine are anticipated. On Tuesday the Kremlin warned the Russian public against viewing President Donald Trump and his recent actions related to Ukraine through “rose-tinted glasses”.

This is in most immediate reference to the drastic actions of Trump cutting off military aid to Kiev, as well as most intelligence-sharing, which shocked and angered Western allies. Peskov issued the caution about not getting overly excited in remarks given before an audience of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. “Don’t rush to put on rose-tinted glasses,” Peskov said. “We always need to hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst. And we must always be ready to defend our interests.” He also referenced people getting too prematurely eager over this week’s reports that Elon Musk could cut off the Ukrainian military from his Starlink communications system. This was after a fierce online clash with Poland’s outspoken foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, which also drew in Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

But by the end of that brief online spat, Musk pledged, “To be extremely clear, no matter how much I disagree with the Ukraine policy, Starlink will never turn off its terminals.””I am simply stating that, without Starlink, the Ukrainian lines would collapse, as the Russians can jam all other communications! We would never do such a thing or use it as a bargaining chip,” he explained. This was an example Peskov provided to his audience as to why caution is needed with the American side in any future negotiations to end the war. The Putin spokesman stressed that Russia will achieve its war aims no matter what Washington demands:

Peskov said Russia was achieving its aims on the battlefield in Ukraine, regardless of what decisions the U.S. was taking. He said the amount of weapons circulating in Ukraine was so large that Kyiv had enough to keep fighting for many months despite the suspension of U.S. deliveries. All of this seems like Moscow is signaling it is not in a hurry – and won’t be rushing to the negotiating table just because Trump wants it. Each side is of course trying to maintain as much leverage as possible before any talks begin in earnest. Thus clearly Russian officials don’t want appear too ‘enthused’ about Trump and the concessions he might press the Ukrainian government to make.

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“The Maga Right has none of the inhibitions of its predecessors. It is planning to leverage the power of a recaptured state to annihilate its enemies..”

Trump Moves To His Primordial Objective – The Global Reset (Alastair Crooke)

President Trump wants Ukraine settled, full stop. This is so that he can move ahead quickly – to normalise with Russia, and begin the ‘big picture’ project of setting a new World Order, one that will end wars and facilitate business ties. The point here – which Europe feigns to not understand – is that the end to the Ukraine conflict simply is Trump’s ‘gateway’ to the entire rationale and platform on which he stood: The Great Reset of the Geo-Political landscape. Ukraine, simply said, is the obstacle to Trump’s pursuit of his primordial objective: The Global Reset. Starmer, Macron and the eastern wing of the Euro-élites are blind to the sheer scale of the global vibe-shift towards traditionalist U.S. politics and ethics. They miss too, the barely concealed fury in the Trump world that exists behind this nascent revolution.

“The Maga Right has none of the inhibitions of its predecessors. It is planning to leverage the power of a recaptured state to annihilate its enemies”, Allister Heath writes. The European Ruling Class is in desperate trouble and increasingly isolated, in a world shifting ‘Rightward’ at breakneck speed. “The U.S. is now the enemy of the West”, the FT proclaims. European leaders wantonly won’t understand. The reality is that the U.S. is engaged now in rolling up Europe’s foreign policy. And, is about to start exporting U.S. traditional Republican values to roll up the European wokeist belief-system. The European Ruling strata – far removed from its base – has failed to grasp the threat to its own interests (a scenario outlined here). The Trump administration is trying to rebuild the ailing Republic, and Americans in this new era do not care for the European obsession with ancient feuds and their entailing wars.

Trump reportedly views with utter disdain the UK and European boast that should the U.S. not do it, then Europe will. The Brussels class claims to be able still – after three years of losing in Ukraine – to be able to inflict a humiliating defeat on President Putin. More profoundly, however, Team Trump – committed to the task of taking down the American Deep State as the ‘inexorable enemy’ – perceives (rightly) the British security state to be co-joined at the hip with their American counterparts, as a part of its global meta-structure. And its oldest and deepest component has always been the destruction of Russia, and its dismemberment. So when Macron, in an address to the nation this week, rejected a ceasefire in Ukraine and declared that “peace in Europe is only possible with a weakened Russia”, calling the country a direct threat to France and the continent, many in ‘Trump world’ will interpret this defiant declaration (that ‘Ukraine defeating Russia is preferable to ‘peace’’) is nothing more than Macron and Starmer ventriloquising the aims of the Meta Deep State.

This notion is lent substance by the sudden plethora of articles appearing in the European-(managed) MSM to the effect that Russia’s economy is much weaker than it appears and might collapse in the next year. Of course it is nonsense. This is about managing the European public to believe that keeping the war going in Ukraine is a ‘good idea’. The absurdity of the European position was perhaps best captured, as Wolfgang Münchau notes, in its full hubris last year by the historian and writer Anne Applebaum when she won a prestigious German peace prize. During her acceptance speech, she maintained that victory was more important than peace, asserting that the West’s ultimate goal should be regime change in Russia: “We must help Ukrainians achieve victory, and not only for the sake of Ukraine,” she said.

Zelensky and his European fans want ‘to negotiate’ – though later, rather than sooner (perhaps in a year, as one European Foreign Minister reportedly told Marco Rubio privately). “This”, Münchau writes, “is what the very public disagreement in the Oval Office [last week] was all about. Peace through untrammelled victory — essentially the Second World War model — as the lens through which virtually all European leaders, and most commentators view the Russia-Ukraine conflict”. America sees things differently: It views almost certainly the European Deep State to be putting a spoke into Trump’s ‘normalisation with Russia’ wheel – a normalisation to which they are viscerally opposed.

Or, at the very least, as the Europeans chasing a “mirage that no longer exists, stubbornly hiking ‘tax and spend’, whilst doubling down on mass immigration and overpriced energy, oblivious to the flashing red lights in the [financial markets] as government debt yields rocket to their highest levels since 1998”, as Allister Heath outlines. In other words, the suggestion is that Friedrich Merz, Macron and Starmer are talking about how they are going to turn around their countries – via a massive infusion of debt – into defence superstates. Yet, at some level of consciousness, they must realise that it is not doable, so they settle instead for presenting themselves as ‘world leaders on the international stage’.

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“Also, Canada must immediately drop their Anti-American Farmer Tariff of 250% to 390% on various U.S. dairy products..”

Ontario Caves to Trump on Tariffs (Margolis)

Let me tell you what winning looks like. While the liberal media was busy predicting economic catastrophe from President Trump’s latest tariff moves, Canada just blinked — and blinked hard. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who thought he could play hardball with America by slapping a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to Michigan, New York, and Minnesota, just got a swift lesson in real negotiation. “Canada is a Tariff abuser, and always has been, but the United States is not going to be subsidizing Canada any longer,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social Monday evening. “We don’t need your Cars, we don’t need your Lumber, we don’t [need] your Energy, and very soon, you will find that out. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” And then, Ontario responded by placing a 25% tariff on electricity coming into the United States, but Trump didn’t blink:

“I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. This will go into effect TOMORROW MORNING, March 12th. Also, Canada must immediately drop their Anti-American Farmer Tariff of 250% to 390% on various U.S. dairy products, which has long been considered outrageous. I will shortly be declaring a National Emergency on Electricity within the threatened area. This will allow the U.S to quickly do what has to be done to alleviate this abusive threat from Canada. If other egregious, long time Tariffs are not likewise dropped by Canada, I will substantially increase, on April 2nd, the Tariffs on Cars coming into the U.S. which will, essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada.”

After Trump threatened to double existing tariffs on Canadian goods and announced a new 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum, Ford’s tough-guy act fell faster than Joe Biden on the steps to Air Force One. “Today, United States Secretary of Commerce [Howard Lutnick] and Premier of Ontario Doug Ford had a productive conversation about the economic relationship between the United States and Canada,” the pair said in a joint statement Ford shared on X. Secretary Lutnick agreed to officially meet with Premier Ford in Washington on Thursday, March 13 alongside the United States Trade Representative to discuss a renewed USMCA ahead of the April 2 reciprocal tariff deadline. In response, Ontario agreed to suspend its 25 per cent surcharge on exports of electricity to Michigan, New York and Minnesota.

The lesson here is simple: America First works. While Biden spent years letting everyone walk all over us, Trump is back to showing the world what real leadership looks like. Canada’s quick surrender proves what conservatives have always known — strength gets respect, and respect gets results. Whether Canada will budge on tariffs remains to be seen, but Trump showed who has the upper hand in these negotiations because Ontario quickly caved. The economic relationship between the U.S. and Canada might be facing a test, but with Trump at the helm, there’s no doubt who’s going to come out on top. That’s what making America great again looks like in real time, folks.

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“If Musk and the DOGE boys can cut a trillion dollars of funny money out of 2025 spending, they’ll gut most of the inflation, too.”

Musk: DOGE Will Cut $1 TRILLION in Spending ‘Unless We’re Stopped’ (Green)

Earlier today I had to share the bad news about the economy. Now it’s time for the good news. Savings generated by DOGE during the first two months of Trump 47 “exceed $4 billion per day,” Musk told Fox News on Monday afternoon. He also said he and his team will achieve $1 TRILLION in savings “unless we’re stopped.” Hang on to that last line for a moment while I tell you why that big number is a very big deal. Aside, of course, from the outrageous bigness of a one followed by 12 zeroes. Going into this DOGE thing shortly after Trump’s re-inauguration, Musk laid out just how much work there was to do and how difficult it would be to achieve his goal of cutting our [dr_evil_voice] TWO TRILLION DOLLAR [/dr_evil_voice] deficit in half. “Reducing the federal deficit from $2T to $1T in FY2026,” Musk explained back in January, “requires cutting an average of ~$4B/day in projected 2026 spending from now to Sept 30.”

In the last seven-plus weeks, DOGE has exceeded its seemingly impossible goal, though only barely. This is maybe the best news you’ll read all week, even though the legacy dinosaur media insists that it’s all doom and gloom and starving uneducated children who can no longer get their nads hacked off at taxpayer expense. Not to get too deep into the weeds, but cutting [dr_evil_voice] ONE TRILLION DOLLARS [/dr_evil_voice] wasn’t some nice-sounding number picked at random. I’ll keep this as brief and light as I know how. Prices rise and fall all the time according to changing market conditions. But inflation is special. It’s when the government prints additional dollars faster than the economy grows extra value. More dollar bills chasing around the same amount of goods and services causes a rapid and general increase in the price of everything, AKA inflation.

So far, so good? Barring a recession, the economy is expected to grow by about 2.2% this year — a roughly $638 billion increase in the size of the economy. Barring DOGE cuts, Washington is expected to borrow [dr_evil_voice] TWO TRILLION DOLLARS [/dr_evil_voice]. That’s inflationary funny money printed up out of nowhere. Again, roughly speaking, the difference between those two yuge figures is the inflation we’ll suffer. If Musk and the DOGE boys can cut a trillion dollars of funny money out of 2025 spending, they’ll gut most of the inflation, too. They might even get us under the 2% inflation that the Fed targets because the Powers That Be — the ones who politically benefit from spending money we don’t have — long ago decided that 2% annual inflation is good for us, ackshully. But that’s a discussion for another day.

Back to today’s news: DOGE cutting $4 billion a day “would still result in a ~$1T deficit,” Musk said several weeks ago, “but economic growth should be able to match that number, which would mean no inflation in 2026.” A trillion dollars in growth looks unlikely this year but that’s something I’d dearly love to be wrong about. The point is that there is a trillion dollars at stake, “unless we’re stopped,” as Musk put it Monday, and people have been murdered for a lot less than a trillion dollars.

https://twitter.com/joeroganhq/status/1899254896081469715

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“The acting executive secretary of the US Agency for International Development”.. should do some stiff jail time.

USAID Staff Rush To Shred And Burn Documents (RT)

The acting executive secretary of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Erica Carr, has directed remaining staff to destroy sensitive documents stored at the agency’s former headquarters in Washington, DC, according to an internal email. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who leads the recently established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have repeatedly accused USAID – the primary US agency for funding political projects abroad – of misusing taxpayer money and fostering corruption. As part of broader efforts to cut federal spending, the agency was forced to lay off 2,000 employees and place most of the remaining staff on leave. In an email first obtained by ProPublica,

Carr instructed the remaining staff to convene on Tuesday for an “all-day” effort to clear out classified safes and personnel documents at the Ronald Reagan Building. She advised employees to prioritize shredding documents and to use burn bags sparingly. “Shred as many documents as possible first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” the email read. “The only labeling required on the burn bags is the phrase ‘SECRET’ and ‘USAID/(B/IO)’ in dark Sharpie if possible. If you need additional burn bags or Sharpie markers, please let me or the SEC InfoSec team know.”

The email did not specify a reason for the destruction of the documents. However, the building is being vacated following mass layoffs, as US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently rented 390,000 square feet of office space in the facility. The directive has raised concerns among former USAID staff and legal experts, who argue that it could violate federal record-keeping laws and potentially hinder ongoing lawsuits challenging the agency’s restructuring. “Destruction of evidence is a crime,” Musk wrote on X in response to reports of the latest document purge. The billionaire previously called USAID a “criminal organization,” while Trump has claimed it was mismanaged by “radical lunatics.”

The handling of documents at USAID has already been under scrutiny. Last month, two of the agency’s security officials were placed on administrative leave after allegedly refusing to grant a team of DOGE auditors access to classified materials. The Trump administration plans to eliminate 90% of USAID contracts, amounting to $54 billion, AP reported last month, citing an internal White House memo and court filings. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has also had its government funding frozen. Although officially a US State Department-funded nonprofit that distributes grants to pro-democracy initiatives abroad, the NED has long faced allegations of acting as a CIA front for regime change operations.

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“All of our “growth” for the last five years is due to unsustainable deficits that will haunt generations of Americans yet to be born..”

Brace Yourselves: The Next Media BIG LIE Is About to Drop (Green)

Before I tell you about the legacy dinosaur media’s next BIG LIE, I need to show you how they’ll sell it. It starts, as these things always do, with the Left attempting to control the language to alter your perceptions about how the economy performed under Presidentish Joe Biden and will perform under President Donald Trump. We might be done with Biden but he isn’t done with us, as you’re about to see. There was a recession in late 2021/early 2022, commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of economic shrinkage. Except the “non-partisan” National Bureau of Economic Research decided to change the commonly understood definition. In 2022, wouldn’t you know, it turned out that “many factors go into that calculation,” and that the Biden recession wasn’t a recession at all when you looked at the “many factors” that nobody had ever looked at before.

The White House got into the game, too, with the White House Council of Economic Advisors citing a “holistic look at the data,” instead of playing by the established rules. The press played along and pretended the recession never happened. Convenient, eh? I’d also add that if you take away Biden’s monstrous budget deficits, any economic growth that happened on his watch was an illusion. We entered a government-engineered recession during the lockdowns of 2020 and, thanks to epic economic mismanagement under Biden, we never left it. Budget deficits are a drag on future growth and should be subtracted from our GDP figures. But the same government that spends more than it takes in — currently by trillions of dollars — pretends that deficits are growth and, again, the press plays along. So convenient.

Private sector jobs and wages stagnated under Biden because everything was driven by Big Government and sold to you by Big Media. It was a helluva party that Biden threw for his well-connected buddies. Now comes the hangover, and some on the Left already have a word for the recession that hasn’t happened yet: Trumpcession. Assuming we do end up with a recession, they’ll probably call it the Trump Depression or something along those lines. I might be exaggerating but not by much. During the 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton claimed that President George H.W. Bush gave us “the worst economy since the Great Depression,” even though the 1991 recession was mild, short-lived, and over for a year before Clinton won the Democrat nomination.

The press helped him get away with it, too. The conveniences keep piling up. Here are the facts, as dreadful as they are. All of our “growth” for the last five years is due to unsustainable deficits that will haunt generations of Americans yet to be born. Economic decisions are increasingly driven by growth-killing mandates and regulations imposed by Biden and the Democrats during 2021-2022. Consumer spending is driven in large part by cheap imports from a country that hates us.

Getting over our addiction to new debt will be painful. Undoing the Biden regulatory binge comes with political risks that some so-called Republicans in Congress refuse to take. Homeshoring — or at least friendshoring — comes with the shock and pain of tariffs. The last time a new president faced an economic crisis like this one was Ronald Reagan in 1981. The recession he engineered with Fed Chair Paul Volcker that year genuinely was one of the worst since the Great Depression, but it was the price that had to be paid to wring Johnson/Nixon/Carter stagflation out of the system. It was a helluva risk they took but it paid off with 20 years of almost uninterrupted and unprecedented growth. So hang on tight because the so-called Trumpcession is in reality the final price to be paid for four years of Joe Biden.

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“Right” has become the equivalent of “far right” and “extreme right”. Simply a convenient -because often legal- way to get rid of normal right wing opposition. Incoming train wreck.

The Right is Being Shut Out of Government Across Europe (DS)

Right-wing politicians are being shut out of Government across Europe, says Gavin Mortimer in the Spectator, as so-called ‘progressive’ elites in politics and the judiciary effectively rig what are supposed to be democratic elections. Here’s an excerpt. “Alarm grew as opinion polls indicated [Calin] Georgescu would win the second round [of Romania’s Presidential election]. Something had to be done, and it was. A couple of days before the decisive vote, Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the first round because of alleged Russian interference. The court had perused some declassified intelligence documents that claimed 800 TikTok accounts had been activated shortly before polls opened. There was no evidence of voting irregularities in the election itself but the fact Russia had been active on social media was enough for the court to intervene.

At the time, Georgescu likened himself to Donald Trump: an anti-system candidate who was the target of Establishment ‘lawfare’. The Trump administration has subsequently cited Georgescu as an example of the EU’s creeping illiberalism. In a speech at last month’s Munich Security Conference, Vice-President J.D. Vance expressed his astonishment “that a former European Commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian Government had just annulled an entire election… these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears”. The Commissioner in question was Frenchman Thierry Breton, who in a television interview in January boasted that “We did it in Romania and we will obviously do it in Germany if necessary”. He was referring to the upcoming German election and the possibility that the Right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) might win.

As it turned out, simply annulling Romania’s Presidential election didn’t derail the Georgescu bandwagon. Quite the opposite. He picked up momentum and polls showed that he would romp to victory in May’s re-run election. As I predicted in January, Romania’s elite wouldn’t allow this to happen. And they haven’t. At the end of February, Georgescu was detained by police as he drove through Bucharest to file his candidacy in the election. He was indicted on six counts, among them false funding sources and false information in his last campaign. He was also barred from leaving the country and creating any new social media accounts. Now he is barred from standing for President, a decision he has called a “direct blow to the heart of democracy worldwide”.

It’s part of a disturbing illiberal pattern, says Gavin. In Germany, the AfD came second on 20% of the vote but has been shut out of Government in favour of the Left-wing Social Democrats, despite having had their worst performance since 1945. In Austria, the anti-immigration Freedom Party won the election last October but still finds itself shunned by the other parties who have colluded to keep it side-lined. And in France on March 31st a court will rule whether Marine Le Pen will be barred from office for five years over a charge of “misusing EU funds”. This doesn’t end well. The issues that these politicians represent – and simmering public anger about them – obviously aren’t going away, least of all while Left-wing parties cling to power despite losing elections and refuse to address them.

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“An economy that ‘must’ grow at 5%, and via more supply, not demand, necessarily makes too much, exports it, and… dominates global supply chains..”

Europe Seizing Russian FX Reserves Would Reset Global Financial System (Every)

Yesterday saw the Nikkei -2.2%, the Dax -1.7%, the S&P -2.7%, and the Nasdaq –3.8%, while the US Treasury 10-year yield the White House is now focused on was -5bp to 4.16%. As the headlines put it, markets were “swooning”, first on China drifting back to deflation, then on President Trump’s comments that refused to rule out a US recession. Frankly, that commentary managed to be both very shallow and deeply myopic at the same time. China is “struggling” with deflation due to mercantilism. An economy that ‘must’ grow at 5%, and via more supply, not demand, necessarily makes too much, exports it, and… dominates global supply chains. Many Western economies could do with that right now – as Trump implied.

He made clear he wants to reset the US, and by extension, global economy: “I hate to predict things like [a recession]. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of – it takes a little time… But I think it should be great for us… What I have to do is build a strong country… You can’t really watch the stock market. If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective. We go by quarters. And you can’t go by that. You have to do what’s right.” Vice-President Vance put the same thing another way: “President Trump’s economic policies are simple: if you invest in and create jobs in America, you’ll be rewarded. We’ll lower regulations and reduce taxes. But if you build outside of the US, you’re on your own.”

Markets, which presumed Trump 2 would retain Trump 1’s monomania for stocks, just want what’s right for them. However, anyone who thought shifting the US to production-based mercantilism from asset-based financialisation via economic statecraft over economic policy could be done without assets falling didn’t understand either ‘ism’, or statecraft. Hence the sell-off. Of course, this attempted US reset could go horribly wrong; or right. Either way, markets will be dragged along behind it. We are also seeing a matching US global foreign policy reset via political statecraft:

The US and Ukraine are to meet in Saudi Arabia today to discuss ending that war, as Senator Graham threatens to sanction Russia aggressively if they don’t come to the table; the US wants a deal, not war between Israel and Hamas, and it, not Israel, is now seen in charge of hostage negotiations and the end game; the US is also getting tougher on Iranian oil, as the Houthis reportedly get ready to attack things again; Trump seems set for a June ‘two birthdays’ summit with China’s Xi despite the escalating trade war; and the FT’s Gideon Rachman claims Trump is “Making Europe Great Again” after decrying all the actions that led to that outcome.

Again, this attempted US reset could go horribly wrong; or right. Either way, markets will be dragged along behind it. So, do try to keep up. Moscow is now blaming the UK for instigating global wars – a Russian obsession and a good way not to blame the US, helping build détente, perhaps. However, that flatters the UK as much as recent comparisons between PM Starmer and Churchill. The looming UK Strategic Defence Review (SDR) reportedly states the military is so weak after 25 years of hollowing out that it will take ten years to become “match fit”, and require “much more” investment, and “industrial policy” to onshore production, tech, and jobs, as well as a recommendation this is done without the US. Oddly for military thinkers, the SDR seems to assume an economics-style static backdrop when it will be dynamic and antagonistic.

What if Russia, China, or even the US make the UK’s “industrial policy” or military decoupling more difficult and expensive via grey-zone sabotage, supply chain ‘shocks’, or economic statecraft countermeasures? At the very least, anyone thinking “much more” investment was covered by the recent policy shift away from foreign aid to defence spending, or that this is going to take only ten years, or that the government has a shovel-ready plan for military protectionism to allow it to happen is likely mistaken. The same applies to Europe: will the new “four-year” loosening of the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact, or the 1.5 percentage points of GDP, be all we get as it rearms? Half a Euro tank or a Euro combat aircraft to replace US systems like the F-35 for fear of built-in ‘kill switches’ –so requiring even more complex new supply chains to be built from scratch, and economies of scale, i.e., larger orders, to make it affordable– is no use to Europe at all.

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“France has been eyeing a defense spending boost for a while now – because nothing says sophisticated economic strategy like just cranking out piles of missiles..”

Macron’s Napoleon Cosplay Could Come At A Grave Cost (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron is currently completely absorbed in cosplaying Napoleon, leading the charge to put French and European boots on the ground on Ukraine’s side against the Russians. His costume needs to be taken in for resizing – downward. Sharing the stage with “Dollar General Napoleon” is British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the role of “Wish Wellington.” This sweatshop mail order version of the legendary British Duke of Wellington and military strategist sounds like he was knocked around and damaged during the shipping process, and has been keen to use his predecessor’s Iraq War tagline of a “coalition of the willing” for marketing purposes. Because that worked out so great the first time that reminding people of it will surely make them want to have yet another go. This time against Russia.

“Wish Wellington” seems rather keen to repeat the logistic challenges of the actual Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular War of 1807 to 1814 in Spain and Portugal. Only this time the modern-day Napoleon knock-off would be fighting beside him rather than against him. Good luck stretching your logistics to Ukraine for battle when your stated opponent only has to travel from right next door.Macron doesn’t want to go in right away though, he says. He needs for everyone to stop fighting for a bit first – a month to be precise – so the French and Brits and their posse can safely get to the VIP room with the bar service without having to worry about getting mixed up with guys throwing punches in Club Ukraine. Macron has since explained that the French wouldn’t be on the front line, but would be hanging out to guarantee “peace” – by repeating the same NATO troop presence that sparked the conflict’s escalation in the first place.

So there’s no way they could possibly ever find themselves in the middle of punch-ups because Macron envisions that velvet rope separating his fantasy stage play from any real-life consequences remaining intact. A modern-day Maginot Line. In the meantime, he’s been taking to TV to tell French citizens, “Who can believe today that Russia would stop at Ukraine?” Well, the French, for one – 65% of whom currently oppose French troops in Ukraine, according to a new CSA Institute poll. Guess they don’t really see it as the pressing issue that Macron portrays. Neither do other EU members, apparently – contrary to their own hyperventilation on the issue. Why else would they have held their Ukraine defense summit in London and not ensured that the Baltics were there, if they were really that concerned about the EU’s frontline countries.

Obviously this is about something else. And one of those other things is trying to literally scare up as much taxpayer cash by fear-bombing their electorate, using the “Russian threat,” to boost their own industrial base. Germany’s economy has been in the dumps since 2022, but there’s nothing that now can’t be fixed with a trillion-euro blank check from the German taxpayer, as the top establishment parties on both the right and left now want – and a good excuse to have to transfer a big chunk of that cash to the country’s defense industry. Some analysts are saying that the plan could boost the country’s GDP by 2% – in the long run. And well, hey, even if it doesn’t, those responsible probably won’t be around when accountability comes knocking, anyway.

Meanwhile, France has been eyeing a defense spending boost for a while now – because nothing says sophisticated economic strategy like just cranking out piles of missiles. With French manufacturing about as sturdy as a baguette left out in the rain – declining output, sluggish new orders, and job cuts since 2023 – Reuters points to skyrocketing energy prices, fuel costs, and raw materials as the culprits. But hey, at least sticking it to Putin by messing with those things has totally, definitely worked… right? So who’s going to actually pay for all this? Sounds like the French government spokesperson already has an idea: dipping into the interest on French citizens’ savings. Pretty sure that people invest in savings so they can buy themselves nice things – not so Brigitte Macron’s former junior high school drama student can gear up for his “little emperor” era.

All this talk of war with Russia for peace has already sent European defense stocks through the roof. According to the Financial Times, Germany’s Rheinmetall is up 14%. A boost of 15% for France’s Thales and Italy’s Leonardo. BAE systems – 14%. Saab – 11%. Because nothing says ‘safety and security’ like a bunch of investors and establishment cronies getting rich off the backs of the average working stiff.

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“Why are Americans supporting an alien culture in Europe to the point of possibly having nuclear war with Russia, a law abiding Christian nation that protects its citizens?

The French Despite Clear Warning Brought The Camp of the Saints to France (PCR)

France is dying. It is a piecemeal death. One business district at a time. One neighborhood at a time. A restaurant, a business, a theater, a hotel here and there. Each death so sad but survivable. But as the piecemeal deaths mount, they become an aggregate, and now France is dying. Jean Raspail warned the French in clear language in 1973 that the open borders acceptance of immigrant-invaders meant the death of France. Enoch Powell warned the British. It proved to be impossible to warn insouciant moronic populations imbued with racist guilt from decades of propagandistic indoctrination. Enoch Powell was denounced and Jean Raspail ignored. Marine Le Pen, the only politician in France who stands for the French people, seems headed to prison for stranding up for French ethnics against the immigrant-invaders.

The same destruction of nation is happening all over Europe, especially in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and the UK, countries in which the white ethnic female population has no protection against gang rape by immigrant invaders. White women are discouraged from reporting their gang rapes, because it is considered racist for a white to initiate action against a black. This is Europe today. A cultural dead zone or a rising new culture based on African and Muslim mores. All of my European and English friends tell me: “Don’t come back. It will break your heart. It is not like you remember it.” But still the tourists go. They are shown around the still safe areas and kept from seeing the encroaching barbarity. It is like a sponsored trip to Israel. You are not shown the bad stuff, only the good stuff. Trump is right. Europe is a basket case.

Why are Americans supporting an alien culture in Europe to the point of possibly having nuclear war with Russia, a law abiding Christian nation that protects its citizens? The United States should align with the rising powers–Russia and China–not with the decadent and declining countries, none of which are any longer ethnic nations, in Europe. European governments, who refuse to protect their women from immigrant-invaders, want instead to go to war with Russia. Well, Trump should let them. The war won’t last long, and we will be rid of Europe. Europe is dead just like the dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico or is it the Gulf of America where the Mississippi River dumps the chemical fertilizer runoff from commercial agribusiness and other pollutants. The United States has the same anti-Western intellectual class as Europe. How can Trump address our vulnerability from our internal enemies, which is where our vulnerability lies?

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“..an overnight drone strike on the Druzhba oil pipeline..”

Hungary Accuses Ukraine Of Threatening Its Sovereignty (RT)

Hungary has accused Ukraine of threatening its sovereignty after Kiev launched an overnight drone strike on the Druzhba oil pipeline on Tuesday. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said shipments of Russian crude via the pipeline have been temporarily halted following the attack on a metering station. In a video posted on Facebook, Szijjarto stressed that the Druzhba pipeline is a critical component of Hungary’s energy infrastructure, pointing out that if it ceases to function, oil deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia would be “physically impossible.” “We consider these attacks against our energy infrastructure targeting Hungary to be unacceptable,” the foreign minister said. “Hungary’s energy supply is a matter of sovereignty and we expect everyone to respect this,” he added. Szijjarto noted that he had spoken to Russia’s deputy energy minister, who has assured him that crude oil deliveries will likely be resumed within the next 24 hours.

The diplomat recalled that Budapest had repeatedly raised the issue of the safety of its energy infrastructure multiple times in Brussels, and had been given assurances by the European Commission that there would be no attacks on such facilities. “Unfortunately, this is already the umpteenth time when the EC’s guarantee is violated,” Szijjarto pointed out. According to media reports, three Ukrainian fixed-wing drones attacked the Druzhba terminal in Bryansk Region on Tuesday night. No injuries were reported. The attack was part of a larger raid on Russia, which reportedly involved more than 340 UAVs, nearly a hundred of which were brought down near Moscow. The falling debris from the destroyed drones near the capital reportedly caused the death of at least three people, while over 20 civilians have been injured.

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“The CBP Home App gives aliens the option to leave now and self-deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream.”

Trump Finds an Epic Way to Repurpose Biden’s CBP One App for Ilegals (Margolis)

The days of using government technology to roll out the welcome mat for illegal aliens are officially over. The Trump administration has just launched the CBP Home app, replacing Biden’s disastrous CBP One system that essentially served as a concierge service for illegal immigration. Remember how Biden used CBP One to usher in over a million illegal aliens? Those days are done. The new app has one crystal-clear message: It’s time to go home. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem didn’t mince words about the change. “The Biden Administration exploited the CBP One App to allow more than 1 million aliens to illegally enter the United States,” she declared. “With the launching of the CBP Home App, we are restoring integrity to our immigration system.”

The app’s primary feature is a “Submit Intent to Depart” function, which lets illegal aliens report their planned departure. It’s like an RSVP system for self-deportation. How sweet is that? It can also allow users to verify that they have left the United States. According to Fox News Digital, this feature is “limited to those who were paroled into the U.S.” Noem laid out the options in terms nobody can misunderstand: “The CBP Home App gives aliens the option to leave now and self-deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream. If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return.” The Trump administration isn’t just talking tough; it’s backing it up with action. On day one, Trump killed the parole function that Biden abused.

ICE has now expanded its authority to cancel existing parole statuses, and those previously cherished TPS extensions? Gone for many nationalities. Even domestic travel is getting a reality check. The CBP One system will now only help facilitate one kind of journey — the one that leads out of the country. Since Trump has taken office, border crossings have plummeted. Essentially, he secured the border in a matter of weeks. As President Trump told Congress with his characteristic directness, “The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation. ‘We must have legislation to secure the border.’ But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.” This is a complete reversal of Biden’s open-borders disaster. While the Biden administration used technology to welcome illegal immigration, Trump is using it to restore law and order.

The automatic update of all existing CBP One apps to the new CBP Home version sends an unmistakable message: the Biden-era immigration free-for-all is over. The choice for illegal aliens is simple — leave voluntarily now and preserve the possibility of legal return or be deported and face permanent exclusion. This is what actual border security looks like. No endless processing of bogus asylum claims, no more humanitarian parole abuse, just straightforward enforcement of our immigration laws. It’s amazing what can happen when an administration actually wants to solve the border crisis instead of enabling it.

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Judges seeking to make policy; it is a peculiar sign of our times. Luckily, it’s not all of them.

Judge Declines Bid to Force Federal Gov’t to Restore Foreign Aid Contracts (ET)

A federal judge on March 10 declined to compel President Donald Trump’s administration to restore foreign assistance contracts that it had canceled. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali said that Trump’s administration must spend money allocated by Congress on foreign aid, but that it is up to the Executive Branch as to which projects it funds with the money. “The separation of powers dictates only that the Executive follow Congress’s decision to spend funds, and both the Constitution and Congress’s laws have traditionally afforded the Executive discretion on how to spend within the constraints set by Congress,” Ali said in a 48-page ruling. “The appropriate remedy is accordingly to order Defendants to ’make available for obligation the full amount of funds Congress appropriated’ under the relevant laws.”

Officials have canceled about 9,900 of the 13,100 USAID and State Department agreements, according to court filings. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media this week that the canceled contracts “did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.” The ruling came in response to a lawsuit from organizations that had agreements with the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) when Trump paused foreign aid spending to let the State Department review agreements to make sure they furthered his agenda. After Ali previously ruled that USAID and the State Department must fund contracts that predated the Trump administration but were paused under the freeze, the U.S. Supreme Court directed the judge to clarify which obligations the government must meet to comply with his order.

Ali set a March 10 deadline to issue payments to the organizations, while promising further instructions concerning groups that are not parties in the case. In the new ruling, Ali said that the Executive Branch unlawfully impounded congressionally appropriated foreign aid funds and ordered the Trump administration to pay committed funds for work completed before Feb. 13. The administration must pay nearly $2 billion in total, issuing around 300 payments a day until the organizations that had agreements with the government are recompensed for their work, the judge said.

Ali said that he concluded that government lawyers defending the withholding of foreign assistance funds, which were allocated by Congress, “offer an unbridled view of Executive power that the Supreme Court has consistently rejected—a view that flouts multiple statutes whose constitutionality is not in question.” However, he also said that courts are restrained in the relief they can offer in such disputes. “The Court must be careful that any relief it grants does not itself intrude on the prerogative of a coordinate branch,” he said. “The Court accordingly denies Plaintiffs’ proposed relief that would unnecessarily entangle the Court in supervision of discrete or ongoing Executive decisions, as well as relief that goes beyond what their claims allow.”

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“Has anyone else talked about Gonzalo Lira? An American journalist, He had a US passport. Has anyone talked about him besides Russia? Try to remember. Nobody did,”

Moscow Reproaches Western Media For Silence Over Gonzalo Lira’s Death (RT)

The fact that only Moscow cared about the fate of US blogger Gonzalo Lira, who died in a Ukrainian prison last year, is a sign of the “deepest crisis” affecting the international bodies that are supposed to protect journalists, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Lira, a Chilean-American citizen, passed away behind bars in Ukraine in January 2024, while awaiting trial for “systematically justifying the Russian aggression.” Zakharova recalled the ordeal of the US journalist during a conference on the development of modern media at the Moscow School of Economics (MSE) on Tuesday. “Has anyone else talked about Gonzalo Lira? An American journalist, He had a US passport. Has anyone talked about him besides Russia? Try to remember. Nobody did,” she insisted.

When asked about Lira’s incarceration, the White House and the US State Department replied with “strategic silence, generously paid for by USAID, an American agency that supposedly promotes international development. It is ridiculous,” the spokeswoman stressed.The international institutions that are supposed to protect journalists are currently in “the deepest crisis,” Zakharov said. “Waiting for them to resuscitate or for them to be resuscitated by someone else is unnecessary and useless” as Russia, which has “an amazing and diverse” journalistic community, has the potential to correct the situation on its own, she noted. Lira, who was married to a Ukrainian woman and had resided in the city of Kharkov since 2010, got in trouble with the Kiev authorities for his coverage of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on YouTube, which was critical of the government of Vladimir Zelensky.

The blogger, writer and filmmaker, who had Hollywood experience, was first detained by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in early 2022, but released after a week without any charges being pressed against him. Lira was arrested again in May 2023 and released on bail three months later; he claimed he’d been subjected to torture while in prison. He ended up in custody again in late July that year after jumping bail and attempting to flee the country to seek asylum in Hungary. At that time, his father, Gonzalo Lira Sr., suggested that the administration of then-President Joe Biden gave “at least tacit approval of Gonzalo’s arrest.” The journalist’s family later blamed Kiev for his death in prison. In February, US President Donald Trump’s close ally Elon Musk also claimed that Zelensky had “killed” the American journalist. When asked about Lira during a press conference last month, the Ukrainian leader replied: “I do not know this man. I never knew him.”

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Rogan98

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1899473449409552461

 

 

https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1899474006811537804

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jul 252023
 
 July 25, 2023  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


Andy Warhol Mao 1972

 

RFK Jr. Calls For Corruption Investigation Of Joe Biden (JTN)
The Failed State Effort Of Indicting Trump (MoA)
The Purple Hour (James Howard Kunstler)
The NATO Generals Know The War Against Russia Is Lost (Helmer)
Counter-Revolution – ‘Do You Know What Time It Is?’ (Alastair Crooke)
The Strange Lives And Pointless Deaths Of Foreign Mercenaries In Ukraine (Sizova)
Russian Monthly Munition Production Exceeds Volumes for the Whole of 2022 (Sp.)
Richard Nixon Predicted Ukraine Conflict In 1994 – WSJ (RT)
Russia Does Not Target Civilian Buildings – Kremlin (RT)
The Looming War Against China (Michael Hudson)
BRICS Problems, BRI Solutions (Pepe Escobar)
The BRICS Won’t Kill the Dollar, US Policy Will (GS)
From Napoléon to Macron: How France Learned To Love Big Brother (Pol.eu)
Macron Says France Needs Return To Authority ‘At Every Level’ After Unrest (G.)
Nobel Physics Laureate Speaks Out About “Corruption” of Climate Science (DS)
Biden Blames White House Cocaine On Black Guy Who Lived There Before (BBee)

 

 

 

 

McCarthy

 

 

Jordan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1683473091215921152

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donalds
https://twitter.com/i/status/1683490143536300032

 

 

Biden Archer

 

 

 

 

Biden short stairs

 

 

 

 

Might as well (attack).

RFK Jr. Calls For Corruption Investigation Of Joe Biden (JTN)

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. changed tactics Sunday and demanded for the first time an investigation into possible corruption by President Joe Biden, his party’s standard bearer. Kennedy’s request was prompted by the release last week of an FBI informant report that alleged that Biden was part of a $10 million bribery scheme involving an Ukraine company that hired his son Hunter. The report released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) alleges Burisma Holdings founder Mykola Zlochevsky told a the informant that he was “coerced” into paying the Bidens $10 million to get a Ukrainian investigation shut down. “I have avoided criticizing the president because I’m trying to bring people together and end some of the vitriol, the poison that’s made politics so poisonous,” Kennedy told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1683647670513029121

“I think though the issues that are now coming up are worrying enough that we really need a real investigation of what happened,” he said. “I mean, these revelations where you have Burisma — which is a notoriously corrupt company that paid out apparently $10 million to Hunter and his dad — if that’s true, then it is really troubling.” Kennedy added Americans should also be worried about the politicization of federal law enforcement. “I think that that’s something that every American needs to worry about and our federal agencies, which used to be above politics, and now become weaponized as political instruments, and that, again, is another really damaging trend for our democracy,” he said.

RFK

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“Jack Smith [..] employs 40 to 60 career prosecutors, paralegals and support staff [..] In his first four months on the job [..] Mr. Smith’s investigation incurred expenses of $9.2 million..”

“With that budget and the brainpower of such a large staff one could find fault with anyone and indict any person for whatever without much problems..”

The Failed State Effort Of Indicting Trump (MoA)

The effort Biden’s Justice Department puts into preventing the leader of its opposition from gaining another presidency has reached an insane level. “As Inquiries Compound, Justice System Pours Resources Into Scrutinizing Trump” – NY Times – Jul 23, 2023. “Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing criminal investigations into former President Donald J. Trump, employs 40 to 60 career prosecutors, paralegals and support staff, augmented by a rotating cast of F.B.I. agents and technical specialists, according to people familiar with the situation. In his first four months on the job, starting in November, Mr. Smith’s investigation incurred expenses of $9.2 million. That included $1.9 million to pay the U.S. Marshals Service to protect Mr. Smith, his family and other investigators who have faced threats after the former president and his allies singled them out on social media. At this rate, the special counsel is on track to spend about $25 million a year.”

With that budget and the brainpower of such a large staff one could find fault with anyone and indict any person for whatever without much problems. If this would happen in a foreign democracy that is not friendly with the U.S. the State Department and various think tanks would be outraged about such anti-democratic behavior. It would be explained as a sign that the state in question is falling apart. “The main driver of all these efforts and their concurrent expenses is Mr. Trump’s own behavior — his unwillingness to accept the results of an election as every one of his predecessors has done, his refusal to heed his own lawyers’ advice and a grand jury’s order to return government documents and his lashing out at prosecutors in personal terms.”

That all might be a bit outrageous but what is actual criminal with it? The government documents are back to where they are supposed to be and none were reportedly of any great significance. So why still make such a fuzz about them? Seen from the outside U.S. internal politics now look like a bad reality show. This is not the self confident behavior of an elite of the sole superpower the U.S. still pretends to be. There is a theory that the U.S. is undergoing some form of sovietization with a similar accumulation of defects and inefficiencies as occurred in the U.S.S.R. before it fell apart. I am not sure that it is the case, but many significant factors – transportation, public service, health, education, industry, policies – now look worse to me than I remember them to be.

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“..if the news media were not a pseudopod of the Blob..”

The Purple Hour (James Howard Kunstler)

Forgive me for bringing this up, but remember the first impeachment of Mr. Trump on the grounds of a phone call to freshly-minted President Z in Ukraine pertaining to some fishy matters around the Burisma gas company? Yes, Mr. T was impeached over a mere inquiry into possible misconduct by a former high US official (being one “Joe Biden,” ex-veep) and his bag-man son. The setup was patently obvious even to us bloggers who enjoy no intimate correspondence with organelles of the DC Blob. A CIA spook “whistleblower” named Eric Ciaramella (sssshhhh) was injected into the scene with help from the devious Col. Vindman at NSA and an assist from Intel Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson… and voila! Recall the solemn pageantry of Nancy Pelosi’s march across the Capitol rotunda with the hallowed bill of impeachment on a satin pillow….

And now, more than three years later, the nation is informed of all the particulars around those Burisma Company’s doings with the Biden family in granular detail ($5-million plus $5-million), laying out just one instance of treasonous moneygrubbing by this family among many grifts in other nations. And in case of any lingering questions — if the news media were not a pseudopod of the Blob — a long roster of bank transfer records has been assembled by Rep. Comer of the House Oversight Committee to validate the deal memos, emails and audio recordings already available for inspection in the alt.news.

You realize, don’t you, that the DOJ and the FBI had all of this info (a.k.a evidence) in its possession even before Trump impeachment number one? AG William Barr and FBI Director Wray could have stepped up at any time after October, 2019, and said, “Oh, here’s what that phone call to Z was about.” That they didn’t is arguably the most blatant crime among scores of crimes committed by the Blob in the Trump and post-Trump years. “Federal Justice Manual 9-5.000, Section B: Constitutional obligation to ensure a fair trial and disclose material exculpatory and impeachment evidence. Government disclosure of material exculpatory and impeachment evidence is part of the constitutional guarantee to a fair trial. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963). The law requires the disclosure of exculpatory and impeachment evidence when such evidence is material to guilt or punishment.”

So now the Blob is desperate to jettison this embodiment of its corruption and lawlessness, “Joe Biden,” before the Trump-deranged masses start paying attention to the distant yelling from the asteroid belt of actual news beyond noisy Planet MSNBC. The Blob will be fighting for its very life anyway. The Ukraine operation is not proceeding according to plan. Do you know why? Answer: because it was a stupid plan concocted by purblind Neocon idiots. Russia has been insulted to the degree that it deems America unworthy of negotiation — meaning Russia will bring the Ukraine mess to a conclusion on its terms. They will take care to do it gingerly, so as not to further inflame the psychosis afflicting America and tempt us into even grosser stupidities. Namely, they will insist on a neutral Ukraine with no foreign operators in it and some rearrangement of Ukraine’s borders.

America will have to lump it. The Blob Neocon faction will blame the whole lamentable affair on “Joe Biden,” who, by then, will be gone from the White House. How does that happen? The 25th Amendment, since we are now at the point where his infirmity is as hard to ignore as the evidence of his crimes. How the Blob deals with his successor, the distressing Ms. Harris, is another bridge to cross. The switcheroo itself may be enough to tank the financial markets, which will give the restive nation something else to think about: the personal ruin of every household in the land. Then, things get really interesting.

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“Putin makes the most important statement by a Russian leader in more than a hundred years..”

The NATO Generals Know The War Against Russia Is Lost (Helmer)

Soldiers lay down smoke on the battlefield to conceal their movements, advancing or retreating, from the troops on the other side. In the US Army manuals for warfighting with smoke, there are four kinds for the battlefield (lead image) – obscuring smoke which is aimed at blinding the enemy so he can’t see what you have coming for him; screening smoke which is laid down between you and your enemy, so he can’t see what you are doing in your positions; protecting smoke which is aimed at disrupting the laser and other targeting systems of the other side’s artillery and rockets; and marking smoke whose purpose is either to pinpoint targets for air attackers or rear artillery, or identify safety positions on a rapid-movement battlefield.

With the White House in the lead, in the war the NATO allies are fighting against Russia to the last Ukrainian, an entirely new kind of smoke has been used – it’s the blowback smoke which blinds its users. On the Ukrainian battlefield this smokescreen conceals nothing from the Russians. Instead, it is being used to deceive the NATO country media, voters, and parliaments which must agree to subscribe the money to pay the Ukrainians to fight, and supply them with NATO ammunition, weapons, intelligence, and support services, including credits and cash. Vladimir Zelensky, the Ukrainian president best known for career comic turns — the most famous of which was playing a piano with his penis (screened, protected, marked) — is the master of the blowback smoke on the present battlefield.

A day ago, he told the Ukrainian deputy prime minister of Canada, Chrystia Freeland: “we are approaching a moment when relevant actions can gain pace because we are already going through some mines locations and we are demining these areas.” The calculated ambiguities – “moment”, “approaching”, “relevant”, “can”, “pace”, “some” – are the smoke. The blowback was started by Freeland who told Zelensky that how his counteroffensive was going against the Russians is “the question in the minds of everyone here [and] the preoccupation of all of your friends in the world”. Zelensky’s smoke was invited by Freeland to blind the world, especially their friends. In this week’s War of the Worlds discussion with Swiss Army Colonel Jacques Baud, this tactic is exposed, and in its place evidence revealed of the French and other allied general staffs trying to find their way off the battlefield, as Zelensky forces are destroyed, along with the best of US, French, British and other NATO weapons. The programme was pre-recorded on Thursday.

Less than twenty-four hours later at a virtual session of the Russian Security Council, President Vladimir Putin made an unusual introduction to the closed-door plans of his military, security and intelligence chiefs. “It is clear today,” Putin said, referring to the Americans, French, Germans, and British, “that the Western curators of the Kiev regime are certainly disappointed with the results of the counteroffensive that the current Ukrainian authorities announced in previous months. There are no results, at least for now.” “The whole world sees that the vaunted Western, supposedly invulnerable, military equipment is on fire, and is often even inferior to some of the Soviet-made weapons in terms of its tactical and technical characteristics.” Then on the topic of Poland and Galicia, Putin makes the most important statement by a Russian leader in more than a hundred years. Putin warns the Polish government, together with the Lithuanians, not to make a troop move on Galicia’s capital Lvov, as the Germans had done in 1941.

He also warns Berlin not to imagine they can recover the old Prussian or the more recent Third Reich sway in those territories. Between the lines also, Putin issued an invitation to two of the ruling factions in Kiev – the military command and the Lvov Banderites – that they should remove Zelensky quickly, before they lose what will be left of their territory, after the Russian Army goes on the offensive. If they want to keep Galicia, “this, I repeat”, Putin said, “is in the end their business. If they want to relinquish or sell off something in order to pay their bosses, as traitors usually do, that’s their business. We will not interfere in this.” Putin’s smoke signal carried a subliminal meaning. He didn’t identify the Biden administration. Instead, he implied that Zelensky is the Americans’ underboss; and that if the Ukrainians want to survive the war in which everything made in America is “on fire”, the Ukrainians don’t have long.

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“The myth of American power, NATO competence and the reputation of U.S. weaponry hangs in the balance..”

Counter-Revolution – ‘Do You Know What Time It Is?’ (Alastair Crooke)

To be blunt, both the U.S. and Europe have stalked brazenly into traps of their own making. Caught in the lies and deceit woven around a claimed inheritance of superior cultural DNA, (vouchsafing, it is said, almost certain victory), the West is awakening to a fast-approaching disaster to which there are no easy solutions. Cultural exceptionalism, together with the prospect of a clear ‘win’ over Russia, are draining rapidly away – but exiting delusion is both slow and humiliating. The coming devastation is not just centred around the failed Ukraine offensive and NATO’s weak showing. It comprises multiple vectors that have been building over the years, but which are reaching culmination synchronously.

In the U.S., the run-up to momentous elections is underway. The Democrats are in a fix: The party has long since turned its back on its old blue-collar constituency, engaging instead with an urban ‘creative class’ in an exalted, world-shaping ‘social engineering’ project of moral redress, in alliance with Silicon Valley and the Permanent Nomenklatura. But that experiment has run off into the weeds, becoming ever more extreme and absurd. Push-back is building. Predictably enough, the Democratic campaign is not gaining traction. Team Biden has low, low approval ratings. But Biden family pressure insists that Biden must persevere with his candidature, and not yield to another. Either way – Biden staying or going – there is no ready solution to the Party’s conundrum of a non-performing, non-platform.

The electoral landscape is a mess. Heavy ‘lawfare’ artillery is intended to break the Trump defences and drive him off the field, whilst an attrition of disclosures of Biden family malfeasance are intended wear down and implode the Biden bubble. The Democratic Establishment is spooked too by the flanking manoeuvre of the R. F. Kennedy candidature, which is snowballing rapidly. Put simply, the Democratic wokish ideology of historical redress is separating the U.S. into two nations living in one land. Divided not so much by ‘Red or Blue’, or class, but defined by irreconcilable ‘ways of being’. The old categories: Left, Right, Democrat or GOP are being dissolved by a Cultural War that respects no categories, crossing the boundaries of class and party affiliation. Indeed, even ethnic minorities have been alienated by the zealots wanting to sexualise children at age 5 years, and by the pushing of the trans agenda on to school children.

Ukraine has served as the solvent to the old order and has become the Albatross hanging around the neck of the Biden Admin: How to spin the looming Ukraine debacle as somehow ‘mission achieved’. Can that be done? Because the escape route of a ceasefire and a frozen line of contact is unacceptable to Moscow. In short, ‘Biden’s war’ cannot continue as it is, but nor can it do ‘other’ without facing humiliation. The myth of American power, NATO competence and the reputation of U.S. weaponry hangs in the balance. The economic narrative (‘everything is fine’) is poised, for somewhat unconnected reasons, to turn sour too. Debt – finally – is becoming the sword suspended above the economy’s neck. Credit is being tightly squeezed. And next month, the BRICS-SCO bloc will take the first strategic steps to disentangle up to 40 countries from the dollar. Who then will buy Yellen’s $ 1.1 trillion Treasuries – now and in the future – that is needed to fund U.S. government expenditure? These events ostensibly are disconnected, but in reality, they form a self-reinforcing loop. One leading to a ‘run on the political bank’ – that is to say, the U.S.’ credibility itself.

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According to Russia, 5,000 foreign mercenaries have been killed, and another 5,000 have fled.

The Strange Lives And Pointless Deaths Of Foreign Mercenaries In Ukraine (Sizova)

Since February 24, 2022, a projected 11,675 foreign mercenaries from 84 countries have joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). This was stated by the Russian Ministry of Defense on July 10. The largest numbers of mercenaries apparently came from Poland (over 2,600), the US and Canada (over 900 from each), Georgia (over 800), Great Britain and Romania (over 700 each), Croatia (over 300), as well as from France and the part of Syria controlled by Türkiye (over 200 each). According to Moscow, the peak influx of foreign mercenaries was from March to April of last year, but after the first casualties, the growth rate suddenly decreased.

The number of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine appears to be rapidly declining. Russia’s Ministry of Defense believes that only around 2,000 remain today. It has also claimed that about 5,000 foreign volunteers fled Ukraine after seeing how the authorities treated them. During interrogations, captured Ukrainian servicemen have reportedly said the commanders of front-line AFU units are not held accountable for losses among mercenaries.“The Ukrainian command throws units with foreign mercenaries into so-called ‘meat-grinder assaults’ on Russian positions. Wounded mercenaries are the last to be evacuated, only after all Ukrainian servicemen are removed [from the battlefield],” said the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Shortly after the start of Russia’s offensive, President Vladimir Zelensky announced the formation of the International Legion of Territorial Defense in order to attract foreign volunteers to Ukraine. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense claimed that over 20,000 people wanted to join. In March of this year, however, The New York Times called the data exaggerated. “Ukrainian officials initially boasted of 20,000 potential Legion volunteers, but far fewer actually enlisted. Currently, there are around 1,500 members in the organization,” the article said. Citing internal documents, the newspaper noted that the Legion was experiencing problems and that recruitment had “stagnated.” As the The Washington-based Counter Extremism Project claimed in March, the Legion and other groups tied to it “continue to feature individuals widely seen as unfit to perform their duties”.

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See the difference?!

Russian Monthly Munition Production Exceeds Volumes for the Whole of 2022 (Sp.)

Monthly production of munitions by Russia’s defense industry has exceeded production volumes for entire 2022, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said on Monday. Manturov also said that almost all defense firms are meeting deadlines to implement defense orders. “You know that since the start of the current year, the volume of production of numerous weapons, special military equipment has exceeded the volumes for the entire past year. If we talk about means of destruction, we are now entering a level where a monthly production rate exceeds the overall production volume of the past year,” the minister stated.


In January, President Vladimir Putin said that the productivity of Russia’s defense industry is key to victory in the special military operation. “For example, we produce air defense missiles three times more per year than in the United States. And, in general, our defense industry produces about the same amount of air defense missiles for various purposes per year as all the military-industrial enterprises of the world produce,” Putin said during a visit to the Obukhov State Plant, a northwestern branch of Almaz-Antey Aerospace Defense Concern.

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“..the Ukrainian parliament… is even worse than the Russian Duma.”

Richard Nixon Predicted Ukraine Conflict In 1994 – WSJ (RT)

Former US president Richard Nixon warned his successor Bill Clinton nearly 30 years ago that Ukraine could plunge into bloody turmoil, while predicting major political changes in Russia, according to a document made available to the public last week. In a seven-page letter dated March 21, 1994 and cited by the Wall Street Journal, the late president gave his take on the volatile post-Soviet political landscape right after he returned from a trip to Russia and Ukraine. Nixon described Ukraine as “indispensable” and warned that the situation there was “highly explosive.” “If it is allowed to get out of control, it will make Bosnia look like a PTA garden party,” he said, referring to the 1992-1995 ethnic conflict in the Balkans that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.

The former president pointed to an “unpredictable” political situation in the country, lamenting that “the Ukrainian parliament… is even worse than the Russian Duma.” He urged Clinton to strengthen the American diplomatic presence in Ukraine and prioritize funding for Kiev. Nixon also noted that the political clout of then Russian president Boris Yeltsin had “rapidly deteriorated,” adding that “the days of his unquestioned leadership of Russia are numbered.” He also remarked that Yeltsin came to indulge himself in longer drinking bouts and could no longer deliver on his commitments to Western leaders in “an increasingly anti-American environment in the [State] Duma and in the country.”

The former US leader was uncertain who could replace Yeltsin but suggested that Russia’s anti-Western forces could produce a “credible candidate for president.” Yeltsin stepped down in late 1999, with Vladimir Putin taking up the reins. Relations between Ukraine and Russia rapidly deteriorated in 2014 after a Western-backed coup in Kiev and the onset of hostilities in Donbass. Russia sent troops into the neighboring country on February 24, 2022, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state.

The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.” Shortly before the start of the current conflict, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that would never join any Western military bloc. Last September, Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, were incorporated into Russia after the holding of referendums.

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Russia fires with high precision. Moreover, the Russian Kh-22 anti-ship missile Zelensky said hit the cathedral is so powerful, there would not be a cathedral anymore.

Russia Does Not Target Civilian Buildings – Kremlin (RT)

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has reiterated Russian denials that one of its missiles was responsible for the damage done to the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa over the weekend. The claims coming from Kiev are “absolutely not true”, he told journalists on Monday. “Our armed forces never conduct strikes on objects of social infrastructure, even less so on temples, churches and similar objects,” he assured. The Russian Defense Ministry previously said a Ukrainian interceptor missile was likely to blame, an assertion that Peskov endorsed. The cathedral was heavily damaged on Sunday morning amid a Russian missile attack on targets in several Ukrainian Black Sea ports. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said later in the day that a Russian Kh-22 anti-ship missile had struck the church’s altar. The Ukrainian leader alleged that Moscow was targeting “the people and the foundations of our pan-European culture” and pledged that the church would be rebuilt, with Italy potentially footing the bill.

The Russian Defense Ministry denied the Ukrainian charge, suggesting later on Sunday that the incompetence of the country’s air defense forces was the most probable cause of the damage. Russia targets only military locations and takes care to select only those far from civilians and sites of cultural value, it said. Meanwhile Ukrainian military leaders “place air defense assets in residential areas on purpose.” The practice was acknowledged earlier this month by a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, who claimed that it was necessary because the country doesn’t have enough longer-range air defense systems. Kiev has previously accused Russia of damage done by its own troops. The most notable case happened last November, when Zelensky accused Moscow of killing two Polish farmers in a border region and urged NATO to retaliate. Warsaw swiftly acknowledged that the projectile was likely fired by the Ukrainian side.

Last week, Russia started a series of attacks on targets in Ukrainian ports, which the military described as retaliation for Kiev’s drone strike on the Crimean Bridge last Monday. The Sunday barrage was aimed at sites where “the Kiev regime and foreign specialists planned terrorist attacks against Russia,” the Defense Ministry said. The Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa was founded in 1794 and was one of the primary Christian places of worship in Imperial Russia. The Soviet government blew it up in 1936, after declaring that it had no historic value. The building was restored over a decade starting 1999 and re-concentrated in 2010.

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“..throw Vladimir Putin out of office and restore a pro-Western neoliberal leader who would pry Russia away from its alliance with China..”

The Looming War Against China (Michael Hudson)

The U.S.-imposed sanctions against trade with Russia are a dress rehearsal for imposing similar sanctions against China. But only the NATO allies have joined the fight. And instead of wrecking Russia’s economy and “turning the ruble to rubble” as President Biden predicted, NATO’s sanctions have made it more self-reliant, increasing its balance of payments and international monetary reserves, and hence the ruble’s exchange rate. To cap matters, despite the failure of trade and financial sanctions to injure Russia – and indeed, despite NATO’s failures in Afghanistan and Libya, NATO countries committed themselves to trying the same tactics against China. The world economy is to be split between US/NATO/Five Eyes on the one hand, and the rest of the world – the Global Majority – on the other.

EU Commissioner Joseph Borrell calls this as a split between the US/European Garden (the Golden Billion) and the Jungle threatening to engulf it, like an invasion of its well-manicured lawns by an invasive species. From an economic vantage point, NATO’s behavior since its military buildup to attack Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern states in February 2022 has been a drastic failure. The U.S. plan was to bleed Russia and leave it so economically destitute that its population would revolt, throw Vladimir Putin out of office and restore a pro-Western neoliberal leader who would pry Russia away from its alliance with China – and then proceed with America’s grand plan to mobilize Europe to impose sanctions on China. What makes it so difficult in trying to evaluate where NATO, Europe and the United States are going is that the traditional assumption that nations and classes will act in their economic self-interest is not of help.

The traditional logic of geopolitical analysis is to assume that business and financial interests steer almost every nation’s politics. The ancillary assumption is that governing officials have a fairly realistic understanding of the economic and political dynamics at work. Forecasting the future is thus usually an exercise in spelling out these dynamics. The US/NATO West has led this global fracture, yet it will be the big loser. NATO members already have seen Ukraine deplete their inventory of guns and bullets, artillery and ammunition, tanks, helicopters weapons and other arms accumulated over five decades. But Europe’s loss has become America’s sales opportunity, creating a vast new market for America’s military-industrial complex to re-supply Europe. To gain support, the United States has sponsored a new way of thinking about international trade and investment. The focus has shifted to “national security,” meaning to secure a U.S.-centered unipolar order.

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“Putin tested Pretoria and exposed it to the whole Global South as a fragile node of the “jungle” – actually the Global Majority – easily threatened by the western “garden” gang..”

BRICS Problems, BRI Solutions (Pepe Escobar)

As the BRICS approach the most important summit in their history on August 22-24 in Johannesburg, South Africa, some fundamentals need to be observed. The top three BRICS cooperation platforms are politics and security, finance and the economy, and culture. So the notion that a new BRICS gold-backed reserve currency will be announced at the South Africa summit is spurious. What is in progress, as confirmed by BRICS sherpas, is the R5: a new common payment system. The sherpas are only in the preliminary stages of discussing a new reserve currency which could be gold or commodities-based. The discussions within the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), led by Sergey Glazyev, by comparison, are way more advanced. The order of priorities is to get R5 rolling. All current BRICS currencies start with an “R”: renminbi (yuan), ruble, real, rupee, and rand.

R5 will allow current members to increase mutual trade by bypassing the US dollar and reducing their US dollar reserves. This is only the first of many practical steps in the long and winding road of de-dollarization. An expanded role for the New Development Bank (NDB) – the BRICS bank – is still being discussed. The NDB may, for instance, grant loans denominated in BRICS gold – making it a global unit of account in trade and financial transactions. BRICS exporters will then have to sell their goods against BRICS gold, instead of US dollars, as much as importers from the collective west would have to be willing to pay in BRICS gold. That’s a long way away, to put it mildly. Frequent discussions with sherpas from Russia and also independent financial operators in the EU and the Persian Gulf always touch on the key problem: imbalances and weak nodes inside the BRICS, which will tend to serially proliferate with the imminent BRICS+ expansion.

Within BRICS, there’s a wealth of serious unsolved dossiers between China-India, while Brazil is squeezed between a list of imperial dictates and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s natural drive to fortify the Global South. Argentina has been all but forced by the usual suspects to “postpone” its admission request to join BRICS+. And then there’s the weak link by definition: South Africa. Squeezed between a rock and a hard place, the organizer of the most important summit in BRICS history opted for a humiliating compromise not exactly worthy of an independent Global South middle-ranked power.

South Africa decided not to receive Russian President Vladimir Putin and opted instead for the presence of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – as Pretoria first suggested to Moscow. The other BRICS members validated the decision. The compromise means that Russia will be physically represented by Lavrov while Putin will participate in the whole process – and subsequent decisions – via videoconference. Translation: Putin tested Pretoria and exposed it to the whole Global South as a fragile node of the “jungle” – actually the Global Majority – easily threatened by the western “garden” gang and not a real independent foreign policy practitioner.

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“..an obvious and immediate distrust of that once neutral world reserve currency..”

The BRICS Won’t Kill the Dollar, US Policy Will (GS)

As made clear literally from Day 1 of the Western sanctions against Putin, the West may have been aiming for Putin’s (or the Ruble’s) chest, but it then shot itself in the foot. After decades of DC exporting USD inflation from Argentina to Moscow, a large swath of the developing countries of the world who owe greater than $14T in USD-denominated debt were already reeling under the pain of rate-hike gyrations which made their own debt and currency markets flip and flop like a dying fish on the dock. Needless to say, a 500-basis-point spike in the cost of that debt under Powell didn’t help. In fact, it did little good (or goodwill) for USD friends and enemies alike, from the gilt markets in London to the fruit markets in Santiago. Adding insult to injury, DC coupled this strong-Dollar policy with a now weaponized-Dollar policy in which a nuclear and economic power like Russia had its FX reserves frozen and access to SDRs and SWIFT transactions blocked. Like Napoleon at Moscow, this was going a step too far…

The net result was an obvious and immediate distrust of that once neutral world reserve currency, an outcome which economists like Robert Triffin warned our congress against in 1960, and even John Maynard Keyes warned the world against long before. Heck, even Obama warned against such weaponization of a reserve currency as recently as 2015. Thus, and as I (and many others) warned from Day 1 of the sanctions, the distrust for the USD unleashed by the sanctions in early 2022 was “a genie that can never go back in the bottle.” Or more simply stated, the trend toward de-dollarization was now going to come at greater speed and with greater force.

This force, of course, is now being seen, as well as debated, under the highly symbolic as well as substantive example of the BRICS+ nations seeking to usher in a gold-backed trade currency to move openly away from the USD, a move which some maintain will soon de-throne the USD as a world reserve currency and send its value immediately to the ocean floor. We know, for example, that Russian finance experts like Sergei Glasyev have real motives and sound reasons for planning a new (anti-Dollar) financial system which not only seeks a Eurasian Economic Union for cross boarder trade settlements backed by local currencies and commodities, but to which gold will likely be added as a “backer” to the same.

Glasyev has also made headlines with plans regarding the Moscow World Standard as a far more fair-playing and fair-priced gold exchange alternative to the Western LBMA exchange. If we take his gold backing plans seriously, we must also take seriously the plan to expand such gold-backed trade currency plans into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which would make the final tally of BRICS+ nations “going gold” as high as 41 country codes. This could ostensibly mean greater than 50% of the world’s population and GDP would be trading in a gold-backed settlement currency outside of the USD, and that, well, matters to both the demand and strength of that Dollar…

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Napoleon centralized governments like no-one before. He gave most Europeans their family names.

From Napoléon to Macron: How France Learned To Love Big Brother (Pol.eu)

Last month, the French parliament approved a controversial government plan to allow investigators to track suspected criminals in real-time via access to their devices’ geolocation, camera and microphone. Paris also lobbied in Brussels to be allowed to spy on reporters in the name of national security. Helping France down the path of mass surveillance: a historically strong and centralized state; a powerful law enforcement community; political discourse increasingly focused on law and order; and the terrorist attacks of the 2010s. In the wake of President Emmanuel Macron’s agenda for so-called strategic autonomy, French defense and security giants, as well as innovative tech startups, have also gotten a boost to help them compete globally with American, Israeli and Chinese companies.

“Whenever there’s a security issue, the first reflex is surveillance and repression. There’s no attempt in either words or deeds to address it with a more social angle,” said Alouette, an activist at French digital rights NGO La Quadrature du Net who uses a pseudonym to protect her identity. As surveillance and security laws have piled up in recent decades, advocates have lined up on opposite sides. Supporters argue law enforcement and intelligence agencies need such powers to fight terrorism and crime. Algorithmic video surveillance would have prevented the 2016 Nice terror attack, claimed Sacha Houlié, a prominent lawmaker from Macron’s Renaissance party.

Opponents point to the laws’ effect on civil liberties and fear France is morphing into a dystopian society. In June, the watchdog in charge of monitoring intelligence services said in a harsh report that French legislation is not compliant with the European Court of Human Rights’ case law, especially when it comes to intelligence-sharing between French and foreign agencies. “We’re in a polarized debate with good guys and bad guys, where if you oppose mass surveillance, you’re on the bad guys’ side,” said Estelle Massé, Europe legislative manager and global data protection lead at digital rights NGO Access Now.

Both the 9/11 and the Paris 2015 terror attacks have accelerated mass surveillance in France, but the country’s tradition of snooping, monitoring and data collection dates way back — to Napoléon Bonaparte in the early 1800s. “Historically, France has been at the forefront of these issues, in terms of police files and records. During the First Empire, France’s highly centralized government was determined to square the entire territory,” said Olivier Aïm, a lecturer at Sorbonne Université Celsa who authored a book on surveillance theories. Before electronic devices, paper was the main tool of control because identification documents were used to monitor travels, he explained. The French emperor revived the Paris Police Prefecture — which exists to this day — and tasked law enforcement with new powers to keep political opponents in check.

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“..order, order, order.”

Macron Says France Needs Return To Authority ‘At Every Level’ After Unrest (G.)

Emmanuel Macron has said France needs a return to authority “at every level” after recent urban unrest over the police shooting of a teenager, suggesting that poor parenting was part of the reason teenagers had taken to the streets. The police killing of Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian background, during a traffic stop last month triggered protest marches and six nights of disorder as young men clashed with police and set alight public buildings and cars. Many accused the government of allowing a culture of institutional racism in the police to fester. The officer who fired at Nahel has been charged with voluntary homicide and jailed awaiting trial.

The French president used his first TV interview since the unrest to condemn what he called the “indescribable violence” of the clashes on the streets, including “the burning of schools, city halls, gyms and libraries” and “the violence of looting”. He said: “The lesson I draw from this is: order, order, order.” Macron did not refer to concerns on the left and from rights groups that the rioting reflected longstanding anger over racism and discrimination in law enforcement. He instead took a hard line on the need for more authority, law and order, saying, “Order must prevail. There is no freedom without order.”

Macron repeated his suggestion that poor parenting, particularly by single parents, had contributed to teenagers as young as 16 taking to the streets against police. He said of those arrested: “An overwhelming majority have a fragile family framework, either because they come from a single-parent family or their family is on child support benefits.” He said he would launch policies in the autumn to focus on parenting skills and supporting families. Macron also repeated his criticism over the role of social networks during the unrest and looting, saying: “We need to better protect our teenagers and young adults from screens.” He said certain content should be removed when it was a call to violence and that “public digital order” was needed “to stop excesses”.

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“The same team that tells us that we must ‘listen to the experts’ won’t listen to any experts they don’t like.”

“The thing about sceptical Nobel Prize winners is that they make the name-calling ‘climate denier’ programme look as stupid as it can get..”

Nobel Physics Laureate Speaks Out About “Corruption” of Climate Science (DS)

Earlier this month, the 2022 Nobel Physics Laureate Dr. John Clauser slammed the ‘climate emergency’ narrative as a “dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people”. Inevitably, the punishments have begun. A talk that Dr. Clauser was due to give to the International Monetary Fund on climate models has been abruptly cancelled, and the page announcing the event removed from the IMF site. Dr. Clauser was due to speak to the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office this Thursday under the title: “Let’s talk – How much can we trust IPCC climate predictions?” It would appear that “not a lot” isn’t the politically correct answer. Clauser is a longstanding critic of climate models and criticised the award of the Physics Nobel in 2021 for work on them.

He is not alone, since many feel that climate models are primarily based on mathematics, and a history of failed opinionated climate predictions leave them undeserving of recognition at the highest level of pure science. Not that this opinion is shared by the green activist National Geographic magazine, which ran an article: “How climate models got so accurate they won a Nobel.” Last week, Clauser observed that misguided climate science has “metastasised into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience”. This pseudoscience, he continued, has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other related ills. It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies and environmentalists. “In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis,” he added.

Clauser is the latest Nobel physics laureate to dismiss the notion of a climate crisis. Professor Ivar Giaever, a fellow laureate, is the lead signatory of the World Climate Declaration that states there is no climate emergency. It further argues that climate models are “not remotely plausible as global policy tools”. The 1998 winner Professor Robert Laughlin has expressed the view that the climate is “beyond our power to control” and humanity cannot and should not do anything to respond to climate change. The Australian climate journalist Jo Nova was in fine form reporting on Clauser’s recent comments. “The thing about sceptical Nobel Prize winners is that they make the name-calling ‘climate denier’ programme look as stupid as it can get,” she observed.

She noted the lack of any mainstream media interest in Clauser’s recent comments, asking: “How much damage would it do to the cause if the audience finds out that one of the highest ranking scientists in the world disagrees with the mantra?” A question of course with an obvious answer. Quite a lot. The same team that tells us that we must ‘listen to the experts’ won’t listen to any experts they don’t like. They rave about ‘UN Experts’ that hide the decline, but run a mile to avoid the giants of science. They’ll ask high-school dropouts about climate change on prime-time TV before they interview Nobel Prize winners. It’s a lie by omission. It’s active deception. And the whole climate movement is built on it.

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“Borfarginbinder.”

Biden Blames White House Cocaine On Black Guy Who Lived There Before (BBee)

With the rumor mill still churning despite the Secret Service closing its investigation, President Joe Biden blamed the presence of cocaine in the West Wing of the White House on a black man who used to live there. “One of those suspicious colored fellas used to live here,” Biden said to reporters assembled on the White House lawn as he came outside for his morning recess time. “Black folks are always dealing drugs, which is why I pushed so hard to incarcerate them decades ago. Nobody listened. Now, one of them lived here for years. He was a bad dude. Borfarginbinder.” Ever since a white powder that later tested positive for cocaine was discovered in the White House, speculation has run rampant that it may have belonged to President Biden’s son, Hunter.


“People are trying to say it belonged to my son, but that’s an awful thing to say because my son passed away years ago,” Biden said. “It’s time for us to move on, just like the black fella who lived here before. He doesn’t live here anymore, he just calls me up every day and tells me what I need to do. Mint chocolate chip.” As Biden was being led away, he was heard muttering about the White House’s former tenants. “Whatever happened to that guy?” he asked. “And what about his wife — the tall, burly fella?” At publishing time, administration officials also confirmed that drugs found in Hunter Biden’s car and home also belonged to a previous black resident of the White House.

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Juan Passarelli’s half hour doc on Julian Assange

 

 

 

 

REMEDY

 

 

 

 

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Climate science

 

 

Feed birds

 

 

Jump

 

 

Nose
https://twitter.com/i/status/1683462823362408448

 

 

 

 

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Jan 212023
 
 January 21, 2023  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Edward Hopper Night in the park 1921

 

Russo-Ukrainian War: The World Blood Pump (Big Serge)
Russia ‘Fights To The End’ – Borrell (RT)
Germany Says ‘Nein’ On Tanks At Allies’ Big Ramstein Meeting (ZH)
Poland Could Send Leopard Tanks To Ukraine Without German Approval (G.)
Pentagon Wants Kiev’s Backers To ‘Dig Deeper’ (RT)
Elon Musk Warns Against ‘Relentless Escalation’ In Ukraine (RT)
Top EU Official Comments On Sanctions ‘Debate’ With Kiev (RT)
Moscow Outlines What West Can Do To Resolve Ukraine Crisis (RT)
UK Finds Loophole To Buy Russian Oil – Media (RT)
A Page Turns (Jim Kunstler)
World Economic Fuck’em (QTR)
Investigation Pulls Back Veil On Soros’ ‘Indoctrination’ Efforts (RT)
I Have No Regrets: Biden Breaks Long Silence With Shattering Admission (Turley)
Men Live Longer (Happier?) Lives Taking Viagra; New Study Finds (ZH)
Medical Board Takes Action Against Misinformation Doc (MPT)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Biden is done

 

 

CNN turns on Biden
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616149123052208131

 

 

 

 

Dowd 23%
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616505902185517059

 

 

 

 

BARDA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616609901156892673

 

 

Lavrov UN Charter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616412193196474371

 

 

 

 

From yesterday: “United States advises Ukraine to withdraw its forces from Artemovsk (Bakhmut),” Agence France-Presse reports, citing a senior American official.

Russo-Ukrainian War: The World Blood Pump (Big Serge)

At the present moment, the Ukrainians are not encircled, but the continued creep of Russian positions ever closer to the remaining highways is easily discernable. At the present moment, Russian forces have positions within two miles of all the remaining highways. Even more importantly, Russia now controls the high ground to both the north and south of Bakhmut (the city itself sits in a depression surrounded by hills) giving Russia fire control over much of the battle space. I am currently anticipating that Russia will clear the Bakhmut-Siversk defensive line by late March. Meanwhile, the denuding of Ukrainian forces on other axes raises the prospect of decisive Russian offensives elsewhere.

At the moment, the front roughly consists of four main axes (the plural of axis, not the bladed implement), with substantial agglomerations of Ukrainian troops. These consist, from north to south, of the Zaporozhia, Donetsk, Bakhmut, and Svatove Axis (see map below). The effort to reinforce the Bakhmut sector has noticeably diluted Ukranian strength on these other axes. On the Zaporozhia front, for example, there are potentially as few as five Ukrainian brigades on the line at the moment. At the moment, the majority of Russian combat power is uncommitted, and both western and Ukrainian sources are (belatedly) becoming increasingly alarmed about the prospect for a Russian offensive in the comin weeks. Currently, the entire Ukrainian position in the east is vulnerable because it is, in effect, an enormous salient, vulnerable to attack from three directions.

Two operational depth objectives in particular have the potential to shatter Ukrainian logistics and sustainment. These are, respectively, Izyum in the north and Pavlograd in the South. A Russian thrust down the west bank of the Oskil river towards Izyum would simultaneously threaten to cut off and destroy the Ukrainian grouping on the Svatove axis (S on the map) and sever the vital M03 highway from Kharkov. Reaching Pavlograd, on the other hand, would completely isolate the Ukrainian forces around Donetsk and sever much of Ukraine’s transit across the Dneiper.

The bird’s eye view of this conflict reveals a fascinating meta-structure to the war. In the above section, I argue for a view of the front structured around Russia progressively breaking through sequential Ukrainian defensive belts. I think that a similar sort of progressive narrative structure applies to the force generation aspect of this war, with Russia destroying a sequence of Ukrainian armies. Let me be a bit more concrete. While the Ukrainian military exists at least partially as a continuous institution, its combat power has been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times at this point through western assistance. Multiple phases – life cycles, if you will – can be identified:

In the opening months of the war, the extant Ukrainian army was mostly wiped out. The Russians destroyed much of Ukraine’s indigenous supplies of heavy weaponry and shattered many cadres at the core of Ukraine’s professional army. In the wake of this initial shattering, Ukrainian combat strength was shored up by transferring virtually all of the Soviet vintage weaponry in the stockpiles of former Warsaw Pact countries. This transferred Soviet vehicles and ammunition, compatible with existing Ukrainian capabilities, from countries like Poland and the Czech Republic, and was mostly complete by the end of spring, 2022. In early June, for example, western sources were admitting that Soviet stockpiles were drained.

With Warsaw Pact stockpiles exhausted, NATO began replacing destroyed Ukrainian capabilities with western equivalents in a process that began during the summer. Of particular note were howitzers like the American M777 and the French Caesar. Russia has essentially fought multiple iterations of the Ukrainian Army – destroying the pre-war force in the opening months, then fighting units that were refilled from Warsaw Pact stockpiles, and is now degrading a force which is largely reliant on western systems. This led to General Zaluzhny’s now-famous interview with the economist in which he asked for many hundreds of Main Battle Tanks, Infantry Fighting Vehicles, and artillery pieces. In effect, he asked for yet another army, as the Russians seem to keep destroying the ones he has.

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“It would be absurd to think that Russia has lost the war or that its military is incompetent..”

Ergo: Double down on Hitler and Napoleon’s errors.

Russia ‘Fights To The End’ – Borrell (RT)

EU foreign policy commissioner Josep Borrell said on Friday that the West must keep sending weapons to Kiev, warning those who think Russia has lost or is doing poorly that Moscow has a history of winning long wars. “Russia is a great country, a great nation that is used to fighting to the end, almost losing and then recovering,” Borrell said in a speech in Madrid, bringing up the 1812 invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte’s French empire and the 1941 invasion by Adolf Hitler’s Germany as historical examples of this. “It would be absurd to think that Russia has lost the war or that its military is incompetent,” Borrell added. He claimed that so far Moscow “has been losing the war but it still has enormous strength and capacity to continue [fighting].” Because of this, he said, “now is the time to continue arming Ukraine with the necessary material and military means to wage the kind of war it has to wage.”

He described this as “not only a defensive war but one that allows it to take the initiative and break fronts and prevent Russia from launching a new, very powerful and bloody offensive in a few months.” Borrell’s invocation of Napoleon and Hitler was unusual, as Moscow has repeatedly compared the current efforts by the collective West with the two invasions, known as the Patriotic War and the Great Patriotic War, respectively. Napoleon led a multinational army recruited from all across French-dominated Europe and reached Moscow, but failed to compel Russia’s surrender. The war ended with Russian cavalry on the streets of Paris two years later. Hitler’s effort, also aided by numerous continental allies and vassals, fell just short of Moscow. The Axis armies were savaged at Stalingrad and turned back at Kursk, with Russian soldiers taking Berlin in 1945.

According to Russian estimates, the US and its allies funneled almost $100 billion worth of weapons, ammunition and supplies to the Ukrainian military in 2022. Despite this unprecedented effort, Borrell on Friday continued to insist the West was not a party to the conflict, and that the EU did everything it could to avoid it. Former leaders of Germany and France, however, publicly admitted that the European-mediated Minsk agreements had been a ploy to buy Ukraine time to prepare for war. The EU’s high commissioner for foreign affairs spoke at Madrid’s Teatro Real, where he was presented with the New Economy Forum 2022 Award. One of the presenters was Javier Solana, Borrell’s predecessor at the EU post and NATO’s secretary general in 1999, when the US-led bloc launched an unprovoked war against Yugoslavia.

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“..we have to be careful because we have a duty to look carefully and intensively at what might be the consequences for anybody in that conflict.”

Germany Says ‘Nein’ On Tanks At Allies’ Big Ramstein Meeting (ZH)

Is that a definitive nein on tanks? New German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius in fresh statements has confirmed that defense leaders gathered for a much anticipated meeting in Ramstein failed to achieve consensus on tanks for Ukraine. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was present for the meeting which reportedly involved top military officials from some 50 nations, most of them NATO, who met to coordinate the path forward in arming Ukraine. There’s been intense, uneasy back-and-forth this week between Berlin and Washington on the question of supplying Western-manufactured heavy tanks to Kiev, namely the Leopard as well as M1 Abrams. Hawks among the alliance have seen Berlin as essentially standing in the way.

“Today, we can all not yet say when a decision will be made about Leopard and what this decision will look like,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at the end of the Ramstein Air Base meeting. Amid accusations that Germany is waffling and thus weakening Western allies’ resolve, Pistorius continued, “We are not really hesitating we are just very carefully balancing all the pros and contra [cons] — we are not talking just about delivering anything to anybody, this is a new kind of measure we would choose, so we have to be careful because we have a duty to look carefully and intensively at what might be the consequences for anybody in that conflict.” While there was agreement to boost military aid to Ukraine among the allies gathered for the meeting, CNBC underscores that “Germany wavered on further EU tank deliveries despite mounting calls from Kyiv and fellow allies.”

The German defense minister continued, according to the remarks translated by CNBC: “I must say there is very clearly no unanimous opinion. The impression that has occasionally been made that there is a closed coalition and Germany stands in the way of this is wrong. There are many allies who say we share the opinion that I explained here today again, there are good reasons for the delivery and there are good reasons against it.” Going into the meeting it was widely reported days ago that Berlin has told European allies that it will authorize Leopard tanks only if Washington first leads the way with supply its own Abrams tanks. But the Biden administration has shut the door on these heavy, advanced tanks for the time being.

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Abrams tanks: “..three gallons to the mile with jet fuel..”

And then you have to supply that fuel. To battle theaters. And Abrams are prone to breaking down. Get real.

Poland Could Send Leopard Tanks To Ukraine Without German Approval (G.)

The Polish prime minister has said his country would be willing to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine without securing Germany’s approval if Berlin does not agree to their re-export at Friday’s meeting of western defence ministers at Ramstein airbase. Mateusz Morawiecki said in a radio interview on Thursday that “consent was of secondary importance” when it came to German-made tanks, because the key issue was to get military aid to Ukraine urgently. “We will either obtain this consent quickly, or we will do it ourselves,” Morawiecki added, heaping further pressure on Berlin to allow German made Leopard 2s to be sent to Ukraine in preparation for a spring offensive.

His comments came as the US Defense Department formally announced new military assistance for Ukraine valued at up to $2.5bn, including armoured vehicles and support for Ukraine’s air defence. The aid includes 59 Bradley fighting vehicles and 90 Stryker armoured personnel carriers, but not Abrams tanks. Poland, along with Finland, has said it wants to give 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, which would normally require German approval, but it is one of a number of countries trying to force the pace at a time when Berlin is still negotiating. Arvydas Anusauskas, Lithuania’s defence minister, said others could follow suit at the Ramstein meeting on Friday. “Some of the countries will definitely send Leopard tanks to Ukraine, that is for sure,” he said.

Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, met his newly appointed German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, in Berlin on Thursday, but neither mentioned the Leopard standoff in brief commentsbefore their meeting. Previously, German officials signalled Berlin was willing to break the logjam if the US would also agree to send over some of its own Abrams tanks to Ukraine. But the US said on Wednesday it did not want to do that, because the Abrams, which has a jet turbine engine, is fuel inefficient and so requires complex logistics support. Colin Kahl, the US undersecretary of defence for policy, said: “The Abrams tank is a very complicated piece of equipment. It’s expensive, it’s hard to train on, it has a jet engine – I think it’s about three gallons to the mile with jet fuel. It is not the easiest system to maintain.”

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Maybe they can empty our bank accounts?!

Pentagon Wants Kiev’s Backers To ‘Dig Deeper’ (RT)

Nations providing weapons to Ukraine need to double down on their effort because the country is facing a make-or-break moment, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on Friday ahead of a key meeting of military donors in Germany. “We need to keep up our momentum and our resolve, and we need to dig even deeper,” the Pentagon chief said in his opening remarks before a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the US Ramstein air base. He described this as “a decisive moment for Ukraine and a decisive decade for the world.” Austin touted the latest military assistance package announced by the Pentagon this week as an example of Washington’s leadership. The $2.5 billion commitment boosted total US military aid to Ukraine since hostilities with Russia broke out last February to over $26.7 billion, the US official noted.

He praised a number of NATO partners, including Poland, Canada, Germany, France, for their lethal aid to Kiev and urged further arming of the Ukrainian forces. “The Ukrainian people are watching us. The Kremlin is watching us. And history is watching us,” Austin declared. Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov will ask donors at the Ramstein meeting for more anti-aircraft systems, offensive weapons, including tanks, and “systematic ammo supplies,” his department said in a tweet. Whether or not Kiev will be given Western-made tanks has been a point of contention among NATO members. Poland and several other nations have said they were willing to provide German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks from their fleets, pending Berlin’s consent. The German government has reportedly conditioned its permission on the US leading by example.

The Pentagon declined to include M1 Abrams tanks in its latest package to Ukraine, citing “sustainment issues.” The tank requires jet fuel to operate and is difficult to maintain, so it “just doesn’t make sense to provide that to the Ukrainians at this moment,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists on Thursday. Moscow has accused the US and its allies of prolonging the conflict in Ukraine by forcing Kiev to eschew the pursuit of peace and also pumping it with weapons. It has pledged to achieve its security goals in the conflict regardless of how much support its adversary receives.

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“I am super pro Ukraine, but relentless escalation is very risky for Ukraine and the world.”

Elon Musk Warns Against ‘Relentless Escalation’ In Ukraine (RT)

Billionaire Elon Musk urged caution on Friday following reports that the US is changing its stance on whether it should assist Ukraine in attacking Russia’s Crimean Peninsula. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported, citing sources, that Washington is starting to concede that Kiev needs to have the ability to strike deep into Russian territory, even if this entails the risk of escalation. US officials are said to be “discussing with their Ukrainian counterparts the use of American-supplied weapons, from HIMARS rocket systems to Bradley fighting vehicles, to possibly target … Crimea.” The peninsula overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in 2014 following the Maidan coup in Kiev. Musk responded to a Twitter user who posted a link to the Times article by saying: “I am super pro Ukraine, but relentless escalation is very risky for Ukraine and the world.”


This is not the first time the tycoon has weighed in on the Ukraine conflict. In October, Musk came up with a peace plan to end the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev. According to his proposal, Russia should “redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision,” with Moscow withdrawing from these areas if this is what the people want. He was referring to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, which overwhelmingly voted to join Russia last year. However, the Twitter CEO also suggested that Crimea should remain part of Russia, sparking outrage in Kiev. Ukraine’s former ambassador to Berlin, Andrey Melnik, told him to “f**k off.” Later, Musk noted that Russia views Crimea as an integral part of its territory, and attempts to seize it by a foreign power could trigger a nuclear war. “If Russia is faced with the choice of losing Crimea or using battlefield nukes, they will choose the latter,” he wrote at the time.

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“Negotiations regarding further sanctions on Russia with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky are becoming increasingly complicated with each new round..”

Top EU Official Comments On Sanctions ‘Debate’ With Kiev (RT)

Negotiations regarding further sanctions on Russia with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky are becoming increasingly complicated with each new round, European Council President Charles Michel said during a trip to Kiev on Thursday. The statement came after Zelensky urged the EU to impose even tighter restrictions on Moscow. “Each debate on sanctions is much more difficult than the previous one,” Michel told reporters, as quoted by Bloomberg. “We have good debates with President Zelensky, and I will brief my colleagues on what are the Ukrainian proposals and we will consult. I’m confident we will be able to strengthen the pressure on the Kremlin.” Michel added that the EU will adopt a tenth sanctions package on Moscow. “We have to see which additional sectors can be targeted in the future,” he said.

The EU imposed sweeping restrictions on Russia after Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February. Zelensky called on Brussels on Thursday to target Russia’s nuclear industry, including “all entities involved in the Russian missile program.” He also asked for a full ban on Russian energy exports. The bloc’s efforts to completely relinquish Russian oil and gas have been met with resistance from countries such as Hungary, whose economy is heavily dependent on Russian energy. Budapest has managed to gain several carve-outs that allow it to continue receiving supplies from Moscow. “Russian [energy] accounts for 85% of Hungary’s gas consumption and 65% of oil demand. This cannot be changed overnight,” Tamas Menczer, the state secretary for foreign affairs, explained last week.

The Hungarian government shared survey results this month indicating that “97% of Hungarians reject sanctions that cause serious damage.” It added that “the message is clear: the Brussels sanctions policy must be reviewed.” The Kremlin stated last month that the Russian economy has adapted to the sanctions and that it is impossible to deny that the restrictions are hurting the EU countries as well. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West on Wednesday of trying to use sanctions to incite “a revolution” in Russia and assert “the dominance of the US by all means.”

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“Germany, France and Ukraine were playing a swindle game with the Minsk agreements. Now is payback time..”

Moscow Outlines What West Can Do To Resolve Ukraine Crisis (RT)

US-Russia relations are at their lowest point ever amid the crisis in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. As the conflict deteriorates, the only way to reverse it is for Western nations to acknowledge their mistakes and change their policies, he added. Despite initial hopes that under President Joe Biden the US would engage Russia diplomatically, the last two years “have been very bad for our bilateral relations,” the official told journalists. They are now “probably at their lowest point, historically” he added, and “there is no hope for improvement anytime soon.” The Ukraine hostilities – the focus of the confrontation between Russia and Western nations – are in “an upward spiral” according to Peskov.

“We can see a growing indirect, and sometimes direct involvement of NATO nations in this conflict,” he stated. The nations that back Kiev are acting under “a delusion that Ukraine has any chance to win on the battlefield,” he explained. Asked how the vicious circle could be broken, Peskov suggested that the US and its allies had to mentally turn the clock back to the end of 2021, “when Russia was suggesting a discussion of its concerns at the negotiations table” only to be dismissed. Western repentance for its “cynicism” was also in order, he added. “Germany, France and Ukraine were playing a swindle game with the Minsk agreements. Now is payback time,” he said, referring to the roadmap for Ukraine reconciliation, which the three nations signed with Russia in 2015.

Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Pyotr Poroshenko, the leaders at the time of Germany, France and Ukraine respectively, have since stated that the deal they negotiated with Russia was meant to give Kiev time to rebuild its military. Moscow considers these admissions to be evidence that the negotiations were conducted in bad faith and that the Ukrainian government and its backers had always intended for the Minsk agreements to fail and for the Donbass standoff to be resolved by military means. Russia claimed that its military campaign in Ukraine launched last February preempted an offensive planned by Kiev with NATO’s help. Ukraine, Germany, and France “lied to the people of Donbass, as they had a terrible fate planned for them, which Russia prevented,” Peskov explained.

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I see the name Singapore pop up in these schemes, not just India.

UK Finds Loophole To Buy Russian Oil – Media (RT)

British consumers are indirectly buying Russian oil and petroleum products despite a Western embargo on crude exports from the sanctioned country, OilPrice reported on Monday, suggesting that the bulk of it may come from India. A ban on Russian seaborne oil exports, along with a price cap of $60 per barrel, was introduced by the EU, G7 nations and Australia on December 5. Another embargo banning almost all imports of Russian oil products kicks in on February 5. The UK, which has been among the most vocal advocates of abandoning Russian energy imports, has claimed to be one of the most successful countries in achieving this target. London committed to phasing out Russian oil by the end of 2022, slashing down imports to £2 million ($2.45 million) in October.

However, diesel accounted for 18% of its total demand last year, according to OilPrice, and a number of UK consumers may have replaced direct Russian imports with supplies from Russian-fed refineries. The outlet suggests that the UK has been using India as a “back door,” given a sharp increase in the country’s imports of Russian oil, which hit a record high of 1.2 million barrels per day in December. Prior to last year, India’s imports of Russian crude were insignificant, due to high freight costs. However, the volumes that New Delhi is now buying and re-exporting suggest that some of the refined crude from the sanctions-hit country may ultimately be pumped in UK filling stations.

High diesel prices in Europe and steep discounts on Russian crude offer “a window of opportunity” for Indian refiners, the outlet said. According to tracking data from Kpler, in 2022 the Jamnagar refinery on India’s west coast boosted, by a factor of four, its imports of oil and fuel oil from Russia compared to 2021. Meanwhile, the UK has purchased a total of 10 million barrels of diesel and other refined products from Jamnagar since the beginning of 2022.

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“..We do understand how “Joe Biden” won the 2020 election: via massive fraud engineered by fraud-master Marc Elias, king of the Lawfare trolls..”

A Page Turns (Jim Kunstler)

I’ll never understand — and neither will you — how “Joe Biden” got propelled out of ignominious defeat in the earliest presidential primaries, to sweep the field on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Around the same time, all his rivals magically dropped out of the race for the nomination. Some kind of message must have gone out from Deep State Central. Who wanted this licentious old grifter in White House? Well, probably his old boss, Barack Obama, and just about everyone in officialdom connected to the shenanigans in Ukraine dating back to 2014, and then the RussiaGate illegalities that ensued from it, especially former CIA boss John Brennan and his cronies. Under Mr. Obama, the whole US government had become something like a rotten log infested with sowbugs of grift, deceit, and malfeasance. Installing the dotty old bird in the White House would give Mr. Obama a stealth third term. Mostly, it would prevent the dreaded Golden Golem of populism, Donald Trump, from bringing any harm to that cabal and its, ahem, interests.

We do understand how “Joe Biden” won the 2020 election: via massive fraud engineered by fraud-master Marc Elias, king of the Lawfare trolls, who fine-tuned the mail-in ballot operation during the likewise engineered Covid-19 public health ruse. That wicked election business, of course, is just another grave matter requiring the utmost protection to prevent any inquiry from ever gaining traction. And yet all of it, the monumental government crime spree of recent years is all unraveling before our eyes — even before Jim Jordan or anyone else has even said boo from a House committee chair.

It’s all falling apart — along with America’s economy, our institutions, and our culture. The Biden family’s cover stories are collapsing, the government’s censorship and propaganda machine has thrown a rod, the Covid-19 story looks day-by-day like organized mass murder, election fraud issues still stalk the land despite every effort to squash them — and the grim reality coalesces that Russia is going to clean up the mess we made in Ukraine, and, in the aftermath, probably produce a shit-ton of evidence of American corruption and villainy there.

“Joe Biden,” the phantom president, has entered the air-lock, waiting to be jettisoned into the deep space of ignominy, chocolate mint chip ice cream cone in hand. Kamala Harris watches the action offstage in a fugue of anxiety and depression. She does not want to become president — and, guess what, nobody really wants her to be, either. She won’t even have to be induced to step aside. Her hysteria will be so great that not even the hypnotists of the Intel Community will be able to calm her down. She’ll run shrieking from it back to California. The levers of control finally fail. By a caprice of history, and the genius of the founding fathers, Kevin McCarthy lands in the White House. A page turns. The coup is finally over. That’s my fantasy du jour.

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“..authoritarian catnip to the dingleberries that assemble at the World Economic Forum every year..”

World Economic Fuck’em (QTR)

[..] the “Forum” is harboring incredible influence, mostly with “useful” bureaucratic idiots on the left who are happy to take their cues on how to napalm individual rights for betterment of advancing their agendas from anyone who will help, regardless of their motivation. That’s right: gone are the days of joking about The Great Reset, owning nothing and liking it and shifting to a diet of mealworms and crickets.I’ve arrived at a point past that – a point of being sickened by watching people that in no way, shape or form represent me or the people in my life, yammer on about what my future will or won’t look like and what things I stand for are “right” or “wrong”.


It’s right in the WEF’s mission statement: “The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” The truth is no matter how much each narcissistic and likely psychotic guest would love to speak on behalf of millions, or even billions of people, they simply don’t. I don’t expect these people to understand the consequences of painting with a broad brush, nor do I think they care about them. Take the Covid vaccines as an example. Isn’t the idea of jabbing every single person on Earth, regardless of age, health status and lifestyle (lest we forget whether or not they consent to it reckless? Of course it is. But it doesn’t matter – because someone wanted it to be done…and, with that, it was put into action.

Wild, right? This unilateral implementation of mandates during Covid, regardless of what the individual may want for themselves and their families, was authoritarian catnip to the dingleberries that assemble at the World Economic Forum every year. I’m certain it has enabled many participants to think: we did it with vaccines – we cut them off from travel, we put their jobs and their livelihoods on the line and we even arrested and jailed them – now we can do it with anything else. I don’t need to be in Davos this week to understand how little I have in common with the people of the World Economic Forum. I know this because I was recently in Washington DC during the International Monetary Fund’s most recent circle jerk world conference.

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“Maria Zakharova: [..] Should it be proven that the leading US media outlets “received money for adjusting their coverage, all US democracy could be wrapped up in their Constitution and thrown out into the garbage heap of history..”

Investigation Pulls Back Veil On Soros’ ‘Indoctrination’ Efforts (RT)

Billionaire George Soros has links to dozens of prominent media figures in the US and beyond via organizations he funded, a conservative US watchdog claims. In the last report of a three-part investigation, published on Tuesday, MRC Business examined the ties of the Budapest-born liberal mogul, coming to the conclusion that he “cemented himself as one of the most powerful influencers in global politics through his incredible influence in the media.” MRC Business said that it had uncovered at least “54 major figures in journalism and activist media who are connected to Soros-funded organizations.” The list includes CNN’s chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour, NBC News anchor Lester Holt, and Cesar Conde, the NBCUniversal News Group chairman, who oversees the outlets NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC.

Many of the 54 individuals play prominent roles in institutions funded by Soros. For instance, Amanpour is a senior adviser at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which received $2.75 million from the mogul between 2018 and 2020, while Holt is listed as a board member in the same organization. Conde is a trustee at the Aspen Institute, which received over $1 million from the billionaire between 2016 and 2020. According to MRC, in total Soros has funneled over $32 billion into his organizations in a bid “to spread his radical ‘open society’ agenda on abortion, Marxist economics, anti-Americanism, defunding the police, environmental extremism and LGBT fanaticism.” These efforts have paid off, allowing him to “help indoctrinate millions with his views on a day-to-day basis”, the group claims.

MRC has previously claimed that Soros has financial ties to at least 253 media organizations globally, funding them through his non-profit groups and enabling him to reach viewers and listeners in virtually every corner of the world. Commenting on the report, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted on Thursday that such revelations could be compared to a “nuclear bombshell.” Should it be proven that the leading US media outlets “received money for adjusting their coverage, all US democracy could be wrapped up in their Constitution and thrown out into the garbage heap of history,” she said.

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If his own party goes after him, this is probably how.

I Have No Regrets: Biden Breaks Long Silence With Shattering Admission (Turley)

President Joe Biden has something that he wants the public to know. After the discovery of highly classified material in Biden’s former office, his garage and library, the President wanted to make one thing (and only one thing) perfectly clear: “I have no regrets.” It was a moment that rivaled his disastrous observation that, while classified material was found in his garage, it is a locked garage that also housed his beloved 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. While Biden’s “corvette standard” for storing classified documents was baffling, his declaration of “no regrets” is downright infuriating. It is also remarkably moronic with a special counsel in the field. Either the President believes that Special Counsel Robert K. Hur will paper over the entire affair or he is doing his best to force his hand with a criminal charge.

Biden was miffed to be even asked about the matter after stonewalling the press for days. He ventured out of his White House bunker to tour storm damage in California and used the victims as a virtual human shield: “You know what, quite frankly, bugs me is that we have a serious problem here we’re talking about. We’re talking about what’s going on. And the American people don’t quite understand why you don’t ask me questions about that.” The problem is that recent polls show that, while the President has no regrets, the public overwhelmingly does. Most citizens view his conduct as negligent. Roughly two-thirds believe that Congress should investigate the President, including a majority of Democrats. Sixty percent believe that he acted inappropriately with classified material.

Nevertheless, after days to hunkering down with this aides and polls, Biden decided to stick with total and absolute denial of regret or responsibility. It was not a surprise for many of us who have following Biden and his family through the years. I wrote at the start of this scandal that Biden’s ” silence is hardly surprising. Biden has always been better at expressing revulsion than responsibility. Time and again, he has literally rushed before cameras to denounce others, often without basis, for alleged crimes. He has not waited for investigations, let alone trials.” When it has come to his own alleged misconduct, Biden will deflect, deny, but rarely declare responsibility.”

The comments on Thursday were classic Biden. He first deflected by using the California victims. He then denied any real responsibility. Despite the appointment of a special counsel to investigate his conduct, he shrugged off the entire matter as something akin to finding a neighbor’s borrowed hammer from 2017 in his garage: “We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place. We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department …I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there. I have no regrets. I’m following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do. It’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s no there there.”

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Hey, it makes the blood flow!

Men Live Longer (Happier?) Lives Taking Viagra; New Study Finds (ZH)

The second study in two years shows Viagra might reduce the risk of heart disease in men. Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) found that men who took the little blue pill experienced a 39% reduction in heart disease. USC researchers gathered data from 70,000 men with an average age of 52 who were diagnosed with erectile dysfunction within the last decade. They believe Viagra increases blood flow and oxygen into the heart and throughout the body. Viagra users also were 17% less likely to suffer heart failure and had a 22% reduction in developing unstable angina. All of those conditions are fatal if untreated. Men who used the drug achieved longer life and decreased the risk of early death by 25%.


“Viagra was associated with lower incidence of [heart complications], cardiovascular death, and overall mortality risk compared to non-exposure,” the researchers wrote. The last study, published in the American College journal of Cardiology and titled “Association of Phosphodiesterase-5 Inhibitors Versus Alprostadil With Survival in Men With Coronary Artery Disease,” showed older men with cardiovascular disease who took the erectile dysfunction pill lived a healthier life. According to the American Heart Association, erectile dysfunction could be an early warning sign of heart disease in otherwise healthy men.

Read more …

Straight from the Middle Ages.

Medical Board Takes Action Against Misinformation Doc (MPT)

An Idaho pathologist who previously came under fireopens in a new tab or window for prescribing ivermectin to COVID-19 patients and spreading falsities about vaccines, is facing disciplinary actionopens in a new tab or window by the Medical Commission in Washington state, where he is also licensed to practice. Ryan Cole, MD, is said to have made “numerous false and misleading statements” during public presentations on the pandemic, COVID vaccines, the use of ivermectin to treat COVID, and the effectiveness of masks, according to a statement of chargesopens in a new tab or window issued by the Washington Medical Commission earlier this month. He also allegedly provided negligent care to a number of patients in the prevention or treatment of COVID.

“Due to their specialized knowledge and training, licensed physicians possess a high degree of public trust,” the commission wrote in the statement. “That public trust is essential to effective delivery of medical care. Knowingly false statements or those made in reckless disregard for the truth, such as the medical disinformation statements by respondent … erode the public’s trust in physicians and their medical treatment and advice, and thereby injure public health.” Specifically, at all times relevant to the case, Cole, an anatomical and clinical pathologist, ran an independent medical laboratory that he owns, provided direct care to patients via telemedicine through the website MyFreeDoctor.com, and spoke at public and private forums, as well as on news shows and podcasts, the statement noted.

According to the commission, since March 2021, Cole is said to have made false and misleading comments during his presentations, including, “Children survive [COVID-19] at a hundred percent,” and “A hundred percent of world [ivermectin] trials have shown benefit.” Other public statements Cole is said to have made include that the COVID vaccine is “an experimental biological gene therapy immune-modulatory injection,” in addition to “a fake vaccine … the clot shot, needle rape.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Assange

 

 

 

 

Burns

 

 


Percentage of new bonds that mature in one year.

 

 

Sugihara

 

 

Condor
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616377887086739456

 

 

Dragonfly
https://twitter.com/i/status/1616388910162284546

 

 

 

 

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Nov 112022
 
 November 11, 2022  Posted by at 6:36 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  13 Responses »


Francesco Queirolo Il Disinganno, Naples, Sansevero Chapel 1753-1754 (the netting is also all marble)

 

 

I was thinking all day about Kherson, and how the re-capture of the city is presented in our media. Thinking, also, about the 2,500 kilometer (1,500 miles, give or take) frontline. And of course if you focus troops and material at any single given point along a line of that size, you can make some advances. But does that mean anything, really? Other than PR? Dr. D. today adds the historic etc. perspective to this.

The adagium is: never fight a land war in Asia. Napoleon and Hitler found this out, along with many millions of their young men. But Russia IS Asia. Which means they have no choice but to fight there, and also that they have – deep-rooted – experience. Those 1,500 miles, meanwhile, are an indication of why Russia called up 300,000 reservists.

At the heart of it: you can take some land, but you can’t take our men, they have much more value: “Land is utterly worthless without the men, and Slavic men are precious and few.” Something Russia and Ukraine appear to view differently.

 

 

Dr. D.: Out on a limb for Kherson. Anyone want to take up the issue that Ukraine will blow the dam if anyone gets in there? A human rights crime? They’ve been shelling it for weeks?

Okay, Russia moves across, with a huge plain in front and a river crossing in the back. They should just lazily do this? What’s the solution? General Armageddon said “he would make uncomfortable choices”. Withdrawing would seem to fit that bill. We’ve seen him non-stop, and perhaps even ham-fistedly attempt to feint the Ukrainians – actually, why bother? – Feint the Brits and Americans into attacking at points of his choosing, aka “A Trap”.

They have not jumped at them, but Kherson is the biggest wounded bird they’ve ever flapped. How can London ignore it? They MUST have it to make a mess of Crimea, but as it’s a Steppe on a river bridge, instead or Russia, London and the Poles would be in the artillery fire and dam floodplain. And this is a Russian defeat? At the same time, Putin isn’t taking a political hit for it, despite the wounded bird routine.

Wait: unless you BELIEVED what reporters, the news media said. They said it? Russian news, which is known to be the most Western infiltrated or influenced of any body in Russia? And you took what they said seriously? How’s this: “They said it, therefore it is a lie.” That better?

Russia is fighting A Land War in Asia. I don’t know how many times I have to say this. You do not use Kentucky rules, or Melbourne rules, who basically never fought a war. Russia has a tactic, had it for 1,000 years, and it always works so why change it? You trade men for territory. Because there is so much territory, the land is worthless. However, Slavs are few, and the front line is huge.

Over time, almost a year now, Russia instantly, constantly withdraws to cede territory in exchange for men. They lost so much doing this, they now own 1/4 of the country! Oh noes! Because with “A Land War in Asia”, there’s nothing out there. Just open plains. They only thing stopping any movement is 1) the other army 2) rivers. Once the army has no men, Russia can go wherever they like.

If Russia loses no men, because they trade land to save men, they can fight this for 500 years. Ukraine is doing the opposite: trading battalions to gain cow pasture. #Winning! Am I crazy here? What is the single Russian defense measure? That they have enormous territory between them and the idiots in the West who like attacking Russia and losing. That’s why they keep Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine in front of them, and exactly why NATO wanted to encroach all these countries and remove this safety. …While, as we just admitted, change to first-strike nuclear protocol.

Surely Russia would NEVER trade territory for men, always R E T R E A T before an advancing army? That would be LOSING, wouldn’t it?

History Lesson: Russia RETREATED East of MOSCOW for Napoleon. Napoleon had the entire empty city of Moscow for his leisure. It was sacked freely, Russia gave no defense. Yay Leon! Did they lose then? How was Napoleon doing? Do they speak French in St. Petersburg now?

No. The combined Western army of Napoleon, the entire combined forces of Europe minus Britain CEASED TO EXIST. That settled anyone going to war for a while and they didn’t try anything so stupid with Moscow for 100 years after.

If you have a Land War in Asia, trade Men for Land. Land is utterly worthless without the men, and Slavic men are precious and few. Russia agrees and is behind Putin on this move. They can only DREAM that London will be so idiotic and suicidal as to move their army into Kherson, where Russia can shell them at will from far across the river. If I can shell them, but they can’t advance and stop me, is that losing? How, exactly?

What would I do, retreating, getting my hyperventilating 5th column Russian Press to lose their minds at home? Like this: Ukraine moves forward. They have success, the shelling is not so bad! Surovikin amasses forces out of range but can’t cross the river. Russia is losing! All expected. Then because of the maneuvers and feints of two big armies, Surovikin is able to ACTUALLY amass an army without Ukraine “noticing” – a thing he could not do right now. This army is amassed to the north, above the dams, perhaps by Zap, floods through, and not only can’t be stopped, it therefore cuts off the now-amassed London army from Kiev and their supplies out of Poland. Depending on the men tied up, they reach Odessa from the center of the country, not the south. Either quickly — or more likely, eventually.

…For just one scenario. But you understand they can’t amass 300,000 Russians at Kherson without 1) Proving exactly what their plan is and 2) having the army be shot up more or less constantly as they attempt to trickle across the river…WHILE Ukraine definitely drops a dam on them. Was that your war plan and idea? Of what they should do, are required to do according to Anglos sitting safely 10,000 miles away? ‘Cause it sure ain’t mine. And apparently not General Surovikin’s either.

It’s just plain stupid. Russia is 10x Ukraine’s size. Spoiler alert: Russia wins. So should they be reckless, put half an army in harm’s way just because they’re annoyed, impatient and English bloggers tell them to? No. Get them the h– out of harm’s way, and keep on reducing home casualties, every day.

If only our Anglo armies would do the same. But this is Biden’s Slavic genocide, after all. Why help London by killing your own Slavs?

 

 

 

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May 172022
 
 May 17, 2022  Posted by at 5:16 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  16 Responses »


Herbert James Draper A Deep Sea Idyll 1902(?!)

 

 

You’re not going to hear it from the western media or politicians, let alone NATO, but overnight the Ukraine war, or special operation, ended. And Russia won, on all fronts and on their own terms. Thre’ll be some more skirmishes, and a few more body bags, but not because the outcome of the war could still be changed. It’s done.

It’s funny to see how the nazi Azov “soldiers” that surrendered are now portrayed as heroic defenders of Ukraine, after hiding in a steel plant for 80 days, but they still lost. There are probably a few hundred left there, the ones who have most to fear from being captured, and all Russia has to do is to wait for them to come out. Or not.

The reason they went from nazis to heroes in no time at all in the western and Ukrainian press was that they were counted on to be the “real fighters” their country needed. Now that they’ve surrendered, without “fighting to the end”, the country, army and civilians alike, will see its morale plummet. Ukraine lost, Zelensky lost, and NATO lost. While at the same time, “our” press keeps on coming up with stories of Russian losses and weakness etc. And war crimes.

The only sensible thing left to do is to negotiate a peace in the conflict, in which Russia will see -most of- its demands (no nukes, no nazis, no NATO) granted. It’s either that or Zelensky will become guilty of the death and long drawn-out misery of many of his compatriots, without gaining an inch, and it’s hard to see him desiring that. Don’t be surprised if Zelensky surrenders soon as well, or leaves the country, claiming that Russia wants him dead and his escape was “heroic”.

 

There is one alternative: a full scale NATO attack on Russia, but that would seem far-fetched. Behind the western rhetoric there are too many minds who have read about the defeats of Napoleon and Hitler when they tried that, and who also don’t like the risk of one of Russia’s 6,000 nuclear warheads landing on their territory.

The saddest thing is that there was never any reason for this. You can paint off Putin as a crazy monster a million times, and the special action as completely unprovoked, but you would have to ignore all of Russia’s warnings over decades that this is an “existential” issue for their country. Which means they won’t back down. And everybody knew.

And besides, a lot of NATO countries’ governments have an idea what would become of them without Russian resources, fertilizer, crops, oil, gas etc. They’re willing to support NATO only up to a point, including sanctions. They don’t want to be responsible for cold and hunger for their people. If only because that would end the careers of many a politician.

It’ll take some time to fabricate the language that allows for such a defeat to be presented as a victory, but Spin Doctors “R” Us. And all of the people who’ve displayed Ukrainian flags wherever they could will need to find a narrative to defend that as well, but time heals many wounds, also the imaginary ones.

 

And yes, all this changes the face of the world enormously. The US, and through it NATO, is officially no longer the unipolar ruler of the world. They will have to share that limelight with Russia, China, India and others (Brussels has sidelined itself). That may be bad news for whoever is in power in US/NATO, but for citizens it’s a different story. They have nothing to fear from Russia’s military, but a lot from missing out on Russian resources.

In short: the war is over. The US will try to send over another $40 billion in “aid” -at least half of it weapons-, but there’ll be nobody left to handle the small fraction that is not destroyed by Russia. And just like the Russians can simply wait for the last Azov troops to leave the steel compound, they can also sit back and track any NATO weapons deliveries, and then take them out. It is really over. Unless we go all out Napoleon. I don’t think we will.

Meanwhile, we should all be happy that the war is over. Well, are we?

 

 

 

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Apr 142018
 


Pieter Bruegel the Elder The Fall of the Rebel Angels 1562

 

 

Lots of rants today, obviously, lots of -slightly- different angles.. Here’s Dr. D’s. He beat me to it…

 

 

Dr. D: Too annoyed to comment on the attack. But hey, really NOT attacking would be the change here.

There was a recent article, falsely saying:

“[H]is successful repression of the Chechen revolt…hardly endeared Putin to the Chechens.”

Oddly, this was from Russia Today. No, the Chechen war was a gruesome and unpopular war, however it was just part of the MacKinderesque plan of first lying, killing, then robbing Russia up front by lowering the price of Russia’s exports gold and oil (using Saudi oil and Canadian gold), starting an arms race, then collapsing the ruble and empowering every corrupt, criminal oligarch we could find using pallets of $100 bills. No joke, official record. Russia’s collapse and the Chechen war was no “accident”, no natural consequence of the socialism system or collapse, but a soup-to-nuts military operation. We had the nuts, and they were in the soup. The “accident” here was trusting anything the West says, ever. Haven’t they ever heard about the Indians?

Anyway, the 100-year-old plan of MacKinder, father of geopolitics, was believed by other tottering dinosaurs like Brzezinski in an age no longer run by the horse and cannon and that plan was to cut open the “long, soft underbelly” of Russia, which started with funding Islamic fighters (terrorists) out of Afghanistan (admitted and applauded), then move on through Islamic Chechens, Uzbeks, Kazaks, etc. Although completely crippled, Putin – who was put in power BY the west, BY Clinton – nevertheless stopped them in Chechnya, and was naturally savaged by the West for defending his nation in a proxy Civil War. For beyond hating men and families, they hate nations, for all these things restrain murderous self-serving psychopathy.

 

It’s a little more complicated than that as the USSR was broken up, there were cross-protectorate treaties, but that’s very typically 1,000-year Russian way. They don’t have ethnic and religious problems, or not in the western sense, because they do what America claims to do (with the States for example) and leave people alone, to be individual states, customs, religions, and people. They also don’t have a problem with Putin, as the Russian Way is really a sort of monarchism in the old sense, with a king and court and advisors, and always has been back through him, the Soviets, Stalin, Romanov, Peter, and back since they were Russian.

What’s my point? They don’t think about things the way we do. Not entirely. Chechnya was not “breaking away” and “fighting Russia” as reported, it was subverted by the West TO attack Russia. Chechens know this, but like all CIA ops, half of the target country were for and half were against. So when Putin wouldn’t stop sending the army in and leveled the country (like we’ve done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and everywhere else we’ve ever been) half the Chechen people were in support of Putin – or anyone! – to restore law, order, Chechen customs, and peace against the ISIS-like radical Wahhabists who were funded by Saudi Arabia as indeed he did, in the brutal respect-only-strength way they do things in that part of the world.

What? That’s crazy. Yes? So how do you explain that the present Chechen leader — a nation as sovereign as Canada — told Putin at the start of the Syrian war he would send any number of Chechen fighters to any place on the planet, and kill anybody Putin wanted, and consider it an personal honor. And these are deeply Islamic, hard-core militants. You see, despite also being hard-core Islamists and all around hard-bodies, they too hate Saudi Arabia, Wahhabists, and the intervention of the West that devastated their country. Killing millions of southern Russians for the goal of killing more northern Russians, as it were, every child growing up in rubble-filled war zone. What’s not to hate?

…But why would we report that? That we made a treaty with Russia, invaded on all sides anyway, then killed +2 million with Disaster Capitalism and +2 million more in the ‘Stans with the intent of wiping Russia off the map?

 

You see Reagan didn’t want to WIN the Cold War. He wanted to END it. The Cheney-Rumsfeld-Dr. Strangelove wing could never forgive that. His body wasn’t cold before they were back, this time behind Clinton, to finish the occupation of Russia as the last step to world domination. This is why the crazies back in the PNAC days were desperate to nuke the helpless Russia even then. They were right. If you didn’t nuke them, openly attack them, they would survive and escape, which would ultimamtely thwart the Neocon/Deep State plans to take over the world. And so they have.

But as we see today, they never give up. They’re still aching to start a world-wide nuclear exchange and openly agitating 24/7 on CNN to do so. No amount of bombing is enough, no number of bankrupted, shattered cities are too many just to get Russia out of the way, whose historic job, sadly but heroically, is to crush and utterly destroy the idiotic plans of meglomaniac warmongers from the West like Hitler and Napoleon, and dash them to pieces on the rocks of reality. Because the West never restrains its maniacs, it empowers them.

Being a country the size of Canada, Russia doesn’t escape this, but in the irrefutable monkey-hammering Russia gives, like say destroying 30 German divisions and 5 Million men with little more than hunting rifles and force of will – most of all the fighting in WWII – or killing 500,000 of Napoleon’s 650,000 and sending him back barefoot, well, even the western propaganda and passion for self-delusion can’t hide that…but it doesn’t help Russia any to get shot when finally facing down their violent, meth-addled neighbors. Russia knows this, and they will in fact bomb the West with iron resolve if we don’t cut it out, yet we show no signs of coming to our senses. We never have before. Russia is what stops them, going way back.

 

You’d think we’d learn something. Brzezinski did. Just before he died he said his life-long plan to destroy Russia, culminating in WWIII by cutting off the Ukraine with the New Charge of the Light Brigade was a complete failure. This is the 100 year plan of MacKinder, and these dinosaurs just won’t die. They won’t learn. They have no imagination, doing the same failed thing over and over, generation after generation. Maybe we’ll have to as well.

Maybe we — or rather the Deep State — won’t stop until Russia drops a Satan-II missile, a single one of which would destroy New England. Or a nuclear sub drone hits NY. Or their pop-up stealth pods level Charleston. Or they sink every U.S. surface ship on the planet in 5 minutes using the Sunburn missile. Easy as pushing a button. U.S. military power is leveled, the people set back 75 years, 120 Million dead. Is that what you want America? On behalf of whom? Dick Cheney, HSBC, the City of London?

But there is reason to hope, as core right figurehead Tucker Carlson recently gave a steely antiwar commentary to reach the dinosaur viewers of Fox News, Republicans-by-name. Although driven back to the darkest corners, what remains of the real Left is historically anti-war, although you’d never know it by the way 90% of the party acts. That’s seen in this far-left (or rather the People’s Left) far-left (or rather the People’s Left) Jimmy Dore video.

But if the Right and Left come together against collective bankruptcy and suicide, then they can only unite against the Deep State of Dr. Strangelove, and turn back to human priorities, against the God-knows-what priority of killing everyone on earth they can find, one by one, for any reason they can come up with. Doesn’t it sound like we should be against this? I am. Are you?

“Never fight a land war in Asia” — Princess Bride