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Debt Rattle November 2 2022

Nov 022022

November 2, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:33 am Finance Tagged with: Amnesty, Atlantic, blue checks, Boots On The Ground, censorship, grain corridor, new world order, PCR, Pelosi, Zelensky 70 Responses »

Balthus Girl at a window 1957

• Pentagon Confirms US Boots Are On The Ground In Ukraine (ZH)

• Outrage Ensues After The Atlantic Suggests ‘Amnesty’ For Pandemic Authoritarians (ZH)

• We Need Covid Accountability, Not Amnesty (QTR)

• New World Order: The West Will Have To Live Within Its Means (Karaganov)

• Zelensky ‘Nullified’ Grain Shipping Deal – Russian Duma Speaker (RT)

• There Will Be No Deal – Zelensky Broke The Rules! (Milacic)

• Russia Offers Alternative To Ukraine ‘Grain Deal’ (RT)

• Russia Demands Black Sea Corridor Guarantees From Ukraine (RT)

• Russia Responds To Kiev’s Nuclear Plant ‘Hypocrisy’ (RT)

• Blue Checkers Revolt Over Musk’s Threatened Monthly Charge (Turley)

• UK Households Face ‘Very, Very Hard’ Winter – National Grid (RT)

• Cockamamie Story (Kunstler)

• The Tale of Two Greedy Landlords (Catte Black)

• Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy (Springer)

• Fatal Flaw: 42% False Discovery Rate for SARS-CoV-2 nonQ-RT-PCR Test (PR)

GW is going to be right on source of the virus and the timeline. pic.twitter.com/FT2iW5Gj7q

— George Webb – Investigative Journalist (@RealGeorgeWebb1) November 2, 2022

“..this is the start of perhaps inevitable ‘mission creep’..”

• Pentagon Confirms US Boots Are On The Ground In Ukraine (ZH)

Two bombshell reports by the Associated Press and Washington Post Monday and Tuesday have confirmed that the United States has boots on the ground in the Ukraine conflict. Crucially, these troops are performing tasks separate from mere embassy security. The American troops are said to be performing “inspections” of US weapon caches after last week the State Department and Pentagon unveiled a new plan to track US-supplied weapons in efforts to implement accountability for the billions of dollars worth of arms and ammunition transferred to Ukrainian forces since near the start of the war eight months ago.

“A small number of U.S. military forces inside Ukraine have recently begun doing onsite inspections to ensure that Ukrainian troops are properly accounting for the Western-provided weapons they receive, a senior U.S. defense official told Pentagon reporters Monday,” the AP/WaPo reporting revealed. A Pentagon briefing confirmed this “small” contingency of troops has been advised to not do inspections “close” to the front lines of fighting: The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide a military update, would not say where the inspections are taking place or how close to the battlefronts the U.S. troops are getting. The official said U.S. personnel can’t do inspections “close to the front lines,” but said they are going where security conditions allow.

There have already been “several inspections” overseen by U.S. Defense attache and a US Office of Defense Cooperation team based out of the Ukrainian capital. The report underscores that “U.S. President Joe Biden has ruled out any combat role for U.S. forces inside Ukraine.” However, what’s clear is that despite the White House’s ruling out of “combat” troops, this is the start of perhaps inevitable ‘mission creep’ – as has been seen in other conflict zones (such as Syria). If US troops are doing inspections of Ukrainian arms and ammo, and presumably Russia is currently targeting any and all Ukrainian military bases, this puts American troops and assets in Russia’s crosshairs, greatly increasing the possibility that the US and Russia could stumble into a direct shooting war.

“Hey I’m sorry we scared the hell out of you & lied for years & persecuted & censored anyone who disagreed but there was an election going on & we really wanted to beat Donald Trump so it was important to radically politicize the science even if it destroyed your children’s lives.”

• Outrage Ensues After The Atlantic Suggests ‘Amnesty’ For Pandemic Authoritarians (ZH)

The Atlantic has come under fire for suggesting that all the terrible pandemic-era decisions over lockdowns, school closures, masking, and punishing an entire class of people who questioned the efficacy and wisdom of taking a rushed, experimental vaccine – for a virus with a 99% survival rate in most, should all be water under the bridge. “We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID,” writes Brown Professor Emily Oster – a huge lockdown proponent, who now pleads from mercy from the once-shunned. “Let’s acknowledge that we made complicated choices in the face of deep uncertainty, and then try to work together to build back and move forward,” she continues. Except, they weren’t “in the dark” about Covid.

There were numerous sources pointing out the actual science that ran contrary to the mandate claims, and they were deliberately silenced by a vast media campaign. Evidence suggests that media platforms worked in tandem with Big Tech, the CDC and the Biden Administration. It was not a simple matter of overreaction, there was collusion to remove all counter-information. Nice try, Emily. As the Daily Sceptic’s Michael P. Senger puts it: “There’s a lot wrong here. First, no, you don’t get to advocate policies that do extraordinary harm to others, against their wishes, then say, “We didn’t know any better at the time!” Ignorance doesn’t work as an excuse when the policies involved abrogating your fellow citizens’ rights under an indefinite state of emergency, while censoring and cancelling those who weren’t as ignorant. The inevitable result would be a society in which ignorance and obedience to the opinion of the mob would be the only safe position.”

And look at that ratio: In one epic Twitter thread, Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Matthew J. Peterson (@docMJP) excoriates Oster’s entire premise; “Hey—sorry you lost your job b/c of the vax that doesn’t work and your grandmother died alone and you couldn’t have a funeral and your brother’s business was needlessly destroyed and your kids have weird heart problems—but let’s just admit we were all wrong and call a truce, eh? It’s too bad we shut the entire economy down & took on tyrannical powers that have never been used before in this country—looking back, you should have been able to go to church and use public parks while we let people riot in the streets—but it was a confusing time for everyone.

Hey I’m sorry we scared the hell out of you & lied for years & persecuted & censored anyone who disagreed but there was an election going on & we really wanted to beat Donald Trump so it was important to radically politicize the science even if it destroyed your children’s lives. OK, yes we said unvaccinated people should die & not get healthcare while never questioning Big Pharma once but we are compassionate people which is why even though we shut down the entire economy we also bankrupted the nation & caused inflation. You’re welcome! Let’s be friends.”As QTR’s Fringe Finance notes, Oster’s plea for the decency that her ilk failed to offer up to most Americans during the throws of the pandemic comes at a point where the Covid narrative has been all but lost by the Democrats and the mainstream media.

There have been several recent large wins for the unvaccinated who had the constitution and backbone to stand up for themselves throughout a year of being constantly berated and ferociously scorned as second class citizens.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1587148452055629826

Starting with Emily Oster and the Atlantic..

• We Need Covid Accountability, Not Amnesty (QTR)

And now Emily Oster has the gall to write a ho-hum style piece calling for “amnesty” with nary a worthy apology to be seen? Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to see any common sense making its way through the cracks. I support the apologies to the unvaccinated and the court rulings because I think they are just. I haven’t been gloating about them because I’m over the topic in general and because I’m simply ready to move on and not dwell on it. But the same hubris and arrogance that caused all of this poor decision-making to begin with is still dripping off of The Atlantic’s latest “mea culpa”, which makes an attempt to rewrite history and trivializes the trauma many endured. “Some of these choices turned out better than others,” the article casually writes at one point.

At another point, like an alcoholic who can’t stop himself from taking another swig from the bottle, it begrudgingly has to make a perfunctory and obligatory reference to “misinformation”: We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty. We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge. Instead of an apology, we are left with this kumbaya moment: The standard saying is that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. But dwelling on the mistakes of history can lead to a repetitive doom loop as well. Let’s acknowledge that we made complicated choices in the face of deep uncertainty, and then try to work together to build back and move forward.

The Atlantic article can lead me to only one conclusion: many of the left simply don’t know how to apologize. After all, it wasn’t enough to tell honest people that they were wrong during the course of the pandemic for decisions that turned out to be right, The Atlantic now wants to tell them they’re wrong again if they don’t forgive those who made their lives hell over the last two years. A little tip for The Atlantic: next time, write a piece focused on apologizing instead of issuing orders about exactly how, when and why people should be forgiving you. In case you didn’t notice, it was trying to micromanage other peoples’ lives that got you in this mess in the first place. Talk to us when you offer up accountability, not amnesty.

Professor Sergey Karaganov, honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and academic supervisor at the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow

• New World Order: The West Will Have To Live Within Its Means (Karaganov)

We are living in a dangerous period, on the brink of a full-fledged third world war that could end humanity’s existence. But if Russia wins, which is more than likely, and the hostilities do not escalate into a full-blown nuclear conflict, we should not look at the coming decades as a time of dangerous chaos (as most in the West are saying). We have been living in this period for a long time. It will be, if we choose a world of constructive creation and the attainment of freedom, justice and dignity by peoples and nations. The old system of institutions and regimes has already collapsed (freedom of trade and respect for private property). Meanwhile, institutions like the WTO, the World Bank the IMF, the OSCE and the EU are, I am afraid, reaching their last years.

New bodies are beginning to emerge to which the future belongs. They are the SCO, ASEAN+, the Organisation of African Unity and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The Asian Development Bank is already lending many times more than the World Bank. Not all new institutions will survive, and let us hope that a number of them will survive, especially in the UN system, which urgently needs reform to primarily represent the Global Majority in the secretariat, rather than the West. The main thing is to prevent a losing West from stalling history or derailing it through a world war. Not only Global Majority countries, but Western countries can live quite happily in this world.

The West will simply lose the opportunity to plunder the rest of the planet and it will have to shrink a bit. They will have to live within their means. I am afraid that this new world taking shape now will be created beyond my intellectual or physical life. But my young colleagues and certainly their children will see it. But this beautiful vision has to be fought for, first of all by preventing a third world war, because of the attempted revenge of the West. Again, it was in Europe that the first two world wars were unleashed. Russia is now fighting, among other things, to ensure that the prerequisites for a third are not ripe. But conflicts will occur in an era of rapid change. So the struggle for peace should be one of the main themes of our intellectual community and the world at large.

Wonder how this will end.

• Zelensky ‘Nullified’ Grain Shipping Deal – Russian Duma Speaker (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has rendered the internationally brokered grain shipping agreement void by using the safe passage in the Black Sea to strike Russian warships, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, said. Moscow claims that Kiev dispatched attack drones via the route designated for grain vessels. “The resumption of the grain deal is impossible as long as the safe corridor is being used for terrorist attacks,” Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday. “With his actions, Zelensky has nullified all of the agreements that were brokered by Türkiye and the UN. ”The senior legislator said the use of the safe corridor for the attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is “unacceptable” and that the grain agreement “cannot exist on the old terms.”

Under the deal struck in July, the sides agreed to unblock the export of grain and other agricultural products from Ukrainian ports. Ukraine, a major producer, is among the vital suppliers of wheat, corn, and barley. On Saturday, Moscow accused Kiev of sending aerial and seaborne drones to strike warships in the city of Sevastopol in Crimea, which hosts a naval base. A minesweeper was damaged in the raid, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The ministry claimed that the drones moved along the corridor set up for grain ships, and that one device may have been launched from a civilian vessel hired to transport grain. Moscow also said that a British Navy unit masterminded the attack. London has dismissed the accusation. Russia subsequently announced the closure of the corridor on Monday.

Zelensky accused Russia of blackmail and “deliberately exacerbating the food crisis.” Speaking to reporters on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that only 3-5% of grain that had been shipped through the safe corridor went to poorer countries. The UN, however, reported last month that 27% of the ships went to “low and lower-middle income countries” such as Egypt, Kenya, and Bangladesh. It said that 26% went to “upper-middle income countries” such as Türkiye and China, while 47% went to “high-income”nations such as Spain and Italy.

“Western insurance companies, despite official permission, refused to insure cargoes of food and fertilizers from Russian ports under various pretexts.”

• There Will Be No Deal – Zelensky Broke The Rules! (Milacic)

Just a few hours after the attack by sea “drones” on the ships of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation in the early morning of October 29, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced the suspension of the “grain deal” – an agreement that had been in force since July 22 of this year. The fact that Russian military claims that naval drones have passed through the territory included in the “grain deal”, where there is no Russian fleet – it only made that decision stronger! The “grain deal” allowed Kyiv to freely export grain from the Black Sea ports under the auspices of the UN, in exchange for some easing of sanctions against Russian exports of grain and fertilizers. Formally, this agreement was strictly humanitarian and its sole purpose was to provide grain to the countries of Africa and Southeast Asia, dependent on food imports.

During the passage of the Bosporus, ships traveling from Ukraine and back were examined by UN inspectors to exclude the possible import and export of prohibited goods. But the Kremlin did not receive its benefit from the deal … Ukraine, having unblocked the export of grain by sea, at the same time was able to unload land communications and receive a significant income from the export of agricultural products. In addition, its Western partners were once again able to resell Ukrainian grain, which, with the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, rose significantly in price. But Russia continued to face difficulties in securing the export of its grain. Western insurance companies, despite official permission, refused to insure cargoes of food and fertilizers from Russian ports under various pretexts.

At the same time, information was increasingly appearing in the media that American and European authorities were putting significant pressure on insurers. Naturally, Moscow was more and more dissatisfied with the terms of the deal concluded before November 19 and doubted the possibility of its extension. The attack on Sevastopol gave the Kremlin a great trump card – the deal was instantly suspended, although the Russian fleet did not suffer significant damage. The military response of Russia also followed very quickly, the communications center and the base of the special forces of the Ukrainian fleet in Ochakiv were destroyed. However, both the attack on the Russian base and the actual breach of the deal with Russian exports are just the tip of the iceberg.

“Currently, Russia is “not ready to say” what conditions would have to be met for it to resume its participation in the deal.”

• Russia Offers Alternative To Ukraine ‘Grain Deal’ (RT)

Russia is ready to provide poorer grain-importing nations with supplies from its own stocks to replace Ukrainian exports, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday. Earlier, Russia suspended its participation in the so-called “grain deal” with Ukraine following an attack on its navy base in Sevastopol. “We can guarantee the Russian side’s readiness to compensate for the missing [grain export] volumes from its own stocks,” Peskov said. Earlier, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Moscow would continue to support African nations despite halting its compliance with the pact. The Kremlin spokesman also said only a tiny portion of all Ukrainian agricultural products exported under the deal were destined for the poorest nations anyway, while “not-so-poor nations located in Europe got the rest.”

Moscow also believes that the grain deal between Russia and Ukraine, which was reached in Istanbul with UN and Turkish mediation, is now in limbo for security reasons. “The deal could hardly be implemented when Russia says it cannot guarantee maritime security in the designated waters” of the Black Sea, Peskov said, adding that the implementation of the agreement is now “much more risky, dangerous and not guaranteed.” The Kremlin has not said the deal is dead altogether, however. Moscow is “still in contact” with other parties, including the UN and Türkiye, Peskov said. Currently, Russia is “not ready to say” what conditions would have to be met for it to resume its participation in the deal.

Under the agreement reached in July, Russia provided a secure “grain corridor” through the Black Sea waters to facilitate the exportation of Ukrainian agricultural products. The agreement was praised as critical for easing the global food crisis and helping the world’s poorest nations to avoid starvation. Last week’s decision by Russia to halt its compliance with the deal caused a grain price surge. Moscow suspended its participation in the deal last week after a massive drone attack on its naval base in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the naval drones launched as part of the attack used the grain corridor to reach their targets and one of them may even have been launched from a civilian vessel supposedly chartered to ship Ukrainian grain.

“Moscow is now ready to supply African nations with “large volumes” of grain and fertilizers out of its own stocks for free..”

• Russia Demands Black Sea Corridor Guarantees From Ukraine (RT)

Kiev should provide “real guarantees” that it would not use the Black Sea corridor created as part of an Istanbul grain deal in its military activities, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone conversation on Tuesday. The two were discussing the circumstances that could convince Moscow to return to its own commitments under the agreement. Russia indefinitely suspended its participation in the deal last week following a massive drone attack on its naval base in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol. Some of the naval drones launched by Kiev allegedly used the Black Sea grain corridor’s security zone to close in on their targets, according to the Russian military.

“It is necessary to conduct a detailed investigation of … this incident, as well as to get real guarantees from Kiev that it would rigorously abide by the Istanbul agreements, including the non-use of the humanitarian corridor for military purposes,” the Russian president said, according to the Kremlin’s press release. Russia would only consider re-opening this corridor if that happened, Putin added. He also pointed out that the part of the deal that involved lifting restrictions on Russia’s own agricultural and fertilizer exports had never been implemented. The corridor was touted as a way to secure food supplies to the neediest nations as a matter of priority. But this goal has not been reached in the three months since the agreement was established, Putin noted. “Moscow is now ready to supply African nations with “large volumes” of grain and fertilizers out of its own stocks for free, the president confirmed.

The Russian military closed the Black Sea grain corridor on Monday, arguing that its security could not be guaranteed while Kiev used it for military purposes. Moscow had previously blamed Ukraine and UK Navy specialists for the attack on Sevastopol. London has dismissed the accusation. The Russian Defense Ministry said that the corridor would stay closed at least until all the circumstances of the attack were established. Russia has also repeatedly said that it has not left the deal entirely but only suspended its own commitments under the agreement. In the wake of Moscow’s decision, the UN insisted that “food must flow” regardless of the circumstances. Civilian vessels “can never be a military target or held hostage,” the UN coordinator for the Black Sea grain initiative, Amir Abdulla, said.

“Ukrainian troops are shelling the region almost on a daily basis, threatening the lives and safety of people, but they keep silent about it, while expressing concerns about the fish..”

• Russia Responds To Kiev’s Nuclear Plant ‘Hypocrisy’ (RT)

Kiev’s accusations that Moscow is responsible for an alleged environmental disaster at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant sound hypocritical, given that Ukraine has been constantly targeting the facility, Vladimir Rogov, a member of the administration of Russia’s Zaporozhye Region, said on Tuesday. His statement comes after the Ukrainian state-owned operator, Energoatom, claimed that Russian actions had led to a massive die-off of fish in the facility’s cooling pond.Rogov denounced Kiev’s accusations as the “wildest hypocrisy that knows no bounds.” “Ukrainian troops are shelling the region almost on a daily basis, threatening the lives and safety of people, but they keep silent about it, while expressing concerns about the fish,” he told RIA Novosti.

Moreover, he noted that the plant’s energy units had been shut down precisely because Kiev’s forces have been constantly targeting the area around the facility. On Monday, Ukraine’s Energoatom said that the shutdown of the plant’s energy units had resulted in a decrease in the water temperature in the cooling pond, which led to “mass fish death.” The fish had been “performing a sanitary function” by destroying the green algae and cleaning the cooling tubes of the turbine condenser, it said. However, Ukraine had gone to great lengths to paralyze the plant’s operations and prevent it from coming online again, according to Rogov.

The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which is Europe’s largest, has been under Russian control since March. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially placed the facility under Moscow’s management. The Russian leader signed the relevant order as Moscow was finalizing the accession of Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, as well as the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, to Russia following referendums that overwhelmingly supported the move. Russia has on numerous occasions accused Ukraine of shelling the Zaporozhye facility, warning that the attacks could lead to a nuclear disaster. Kiev has denied the allegations, blaming Russia for the shelling instead.

“Musk is looking for ways to reduce the dependency on advertisers and many of us would support that effort.”

• Blue Checkers Revolt Over Musk’s Threatened Monthly Charge (Turley)

As a regular MSNBC pundit is calling for Elon Musk to be stripped of his citizenship for trying to reintroduce free speech protections to Twitter, the new owner is outraging blue checkers by suggesting a monthly charge for verified users. Figures like CNBC’s Jim Cramer declared: “I’m not paying them anything. They should pay me.” Some of us would be willing to pay an added monthly fee to support a true free speech alternative on social media if Musk keeps his word. Of course, for full disclosure, I would first have to get a blue check to get charged for a blue check. I have been barred from being verified for years by Twitter despite being a columnist for newspapers like USA Today and the Hill as well as a legal analyst for CBS, NBC, BBC, and now Fox over the last two decades.

I have been ranked in the top five law professors on Twitter, but I was still turned me down over a dozen times under multiple categories. I have previously joked about the bar on verification and I am not sure how much the blue check honestly does for individuals. Indeed, there are some advantages. I can presumably deny prior statements since they were made by an entirely unverified person using my name for over a decade. Yet, as a long-time critic of Twitter’s censorship system, there has been a long curiosity over the denial. Musk has indicated that he is now looking into such concerns and there may be greater transparency in the weeks to come. However, Musk is looking for ways to reduce the dependency on advertisers and many of us would support that effort.

Recently, General Motors suspended advertising on Twitter until it can evaluate the implications of Musk’s new policies. Some of us immediately criticized the action by GM over the move. The company had no problem with supporting Twitter when it was running one of the largest censorship systems in history — or supporting TikTok (which is Chinese owned and has been denounced for state control and access to data). Twitter has been denounced for years for its bias against conservative and dissenting voices, including presumably many GM customers on the right. None of that was a concern for GM but the pledge to restore free speech to Twitter warrants a suspension.

“..rolling blackouts could happen during “those deepest darkest evenings in January and February..”

• UK Households Face ‘Very, Very Hard’ Winter – National Grid (RT)

Many British households will struggle to pay energy bills this winter that could be double what they are accustomed to despite a government price cap, the National Grid’s CEO, John Pettigrew, has warned. In an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday, he said he was “under no illusions” and that Brits would find the upcoming winter “financially very, very hard.” “Even with the [taxpayer-funded] price cap this is a doubling-up of what people are used to paying for their energy bills,” Pettigrew said, adding: “Therefore, inevitably there are going to be people who are going to struggle.” The British government has capped the unit cost of energy until April, meaning that an average household would pay about £2,500 ($2,885) over a year on average.

But last winter the equivalent amount was £1,277 ($1,474). Each household will also receive a £400 rebate on utility bills with additional means-tested payments through Social Security benefits. However, that will still be unable to make up the difference given the soaring energy prices. Pettigrew said the National Grid was working on a number of emergency plans to protect the UK against a shortfall of energy from Europe. Earlier, the grid operator’s boss warned that the country could face power cuts on “really cold” evenings this winter due to Europe’s continuing energy squeeze. He said that rolling blackouts could happen during “those deepest darkest evenings in January and February,” likely between 4pm to 7pm.

Such measures were “unlikely,” according to Pettigrew, who warned, however, that there were potential scenarios where Britain’s power generators would fail to secure sufficient supplies from Europe. Normally, during the coldest months and extreme weather events, the UK imports gas and electricity from continental Europe for its gas-fired power plants. However, this year European countries are themselves facing a severe energy crisis exacerbated by anti-Russian sanctions and a sharp decrease in Russian energy supplies.

Top spot for craziest story.

• Cockamamie Story (Kunstler)

So far, police have not disclosed how DePape journeyed from Berkeley to Pacific Heights at 2:00 o’clock in the morning, about fourteen miles. Did he walk from Berkeley across the Bay Bridge and then halfway across town? Mr. DePape is apparently also known to the police as a gay hustler, that is, a person who sells sex for money. Unless I’m mistaken, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) has a detective department — experienced men and women who go around the city seeking clues, evidence, and testimony in order to make sense of perplexing crimes — and then solve them! Shall we assume they are on-the-job? Now, Paul Pelosi, 82, who made a $300-million fortune running a car service (also shrewd investments in real estate and the stock market), has been in quite a bit of trouble this year.

On May 28, 2022, he was arrested for Driving Under the Influence (DUI) in Napa (near a vineyard estate he owns with Nancy) when his 2021 Porsche crashed into a 2014 Jeep driven by one “John Doe” (as the police identified him). KGO-TV, ABC’s affiliate in the San Francisco area, said that there was a second person in the Porsche with Pelosi at the time of the accident. He has never been identified. In August, Mr. Pelosi was sentenced to five days in jail, a fine of roughly $7,000, a three-month drinking-and-driving course, eight hours of public service, and having an “interlock” device installed on his car that would require him to blow into an alcohol sensor before the engine can ignite. By any chance, were the Napa Police or the County Court contacted in the matter at some point by the US Capitol Police or the FBI? We may never know.

If David DePape didn’t walk fourteen miles from Berkeley to Pacific Heights, or take a cab (expensive), how did he get there? Here’s a theory: he rode the BART subway from Berkeley to the Church Street and Mission station in the city, a five-minute walk to the Castro, San Francisco’s fabled gay district. Sometime before 2:00 a.m. closing time, he met up in a bar there with Paul Pelosi, who drove DePape to the Pelosi house in a car not equipped with an interlock device. That is to say, David DePape was let into the house by Mr. Pelosi. The police and the news media have theorized that DePape broke into the place by smashing a glass door in back. Uh-huh…. Ask yourself: would there not be an alarm system at least on all the ground floor windows and doors in the house? Would there not be security cameras on the back side of the house — the side that burglars might prefer, if they could get over the wall?

Would the Speaker of the House, with a discretionary budget on top of a $300-million fortune, and in a time of epic political rancor, not have a team of security guards in place at her private home? Initial news media chatter had both DePape and Paul Pelosi dressed in their underwear, struggling over a hammer which turned out to belong to Mr. Pelosi. Not until the police entered the house did DePape wrest the hammer from Mr. Pelosi and commence to brain him with it. What does the arrest report actually say about the two men’s state-of-dress? It is not public information. How and why were the police just watching until DePape assaulted Mr. Pelosi — who was hospitalized afterward and had surgery on his cracked skull? (Uh, how did a blow that literally broke his skull not kill the elderly Mr. Pelosi?)

“what would we do without the Banker to guide us!?”

• The Tale of Two Greedy Landlords (Catte Black)

Once upon a time in a land far away and in a time of plenty there were two rich and prosperous Landlords who each owned large and spacious adjoining buildings wherein many people lived. The apartments were warm and comfortable and every week there was a market where grain was brought from Landlord B’s land and fruit and meat and vegetables from Landlord A’s. While wood from Landlord B’s copses kept the Communal Woodpile stocked with seasoned logs. Everyone was happy. The Landlords were both friends with a Banker. The Banker was richer than both the Landlords combined and in fact he owned their houses and their land and watched carefully what they did with them. And one day he invited them to a sumptuous dinner at his house and said “things could be better”.

“How could things be better, friend Banker?” asked Landlord B, “there is food in our granaries and money in our coffers, and everyone is happy”. “Your people are charged too little for too much luxury. They expect fuel for their stoves and food in their markets, and are never grateful enough to you for your kindness.” The two Landlords looked at each other and realized this might be true, for they rarely disagreed with the Banker. “Yes,” said Landlord A, sadly shaking his head, “our people are feckless children that never give enough thanks for our largesse, but alas, what can we do?”. “They need to be taught their place”, the Banker said. “They need to pay a proper price for what you provide and learn to be grateful. You should triple the price of food from your farms and fuel from the Communal Wood Pile”.

The two Landlords looked at each other in apprehension. They were greedy and liked the sound of this very much, but they were also cowards. “But”, said Landlord B, “but if we do that they may just become annoyed and might refuse to pay or break our windows or our bones and then we will be worse off not better!” This was true. And caused the Landlords to shake their heads regretfully. But the Banker was cleverer than either of them. He merely smiled. “They are children”, he said, “and children require stories in order to learn about life’s harsh truths. So, you will tell them a story”. The two Landlords looked at him, but did not understand.

“You will tell them there is a new and terrible plague which has broken the Supply Chain and consequently fuel and food are three times more expensive!” “But…but there is no new and terrible plague”, stammered Landlord A. “Of course there is”, smiled the Banker, “why else would hundreds of people be dying?” “But hundreds of people are not dying”, stammered Landlord B. “Of course they are,” smiled the Banker, “how could they not when there is a new and terrible plague?” They looked at him for a long time before gradual understanding dawned, and their puzzled frowns turned to smiles. “Of course!” they said in unison, “what would we do without the Banker to guide us!?”

Pierre Kory, MD MPA @PierreKory:

A high quality Sociology journal finally publishes the truth about what happened in Medical Science during Covid.
Phenomenal paper.
Cue censorship by mass media and social media.
Hope Chief Twit starts making changes fast.

• Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy (Springer)

Abstract: The emergence of COVID-19 has led to numerous controversies over COVID-related knowledge and policy. To counter the perceived threat from doctors and scientists who challenge the official position of governmental and intergovernmental health authorities, some supporters of this orthodoxy have moved to censor those who promote dissenting views. The aim of the present study is to explore the experiences and responses of highly accomplished doctors and research scientists from different countries who have been targets of suppression and/or censorship following their publications and statements in relation to COVID-19 that challenge official views.

Our findings point to the central role played by media organizations, and especially by information technology companies, in attempting to stifle debate over COVID-19 policy and measures. In the effort to silence alternative voices, widespread use was made not only of censorship, but of tactics of suppression that damaged the reputations and careers of dissenting doctors and scientists, regardless of their academic or medical status and regardless of their stature prior to expressing a contrary position. In place of open and fair discussion, censorship and suppression of scientific dissent has deleterious and far-reaching implications for medicine, science, and public health.

Ouch.

• Fatal Flaw: 42% False Discovery Rate for SARS-CoV-2 nonQ-RT-PCR Test (PR)

We have just published a new study that shows that nonQ-RT-PCR (non-quantitative RT-PCR testing as used to diagnose COVID-19 from 2020 to the present day suffers a flaw that ultimately draws into question all of what has been reported on COVID-19 by official channels, including the results of COVID-19. Specifically, assuming a 5% prevalence rate, the high false discovery rate (42%) of the use of nonQ-RT-PCR means

1. For every 50 true positives out of 1,000, a total of 86 people with or without SARS-CoV-2 infection or residual fragments will be reported. Of these, 36 of these will be false positives.
2. For every 50 true positives, 86 people without SARS-CoV-2 infection or residual fragments will be have to be isolated/quarantined. Of these, 36 will not be infected.
3. For every 50 true positives that are tested and found positive in-hospital, 86 people with or without SARS-CoV-2 infection or residual fragments will be told that they “have COVID-19”. If the 36 false positive patients are hospitalized with other COVID-19 patients, they will likely then contract a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
4. The number of “cases” via positive PCR has been overstated by a factor of 72% (the original post read “80:1” assuming a prevalence of 5%).
5. This is true for generic case reporting up until May 2021 when CDC decided to reduce the PCR cycle threshold value (Ct) for the vaccinated to less than 27, leaving the unvaccinated rate biased by high false discovery rate of arbitrarily high Ct, biasing all reported rates in these two groups favoring cases in the unvaccinated from that point on.
6. This +72% bias is true in any clinical trial or any study that used arbitrarily high Ct values, INCLUDING THE VACCINE STUDIES. As a direct result of this fatal flaw, combined with CDC’s gaff “PCR+ = COVID-19″? There are no credible COVID-19 vaccine trial data.

Rogan list

Where is the list? pic.twitter.com/W0dDdnnTdQ

— Ronald Kelly (@RonK3l) October 31, 2022

Malone

Dr. Robert Malone, co-inventor of mRNA tech, explained to me that US/UK intelligence agencies are actively using counter insurgency tactics, phycological warfare & blackmail operations against the organized health freedom movement.

FULL: https://t.co/kOoDyglSiY pic.twitter.com/YCIHbuNqdA

— Jeremy Loffredo (@loffredojeremy) October 31, 2022

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Debt Rattle October 15 2022

Oct 152022

October 15, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:30 am Finance Tagged with: Borrell, Crimea Bridge, Jan 6, Merkel, peace talks, Pelosi, Putin, Trump 41 Responses »

Paul Gauguin Harbour scene, Dieppe 1883

• Borrell: The EU Is A Garden, The Rest Of The World Is A Jungle (RT)

• Borrell: West Will ‘Annihilate’ Russian Army If Moscow Uses Nukes (Antiwar)

• Borrell: ‘Propaganda Is Our Battlefield’ (ZH)

• EU Opens Probe Into Vaccine Deals (RT)

• Putin Explains Why There Are No Peace Talks With Ukraine (RT)

• Russia Courts Muslim Countries As Strategic Eurasian Partners (Escobar)

• The EU Courageously Denounces Terrorism (Saker)

• Merkel Defends ‘Very Rational’ Russian Gas Deals (RT)

• German Leaders Care More About NATO Than Their Own People – Putin (RT)

• Russia ‘To Repair Crimea Bridge Damage By July 2023’ (RT)

• Putin Reveals Threat To Istanbul Grain Deal (RT)

• The Western Empire Attacks Russia: The World Strikes Back (Red)

• The Supremes Get It Right – Again (Denninger)

• We’re Coming For You (Jim Kunstler)

• Trump ‘Loves The Idea Of Testifying’ Before Jan. 6 Committee (Fox)

That got Elon on the list:

Kuleba

The Foreign Minister of Ukraine was pranked by a fake US Ambassador. He revealed that Ukraine was behind several terrorist attacks and that they have to force the EU because of “sanctions fatigue”. Ukraine leaders are not just unhinged, they are stupid. pic.twitter.com/oM97LqU918

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) October 14, 2022

George Webb Black Sea

Peace Plan ticking away like clockwork. Clockwork Rogue? Don’t think House of Roth doesn’t benefit if Gazprom and Rosneft get a chunk of the Black Sea gas fields. Are we sure Hunter’s Blackberrys aren’t a Burisma for a Rothschild Energy? pic.twitter.com/YqoX1SERcP

— George Webb – Investigative Journalist (@RealGeorgeWebb1) October 14, 2022

This got the cartoonist banned.

Dec 2016. Got everything right, except one detail.

Borrell must go. I can repeat that every day. He’s the EU equivalent of Lavrov, but can’t stand in his shadow . Embarrassing.

• Borrell: The EU Is A Garden, The Rest Of The World Is A Jungle (RT)

The European Union is a “garden” that has the best combination of “political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion” ever known to humankind – and must be protected from the outside “jungle.” That’s according to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who made the comparison while delivering a speech at the inauguration of a pilot university program designed to cultivate the next generation of European diplomats. Addressing a group of students at the College of Europe in Bruges on Thursday, Borrell said “The rest of the world… is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it, but they will not protect the garden by building walls.”

He insisted that Europeans have to be “much more engaged” with the rest of the world and put their “privilege” to good use. The gardeners have to go to the jungle… Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means. Led by Borrell’s predecessor, Federica Mogherini, the European Diplomatic Academy is a brainchild of the European External Action Service (EEAS) launched this year with the stated goal of cultivating a “truly European diplomatic corps.” Some 42 students are taking part in the first year pilot, mostly candidates from various EU institutions, but also diplomats from the Western Balkans countries, Georgia, Moldova and Türkiye – as well as two candidates from Ukraine.

“You are the first generation. You are the trailblazers of a process, and I hope that many others will come,” Borrel told the group of future diplomats. “Keep the garden, be good gardeners. But your duty will not be to take care of the garden itself but [of] the jungle outside.” It’s not the first time Borrell has compared the EU to a beautiful and tidy garden surrounded by a chaotic, lawless jungle. Back in March he told El Mundo that “if we don’t want the jungle to eat our garden, we have to wake up.”

“Europe is a garden… It's the best combination (…) humankind has been able to build, the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden, and the gardeners should take care of it. <…> Europeans are the privileged people.” pic.twitter.com/RXFqTx2GdO

— Maria Dubovikova (@politblogme) October 14, 2022

Not a day goes by without some westerner telling us Russia wants to use nukes. Problem is, they’ve made very clear that they don’t.

• Borrell: West Will ‘Annihilate’ Russian Army If Moscow Uses Nukes (Antiwar)

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell issued a threat against Russia on Thursday, warning that Western powers would “annihilate” the Russian army if Moscow uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine. “Putin is saying he is not bluffing. Well, he cannot afford bluffing, and it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine and the European Union and the Member States, and the United States and NATO are not bluffing neither,” Borrel said at a European Diplomatic Academy event in Bruges, Belgium. “Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated,” he added. The warning from Borrel came as NATO defense ministers held the second day of talks in Brussels, which included a closed-door meeting of the alliance’s nuclear planning group, the body that sets and reviews NATO’s nuclear policies.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also warned Russia against using nuclear weapons, saying it would have “severe consequences.” But he said the chances of NATO using a nuclear weapon are “extremely remote.” When announcing a partial mobilization last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia could use all of the weapons at its disposal to defend its “territorial integrity.” Russian officials insist Putin’s comments were nothing new and fell within Russia’s long-established military doctrine, which says nuclear weapons could be used if the country faces an “existential threat.” But the warning was significant since Russia has extended its territory by annexing areas in Ukraine under its control, and other Russian officials have explicitly said they could defend the new territories with nuclear weapons.

“What would have happened if, instead of [Joe] Biden, it would have been [Donald] Trump or someone like him in the White House? What would have been the answer of the United States to the war in Ukraine?”

• Borrell: ‘Propaganda Is Our Battlefield’ (ZH)

“This is a perfect storm,” exclaims European Commission Vice President Josep Borrell in his opening speech to EU Ambassadors this week. Having noted previously his warnings to The Fed that it is “bringing us to a world recession,” Borrell went considerably further in a surprisingly frank and plain-speaking address. He began by warning that “the world we are facing is a world of radical uncertainty.” The speed and scope of change is exceptional. We should not try to deny it. We should not try to resist it. It would be a futile effort. We have to accept it and to adapt [to] it, prioritising flexibility and resilience. But uncertainty is the rule. Events that one could imagine that they will never happen, they are happening one after the other. At this pace, the black swan will be the majority. It will not be white swans – all of them will be black – because one after the other, things have happened that had a very low probability of happening, nevertheless they happened, and they had a strong impact and certainly they happened.”

The EC VP then goes on to try and summarize the extent of the European crisis and how they got there, admitting that they were entirely dependent on China (trade), Russia (energy), and US (security)… “I think that we Europeans are facing a situation in which we suffer the consequences of a process that has been lasting for years in which we have decoupled the sources of our prosperity from the sources of our security. This is a sentence to provide the headline, and I am taking that from Olivier Schmitt, who has been developing this thesis – I think – quite well. Our prosperity has been based on cheap energy coming from Russia. Russian gas – cheap and supposedly affordable, secure, and stable. It has been proved not [to be] the case. And the access to the big China market, for exports and imports, for technological transfers, for investments, for having cheap goods.

I think that the Chinese workers with their low salaries have done much better and much more to contain inflation than all the Central Banks together. So, our prosperity was based on China and Russia – energy and market. Clearly, today, we have to find new ways for energy from inside the European Union, as much as we can, because we should not change one dependency for another. The best energy is the one that you produce at home. That will produce a strong restructuring of our economy – that is for sure. People are not aware of that but the fact that Russia and China are no longer the ones that [they] were for our economic development will require a strong restructuring of our economy.

The access to China is becoming more and more difficult. The adjustment will be tough, and this will create political problems. On the other hand, we delegated our security to the United States. While the cooperation with the Biden Administration is excellent, and the transatlantic relationship has never been as good as it is today – [including] our cooperation with the United States and my friend Tony [Anthony] Blinken [US Secretary of State]: we are in a fantastic relationship and cooperating a lot; who knows what will happen two years from now, or even in November? What would have happened if, instead of [Joe] Biden, it would have been [Donald] Trump or someone like him in the White House? What would have been the answer of the United States to the war in Ukraine? What would have been our answer in a different situation?

And Von der Leyen should go too, of course. In a normal setting, her position would long have been untenable.

• EU Opens Probe Into Vaccine Deals (RT)

The European Union prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into the bloc’s procurement of billions of Covid-19 vaccine doses, amid allegations of corruption and secret backroom dealings from several members of parliament. EU officials announced the probe in a brief statement on Friday, confirming an “ongoing investigation into the acquisition of Covid-19 vaccines in the European Union.” They added that the case follows “extremely high public interest” around the issue, though declined to share any other details. While prosecutors were tight-lipped about the exact nature of the probe, the announcement follows allegations from MEPs that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen conducted vaccine negotiations with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in secret.

Despite requests from journalists, lawmakers and an EU watchdog, von der Leyen’s office has failed to produce personal text messages sent to Bourla during talks for nearly 2 billion vaccine doses, prompting accusations of corruption. Croatian MEP Mislav Kolakusic noted the new investigation later on Friday, saying the decision was made thanks to pressure from lawmakers. Though he was unable to shed additional light on the probe, Kolakusic has been highly critical of the EU’s vaccine procurement process, claiming deals for billions of doses were marred by “corruption” and secrecy.

“Today, 10 of us MEPs asked [von der Leyen] the following question: when will she present to us… the communication she had with Pfizer during the procurement of 4.5 billion doses of vaccines at a time when there was absolutely no proof of the effectiveness, and especially not of the harmfulness, of that product?” he said in a tweet earlier this week, calling the issue the “biggest corruption scandal in the history of mankind.” Last month, the European Court of Auditors said that it has asked the commission to provide information on “preliminary negotiations” for the EU’s largest Pfizer purchase – including “scientific experts consulted and advice received, timing of the talks, records of the discussions, and details of the agreed terms and conditions” – but added that “none was forthcoming.” The European Commission still has yet to make the information public, fueling corruption allegations from MEPs.

Ursula @vonderleyen must resign her job since the @EU_Commission is under investigation by @EUProsecutor. She cannot lecture states on the rule of law while she destroyed docs and text messages between herself and the Pfizer CEO over multi €billion vaccine procurement contracts. pic.twitter.com/yazE723KV0

— Cristian Terhes MEP (@CristianTerhes) October 14, 2022

“Those agreements were almost initialled. But as soon as the troops were pulled back from Kiev, the leadership in Kiev lost all desire to have talks..”

“[Boris] Johnson arrived in Kiev, “almost without warning” on April 9. He allegedly told the Ukrainian leader that Western nations would refuse to sign up to the security guarantees that Kiev wanted to receive under the proposed peace treaty.”

• Putin Explains Why There Are No Peace Talks With Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine is refusing to engage in peace talks, Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalists on Friday, when asked about possible negotiations to end the conflict between the two countries. The Kiev government “had been saying that they wanted talks and ostensibly asked for them, but now they issued a formal decision that prohibits them,” he said during a press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan. Earlier this month, Zelensky signed a decree forbidding any negotiations with Putin, saying Ukraine will only talk to Russia when it has a different president. Speaking to journalists on Friday, Putin remarked that mediation by nations including Türkey between Moscow and Kiev may be required, if Ukraine’s position changes. Putin recalled that Russia and Ukraine reached a preliminary agreement which could have the halted hostilities, during Turkey-mediated talks in late March.

“Those agreements were almost initialled. But as soon as the troops were pulled back from Kiev, the leadership in Kiev lost all desire to have talks,” he remarked. The Russian Defense Ministry announced a withdrawal of troops from the Ukrainian capital after news broke that the negotiators in Istanbul had agreed on a draft treaty. Under its terms, Ukraine would have pledged to maintain a neutral status and not allow foreign troops and military installations on its soil, in exchange for security guarantees from foreign nations, including Russia. Days later, President Vladimir Zelensky accused Russian troops of committing war crimes, claiming that evidence was discovered in Bucha, one of the towns near Kiev that the Russian army had left. He declared that the Ukrainian people would not allow him to negotiate with Russia after the discovery.

Moscow claimed that the evidence was fabricated to justify breaking off the talks. According to Russian diplomats, Moscow wrote up a formal peace agreement based on Ukrainian proposals and sent it to Kiev, but never heard anything back. According to Ukrainian media reports in May, Zelensky was pressured into breaking off negotiations with Russia by Boris Johnson, then-prime minister of Britain. Johnson arrived in Kiev, “almost without warning” on April 9. He allegedly told the Ukrainian leader that Western nations would refuse to sign up to the security guarantees that Kiev wanted to receive under the proposed peace treaty. President Zelensky has repeatedly stated that his only goal in the conflict is to defeat Russia on the battlefield and retake control of all territories that Kiev claims to be under its sovereignty.

Go east, young man.

• Russia Courts Muslim Countries As Strategic Eurasian Partners (Escobar)

Everything that matters in the complex process of Eurasia integration was once again at play in Astana, as the – renamed – Kazakh capital hosted the 6th Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA). The roll call was a Eurasian thing of beauty – featuring the leaders of Russia and Belarus (EAEU), West Asia (Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Palestine) and Central Asia (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan). China and Vietnam (East and Southeast Asia) attended at the level of vice presidents. CICA is a multinational forum focused on cooperation toward peace, security, and stability across Asia.,Kazakh President Tokayev revealed that CICA has just adopted a declaration to turn the forum into an international organization.

CICA has already established a partnership with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). So in practice, it will soon be working together side-by-side with the SCO, the EAEU and certainly BRICS+. The Russia-Iran strategic partnership was prominently featured at CICA, especially after Iran being welcomed to the SCO as a full member. President Raeisi, addressing the forum, stressed the crucial notion of an emerging “new Asia”, where “convergence and security” are “not compatible with the interests of hegemonic countries and any attempt to destabilize independent nations has goals and consequences beyond national geographies, and in fact, aims to target the stability and prosperity of regional countries.”

For Tehran, being a partner in the integration of CICA, within a maze of pan-Asia institutions, is essential after all these decades of”maximum pressure” unleashed by the Hegemon. Moreover, it opens an opportunity, as Raeisi noted, for Iran to profit from “Asia’s economic infrastructure.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, predictably, was the star of the show in Astana. It’s essential to note that Putin is supported by “all”nations represented at CICA. High-level bilaterals with Putin included the Emir of Qatar: everyone that matters in West Asia wants to talk to “isolated” Russia. Putin called for “compensation for the damage caused to the Afghans during the years of occupation” (we all know the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder will refuse it), and emphasized the key role of the SCO to develop Afghanistan.

He stated that Asia, “where new centers of power are growing stronger, plays a big role in the transition to a multipolar world order”. sHe warned, “there is a real threat of famine and large-scale shocks against the backdrop of volatility in energy and food prices in the world.” He further called for the end of a financial system that benefits the “Golden billion” – who “live at the expense of others” (there’s nothing “golden” about this “billion”: at best such definition of wealth applies to 10 million.) And he stressed that Russia is doing everything to “form a system of equal and indivisible security”. Exactly what drives the hegemonic imperial elites completely berserk.

“..Russia should simply forget about the West (at least for a decade or so)..”

• The EU Courageously Denounces Terrorism (Saker)

In the meantime, the FSB has pretty much figured out how the explosives which were used by the Ukrainian GUR were brought into Russia: by using the Istanbul grain deal of course! [..] This would all be truly hilarious if it was not so evil, hypocritical and dishonorable. This is also very dangerous as the countries which participate in this farce are all showing either 1) their true allegiance to the AngloZionist Empire or 2) their total lack of courage. Which means that they are not only removing themselves from any real negotiations, they are also painting themselves into a political corner from which they won’t be able to get out again. To put it differently, the EU nations want to regime change Russia, which means that Russia will have to regime change them.

That is also what “denazification” and “demilitarization” means! Of course, the example of Serbia, which voted against Russia, shows that a comprador regime never represents the interests of the people it rules over. Besides, votes and declarations by non-sovereign states mean absolutely nothing. The only vote which counts is the vote of countries with actual agency and sovereignty. In conclusion, I will just repeat here what I have been writing for years and which I still believe to be true: Russia should simply forget about the West (at least for a decade or so). I mean, of course, Russia needs to be fully cognisant that the West will continue its total war against Russia in every conceivable manner short of a direct and overt military attack (and some hyenas and former empires are even capable of that!).

And if the West wants to buy something from Russia – by all means! Russia did not create these idiotic sanctions and she sure has no obligation or reason to enforce them against herself. But the future of Russia is in the South (Mediterranean, Middle-East, Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, etc.) the East (China) and the North (the Arctic, the Northern Route, the Russian Northeast). Russia is also making major inroads with various Muslim countries who, each for their own reasons, are really getting fed up with the infinite arrogance and incompetence of Uncle Shmuel and seek to collaborate with Russia. As for the West, it is turning itself into a pile of compost without any need for Russian assistance. Why interrupt it?

“This is a turning point, and of course the new government has to deal with it. And that is what it is doing,” she said of the Scholz leadership.”

It is? You sure? Do we think NS2 would ever have been shut under Merkel, who initialled it?

• Merkel Defends ‘Very Rational’ Russian Gas Deals (RT)

Germany’s former chancellor, Angela Merkel, has said she does not regret her decision to sign natural gas deals with Russia during her 16 years in power, arguing that Moscow has long been a “reliable energy supplier” and offers lower prices than its competitors. Speaking to reporters at an event in Lisbon, Merkel explained that Germany has long sought to move away from coal as an energy source, and that Russian natural gas was the best available option as Berlin aimed to eventually “arrive at CO2-free forms of energy.” “From the perspective of that time, it was very rational and understandable to obtain pipeline-bound gas from Russia, which was cheaper than LNG [liquefied natural gas] from other parts of the world,” she said on Thursday, adding that “Even during the Cold War, Russia was a reliable energy supplier.”

After taking office in 2005, Merkel presided over two major gas deals with Moscow, both intended to funnel energy directly into Germany from Russia through the Nord Stream 1 and later Nord Stream 2 pipelines, which bypassed transit states such as Ukraine and Poland.[..] After taking office in 2005, Merkel presided over two major gas deals with Moscow, both intended to funnel energy directly into Germany from Russia through the Nord Stream 1 and later Nord Stream 2 pipelines, which bypassed transit states such as Ukraine and Poland. However, Nord Stream 2 never became operational, as Merkel’s successor, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, paused the project’s certification just days before Russia sent troops into Ukraine in late February.

American LNG exports to Europe have ramped up significantly in recent months as much of the continent seeks to distance itself from Russian energy supplies, nearly doubling sales recorded in 2021. Given that Russia previously covered about 40% of the EU’s gas imports, however, prices have seen a sharp rise, stoking fears that some Europeans will be unable to heat their homes come winter. Merkel, who has faced criticism for maintaining Germany’s dependence on Russia, went on to say that it was “right to accelerate the fight against climate change at the end of my term,” referring to the Russian gas purchases and efforts to end the use of coal, but added that Moscow’s “brutal invasion” of Ukraine had changed Germany’s calculus. “This is a turning point, and of course the new government has to deal with it. And that is what it is doing,” she said of the Scholz leadership.

“I believe that it’s a mistake, and business, the economy, and the citizens of the Federal Republic [of Germany] are paying for this mistake..”

• German Leaders Care More About NATO Than Their Own People – Putin (RT)

Berlin made a mistake by placing its obligations to NATO above the interests of the German people, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Now business, the country’s economy and its citizens are paying for this mistake, he told journalists on Friday. “Apparently, some kind of allied obligations have been placed to the forefront” by Germany “within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance,” Putin said at a press conference after the Central Asia-Russia summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. “Is it right or wrong? I believe that it’s a mistake, and business, the economy, and the citizens of the Federal Republic [of Germany] are paying for this mistake, because it has negative economic consequences for the eurozone in general and for the Federal Republic in particular,” Putin pointed out.

He was answering a question about Berlin’s role in the Ukraine conflict, where it has been among key backers of Kiev. According to the Russian leader, German authorities “should decide for themselves what is more important: the fulfilment of some allied obligations as they see them, or ensuring the interests of their own people, their national interests.” Earlier this week, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov announced that Kiev received the first unit of the German cutting-edge IRIS-T air defense system. His German counterpart Christine Lambrecht called the shipment an important contribution to the Eastern European nation’s ability to defend itself from “missile shelling.” That’s while the German military has so far not received a single unit of the ground-based IRIS-T system variant, which led to concerns being voiced by some politicians and media outlets, who believe that the country is depleting its own weapons stockpile by sending the arms to Kiev.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said earlier that Berlin will keep up its support for Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” After Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February, many Western states imposed unprecedented sanctions against the country. This has led to a significant drop in Russian natural gas shipments to Western Europe, including Germany, and resulted in soaring energy prices and accelerating inflation. Berlin has introduced a series of measures meant to reduce winter energy consumption. Meanwhile, prices for firewood and wood pellets rose by over 85% in August compared to the same month last year, according to a recent report by Destatis, the Federal Statistics Office.

No hurry, security first.

• Russia ‘To Repair Crimea Bridge Damage By July 2023’ (RT)

: Russia’s government has ordered contractors to finish repairs to a key bridge linking annexed Crimea to Russia by July 2023. The bridge was damaged by a blast last Saturday which officials say left at least three people dead. Russia blamed Ukraine for the attack but Kyiv has not said it was behind it. The 19km (12-mile) bridge, Europe’s longest, is a key supply route for Russian forces in Ukraine, but heavy goods vehicles are unable to use it. The explosion caused midway sections of two of the four carriageways of the bridge to collapse into the sea and also damaged the railway line. Currently, lorries are forced to queue for a ferry, in a process which is thought to take several days.

A document on the Russian government’s website said it had appointed the company Nizhneangarsktransstroy to be the sole contractor, tasked with the “design and restoration of destroyed elements of the transport and engineering infrastructure of the Crimean Bridge”. It sets “a deadline by which state contracts for the work are to be completed… of 1 July 2023”. The bridge was opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018, four years after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

“..if it turns out that humanitarian corridors [used] for grain shipments to the poorest nations… are used for terrorist attacks, it would put the very existence of these corridors in question.”

• Putin Reveals Threat To Istanbul Grain Deal (RT)

Ukraine apparently transported the explosives used in last week’s attack on the Crimean Bridge by sea, Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalists on Friday, citing a report by the Federal Security Service (FSB). If it is proven that grain carriers operating in the Black Sea under the Istanbul grain deal were involved, it would have dire consequences for the agreement, he warned. Earlier this week, the FSB revealed that explosives disguised as a 22-ton shipment of plastic construction sheeting arrived at the Bulgarian Danube port of Ruse from Ukraine’s port of Odessa by sea. “It is not yet clear if grain carriers were involved,” Putin said at a press conference in the Kazakh capital of Astana. If it turns out that humanitarian corridors [used] for grain shipments to the poorest nations… are used for terrorist attacks, it would put the very existence of these corridors in question.

The president admitted that Russia still does not have any solid evidence confirming that Ukraine may be using grain exports for such activities. However, he warned that the response would be swift and tough if this is the case. “There will be a simple answer: We will shut down [the grain export corridors] and there is an end to it,”Putin warned, adding that Moscow would look for rock-solid proof first. The breakthrough grain deal between Moscow and Kiev was reached in Istanbul in July with mediation by the UN and Türkiye. It aimed to unlock exports of Ukrainian and Russian grain. The two countries are among the world’s leading grain exporters, but trade had come to a halt due to the protracted conflict between the two neighbors.

On Friday, Russia also warned that it may still quit the deal if obstacles to its own food and fertilizer exports are not removed. Moscow has been complaining for months that restrictions on its food and fertilizer exports linked to international sanctions have not been lifted, months after it provided conditions for the Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea. The developments also come in the wake of an attack on the Crimean Bridge linking the peninsula to mainland Russia. A truck explosion on the bridge killed at least four people and led to a partial collapse of the highway bridge section. Russia then declared the attack a terrorist act and blamed the Ukrainian security services. The Russian security services also detained a total of eight suspects, including Russians, Armenians and Ukrainians, in connection with the attack.

“Jo Red is “lucky enough to be born in Italy: studied a lot, knows nothing”

• The Western Empire Attacks Russia: The World Strikes Back (Red)

At this point, even Biden must be realizing that there were deeper reasons behind the Saudi prince’s decline of his phone call already in March, besides inflicting him and the American government the umpteenth humiliation on the world stage. Not only the US are finally given the brush-off in one of the most important regions of the world: the latter is actively being reshaped by the hatred of them. The Middle East connects three continents, including the two largest, not to mention oceans and seas, and by controlling its straits the Anglo-American have been able to choke the world economy for well over a century. Add the infamously rich resources of the region.

It is no coincidence that the same Raymond Geuss considers the British loss of control of the Suez strait in 1956 as the end of their empire, more than the independence of India. Let’s not forget this was “facilitated” by Khrushchev’s threat at the UN to resort to missiles in case the colonial powers did not withdraw from Egypt. The region continued to be torn apart by the West’s skillful exploitation of its ideological, social, national, and especially religious diversity: first of all, the conflict between Shia and Sunni Muslims. These are behind the most dramatic – and almost completely ignored – humanitarian crisis of our time: the devastation of Yemen.

It won’t be easy, but if the interests of such opposite countries as Saudi Arabia and Iran were to align, with a little help by American hostile resentment against the independence of both, and perhaps a friendly nudge by Russia (and China), this would be a massive blow to Western hegemony. Much more than the temporary occupation of I don’t know how many soccer fields in rural Ukraine.

“..Constitutional Rights, such as they are, attach at birth as being born is the delineating point for the purpose of the Constitution at a federal level.”

• The Supremes Get It Right – Again (Denninger)

Oct 11 (Reuters) – “The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to decide whether fetuses are entitled to constitutional rights in light of its June ruling overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide, steering clear for now of another front in America’s culture wars. The justices turned away an appeal by a Catholic group and two women of a lower court’s ruling holding that fetuses lacked the proper legal standing to challenge a 2019 state law codifying the right to abortion in line with the Roe precedent. The two women, pregnant at the time when the case was first filed, sued on behalf of their fetuses and later gave birth.”

This is a correct decision; the Constitution is clear. This doesn’t mean a state cannot go further. It can; that which is not under the view of the Federal Constitution can still be addressed under a State Constitution. It cannot be argued that at the time of the drafting of the Constitution or that of the 14th Amendment there was any question as to the significance of gamete fusion and creation of a zygote. That event was known to the drafters of both along with its significance; there is no reasonable argument possible otherwise. Therefore there is no “controversy” nor anything to be “clarified” as to the meaning of the words in the Constitution: The words are clear on their face; Constitutional Rights, such as they are, attach at birth as being born is the delineating point for the purpose of the Constitution at a federal level.

If someone wants to change this (and clearly plenty of people do) the proper way to do it is through a Constitutional Amendment, not running to a court and demanding that the court rewrite that which is there, or simply ignore what’s written and make something up. Going through that process is difficult, it requires large super-majorities and thus it requires overwhelming consensus and careful consideration by everyone involved including input from the citizens in each of the respective 50 States and their Legislatures. It should require exactly that and people on both sides who are trying to short-cut that process are wrong and should be slapped down because the only reason to short-cut the process is that you do not believe you can carry the debate when it is held in full.

In other words you insist on short-cutting the process because it is your expressed intent to cheat! I don’t care which side of a given argument one may be on for a given issue; either the Constitution is contained within the four corners of the page and the words are as-written or it is toilet paper and of no force and effect whatsoever. In the latter case all law flowing from same is of no force and effect and nobody has an obligation to adhere to any of it, whether at a state, local or individual level. Think long and hard about the implication of that before you advocate for what these jackasses tried to do — and which was properly rebuffed by the Justices.

“The lamp-posts in the WalMart parking lots could be decorated with dangling local election officials..”

• We’re Coming For You (Jim Kunstler)

Have you noticed, as the election looms, the Party of Chaos trips deeper into its own self-created chaos? Turns out that the effort to make Ukraine the fifty-first state is not going over so well with the voters. Nor is the campaign to convince children to switch sexes. Or the crusade to sell ever more mRNA “vaccines” that the CDC knows good-and-goshdarn-well is killing and maiming credulous citizens by the millions. Or the program for importing limitless alien “vibrance” across the open border with Mexico…. As the venerable Rolling Stones sang more than a half century ago: “Rape… murder… it’s just a shot away!” This is the kind of country that the Party of Chaos has been grooming you up for.

It’s not working. We are coming for you: leaders, mesmerized minions, and obliging tools of this Satanic faction that seized the levers of power in America and turned them into wrecking bars. After the nervous hiatus from November to January, we’re coming for you in 2023. You are going to answer for the decisions you took and the rules you made that drove our country to its knees and half out of it’s mind. We are storming you in your Kafka’s Castle of lies and malice, and we are going to drag you out of there kicking and screaming. Preserving your decorum will not be our first consideration, Rochelle Walensky, Tony Fauci, Alejandro Mayorkas, Merrick Garland, Christopher Wray, and the people who work for you.

There’s a lot of loose talk about some as-yet-unknown Party of Chaos’s ploy to stave off the November 8th reckoning — say, drag out the vote count for weeks and confabulate the results… declare some emergency to shut down in-person voting… or somehow postpone the vote altogether. Nothing like that will go over successfully this time around. The lamp-posts in the WalMart parking lots could be decorated with dangling local election officials who get caught churning phony ballots, tweaking Dominion machines, and taping-up the polling places’ windows with cardboard. You’re getting no help, meantime, from the folks who run the maundering flunkey you installed as president. They just flipped-off Sergey Lavrov’s invitation to negotiate some reasonable end to your $60-plus billion orchestrated fiasco in Ukraine. These are the people that party apostate Tulsi Gabbard identified lately as “an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.” She got that exactly right, and at exactly the right moment in history, too.

Nancy Pelosi had her daughter lead an entire film crew on Jan 6. Who happened to catch it “all”. Doesn’t smell right.

• Trump ‘Loves The Idea Of Testifying’ Before Jan. 6 Committee (Fox)

Former President Donald Trump “loves the idea of testifying” before the House select committee investigating January 6th, a source close to Trump told Fox News Digital just after the panel unanimously voted to subpoena him. The source said that if Trump complied with the subpoena and testified, he would “talk about how corrupt the election was, how corrupt the committee was, and how Nancy Pelosi did not call up the National Guard that Trump strongly recommended for her to do three days earlier on January 3, 2021.” The source told Fox News Digital that it is unclear at this point if Trump actually will testify before the committee, but stressed that Trump “loves the idea.” The committee — which consists of seven Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans — voted Thursday to compel Trump to testify about his conduct leading up to and during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday, Trump slammed the committee and its investigation as a “witch hunt.” “The committee is a hoax, a sham, a partisan witch hunt which is a continuation of the witch hunt that has gone on since the great day for our country that I came down the golden escalator with our future first lady,” Trump said. “They have no case, they have no ratings, so they have to try to do this to get publicity.” Trump told Fox News Digital that the investigation has been “a partisan witch hunt, together with two Republicans that have been thrown out of the party — one not wanting to run because he couldn’t win; and another losing by a record number of more than 40 points.” sTrump was referring to Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who lost her primary earlier this year, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who decided not to run for re-election.

Trump told Fox News Digital that the committee “never covered the important subject of election fraud, or why Pelosi and the mayor of D.C. did not call up the National Guard — which I strongly recommended.” “They didn’t cover the reason for January 6 — the largest crowd — it wasn’t set up by me,” Trump said. “The committee didn’t cover election fraud, which was massive, and they didn’t cover why Pelosi didn’t call the National Guard.” Trump said that he had recommended that Pelosi and the mayor of Washington call up the National Guard on Jan. 6 because he “felt the crowd was going to be far bigger than anyone understood.” “They didn’t do their job. I believed the crowd was going to be bigger — just my instinct — and they had the chance to call up the National Guard three days before Jan. 6, and if they did, Jan. 6 would have been a very different day,” Trump said. “But they didn’t do it.”

Epps Pelosi

"Oh my god, how did that guy get up there?"

January 6 'mystery man' Ray Epps guest stars in Pelosi's CNN propaganda film.

Check out what he's doing. Not suspect. At all. pic.twitter.com/u374EjmI9C

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) October 14, 2022

Misinformation. Maddow

I’m not a lawyer, so @Barnes_Law please correct me if I’m wrong here— but did the Alex Jones case just open the door for the people to now sue Rachel Maddow for billions of dollars since she pushed a conspiracy theory that lead to injury and death in some cases? pic.twitter.com/LXwcrcTjzc

— Kate (@KateTalksTruth) October 12, 2022

Winston Churchill and prohibition.

Where are we on the graph?

Smart dog
https://twitter.com/i/status/1580540061245853699

Nosey

Elephants help each other in distress, grieve for their dead, feel emotions like us. This is Nosey making her first new friend at her sanctuary after working in a circus for 29 years

[story: https://t.co/YJgqUYVdsZ]
[read more: https://t.co/lShG4Hwo6P]pic.twitter.com/ekpXX3pLUm

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 14, 2022

The Emerald tree boa is a non-venomous boa species found in the rainforests of South America

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Debt Rattle August 3 2022

Aug 032022

August 3, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:11 am Finance Tagged with: Daniel Hale, foreign fighters, Hungary, insurers, lifestock burps, lockdowns, Pelosi, smog, travel ban, veto 40 Responses »

Odilon Redon The winged man (The fallen angel) 1880

• US Directly Involved In Ukraine Conflict – Moscow (RT)

• West Advises Ukraine On Strikes With Supplied Weapons – Top Intel Official (RT)

• Russia Strikes Foreign Fighters’ Base In Ukraine (RT)

• African Nations To Make Case For Big Rise In Fossil Fuel Output (G.)

• EU Facing Winter Energy Crisis – Borrell (RT)

• Netherlands Faces Winter Of Smog – Media (RT)

• EU Is Not Our Boss – Hungary (RT)

• Canada’s Travel Ban Had No Scientific Basis (CS)

• Are Lockdowns Effective in Managing Pandemics? (MDPI)

• New Zealand Plans To Tax Farmers For Livestock Burps (TCS)

• When The Just Go to Prison (Chris Hedges)

• Top Epidemiologist Predicts Insurers Will Go After Covid Vax Makers (JTN)

• An Honest Money Would Stop Inflation by Don Werkheiser (Greco)

Tedros
https://twitter.com/i/status/1553858888260325377

Biden ice cream
https://twitter.com/i/status/1554282827046440960

Kamala
https://twitter.com/i/status/1554216124845379588

“No other confirmation of the direct involvement of the United States in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine is required..”

The US made itself a target. And all NATO countries too.

• US Directly Involved In Ukraine Conflict – Moscow (RT)

Statements made by Vadim Skibitsky, a representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, confirm that the United States is directly involved in the ongoing conflict there, according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. In an interview with the Telegraph published on Monday, Skibitsky refused to answer questions about whose satellites are used for strikes when talking about American HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems. He did acknowledge, however, that they consult with Washington before launching strikes and that Washington has veto power over decision-making.

“No other confirmation of the direct involvement of the United States in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine is required,” Zakharova said on Tuesday, because the US doesn’t just arm and train Ukrainian forces but essentially shoots the weapons themselves. Zakharova stressed that the US is directly involved and that its distance from the situation is irrelevant. “They are fully involved. Now Kiev representatives are talking about their military involvement not only through the supply of weapons, but through personnel management in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, direct instructions and the choice of targets,”Zakharova added.

Speculation has been ongoing about Washington’s involvement in the conflict. For example, in April French journalist Georges Malbrunot went viral on social media after claiming to have seen first-hand that Americans are “in charge” of the Ukrainian war effort on the ground.However, he stressed that this was not an official involvement as it was American mercenaries that he met in Ukraine. Nevertheless, skeptics have questioned the veracity of promises by US officials to avoid direct involvement or so-called “boots on the ground.”

“Advises”? They supply the weapons, the intelligence, and have a veto on “decision-making”. They might as well pull the trigger too. And for all we know they do.

• West Advises Ukraine On Strikes With Supplied Weapons – Top Intel Official (RT)

A senior Ukrainian military intelligence official has claimed his agency was getting advice from British and American counterparts on which targets to attack with Western-supplied weapons, like the HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems. The Americans can ban any strike they don’t like, the general reportedly said. The revelation came on Monday in an interviewthat Major General Vadim Skibitsky gave to The Telegraph newspaper. When discussing Ukraine’s reported successes in destroying Russian military targets with weapons provided by the West, he claimed Ukrainian forces were using “real-time information” to direct fire. “I can’t tell you whether [we are directly tasking] British and American satellites, but we have very good satellite imagery,” the British newspaper cited him as saying.

The general did not claim that US officials were feeding targeting information directly to Ukraine, but said troops were getting feedback from Washington and London before launching rockets. This allows “Washington to stop any potential attacks if they were unhappy with the intended target,” The Telegraph said. US officials have frequently claimed that America does not have direct involvement in Russia’s hostilities with Ukraine, since it would put it at risk of escalating the conflict. Russia and its allies in Donetsk and Lugansk accused Ukraine of using the US-made launchers to strike non-military targets. In a recent incident a rocket attack hit a detention facility, where dozens of Ukrainian POWs were kept. Officials from the Donetsk People’s Republic showed images of what they described as fragments of HIMARS rockets used in the strike.

Over 50 of the prisoners were reported killed in what Russia alleged to be an assassination of potential witnesses and perpetrators of war crimes committed by the Ukrainian side. Kiev denied responsibility for the incident and accused Russia of hitting the prison camp in Elenovka. Ukrainian officials claimed the attack was meant to cover up either abuse of the POWs or the embezzlement of money.

“..the best thing that awaits them if they are captured alive is a trial and maximum prison terms.”

• Russia Strikes Foreign Fighters’ Base In Ukraine (RT)

Over 200 foreign mercenaries have reportedly been killed in a missile strike in southern Ukraine, Russia’s Ministry of Defense reported on Tuesday. The statement also added that over 20 units of military equipment were also destroyed during the attack. In its daily briefing on Telegram, the ministry reported that Russian Aerospace Forces delivered a blow to a temporary deployment point of the Ukrainian ‘foreign legion’ near the city of Nikolaev, using high-precision weapons. As a result, up to 250 foreign mercenaries were eliminated, according to the report. Russia also claims to have neutralized up to 500 nationalist fighters in the Kharkov region via high-precision strikes, as well as “a significant amount” of military equipment.

Last week, Russia also claimed to have killed over 40 foreign mercenaries, most of whom were Polish citizens, after a missile strike on a temporary deployment point near Konstantinovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). The week before that, the Russian military claimed it had killed up to 250 such soldiers in the same settlement. Kiev’s international military unit was created in late February at the request of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, and is officially known as the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine. In April, the Russian military estimated their numbers at almost 7,000.

However, an updated estimate provided by the Russian defense ministry earlier this month suggests that only about 2,700 of these soldiers remain in Ukraine. Many of them were eliminated while others fled abroad, some complaining about disorder in the ranks of the Ukrainian forces and about poor equipment. Moscow has repeatedly warned that it will not view foreign mercenaries in Ukraine as combatants as defined by the Geneva Convention and that “the best thing that awaits them if they are captured alive is a trial and maximum prison terms.”

“..developed countries by contrast must take the lead on sharp cuts to their emission..”

• African Nations To Make Case For Big Rise In Fossil Fuel Output (G.)

Leaders of African countries are likely to use the next UN climate summit in November to push for massive new investment in fossil fuels in Africa, according to documents seen by the Guardian. New exploration for gas, and the exploitation of Africa’s vast reserves of oil, would make it close to impossible for the world to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. However, soaring gas prices have made the prospect of African supplies even more attractive, and developed countries, including EU members, have indicated they would support such developments in the current gas shortage.

The Guardian has seen a technical document prepared by the African Union, comprising most of Africa’s states, for the “second extraordinary session of the specialised technical committee on transport, transcontinental and interregional infrastructure and energy committee”, a meeting of energy ministers that took place by video conference from 14 to 16 June. The five-page document, and accompanying 25-page explanation, indicates that many African countries favour a common position that would inform their negotiating stance at the Cop27 UN climate summit, scheduled for this November in Egypt, which would entail pushing for an expansion of fossil fuel production across the continent.

The document states: “In the short to medium term, fossil fuels, especially natural gas will have to play a crucial role in expanding modern energy access in addition to accelerating the uptake of renewables.”Member states of the African Union will meet again, in Addis Ababa, this week to confirm the stance to be taken. They are expected to argue that Africa must be allowed to benefit from its fossil fuel reserves, as rich countries already have done, and that developed countries by contrast must take the lead on sharp cuts to their emissions.

Of its own choosing.

• EU Facing Winter Energy Crisis – Borrell (RT)

The EU may run out of gas during the upcoming winter season amid supply shortages, the bloc’s senior diplomat Josep Borrell has warned. “Europe is facing a perfect storm: energy prices are up, economic growth is down and winter is coming,” the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy wrote, in a blog published Monday on the website of the Diplomatic Service of the EU. There is “real uncertainty” over whether the EU will have enough gas and whether it will be able to afford it, Borrell said in the piece, titled “Europe’s energy balancing act,” describing the upcoming winter as “exceptional.” His comments come amid a reduced flow of natural gas from Russia, a major supplier to the bloc. Borrell warned that countries of the continent must prepare for a possible total cut-off by Moscow, and suggested that Europe has struggled to replace Russian supplies.

“The hard truth is that for this winter, we are approaching the limits of what extra gas we can buy from non-Russian sources. So, the bulk will have to come from energy savings, i.e. demand reduction.” he wrote. Last month the EU approved a plan that would see member states voluntarily reduce their gas consumption by 15%, to enable the bloc to accumulate the fuel ahead of winter. In case of an emergency, the voluntary reduction may become mandatory. According to Borrell, the bloc has managed to reduce the share of Russian gas in its imports from 40% at the beginning of the year to around 20% today, by buying more LNG and receiving gas via pipelines from Norway, Algeria and Azerbaijan. Russia has repeatedly said it remains a reliable supplier and honors its contractual obligations, but that international sanctions are preventing pipeline operator Gazprom from delivering gas to the EU at full capacity.

Wood and brown coal. Take that, Putin!

• Netherlands Faces Winter Of Smog – Media (RT)

Smog and particulate pollution will rise in the Netherlands this winter, public health authorities have warned. The rise is linked to more households choosing to burn firewood as gas prices skyrocket. Sales of wood and pellet stoves have increased by 30% since last summer, De Volkskrantreported on Sunday. Demand is now so high, the newspaper reported, that manufacturers are struggling to deliver enough of these stoves. Firewood suppliers, meanwhile, are already running out of stock, and sourcing more logs is a difficult proposition, as the Dutch forestry agency refuses to supply trees to the firewood industry. With gas and electricity bills at record highs, the shift among some consumers to wood burning will have environmental consequences, the National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) warned.

“The sale of wood is linked to consumption and it is indeed expected that this will not have a positive impact on air pollution,” a spokesperson told De Volkskrant. While the institute is investigating what measures can be taken to reduce this pollution risk, its powers are limited at present. It can warn households against lighting fires on days when the smog risk is high, but cannot enforce a ban. Health experts called for a ban last month, telling parliament that such a measure would be necessary in winter when more fires would increase the chance of smog. However, there is currently no other viable heat source to replace either gas or solid fuel, although the RIVM is investigating heat pump technology, according to the newspaper.

The Netherlands is not the only European country where wood fires are making a comeback. Poland gave its citizens permission to hoard timber for burning last month, while Latvians have rushed for firewood collection permits and Hungary has ordered a halt to firewood exports. In the UK, the London Fire Brigade said in May that its officers had responded to 100 house fires in the preceding months, started by people burning wood in open fires to stay warm. While gas prices throughout Europe were steadily rising since the end of the coronavirus pandemic, the increase accelerated sharply since Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in February. The EU has begun phasing out Russian fuel imports in response, while Russian gas giant Gazprom has said that sanctions are impeding its ability to deliver gas to the region.

The sole voice of reason in the EU. Something has to give.

• EU Is Not Our Boss – Hungary (RT)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban lashed out at the European Union on Monday evening in a Facebook post, reminding his followers that Brussels doesn’t dictate European affairs. “The European Union is not in Brussels. The European Union is in Vienna, Budapest and Warsaw, Berlin and Madrid,” the prime minister said. “Brussels is not our boss We are an independent, sovereign Hungarian nation. We make decisions together. If they’re not good for us, we’ll tell them. If they are not good and we can prevent them, the common decision will not be made.” Orban has made international headlines in recent weeks for his blunt statements criticizing the West’s policies. On July 28, the premier blasted NATO’s support for Kiev during a meeting in Vienna with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer.

“The Hungarian assessment is that the concept of NATO supporting Ukraine with weapons and training officers, and the Ukrainians fighting against the Russians, is a construct that has now been shown not to result in a Ukrainian victory,” Orban said at a press conference. The prime minister has been a holdout amongst European leaders in jumping on board Brussels’ harsh sanctions campaign against Russia, particularly a total embargo of Russian natural gas. In his remarks criticizing NATO, Orban also made reference to the fact that sanctions on Moscow are causing serious economic hardship in the bloc. He said that a peaceful settlement needs to be reached in Ukraine because its absence it will spur economic recession in the EU that will be accompanied by political instabiliy.

Or others would do the same.

• Canada’s Travel Ban Had No Scientific Basis (CS)

On August 13, 2021, the Canadian government announced that anyone who hadn’t been vaccinated against Covid would soon be barred from planes and trains. In many cases, The Backward could no longer travel between provinces or leave the country. If you lived in Winnipeg and wanted to visit your mother on her deathbed in London or Hong Kong or, perhaps, Quebec City, you’d better get jabbed—or resign yourself to never seeing your mother again. Jennifer Little, the director-general of COVID Recovery, the secretive government panel that crafted the mandate, called it “one of the strongest vaccination mandates for travelers in the world.” It was draconian and sweeping, and it fit neatly with the public persona that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had cultivated—that of the sleek, progressive, forward-looking technocrat guided by fact and reason.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal, in a June 2022 article, observed that “Canada had among the most sustained stringent policies regarding restrictions on internal movement.” But recently released court documents—which capture the decision-making behind the travel mandate—indicate that, far from following the science, the prime minister and his Cabinet were focused on politics. (Canadians are hardly alone. As Common Sense recently reported, American public-health agencies have also been politicized.) Two days after announcing the mandate, Trudeau called a snap election—presumably expecting that his Liberal Party, which was in the minority in the House of Commons, would benefit from the announcement and be catapulted into the majority. As it turned out, the Liberals failed to win a majority in the September 2021 election.

In the meantime, roughly five million unvaccinated Canadians were barred from visiting loved ones, working or otherwise traveling. (Trudeau, for his part, stayed in power. Even though the Conservatives have won the popular vote in the past two elections, because of Canada’s parliamentary system, they have been denied the top job.) The court documents are part of a lawsuit filed by two Canadian residents against the government. Until last month, they were under seal. Both plaintiffs are business owners. Both have family in Britain. Both have refused the vaccine on the grounds of bodily autonomy. Both were reluctant to identify their businesses out of fear of losing customers

“..we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save..”

• Are Lockdowns Effective in Managing Pandemics? (MDPI)

The present coronavirus crisis caused a major worldwide disruption which has not been experienced for decades. The lockdown-based crisis management was implemented by nearly all the countries, and studies confirming lockdown effectiveness can be found alongside the studies questioning it. In this work, we performed a narrative review of the works studying the above effectiveness, as well as the historic experience of previous pandemics and risk-benefit analysis based on the connection of health and wealth. Our aim was to learn lessons and analyze ways to improve the management of similar events in the future.

The comparative analysis of different countries showed that the assumption of lockdowns’ effectiveness cannot be supported by evidence—neither regarding the present COVID-19 pandemic, nor regarding the 1918–1920 Spanish Flu and other less-severe pandemics in the past. The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save. It is suggested therefore that a thorough cost-benefit analysis should be performed before imposing any lockdown for either COVID-19 or any future pandemic.

WHO Treaty Christine Anderson
https://twitter.com/i/status/1554364529236234240

“Face masks. Yes, face masks for cows.”

• New Zealand Plans To Tax Farmers For Livestock Burps (TCS)

It seems like governments across the Western world are hellbent on destroying the lives of their farmers, and New Zealand is no different, with the government bringing in a “burp tax” for livestock. It’s become almost a meme to talk about the government taxing you for breathing in oxygen in the age of climate insanity and carbon taxes, but New Zealand is by far the closest to doing so. According to climate radicals in the country, cow and sheep burps are just too harmful to the environment due to the methane released, and they need to be reduced, and farmers need to be taxed into submission. “There is no question that we need to cut the amount of methane we are putting into the atmosphere, and an effective emissions pricing system for agriculture will play a key part in how we achieve that,” New Zealand Climate Change Minister James Shaw told BBC News.

Under the proposed legislation, the government would begin taxing livestock farmers for their gas emissions starting in 2025, with incentives and lower tax rates being offered to farmers that feed their livestock special anti-burp diets and plant more trees to offset their supposed emissions. According to WebMD, other strategies the government is recommending include “face masks for cows that trap and turn methane into water and carbon dioxide, a method that reduces emissions by more than 50% according to Zelp, the company that invented the contraption. Some farmers are already experimenting with feed made from seaweed. And scientists are tinkering with cow genetics to increase their digestive efficiency.” Face masks. Yes, face masks for cows.

Daniel Hale.

• When The Just Go to Prison (Chris Hedges)

Hale, a 34-year-old former Air Force signals intelligence analyst, is serving a 45 month prison sentence, following his conviction under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified documents about the U.S. military’s drone assassination program and its high civilian death toll. The documents are believed to be the source material for “The Drone Papers” published by The Intercept, on October 15, 2015. These documents revealed that between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations drone airstrikes killed more than 200 people — of which only 35 were the intended targets. According to the documents, over one five-month period of the operation, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. The civilian dead, usually innocent bystanders, were routinely classified as “enemies killed in action.”

The terrorizing and widespread killing of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of civilians was a potent recruiting tool for the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents. The aerial attacks created far more hostile fighters than they eliminated and enraged many in the Muslim world. Hale is composed, articulate and physically fit from his self-imposed regime of daily exercise. We discuss books he has recently read, including John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden and Nicholson Baker’s Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act, which explores whether the U.S. used biological weapons on China and Korea during World War II and the Korean War. Hale is currently housed in the Communications Management Unit (CMU), a special unit that severely restricts and heavily monitors communications, including our conversation, and visitations.

The decision by The Bureau of Prisons to lock Hale up in the most restrictive wing of a supermax prison ignores the recommendation of the sentencing Judge Liam O’Grady, who suggested that he be placed in a low-security prison hospital facility in Butner, North Carolina, where he could get treatment for his PTSD. Hale is one of a few dozen people of conscience who have sacrificed their careers and their freedom to inform the public about government crimes, fraud and lies. Rather than investigate the crimes that are exposed and hold those who carried them out to account, the two ruling parties wage war on all who speak out. These men and women of conscience are the lifeblood of journalism. Reporters cannot document abuses of power without them.

The silence on the part of the press over Hale’s imprisonment, as well as the persecution and imprisonment of other champions of an open society, such as Julian Assange, is stunningly shortsighted. If our most important public servants, those with the courage to inform the public, continue to be criminalized at this rate, we will cement in place total censorship, resulting in a world where the abuses and crimes of the powerful are shrouded in darkness. Barack Obama weaponized the Espionage Act to prosecute those who provided classified information to the press. The Obama White House, whose assault on civil liberties was worse than those of the Bush administration, used the 1917 Act, designed to prosecute spies, against eight people who leaked information to the media including Assange — although he is not a U.S. citizen, and WikiLeaks is not a U.S.-based publication — along with Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, Jeffrey Sterling and John Kiriakou, who spent two-and-a-half years in prison for exposing the routine torture of suspects held in black sites.

Also under The Espionage Act, Joshua Schulte, a former CIA software engineer, was convicted on July 13, 2022 of the so-called Vault 7 leak, published by WikiLeaks in 2017, which revealed how the CIA hacked Apple and Android smartphones and turned internet-connected televisions into listening devices. He faces up to 80 years in prison.

I’d like to see that.

• Top Epidemiologist Predicts Insurers Will Go After Covid Vax Makers (JTN)

Yale University epidemiologist Harvey Risch is expecting insurers to seek financial compensation from COVID-19 vaccine makers to cover “early unexpected mortality claims,” as they “they have a major financial risk that they have to figure out how to manage.” Insurers’ actuaries estimated COVID vaccinees would “live longer than they have” based on misrepresentations about “all-cause mortality … from the original [clinical] trials,” Risch told the “Just the News, Not Noise” TV program. In a followup interview he pointed to statements by insurers that offer group life insurance. OneAmerica CEO Scott Davison told a healthcare conference in December that death rates had risen an “unheard of” 40% in the working-age people it insures compared to pre-pandemic rates, when a “one-in-200-year catastrophe” would only bring a 10% increase.

Most claims aren’t filed as COVID-related deaths, he said. Public records show that Lincoln National, a much larger insurer, reported a 163% increase in death benefits paid out in 2021, the first year of the COVID vaccines: $1.4 billion, compared to $500 million in pre-pandemic 2019 and $548 million in 2020. It largely blamed a $41 million operations loss in the first quarter of 2022 on “non-pandemic-related morbidity, including unusual claims adjustments, and less favorable returns within the company’s alternative investment portfolio.” Lincoln Financial Group Vice President of Corporate Communications Kelly DeAngelis told Just the News the 2020 statutory filings didn’t include Lincoln Life Assurance Company of Boston. The 2021 supplement includes results from both companies, which merged that year.

Pfizer attacks
https://twitter.com/i/status/1554122422537916416

1982.

• An Honest Money Would Stop Inflation by Don Werkheiser (Greco)

This little vignette written by Don Werkheiser remains one of the best concise explanations of inflation I’ve ever seen. It was published in the spring 1982 edition of Green Revolution, the journal of the School of Living a non-profit organization with which I was associated throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s.

A rural village has no money. All trade is by barter. A farmer comes to town and deposits 10 bushels of corn with a man who has a store room. This operator gives the farmer 10 receipts, each redeemable in a bushel of corn. But the farmer asks for receipts in smaller denominations. The storekeeper gives him 40 receipts for 40 pecks. The farmer trades ten of these corn-receipts for other products; they are each accepted at the value of a peck of corn. That acceptance constitutes the issue of corn notes as money. Such receipts are generalized credit instruments. They refer to stored corn, but not to any specific peck of corn. When the seller wants a peck of corn the receipt is redeemed. Otherwise it is spent again, and ownership of a peck of corn is conveyed to the next seller.

The next day the farmer returns to town and spends 10 corn notes (each of one peck of corn in value) for his wife’s birthday present. Now the farmer has doubled the money supply in circulation, but there is no inflation; there are redeemable goods back of them. What then is inflation? We must understand “money” and the storekeeper’s actions. The store room owner noticed that the corn notes were accepted in trade. So he made 40 more “peck-receipts” looking just like corn-receipts and then he spent them into circulation. That is inflation–counterfeit receipts passed as valid receipts. Assume that the counterfeit receipts were accepted at face value. In that case, the counterfeiter effected a robbery of commodities equal in value to 40 packs of corn, while those who accepted them received receipts which measured the extent to which they had been robbed.

So long as confidence lasts, the game would continue and receipts could be spent. New sellers would be holding empty receipts. The game would collapse when all the corn in the warehouse was redeemed, and holders of the 40 counterfeit receipts found no one who would take them in trade. Worse could happen if the counterfeiter had the skills of a politician. If, when confronted by angry holders of his counterfeit receipts he declared himself a benefactor of the community–and showed that the original issue by the farmer was too limited, and that his own issues stimulated industry and trade (he would not mention that the farmers issue was redeemable while his own was not). He noted that most people did not want corn; they wanted a medium of trade that they could use to speed up trade.

They were told: “If the game stopped then, the holders would be losers, but if they continued, they could all buy what they wanted. In fact if they elected him Mayor he would declare pseudo-corn-notes to be legal tender, and he’d also begin a program of public works. Soon everyone would be rich.” An ignorant public agreed. Elected Mayor, the counterfeiter issue another stock of corn-notes called “pecks” and declared them to be worth a peck of corn in the market (but not anywhere redeemable). On each note was a picture of a peck-basket, but what it contained was not specified. Just a peck of value.

I am the change

A great message….. pic.twitter.com/dli2Wcf0Ip

— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) August 1, 2022

???

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Debt Rattle August 2 2022

Aug 022022

August 2, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:35 am Finance Tagged with: Al Zawahiri, atonement, Brandon, Fauci, Kosovo, Pelosi, petal mine, Putin, Serbia, Taiwan 47 Responses »

Edward Hopper The long leg 1935

• Germany Counts Cost Of Russian Gas Cut-off (RT)

• Europe Has Lost The Energy War (Fazi)

• Ukraine Limiting Russian Gas Flow To EU – Gazprom (RT)

• Brandon Shifts The Narrative On Banderastan (Saker)

• Anti-Russia Sanctions Don’t Reflect Global Reality – Putin (RT)

• West Will Run Out Of Money To Support Ukraine – Macgregor (RT)

• Hundreds Of ‘Petal’ Mines Reportedly Found In Donetsk (MSO)

• Spain Comments On Kosovo’s Independence (RT)

• Russia ‘Absolutely’ Supports Serbia – Kremlin (RT)

• Supposed Killing Of Al Zawahiri Is Suspect, Weird And Fishy (CTH)

• The Day Anthony Fauci Wrecked American Freedom (Tucker)

• Atonement (Jim Kunstler)

Graham McCain 2016
https://twitter.com/i/status/1554088190637740033

Ukraine produces 3.1% of global wheat. Let’s all panic!

“German inflation may well exceed 10% by the end of the year..”

• Germany Counts Cost Of Russian Gas Cut-off (RT)

German inflation may well exceed 10% by the end of the year if gas supplies from Russia are cut off, Deutsche Bank head Christian Sewing said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, published on Saturday. “If Russian gas continues to flow [into Germany], we should reach an inflation rate of around 8% by the end of this year. But inflation would be higher if the gas stopped flowing. Then 10% or more is possible,” Sewing said. The CEO pointed out that losing gas supplies from Russia “would have a significant impact on economic growth in Germany” and the country “will definitely slip into recession.” He noted that “with the right interest rate hikes and the right policies, there is still a chance to bring [inflation] down to 5-6% next year, and then get close to the actual target of 2% again in 2024.”

However, such measures “will take time, so we should not give people false impressions,” he added. Commenting on the recent move by the European Central Bank (ECB) to hike interest rates, he said the ECB “is moving in the right direction.” “Currency devaluation is poison for people. I am grateful that the ECB is well aware of the problem and has now given a clear signal to raise the rate by 0.5 percentage points. We have been saying for a long time: higher inflation is not a temporary phenomenon, and it needs to be dealt with seriously,” Sewing stressed. He warned, however, that the worst may still be ahead for the German economy.

“The biggest burden for many people is yet to come. If monthly expenses exceed income, people will consume less and the mood of the country will deteriorate as well. It’s all the more important that the right steps are taken early on,” the banker stated. Inflation in Germany soared this month, jumping to 8.5% year-on-year in July after dropping to 8.2% in June as a result of government relief measures. This comes as elevated food prices and surging energy costs continued to plague the country. In a poll published by the newspaper Bild earlier this month, half of respondents said they feel their economic conditions are deteriorating, seeing rising prices as a heavy burden and fearing being unable to heat their homes this winter.

It doesn’t feel like they ever tried to win.

• Europe Has Lost The Energy War (Fazi)

After a decade of financial austerity, is Europe now on the brink of a new age of energy austerity? The city of Hanover has recently introduced strict energy-saving rules that include cutting off the hot water in public buildings, swimming pools, sports halls and gyms, banning mobile air conditioners, fan heaters or radiators, switching off public fountains, and stopping illuminating major buildings such as the town hall at night. Meanwhile, several countries across Europe are considering dimming or switching off public lights, and even adopting “energy curfews”, with early closures for businesses and public offices. And more drastic measures are under consideration — including gas rationing for energy-intensive industries such as steel and agriculture.

These measures are part of an EU-wide Gas Demand Reduction Plan, ominously titled Save Gas for a Safe Winter, to reduce gas use in Europe by 15% until next spring. Among the proposals is a provision that officials in Brussels impose fines for non-compliance if they decide the crisis is escalating dangerously. All of this comes amid growing fears that dwindling Russian gas supplies may plunge Europe into an energy crisis this winter. Overall, Russian gas exports to the EU are at about a third of last year’s levels, falling steadily since the invasion of Ukraine. While several European countries have been reducing their Russian gas imports, Russia itself has been reducing gas flows to Europe through Nord Stream 1, the continent’s biggest pipeline, citing mainly technical issues.

Just the other day, citing equipment repair, Russia announced yet another reduction in the amount of natural gas flowing through Nord Stream 1, which is now operating at only 20% capacity.This has caused natural gas spot prices to surge to levels not seen since early March; they are now almost 10 times higher than they were two years ago. In most countries, electricity prices have risen accordingly. Soaring energy prices are already fuelling record inflation — currently close to 9% and rising in the EU — squeezing people’s spending power, plunging thousands into poverty, and placing a huge burden on industry. This is especially true for Germany, which is almost entirely dependent on Russian gas imports. Indeed, the country’s industrial production has been contracting for over three months. Astonishingly, 16% of industrial German companies have reduced production or partially stopped their activities due to rising energy prices. This helps explain why last month Germany became the first country to escalate its warning over gas supplies to the “alert level”.

Humor: Nord Stream 2 turbines come from Iran, not Germany.

• Ukraine Limiting Russian Gas Flow To EU – Gazprom (RT)

Russia’s EU-bound natural gas supplies, pumped via Ukraine, are limited to one remaining entry point, while Kiev refuses to reopen a second transit station, energy giant Gazprom said on Monday. “Gazprom is supplying Russian gas for transit through Ukraine in the volume confirmed by the Ukrainian side through the Sudzha gas metering station – 41.7 million cubic meters as of August 1. The application to reopen the Sohranovka gas metering system has been rejected,” Gazprom’s representative told reporters. Ukraine shut down transit through the Sokhranovka station, which handles about a third of the Russian gas flowing through Ukraine to Europe, in early May, citing “interference by the occupying forces.”

Kiev argued that is gas transit operator GTSOU could not control the Novopskov border compressor station in Lugansk Region due to Russia’s military operation, and considered the situation a force majeure. However, Gazprom at the time said it did not see any grounds for halting gas flows. Kiev asked the Russian firm to transfer all gas transit to the Sudzha pumping station in the Kursk Region, which Gazprom ruled out as technically impossible. Meanwhile, Russia has also been forced to reduce its gas flow to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, due to turbine malfunctions. Gazprom has blamed the issue on the German company Siemens, which produced and maintains the equipment, accusing it of failing to fulfil its commitments.

The drop in Russian supplies has led to a surge in gas prices in Europe. In July, futures contracts for deliveries in August and September traded on the Dutch TTF exchange in the range of $1530-2385 per thousand cubic meters. In comparison, at the same time last year the spot price was less than $500.

“And now “Biden” “generously” will allow Putin to stay in power. Yes, “Biden”, not the fact that the Russian population fully support Putin, and the SMO.”

• Brandon Shifts The Narrative On Banderastan (Saker)

President “Biden” (i.e. the “collective” Biden, not the actual Bradon) penned an interesting article for the NYT entitled “President Biden: What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine“. The entire things is behind a paywall, and it is not really worth reposting it here. But I do want to comment on a few of “Biden’s” theses. First, I will ignore the obnoxious habit of calling the USA “America”, when just Canada and Brazil alone are almost as big as the USA. Furthermore, the USA is only 9,833,520 km2 (3,796,742 sq mi) while the total area of the Americas is 42,549,000 km2 (16,428,000 sq mi). Finally, there are 35 countries in the Americas but, fine, okay, if saying “‘Murica” evokes imagines of Captain America and waving (Chinese made) flags – then fine. Let’s look at a few key sentences:

“America’s goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression (…) We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia. As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow“. Now that is a HUGE change. In Russian, there is this expression of “changing shoes while in mid jump” which refers to situation when a person suddenly make a full and instantaneous 180 after pompously insisting on a goal which is now dropped. The initial plan was simple: to smash the Russian economy, have Putin overthrown in an insurrection of some kind, break apart Russia and then turn towards China and crush it.

And, considering the absolutely extreme demonization of Putin, he was clearly designated as the object of total hate by “all of progressive and freedom loving mankind”. And now “Biden” “generously” will allow Putin to stay in power. Yes, “Biden”, not the fact that the Russian population fully support Putin, and the SMO. How stupid does “Biden” think that we all are? Anyway, let’s continue, “We will also continue reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank with forces and capabilities from the United States and other allies. And just recently, I welcomed Finland’s and Sweden’s applications to join NATO, a move that will strengthen overall U.S. and trans-Atlantic security by adding two democratic and highly capable military partners“This entire paragraph can be summarized in all sorts of colorful ways, I will just call in counter-factual and delusional nonsense. Where do I even begin here?

“..unfair competition, a bid by the West to hinder Russian businesses and reconfigure world markets in their favor…”

• Anti-Russia Sanctions Don’t Reflect Global Reality – Putin (RT)

The West’s decision to sanction Russia over the Ukraine conflict was made for the sake of opportunistic political interests which do not reflect global realities, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. Addressing a virtual meeting on Russia’s metals industry, the president noted that the sector continues to face challenges in light of the Western sanctions. He highlighted the problem of limited access to international markets and the ban on buying foreign equipment for the production of fittings, rolled metals and steel sheets in Russia. “As I have already said, these decisions were made by Western countries for the sake of political interests, moreover, current, opportunistic ones and not reflecting the realities either in world politics, nor in the world economy,” he claimed.

Vladimir Putin argued that the Western sanctions failed to take into account “obvious consequences”, such as the rising cost of building materials on the international market, and the spurring of global inflation.“The decline in well-being and the quality of life of ordinary citizens, first and foremost in Europe, is of no interest to politicians, not to mention such things as adherence to the principles of the World Trade Organization. These things have been simply tossed into the trash,” the Russian leader added. Putin described attempts to limit Russia’s metals industry as a blatant manifestation of unfair competition, a bid by the West to hinder Russian businesses and reconfigure world markets in their favor.

Western countries including the US and EU members have imposed sweeping sanctions on nearly all aspects of the Russian economy since the launch of Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine in late February. The measures include limitations on Russian oil and gas, goods and financial services.Last month, Putin branded the sanctions illegitimate, saying they ignore the fundamental principles of respecting another nation’s sovereignty and non-interference in its internal affairs. He insisted that such actions not only damage relations between states and peoples, but undermine the global legal system. Putin also reiterated Moscow’s stance that it will always be a reliable and responsible partner for those who are committed to mutually beneficial, predictable business cooperation. He pledged, however, that Russia will not work to its own detriment with “those who are clearly unfriendly towards us.”

Will the support last till Christmas? Or will they be too occupied with China by then?

• West Will Run Out Of Money To Support Ukraine – Macgregor (RT)

The West will eventually lose interest in the Ukraine conflict and run out of resources to support Kiev in its war against Russia, a top former US military official said. “There is no strategy. What we have is impulse,”retired Colonel Douglas MacGregor told Judge Andrew Napolitano on his YouTube channel on Friday. In a wide-ranging interview, MacGregor said much of the military aid earmarked for Ukraine never reaches the country itself. “Most of the money goes to the Department of Defense to compensate the armed forces for the movement of equipment and resources over to Europe. That money in turn is then transferred to the defense industries, the contractors who support and provide the replacement equipment,” he said, adding that the “whole circular operation enriches everyone who is important to Capitol Hill in terms of re-election.”

MacGregor called the situation a “shell game”that enriches the military-industrial complex, the same people who help politicians get re-elected in Washington. “My own view is that this war in Ukraine will not end with a bang but with a whimper, that eventually we will just sort of quietly run out of resources,” he said, adding that domestic problems in the West will overshadow the conflict. “We’ll have so many problems at home here in the United States that we’ll no longer bother with [Ukraine],” he said. In a combination of aid packages, the US is sending roughly $54 billion to Ukraine in both economic and military aid, with approximately $12 billion of that in weapons. At the same time, the US economy shrank 0.9 percent in the second quarter of this year, which is the second consecutive quarter of economic contraction, which technically meets one definition of a recession. Coupled with the highest inflation since 1981, the US economy faces a period of “stagflation” – defined as low growth with high inflation.

Why?

• Hundreds Of ‘Petal’ Mines Reportedly Found In Donetsk (MSO)

Ukrainian forces were accused of shelling residential areas of the eastern city of Donetsk on Saturday night with hundreds of so-called petal mines littering the streets in the aftermath. The tiny bombs, which are shaped like small flowers, were found in the centre of Donetsk, areas close to the city’s university, recreational areas and others.Journalist Eva Bartlett, based in Ukraine, heard the shelling start on Saturday night. “This morning I saw these mines in a heavily populated western Donetsk district,” she said. “They tear off limbs but don’t necessarily kill. Nasty war crimes to add to the list of Ukraine’s manifold war crimes.” Local authorities issued a warning to residents asking them to “watch your step carefully, walk only on asphalt” and to call emergency services if they spot one of the deadly mines.

Civilians were advised to only walk on open routes and to avoid shortcuts after the latest attack as the mines are difficult to spot in grass or other areas. The Lepestok cluster mines are banned under international humanitarian law and their use is deemed a war crime under the Geneva Convention. They were widely used in Afghanistan where children often mistook them for toys, and were seriously injured or killed after handling them. On Saturday, Donetsk authorities said that a large number of the petal mines were found by a school in the city’s Kirov district. The overnight shelling occured shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered troops and civilians to urgently evacuate from Donetsk. Transport networks were suspended across the city today as clear-up operations were under way.

“Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 was illegal and can’t be recognized by Spain..”

• Spain Comments On Kosovo’s Independence (RT)

Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 was illegal and can’t be recognized by Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday during a visit to Albania’s capital, Tirana. As Sanchez met with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama amid his tour of the Balkans, he stated that the “unilateral declaration of independence, in the view of the Spanish government and with respect to the Albanian government, was a violation of international law”and therefore “unacceptable” to Madrid. The Spanish PM also told Rama that Madrid fully supports Albania’s bid for European Union membership, citing the applicant’s “commitment and the reforms it has made.”

His comments come after tensions flared up over the weekend on the border between Serbia and its breakaway province, officially called the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija in the Serbian constitution, which received recognition by several Western powers in 2008. The government in Kosovo planned to ban the use of Serbian-issued license plates and ID papers starting from August 1, and was to use its police force to enforce the measure. Belgrade officials called it an attack on Kosovo’s Serbian population as President Aleksandar Vucic accused Pristina of violating the rights of local Serbs.

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti in turn has accused local Serbs of opening fire on police, and claimed his government is facing “Serbian national-chauvinism” and “misinformation” from Belgrade. On Sunday, Serbs in the north of the breakaway province set up roadblocks and rang alarm bells as heavily armed Kosovo special police took control of two administrative crossings with Serbia. The situation received a temporary resolution after Washington called on Kosovo officials to postpone the implementation of the controversial law until September 1. Pristina agreed, on condition that Serbia remove barricades from the de facto border. Vucic has said that he hopes for tensions to ease and promised that Belgrade would do everything within its power to preserve the peace through compromise.

“..one-sided, spontaneous decisions aimed at squeezing [the Serbs] out of Kosovo..”

• Russia ‘Absolutely’ Supports Serbia – Kremlin (RT)

Moscow fully backs its ally Belgrade in the dispute with Kosovo over the decision by the breakaway province to ban Serbian license plates and identification papers, the Kremlin press-secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. “Of course, we absolutely support Serbia,”Peskov replied, after being addressed on the issue by journalists on Monday. The decision by the Kosovo authorities to outlaw Serbian license plates and IDs was“absolutely unreasonable,” he stated. On Sunday, Serbs in the north of the breakaway province set up roadblocks and rang alarm bells as heavily armed special police took control over two administrative crossings with Serbia, preparing to implement the order by Pristina.

As tensions mounted, Kosovo’s prime minister Albin Kurti announced late in the day that the ban had been postponed at the request of the US ambassador to the province. However, Kurti stressed that the measure, which according to Pristina was needed to impose “law and order,”has only been delayed, not canceled. “Thank God, the escalation was avoided tonight, but this situation has only been postponed for one month, so it’s paramount for all sides to show prudence,” the Kremlin press-secretary pointed out. Russia’s ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko also warned on Monday that “it was difficult to see the conditions for finding sustainable solutions to those issues that caused the current spike in tension.”

The lack of agreement on license plates and IDs, and many other similar matters, are “being used by Pristina to make one-sided, spontaneous decisions aimed at squeezing [the Serbs] out of Kosovo,” he added. According to Peskov, Moscow believes that that the Western countries, which recognized the mainly Albanian-populated Kososvo in 2008,“should now use their influence to warn the authorities in Kosovo against making any ill-conceived steps,” he said. Serbia considers Kosovo a part of its territory, and is backed in doing so by Russia, China and the UN in general, who haven’t recognized the territory as an interdependent entity.

“Since when does al-Qaeda wait 48+ hours to denounce hostile action in their territory?”

How many times has he been killed now?

• Supposed Killing Of Al Zawahiri Is Suspect, Weird And Fishy (CTH)

Everything about the supposed killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri is suspect, weird and fishy. First, Al Zawahiri has been reported as killed or dead at least a half dozen times in the last 10 years; including by natural causes. Second, Ayman Zawahiri was very old. Western citations put his age at 71 (born 1951), however, that is suspect (sounds like his younger brother’s age). Third, the location of his reported killing in Kabul is odd. Zawahiri was known to avoid large populations, and even with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan the tribal conflicts with factions of the Taliban would have been an issue.

Fourth, somehow the Taliban waited until after the U.S. intelligence community leaked the strike to the media before they issued a statement condemning the drone attack. Since when does al-Qaeda wait 48+ hours to denounce hostile action in their territory? Coordinating and timed joint press releases between the White House and ‘Taliban‘ to western media outlets is seriously sketchy. Fifth, absolutely no official outline from the Pentagon or White House on this “successful counterterrorism strike“? Despite a primetime presidential address, the White House has no announcement, no official statement, nothing, on their website. Additionally, Biden leads off saying the attack was on Saturday, the Taliban waited 48-hours to denounce a U.S. drone strike?

Think about it. Doesn’t add up. More sketchy. Sixth, and seemingly just an oddball addendum, Fox News breaks the story using Jennifer Griffin as lead reporter. As I noted several days ago, Griffin had been missing from Fox News since she went bonzo in March attacking Tucker Carlson over his cynicism of the official State Dept and Pentagon narrative in Ukraine. May, June, July, nothing from pentagon deep state promoter Jenn Griffin at all. Then, suddenly, on the same day Griffin resurfaces, after months of nothing, there’s a major terrorism strike in Afghanistan, killing Zawahiri and she’s leading the coverage?…. With Brett Baier cheerleading? C’mon man. Sketchy, all of it.

Trump was trumped.

• The Day Anthony Fauci Wrecked American Freedom (Tucker)

Fears of a virus from China had been rising for two months in the spring of 2020. The White House under Donald Trump had already weathered two impeachment crises and was turning its attention toward reelection in November, which seemed assured. The virus was an enormously complicating factor. Trump surrounded himself with a small team of people among whom included supposed infectious disease experts such as Anthony Fauci from the National Institutes of Health and Deborah Birx of the Centers for Disease Control. On the recommendation of his vice president and son-in-law, Trump trusted them.

Trump had already closed travel from China but now his scientific advisers were urging him to do more: stop travel from Europe, UK, and Australia. That was March 12. He made the announcement in a prime-time address. In that brief speech, he misread the teleprompter and said that the travel ban would include goods. He meant to say that it would not. The stock market tanked and the White House had to issue a clarification the next day. Already there was chaos in the air. Over the weekend, Trump spent most of his time in huddles with close advisors. The main influence over that period became Deborah Birx, whose job it was to convince Trump of the need for a two-week lockdown of the entire American economy.

Trump agreed to do the deed. He would appear with Fauci and Birx at a press conference on Monday, and preside over the call for a lockdown. “If everyone makes this change or these critical changes and sacrifices now,” Trump said, “we will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus and we’re going to have a big celebration together.” Later Birx admitted that she knew that two weeks “was a start, but I knew it would be just that. I didn’t have the numbers in front of me yet to make the case for extending it longer, but I had two weeks to get them.”

“..first they will have a lot of money that’s worthless and then they will have no money, like everybody else..”

• Atonement (Jim Kunstler)

News flash to Boston: Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine is all over except the shouting. Plus, nobody in the USA cares about it anymore, and if they do, probably for the wrong reasons. The right reason to care is that the “Joe Biden” regime’s insane campaign to destroy Russia has only brought Western Europe to the brink of collapse and ruin, thereby threatening the continuation of Western Civilization altogether.

You don’t hear much chatter about this emanating from, say, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government because, apparently, they’re all-in on the demolition of Western Civ. It is the ultimate act of atonement, and atonement for the sins of culture and politics is the currency for personal status in Woke Elitedom. America’s elites are secretly disgusted with themselves, especially about the wealth they have been able to grift out of all the racketeering that has replaced honest work in our country — and nowhere is the racketeering more grotesque, or more pretentiously caparisoned, than in the Ivy League universities. Status drives Wokery because Woke Elitedom has more money than it knows what to do with, so just having a lot of money means less than it used to — just ask Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Don’t worry. Soon they will have a lot less money. Or rather, first they will have a lot of money that’s worthless and then they will have no money, like everybody else. The demoralizing inflation underway leads to the destruction of credit and when enough credit is destroyed, there will be no money, since our money is based on credit. When that happens, see what your self-proclaimed moral purity will buy you.

The credit-driven money system is a metaphor representing the expectation that we will always have more of everything. That was surely the consensus in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was born. 1913 was the last year of the Belle Époque, the beautiful era preceding the First World War. It was also the coming-of-age of economies based on oil. In that moment, Western Civ stood in amazement at its achievements and in thrall to its glittering future. The slaughter in the trenches of WWI shattered that confidence, nowhere more deeply than in Germany, which afterwards lurched from the degeneracy of the Weimar Republic to the depravity of Hitler’s Third Reich, and from there back to ruin in the Second World War.

Today’s Woke Elitedom of Europe, led by Germany, is deliberately driving the EU nations into a ditch without bothering to go to war. They certainly don’t have the military mojo to prosecute a war with Russia — which is what they would be doing if NATO intervened actively in Ukraine (ain’t gonna happen). Instead, they have torn-up reams of trade agreements and imploded a richly-constructed supply network of basic operating resources like oil, natgas, minerals, and grains in an absurd act of atonement, in obeisance to the experts at the World Economic Forum and the fiends behind “Joe Biden.” And lately, they are bent on destroying their food supply with cockamamie campaigns against their farmers, in line with WEF hallucinations about climate change.

Rutte

NETHERLANDS – PM Mark Rutte of the WEF, taking his words directly from Klaus Schwab's book "COVID-19: The Great Reset" & pressing ahead with Agenda 30.

You didn’t vote for Agenda 30! It’s time to ask the people.

pic.twitter.com/7azSIQGeG7

— Bernie's Tweets (@BernieSpofforth) August 1, 2022

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Theater Opening

Aug 012022

August 1, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:14 pm Finance Tagged with: Balkans, Biden, Blinken, Grenell, Kosovo, Lavrov, Liz Truss, Pelosi, Putin, theater, Yugoslavia 12 Responses »

Salvador Dali The knight of death 1934

If you’re Chinese or Russian, and you watch videos of the top three “most powerful” people in the US, Biden, Kamala and Pelosi, what do you think? You think all three are incoherent and should not be anywhere near any decisive, let alone nuclear, lever.

If you’re anybody anywhere, and you look at the top three “most powerful” people in the world, Xi, Putin and Biden, what do you think? You think two of them have got it together (nothing to do with you liking them or not), and one can’t even read coherently from a teleprompter.

Nowhere near half of Americans understand these two things to be true, but probably some 90% of Chinese and Russians do, as well as a vast majority of people in other non-US/NATO/EU countries.

Another threesome: Sergei Lavrov (Russia), Tony Blinken (US) and Liz Truss (UK) are all foreign ministers (or Secretaries of State, give the beast a name). Who would you trust to represent your own interests best in the field of diplomacy? It’s not even a question, is it? If the US or UK had a Lavrov, he would be their man (he would most likely decline). But they don’t. The US has a nobody (they have lots of those!) in the role, and the UK has someone with zero qualifications who dreams of getting the top job.

The world outside of the G7 or G20 (give the wheel a spin) sees this happening. Is it any wonder they clamor to be part of BRICS? The “collective west” is fast finishing off itself, and yes, you’re right, that is a dangerous moment. It’s also why it very much looks like the “collective west” is trying to open a second theater of war in Europe. One that looks a lot like the one they opened in Ukraine. And the EU, to its utter shame, does nothing to prevent this from happening – on its “own” soil!.

I know, there’s Crazy Nancy on her way to Taipei as well as we speak, we’ll get to that yet. Imagine: you’re 80-odd years old, and you want your legacy to be WWIII. Not your grandchildren, but live nukes. Just imagine that.

Kosovo’s unilateral secession from Serbia was recognized by the “main Western powers” in 2008. But not China, Russia, or the UN!. Not too long after Bill Clinton’s NATO bombed the heebeejeebees out of former Yugoslavia in 1990. Just because they could. Today, the US -and NATO- try to use a tiny sliver of former Yugoslavia to ignite a major fire in Europe, a second fire besides Ukraine.

Kosovo is the size of half a postage stamp, only two US states are smaller, Rhode Island and Delaware. 1.8 million people live there, it’s like one NYC borough. But you can use the historic hatred to rekindle the flames. Right, Blinken? Well, turns out there are still some Serbs living in Kosovo, because that’s where they grew up.

The brilliant Kosovo PM now has the fantastic idea to start a fight with these Serbs, over the fact that their cars have Serb license plates and they themselves have Serb IDs, a whole 14(!) years later. Yeah, that’s worth a fight, obviously.

So America’s “top diplomat” Blinken invited Kosovo president Osmani and PM Albin Kurti to DC last week.

I’ll let some people other than me explain this to you. First, political analyst Alexandar Pavic:

In Kosovo As In Ukraine, The Same Western ‘Invisible Hand’ Foments Conflict

In addition to the conflict in Ukraine, Europe is now faced with the prospect of renewed conflict in Kosovo, Serbia’s breakaway province (officially named Kosovo and Metohija according to the Serbian constitution). Kosovo’s unilateral secession was recognized by the main Western powers in 2008. This came nine years after NATO’s attack on Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, after which NATO forces occupied the province and helped install an ethnic Albanian-led government dominated by former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army terrorist organization.

The current crisis was triggered by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, who initially wanted to force the majority Serb population in the north of the region to accept Kosovan license plates and ID papers starting from August 1, and to ban entry to the province or issue temporary papers to travelers with Serbian-issued plates and documents.

Kurti attempted a similar stunt in September 2021, triggering a crisis where local Serbs in northern Kosovo organized roadblocks and Kosovo police reportedly beat up and intimidated Serb civilians, while the authorities in Belgrade put the Serbian military on high alert and ordered overflights by fighter planes over the administrative border between Serbia proper and Kosovo. The EU eventually brokered a temporary agreement, pending a final deal that was supposed to have been reached by April 2022, under EU auspices. However, nothing has come of that.

From Kosovo to Ukraine, it seems there’s a pattern regarding agreements in which Western powers have a hand. Since the start of this year’s special military operation in Ukraine, Russian officials have repeated time and again that the West had never pressed Kiev to fulfill its part of the 2015 Minsk 2 peace agreement, intended to end Kiev’s standoff with the Donbass republics. Recently, former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko openly admitted that Ukraine never intended to fulfill the agreement but was merely buying time until it could build up an army capable of overrunning Donbass.

The situation with Kosovo is not much different. The EU brokered an agreement between Pristina and Belgrade in April 2013, the so-called Brussels Agreement, by which Serbia was supposed to dismantle its “parallel” police and judicial structures in Kosovo and convince the Kosovo Serbs to accept integration into the Kosovo police and legal system, without recognizing the territory’s independence. And the Belgrade authorities did this, despite a large public outcry over the move.

However, there was a second part to the agreement, by which Pristina was obligated to form an Association of Serb Municipalities, with substantial local powers and ties to Serbia proper. The Albanian part of the Brussels Agreement has not been fulfilled to the present day. Or, as Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic noted on July 31, that 3,390 days have passed since the Brussels Agreement was signed, and still no sign of the Association.

As in the case of Ukraine, the collective West has put absolutely zero pressure on the side it supports to fulfill its part of a signed international agreement. And again, as in the case of Ukraine, this has encouraged Pristina to take an increasingly belligerent stance, which may very well lead to a more serious conflict.

There’s an additional ingredient to the Kosovo mix, thanks to the Ukraine conflict. Namely, the Serbs – both in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina – stand practically alone among European peoples in refusing to join Western sanctions against Russia, and in consistently demonstrating open support for Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. As a result, the government in Belgrade has been under constant, increasing pressure by the main Western capitals, as well as the EU and NATO, to change its policy and join the West’s collective economic suicide.

Since Belgrade has proven to be a tough nut for the West to diplomatically crack when it comes to opposing Russia, it’s not at all far-fetched to imagine that the Kosovo Albanians just might be seen by the West as a useful tool by which to additionally turn the screws on Belgrade. In the same cynical way in which the unfortunate Ukrainians are being used to pressure and weaken Russia.

Next, from RT, about Richard Grenell. No love lost on my part about him, but he did negotiate a bunch of peace deals, and knows the territory much better than Blinken.

Trump’s Kosovo Envoy Slams US Over Crisis

Richard Grenell, who negotiated a Kosovo-Serbia deal under the Trump administration after a turn in charge of the US intelligence community, blamed the “reckless” prime minister in Pristina for the renewed tensions with Belgrade on Sunday and slammed the State Department for enabling him. “What’s happening in the Balkans isn’t Russia. Whoever says this to you is trying to manipulate you,” Grenell tweeted on Sunday evening. “This is about Albin Kurti trying once again to give it [to] Serbia. He is living in the past.”

“The people of Kosovo want peace and jobs, Albin. Stop picking fights,” Grenell added. Serbian military was placed on high alert and local Serbs put up roadblocks earlier in the day, after Kosovo police showed up at two administrative crossings with Serbia, intending to enforce Kurti’s decision to confiscate Serbian license plates and documents. This would have effectively cut off the remaining Serbs living in the north of the breakaway province.

According to Grenell, this was all about Kurti “making unilateral moves to reject Serbian IDs and license plates inside Kosovo,” which he called “unnecessary.” Describing the PM a “far left radical and experienced fascist,” Grenell further called his actions “foolish” and “reckless,” and urged Serbian leaders to “not take the bait.” “Even the Albanians know Kurti is the problem,”Grenell tweeted. He also blamed Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Kurti and Kosovo president Vjosa Osmani earlier in the week.

US President Joe Biden has “ignored the Balkans,” the envoy added, pointing out that he had negotiated multiple agreements between Kosovo and Serbia under President Donald Trump, trying to overcome the conflict through economic cooperation. Grenell also accused the EU of orchestrating war crimes charges against Kosovo President Hashim Thaci to punish him for working with Trump – resulting in Kurti and Osmani taking power.

And then Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

Why Are Serbia And Kosovo On The Brink Of War Again?

Tensions between Belgrade and Pristina occur regularly, as a result of the fact that the Kosovo issue has not been resolved since 1999, when the province de facto gained independence after the US-led NATO campaign against the former Yugoslavia. However, this time there is a risk of more or less routine friction escalating into a dangerous conflict, because the context has changed dramatically.

The problem of Kosovo was solved at the end of the twentieth century in strict accordance with the then dominant approach, and in the seeming absence of an alternative. Disputes in most of Europe (ie. outside the former USSR) were settled according to the EU’s ideas of fairness, and where they could not be worked out amicably, pressure was exerted on those who rebelled, up to the use of military force (primarily American, as always).

[..] it was the EU that regulated the processes taking place locally, and, in general, this setup was taken for granted. Moreover, other powers which have been traditionally active and important in the Balkans – Russia and Turkey – indicated their presence (sometimes quite clearly), but did not pretend to have a decisive voice in the way things were arranged. This framework also defined the room to maneuver for the countries of the region, including those who were most loudly dissatisfied, like Serbia.

Now two main circumstances have changed. First, the EU is in such a vulnerable state that it is not ready to take full responsibility for the extremely complex political situation in its immediate periphery. It cannot promise membership, and more precisely – even if such a pledge were made, it doesn’t guarantee anything.

The EU’s management of the central Balkan problems – in Bosnia and Kosovo – has not led to the desired outcome over the past quarter of a century. Thus, it’s all the less likely that it will work out now. Because the second circumstance is that Russia and the West (the EU plus the US and NATO) are in a state of acute confrontation.

As a result, there is no reason to expect Moscow’s assistance in resolving the situation (be it Kosovo or Bosnia). Right now, the West’s favorite practice of “selective interaction” (we work together with Russia where we need it, we refuse to engage on other issues) can no longer be applied. There will be no cooperation: Russia and the West will be on opposite sides of the barricades everywhere, no matter the issue at hand. We are in a systemic cold war. And this reality can greatly influence what will happen in the Balkans.

The question is to what extent regional actors have retained their passion for showdown, revenge or expansion. There are suspicions that this zeal has been exhausted and emasculated. But if it still burns, then external forces will enter the fray this time, supporting opposing sides.

Blinken et al, which very much includes his EU counterparts, see the past struggles in the Balkans as something they can reignite at their convenience today. The initial boundaries are simple. Russia will come to the aid of Serbia. Kosovo will appeal to Albania. And then to NATO. So the idea is you got this hot cauldron, with 5-6-15 nations, and NATO can do whatever it wants in there.

But NATO has no chance in Ukraine, and it doesn’t have one in Kosovo. But it can ship billions worth of weapons in there and pay Raytheon. Problem I see with this genius plan is that Russia saw it coming from lightyears away. And that is the same issue as the difference between Lavrov and Blinken: they may have the same job title, but there’s no comparison.

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Debt Rattle July 20 2022

Jul 202022

July 20, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 7:54 am Finance Tagged with: army recruits, Black Sea, Djokovic, Geert, Nordstream turbine, peace talks, Pelosi, purge, voodoo science, Zelensky 43 Responses »

Gustave Moreau Helen on the Walls of Troy 1885

• In The Multipolar World Iran Will No Longer Fear U.S. Sanctions (MoA)

• On Liberating Europe (Batiushka)

• Kiev Names Condition For Peace Talks With Moscow (RT)

• Kiev Threatens To Destroy Russia’s Black Sea Fleet (RT)

• Zelensky Widens Purge Of Security Services (BBC)

• Timetable For Return Of Nord Stream Turbine Revealed (RT)

• Costs Of Ukraine War A Test For European Leaders – And It May Get Worse (G.)

• US Army Cuts Force Size Amid Unprecedented Battle For Recruits (AP)

• Ex-Trump Official In Demand After Twitter Backs Down On Covid Censorship (JTN)

• Paul Pelosi $1M Chip Stock Purchase: A Long History Of ‘Timely’ Buys (JTN)

• Prediction For Unvaccinated And Never Previously Infected (Geert)

• Don’t Let ‘Voodoo Science’ Keep Djokovic From Competing in US Open (Thakur)

About eating bugs…

Attali

2014: Mastermind behind Great Reset, Jacques Attali, predicted that WW3 would start with Ukraine

The video ends with former French Prez Sarkozy warning, “we will proceed together toward a New World Order & nobody & I mean nobody will be able to oppose it"https://t.co/i5NQhP7IjP pic.twitter.com/I7hPY8iBIW

— Amy Mek (@AmyMek) March 16, 2022

Biden Poroshenko

An audio recording of a conversation between Biden & Petro Poroshenko in Nov 2016 reveals that Biden demanded Poroshenko to refuse the money offered by the future Trump administration and do everything possible to close PrivatBank so that the IMF could provide a loan to Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/MKTAe4xGLA

— Maria Dubovikova (@politblogme) July 18, 2022

Tucker Ray Epps
https://twitter.com/i/status/1549054198855122947

The Chinese Foreign Ministry called for an international investigation of war crimes by the UK and the US
https://twitter.com/i/status/1549152060276441092

Soros Ukraine
https://twitter.com/i/status/1549374225290596352

“With such a large deal will also come protection. Iran will be able to call on Russia should someone start hostilities against it…”

• In The Multipolar World Iran Will No Longer Fear U.S. Sanctions (MoA)

But the greatest news for Iran is a new deal with Russia’s Gazprom that was signed today: “The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Russian gas producer Gazprom signed on Tuesday a memorandum of understanding worth around $40 billion, Iran’s oil ministry’s news agency SHANA reported. The deal was signed during an online ceremony by the CEOs of both companies on the day Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Tehran for a summit with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts. Gazprom will help NIOC in the development of the Kish and North Pars gas fields and also six oil fields, according to SHANA. Gazprom will also be involved in the completion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects and construction of gas export pipelines. Iran sits on the world’s second-largest gas reserves after Russia, but US sanctions have hindered access to technology and slowed development of gas exports.”

Gazprom is a strong partner and can not be hindered by U.S. sanctions. Iran will finally be able export more of its plentiful gas. Russia will also have a chance to work with Iran to keep the prices at a certain level. With such a large deal will also come protection. Iran will be able to call on Russia should someone start hostilities against it. When Iran produces enough gas it can also revive the old project of a pipeline to India. This could either go through Pakistan or, as India would probably prefer, through an undersea pipeline: “A 1,300-km undersea pipeline from Iran, avoiding Pakistani waters, can bring natural gas from the Persian Gulf to India at rates less than the price of Liquefied Natural Gas available in the spot market, proponents of the pipeline said on Tuesday. Releasing a study on the Iran-India gas pipeline, former oil secretary T.N.R. Rao said natural gas imported through the over $4 billion line would cost $5-5.50 per million British thermal unit at the Indian coast, cheaper than the rate at which some of the domestic fields supply gas”

Despite U.S. sanctions Iran is again becoming fully integrated into its region. It is a great success and the gas and transit deals will help its economy to make some gains even as the U.S. adds new sanctions. Russia, India and China are partners who can and will ignore those. Iran now also has the capability to produce sufficient nuclear material for a number of bombs. It will not use this capability as its religious ideology prohibits the making and use of such weapons. But it is a latent threat that can be used to deter Israel and the U.S. from any attack. That Trump left the nuclear deal was dumb. That Biden did not revive it immediately after taking office was even dumber. To now stay out of it, only to keep some stupid sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp, is the dumbest step I can think of.

“..the bankruptcy of the West that should have happened over thirty years ago is happening now..”

• On Liberating Europe (Batiushka)

Just over thirty years ago the Communist USSR went bankrupt – it could not raise enough money to pay off its debts on capital markets. The West should have gone bankrupt at the same time because it too had colossal debts, however through the financial manipulations of its Capitalism it was able to raise the capital. So it went morally bankrupt instead. Firstly, there was the fascism of political correctness. Like so many destructive movements the initial intentions were good, but as we know that the road to hell is paved with them. It was precisely after 1991 that the use of the phrase ‘political correctness’ as a pejorative phrase became widespread in the USA.

Secondly, at the same time there began the Western attack on Islam, or rather the Western grab of Arab oil and gas, by telling Saddam Hussein that he could recover Kuwait, which had been illegitimately cut off from oil-rich Iraq by British imperialism, but then withdrawing that support once he had done it and so pretexting a reason to attack him. The first Gulf War followed, with a second one to follow after the invasion and failed occupation of Afghanistan, and then chaos in the ‘Arab Spring’. Thirdly, at the same time, in 1992 there began the attempt to depopulate, dismantle and destroy the Russian Lands, culminating 22 years later in the US coup d’etat in Kiev in 2014, which cost US taxpayers $5 billion and has cost them many times more since. Inbetween there have been all manner of Western manipulations, from 9/11 to covid.

Such is hubris. ‘We are the only Superpower’. ‘The end of history has come’. And so today the Western world finds itself isolated. The ‘international community’, ‘the free world’, has only 13% of the world population and depends on the rest of the world, on the 87%. Outmatched by the population of the rest of the world and its GDP, it produces only a smallish amount of oil, gas, food, fertiliser and manufactured goods. Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, indeed nearly all of Asia, Africa and Latin America, stand together against the neocolonial manipulations and neocon lies of the Western world, whose unity is now crumbling. Moreover, the Western world is bankrupt. The USA alone owes an unpayable £30 trillion. Thus, the bankruptcy of the West that should have happened over thirty years ago is happening now.

“..after Russia’s defeat on the battlefield..”

• Kiev Names Condition For Peace Talks With Moscow (RT)

Peace negotiations with Moscow will make sense only after Russia’s defeat on the battlefield, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has declared. In an interview with Forbes Ukraine published on Monday, Kuleba named Russia’s “aggressive behavior” as a reason for the absence of peace talks, arguing that any negotiations “are directly linked to the situation at the front.” “I tell all partners a simple thing: ‘Russia should sit down at the negotiating table after defeat on the battlefield. Otherwise, it will be the language of ultimatums again,’” Kuleba explained. He stressed that President Zelensky does not rule out “the possibility of negotiations” but believes that “there is no reason” for talks now. “He communicated this very clearly to the leaders of the countries who had hinted at negotiations.

These leaders have also stopped talking about it,” Kuleba said. In June, Ukraine’s top negotiator David Arakhamia suggested that Kiev believes it could achieve “favorable position” by late August after it conducts “counteroffensive operations in certain areas.” On Sunday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev who is now a deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council, said that there shouldn’t be any doubts that all the goals of his country’s military operation in Ukraine would be achieved. At the same time, he noted that “such actions are not of an immediate nature,” referring to some of Vladimir Putin’s previous statements. “The President has repeatedly spoken about this, there are certain scenarios of how such operations are unfolding,” Medvedev explained.

Moscow and Kiev started peace talks four days after the start of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine in late February. The sides have held several rounds in person in Belarus and then continued the talks via video link. In late March, the delegations from Russia and Ukraine met once again, in Istanbul. Since then, however, the talks have completely stalled. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia had provided Ukraine with a draft agreement but Kiev has ignored it. Peskov has previously accused the US and its allies of “actively betting on the continued war” and of not allowing Kiev “neither to think nor talk about or discuss peace.” Moscow has also warned the West against supplying Ukraine with weapons, saying that this would only lead to prolongation of the conflict and unnecessary casualties but would not change the outcome.

With US weapons. What could go wrong?

• Kiev Threatens To Destroy Russia’s Black Sea Fleet (RT)

Russian ships and Crimea could be attacked with Western-supplied weapons, Ukrainian deputy defense minister says Ukraine will crush Russia’s Black Sea fleet and regain control of Crimea with Western weapons, the country’s Deputy Defense Minister, Vladimir Gavrilov has vowed during a visit to the UK. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which is based in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, is “a permanent threat” to Ukraine, and Kiev has to address this issue, Gavrilov said in an interview with the Times on Tuesday. Kiev was waiting to get longer-range weapons from foreign nations before launching an assault, he added. “We are receiving anti-ship capabilities and sooner or later we will target the fleet. It is inevitable because we have to guarantee the security of our people,” the deputy defense minister explained.

Gavrilov claimed that Ukraine is also planning to take back Crimea – which overwhelmingly voted to reunite with Russia in a 2014 referendum after a coup in Kiev. According to the official, the Ukrainian government was holding discussions with their Western backers on whether it could use foreign-supplied arms to target Russian forces on the peninsula. American officials earlier assured that Kiev had promised that US-made arms, including 142 HIMARS and M270 MLRS multiple launch rocket systems, would not be used to attack Russian territory. However, Kiev says it doesn t view Crimea as part of Russia, considering it to be a Ukrainian area occupied by Moscow. Sooner or later we will have enough resources to target Russia in the Black Sea and Crimea.

Crimea is Ukrainian territory, that s why any target there is legitimate for us, the deputy defense minister stated. Gavrilov also didn’t rule out the use of diplomatic means in order to reclaim Crimea, saying that we have to think very carefully how to do it in the right way. Russia will have to leave Crimea if they wish to exist as a country, Gavrilov insisted. His statements didn’t go unnoticed in Moscow, with Kremlin press secretary, Dmitry Peskov saying that they were “yet another proof that [Russia’s] special military operation was a correct and absolutely justified move because it was the only way to save Ukraine from such leaders” as Gavrilov.

I don’t think we’re getting the real story here.

• Zelensky Widens Purge Of Security Services (BBC)

President Volodymyr Zelensky has continued his purge of Ukraine’s security service (SBU) by dismissing the organisation’s deputy director. Volodymyr Horbenko is the latest official to lose his job after Mr Zelensky said bosses failed to root out pro-Russian elements in the agency. Regional chiefs in several other cities were also dismissed, Mr Zelensky said. It comes as MPs voted to dismiss SBU chief Ivan Bakanov and Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova. On Monday, an adviser to Mr Zelensky suggested that the pair had merely been suspended pending an investigation, after the president initially appeared to sack them in a late-night address. But on Tuesday the Ukrainian leader laid down a motion of no-confidence in the pair before parliament, which was approved by an overwhelming majority of MPs.

There have been reports for several weeks that Mr Zelensky wanted to replace Mr Bakanov after coming to blame him for failures in stopping the Russian advance in February. Neither of the top officials, both of whom Mr Zelensky personally appointed, are accused of betraying their country. But they ran agencies where Russian interference appears to have impacted Ukraine’s ability to hold territory in the opening days of the war. Speaking after the vote, the leader of Mr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, David Arakhamia, said new information had recently come to light, and the purge of the SBU would continue in the coming days. “There will be many ‘cleanses’, because over the years many residents of the Russian special services have secretly entrenched themselves within the walls of the SBU, unfortunately,” Mr Arakhamia said, adding: “They got access to materials that they didn’t have before.” On Sunday, Mr Zelensky said over 60 former SBU and prosecutor’s office employees were now working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied areas.

Early August.

• Timetable For Return Of Nord Stream Turbine Revealed (RT)

A crucial turbine from the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline was airlifted from Canada to Germany on Sunday, Kommersant newspaper has reported, citing its sources. The part will then travel for another five to seven days by ferry to its destination in Russia, the paper revealed on Monday. If everything goes smoothly and there’s no delay at customs, the turbine will be fitted and ready to pump gas in early August, Kommersant noted. The Siemens turbine was stuck in Canada after undergoing repairs there due to Ottawa’s Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia. Canada initially refused to return the part, as it regarded the equipment as a dual-use product subject to sanctions.

After negotiations with Berlin, however, Ottawa decided to use an indirect delivery route to avoid violating its own sanctions against Moscow. The delay forced Russian gas exporter Gazprom to slash exports of natural gas to Germany by as much as 60% last month, as the pumping station was technically unable to pump at normal levels without the turbine. The Nord Stream pipeline is an important route for gas exports from Russia to the EU because it offers direct deliveries to Germany, bypassing Ukraine. Deliveries via the pipeline were temporarily stopped on July 11 for 10 days of scheduled maintenance.

Whack-a-mole.

• Costs Of Ukraine War A Test For European Leaders – And It May Get Worse (G.)

Desperate efforts in Italy to prevent the fall of Mario Draghi’s government are only the latest political firestorm in Europe tied to Vladimir Putin’s tests of the west’s powers of endurance. Draghi’s foreign minister, Luigi di Maio, suggested it will be Putin who celebrated the fall of another western government if Draghi does not survive a confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday. “A boat without a rudder goes adrift,” said Ferruccio Resta, the president of the Conference of Italian University Rectors – a metaphor that could apply, to Putin’s satisfaction, to much of Europe as governments come under growing pressure over the perceived domestic cost of the war in Ukraine.

The narrative of a brewing popular revolt against western sanctions on Russia certainly fits well with Putin’s central narrative that time and economics are on his side since the sanctions are damaging European consumers more than Russia’s. He feels soaring fuel prices are the most lethal of macroeconomic shocks for politicians as they drive inflation while slowing economic growth. As yet it is premature to take a definitive view about the scale of the potential electoral backlash in Europe, and Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs spokesperson, for instance, angrily complained that rising prices were being attributed to EU sanctions without any evidence. Borrell said of the critics of EU sanctions: “Don’t they have eyes? Do they not look at the graphs? Do they not consider figures or facts?”

In France, Emmanuel Macron has been weakened if not muted by the loss of his parliamentary majority to parties more naturally sympathetic to Putin. In Spain, the Socialists, facing elections next year, have just lost their power base in Andalusia, the most populous region. The centre-right People’s party achieved a new record high of 36.3 % in the latest GAD3 poll, its best result since April 2017. If repeated in an election it would be its best result since 2011. In Estonia, the fiercely anti-Putin prime minister, Kaja Kallas, survived last week after her previous coalition government fell in a dispute linked to the country’s inflation rate of 19%, the highest in the 19-nation eurozone. Electricity prices in Estonia are at a record high, averaging €300 per megawatt-hour last week.

Kallas skilfully reconstructed her government, but at some cost to the Estonian budget and her credibility. If the economy has not improved by the time of legislative elections next March, she could be in trouble. In Warsaw, the PiS frets about electoral defeat next autumn, even if the opposition would remain supportive of Ukraine. In Bulgaria, a pro-western government has fallen. And, of course, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has just been let down spectacularly by the self-inflicted demise of Boris Johnson in Britain. The politician who has fared best at the ballot box most recently is probably Viktor Orbán, Putin’s greatest ally in Europe. Orbán is glorying in it. He said at first he believed European politicians had only “shot themselves in the foot”, but now it is clear that it was a shot to the lungs of the European economy, which is struggling for air everywhere.

Jesse Kelly’s comment is spot on.

• US Army Cuts Force Size Amid Unprecedented Battle For Recruits (AP)

The Army is significantly cutting the total number of soldiers it expects to have in the force over the next two years, as the U.S. military faces what a top general called “unprecedented challenges” in bringing in recruits. Army officials on Tuesday said the service will fall about 10,000 soldiers short of its planned end strength for this fiscal year, and prospects for next year are grimmer. Army Gen. Joseph Martin, vice chief of staff for the Army, said it is projecting it will have a total force of 466,400 this year, down from the expected 476,000. And the service could end 2023 with between 445,000 and 452,000 soldiers, depending on how well recruiting and retention go. With just two and a half months to go in the fiscal year, the Army has achieved just 50% of its recruiting goal of 60,000 soldiers, according to Lt. Col. Randee Farrell, spokeswoman for Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.

Based on those numbers and trends, it is likely the Army will miss the goal by nearly 25% as of Oct. 1. If the shortfalls continue, Martin said, they could have an impact on readiness. “We’ve got unprecedented challenges with both a post-COVID-19 environment and labor market, but also competition with private companies that have changed their incentives over time,” Martin told a House Armed Services subcommittee on Tuesday. Asked if the Army will have to adjust its force structure to meet national security and warfighting missions around the world, Martin said: “We don’t need to do that immediately. But if we don’t arrest the decline that we’re seeing right now in end strength, that could be a possibility in the future.”

Cutting the size of the Army is the best option, said Wormuth. “The Army is facing our most challenging recruiting environment since the inception of the all-volunteer force. This is not a one-year challenge. We will not solve this overnight,” she said, adding that the service is looking at a wide range of steps to recruit more soldiers without lowering standards or sacrificing quality. “We are facing a very fundamental question,” she added. “Do we lower standards to meet end strength, or do we lower end strength to maintain a quality, professional force? We believe the answer is obvious — quality is more important than quantity.”

The Army’s recruiting problems are the most severe across the military, but the other services are also having a tough time finding young people who want to join and can meet the physical, mental and moral requirements. Senior Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps leaders have said they are hopeful they will meet or just slightly miss their recruiting goals for this year. But they said they will have to dip into their pool of delayed entry applicants, which will put them behind as they begin the next recruiting year.

“I won’t lose,” he said, tagging Twitter support. “I have your receipts and it’s clear you have amateurs in charge of your censorship operation.”

• Ex-Trump Official In Demand After Twitter Backs Down On Covid Censorship (JTN)

A Trump administration lawyer secured journalist Alex Berenson’s reinstatement to Twitter in a legal settlement and got quick results when he warned the social media platform on behalf of Ivy League epidemiologist Andrew Bostom last week. James Lawrence III, former Department of Health and Human Services deputy general counsel and chief counsel at the FDA, is now being sought by other users also sanctioned for sharing “misleading and potentially harmful” information related to COVID-19. Kevin McKernan, a veteran genomics researcher on the verge of permanent suspension, said he’s “in contact” with Lawrence but declined to specify further to Just the News.

Daniel Kotzin, an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccines with a large Twitter following, suggested he’d hire Lawrence after losing his first lawsuit, which alleged Twitter colluded with federal officials to sanction him. (A similar lawsuit by Republican attorneys general is moving into discovery.) Bostom told Just the News that Twitter reinstated his account, suspended for sharing a peer-reviewed study on COVID vaccines and male fertility, within “a few hours” of Lawrence’s legal threat letter, which gave Twitter a July 21 deadline. Lawrence noted Bostom’s voluminous research and publishing when he was on the faculty at Brown University’s medical school. He’s now a research physician at a Brown-affiliated hospital.

Bostom was not saying “the COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility” but rather “citing research and asking questions,” Lawrence told Twitter head of legal Vijaya Gadde. Twitter’s misinformation ban explicitly exempts “debate about research” that does not “intentionally misrepresent research findings.” Using the same breach-of-contract argument that convinced a federal judge to let Berenson’s lawsuit continue, Lawrence said Twitter ignored “its own progressive discipline policy” and instead “retrofit” Bostom’s single flagged tweet into its repeated-violation policy. Kevin McKernan managed MIT’s research and development for the Human Genome Project. “You can restore this account to zero strikes, or prepare for some legal expense,” he wrote in a Saturday tweet thread after his latest lockup in “TwitMo.” “I won’t lose,” he said, tagging Twitter support. “I have your receipts and it’s clear you have amateurs in charge of your censorship operation.”

Shameless.

• Paul Pelosi $1M Chip Stock Purchase: A Long History Of ‘Timely’ Buys (JTN)

Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, purchased between $1 million and $5 million of stock in a semiconductor company ahead of an upcoming vote on legislation containing $52 billion for chipmakers — the latest in a long history of similar purchases. A Data for Progress poll found that 70% of respondents support a ban on lawmakers trading individual stocks and 68% agree with extending the ban to their spouses. Pelosi’s husband made headlines when he purchased a substantial amount of tech stock last year under his wife’s speakership. Pelosi made millions on “timely” bets with Big Tech stock buys in advance of an antitrust bill that was moving through the House, according to a Fortune report from July 2021. The antitrust legislation ultimately stalled, but Pelosi tech stock buys have continued throughout this year.

In March, the speaker disclosed that her husband bought Apple as well as Disney and PayPal shares. Retail traders track Pelosi’s trades to “find winners,” Yahoo reported. Pelosi was involved in controversy regarding Visa stock purchases he made in 2008 while credit card companies were reportedly lobbying his wife to stop legislation that would curb credit card swipe fees to vendors, CBS News reported at the time. “The Pelosis purchased 5,000 shares of Visa at the initial price of $44 dollars,” the CBS report read. “Two days later it was trading at $64.” CBS noted that the swipe fee legislation, the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights, eventually did pass the House. “I will hold my record in terms of fighting the credit card companies as speaker of the House or as a member of Congress up against anyone,” Speaker Pelosi told “60 Minutes.”

[..] Peter Schweizer, author of the 2011 book “Throw Them All Out,” was instrumental in educating the public about the lack of stock trading laws applicable to members of Congress. After his book was published, Congress passed the STOCK Act, and former President Obama signed it into law. The bill is designed to prevent insider trading, but it doesn’t ban members of Congress or their spouses from buying individual stocks. Under the bill, lawmakers are required to file financial disclosure reports that show the purchases made. Schweizer has long called on Congress to prohibit lawmakers and their spruces from trading individual stocks.

“They still sort of continue to blatantly trade in stocks,” Schweizer told Just the News in October 2021. “So in the case of the Pelosis, for example, she’s the Speaker of the House, legislation that’s going to affect Big Tech in a positive way or big contracts going to Big Tech, her husband’s not only buying and selling stock in Big Tech, he’s actually buying options, which are sort of leveraged bets that the stock is going to go one way or the other. And, of course, Paul Pelosi Sr. just happens to be really good at making those predictions.”

“Unvaccinated can now largely forget about contracting severe C-19 disease as the next big mutation will most likely make the unvaccinated resistant to the virus..”

• Prediction For Unvaccinated And Never Previously Infected (Geert)

What would be your prediction for those who are both unvaccinated against COVID-19 and never previously infected? Let’s say those of working age(20 – 55) in fairly good health. Should they be worried about Avian Flu and Monkeypox, since they have not experienced an infection by SARS-CoV-2? Are they at risk for serious illness from these more infectious (and future more virulent) SARS-CoV-2 mutants?

Answer: It would be quite unbelievable that they didn’t get exposed to SC-2 given the high infectiousness of previously and currently circulating variants. Ideally, they should have their Abs tested (anti-S would be sufficient since they’re not vaccinated). They can also have their Abs tested against Flu. If all this is negative (which would point to poor activation of natural immunity), they can just take one shot of a live attenuated measles or mumps or rubella or varicella vaccine (or all together in one shot) to boost their innate immune response. (However, they should only do so if they got MMR(V)-vaccinated in the past. The better their innate immune status, the lower the likelihood they are going to catch severe disease from these viruses. But anyhow, for a person in good health, it is highly unlikely to develop severe disease from Monkeypox (as it is – for now(!) – not highly infectious) or from Avian Flu as they must at least have had contact with Flu viruses in the past and hence, have some ‘Flu-trained’ innate immunity.)

Unvaccinated can now largely forget about contracting severe C-19 disease as the next big mutation will most likely make the unvaccinated resistant to the virus. However, if they have not yet been infected at all by any of these highly infectious variants, they could still contract C-19 disease (before that new variant emerges) and become seriously ill (but not ‘severely ill’ as long as they are in good health with no comorbidities and predisposing factors). To avoid this, they should either prevent risky contacts (difficult) till the next variant appears (in my opinion, just a matter of weeks) or take Ivermectin orHCQ as soon as symptoms manifest (but not prophylactically).

“Djokovic had to be kept out of Australia not because he could infect others but because he is a visible reminder of vaccine failure.”

• Don’t Let ‘Voodoo Science’ Keep Djokovic From Competing in US Open (Thakur)

So Novak Djokovic has won Wimbledon, the second tennis major this year to be plagued by self-inflicted wounds following the Australian Open whose crown Djokovic was unceremoniously prevented from defending. I concluded then that God must be a Djoker. How else to explain that banks that once feared masked robbers insisted on masked customers in 2020-21, Big Pharma blamed the failure of a product on those who refused to take it and sporting bodies that banned drug-injecting competitors mandated a drug with no long-term safety data? According to one site that tracks the adverse events associated with sportspeople, by mid-July 1,174 athletes — by definition one of the fittest cohorts in society — had suffered cardiac arrests and other serious side effects, of whom 779 had died.

The claim that “No-vax” Djokovic poses a threat to others’ health is risible. Among the best tennis players of all time, one of the greatest contemporary athletes across all sporting codes and also possibly the healthiest human being on the planet who is obsessive-compulsive about his fitness, Djokovic was unable to play in the Australian Open because he refused to take a COVID vaccine. Now he faces the repeat prospect of the Biden administration barring him from entering to compete in the US Open, even though unvaccinated Americans can compete. That would be unfortunate. The vaccination mandate for international arrivals made little sense back in January and is now demonstrably reliant on voodoo science.

[..] It’s indisputable that vaccination does not provide protection against getting infected or infecting others. If health authorities were honest, then to be consistent with their 2021 messaging, they would now be using the language of the pandemic of the vaccinated. The scale of the problem is such that suspicions arise that rapidly waning efficacy, especially after repeated boosters, might not be the only issue. In addition to the studiously ignored problem of adverse events, many serious and some fatal, could the vaccines themselves be sustaining and driving the pandemic? Against this hard data that is now available, the decision in January to stop Djokovic from coming into Australia seems even more perverse. As a BBC analysis made clear, that decision was neither medical nor legal but political.

A court overturned the entry ban on procedural and substantive grounds. The government then made an end run around the legal system by relying on ministerial discretion that had deliberately been made nonjusticiable. Accepting that Djokovic posed “a negligible individual risk of transmitting COVID-19” to others, the minister nonetheless concluded that because Djokovic had a “well-known stance on vaccination,” his very presence could fuel anti-vaccination sentiment in Australia. Consequently, his participation was not in the public interest. Thus Djokovic had to be kept out of Australia not because he could infect others but because he is a visible reminder of vaccine failure.

Simpsons 2006

This came out in 2006 pic.twitter.com/UxS9Tn5zIf

— Carlos That Notices Things (@BasQuetzal) July 19, 2022

Tucker Harrowing

Tucker on @AOC’s stunning and brave day of pretending to be handcuffed. pic.twitter.com/Grjy5mOoma

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 20, 2022

Mount Fuji

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Debt Rattle June 27 2022

Jun 272022

June 27, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:11 am Finance Tagged with: Chomsky, CIA, default, G7, IFR, Maersheimer, Pelosi, SCOTUS 41 Responses »

Henri Matisse Woman with a hat 1905

• G-7 Unveils $600 Billion Plan to Counter China’s Belt and Road (R.)

• Russia Defaults On Foreign Debt For First Time Since 1917 Revolution

• Chomsky on the Root Causes of the Russia-Ukraine War (CD)

• John Mearsheimer’s Ukraine Crystal Ball (ZH)

• Herr Habeck Firehoses Oil & Gas (Vilches)

• Pelosi Leads Democrats In Effort To Codify Roe v. Wade Into Law (JTN)

• White House: Biden ‘Does Not Agree With’ Expanding The Supreme Court (JTN)

• Top Republican Signals 2023 Investigation: Biden ‘Compromised’ By Son (JTN)

• NYT Reports On Large CIA ‘Stealth Network’ Of Spies & Commandos In Ukraine (ZH)

• Covid’s Infection Fatality Rate Now Same as Seasonal Flu (DS)

• Taibbi Talks Reaction To Him Reviewing ‘What Is A Woman’ (DW)

“Pfizer regional sales leaders”

Too late.

• G-7 Unveils $600 Billion Plan to Counter China’s Belt and Road (R.)

Group of Seven leaders (G-7) on Sunday pledged to raise $600 billion in private and public funds over five years to finance needed infrastructure in developing countries and counter the Chinese regime’s Belt and Road project. U.S. President Joe Biden and other G-7 leaders relaunched the newly renamed “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment,” at their annual gathering being held this year at Schloss Elmau in southern Germany. Biden said the United States would mobilize $200 billion in grants, federal funds, and private investment over five years to boost infrastructure development in lower- and middle-income nations. The United States says the G-7 backed effort promotes responsible investments that aim to benefit the communities they are made in.

“I want to be clear. This isn’t aid or charity. It’s an investment that will deliver returns for everyone,” Biden said, adding that it would allow countries to “see the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies.” Biden said hundreds of billions of additional dollars could come from multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, sovereign wealth funds, and others. Europe will mobilize 300 billion euros for the initiative over the same period to build up a sustainable alternative to the Chinese regime’s Belt and Road Initiative scheme, which Chinese leader Xi Jinping launched in 2013, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the gathering.

The leaders of Italy, Canada and Japan also spoke about their plans, some of which have already been announced separately. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson were not present, but their countries are also participating. The Chinese communist regime’s Belt and Road scheme involves development and programs in over 100 countries.

This is just too stupid. Richard Werner says it best:

“The US adopts yet another pro-Russia policy that strengthens Russia at the expense of the West: Russia is told it doesn’t have to service its debt. Normally the IMF enforces foreign debt to protect US investors, pushing foreign countries hard to pay up.”

• Russia Defaults On Foreign Debt For First Time Since 1917 Revolution

Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time since the 1917 revolution, according to reports, further alienating the country from the global financial system after sanctions imposed over its war in Ukraine. The country missed a deadline of Sunday night to meet a 30-day grace period on interest payments of $100m on two Eurobonds originally due on 27 May, Bloomberg reported on Monday morning. Some Taiwanese holders of Russian Eurobonds said on Monday that they had not received interest payments due, two sources told Reuters. Official confirmation of the default was expected to come from international ratings agencies.

Russia’s efforts to avoid what would be its first major default on international bonds since the Bolshevik revolution more than a century ago hit a insurmountable roadblock in late May when the US treasury department’s office of foreign assets c (OFAC) effectively blocked Moscow from making payments. “Since March we thought that a Russian default is probably inevitable, and the question was just when,” Dennis Hranitzky, head of sovereign litigation at law firm Quinn Emanuel, told Reuters. “OFAC has intervened to answer that question for us, and the default is now upon us.” While a formal default would be largely symbolic given Russia cannot borrow internationally at the moment and doesn’t need to thanks to plentiful oil and gas export revenues, the stigma would probably raise its borrowing costs in future.

“This is a level of hysteria that I have never seen, even during the Second World War, which I am old enough to remember very well.”

• Chomsky on the Root Causes of the Russia-Ukraine War (CD)

Soon after the war, “the United States Department acknowledged that they had not taken Russian security concerns into consideration in any discussions with Russia. The question of NATO, they would not discuss. Well, all of that is provocation. Not a justification but a provocation and it’s quite interesting that in American discourse, it is almost obligatory to refer to the invasion as the ‘unprovoked invasion of Ukraine’. Look it up on Google, you will find hundreds of thousands of hits.” Chomsky continued, “Of course, it was provoked. Otherwise, they wouldn’t refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion. By now, censorship in the United States has reached such a level beyond anything in my lifetime. Such a level that you are not permitted to read the Russian position.

Literally. Americans are not allowed to know what the Russians are saying. Except, selected things. So, if Putin makes a speech to Russians with all kinds of outlandish claims about Peter the Great and so on, then, you see it on the front pages. If the Russians make an offer for a negotiation, you can’t find it. That’s suppressed. You’re not allowed to know what they are saying. I have never seen a level of censorship like this.” Regarding his views of the possible future scenarios, Chomsky said that “the war will end, either through diplomacy or not. That’s just logic. Well, if diplomacy has a meaning, it means both sides can tolerate it. They don’t like it, but they can tolerate it. They don’t get anything they want, they get something. That’s diplomacy.

If you reject diplomacy, you are saying: ‘Let the war go on with all of its horrors, with all the destruction of Ukraine, and let’s let it go on until we get what we want.'” By ‘we,’ Chomsky was referring to Washington, which simply wants to “harm Russia so severely that it will never be able to undertake actions like this again. Well, what does that mean? It’s impossible to achieve. So, it means, let’s continue the war until Ukraine is devastated. That’s US policy.” Most of this is not obvious to western audiences simply because rational voices are “not allowed to talk” and because “rationality is not permitted. This is a level of hysteria that I have never seen, even during the Second World War, which I am old enough to remember very well.”

Consistent.

• John Mearsheimer’s Ukraine Crystal Ball (ZH)

A new talk by Professor John J. Mearsheimer has recently been made public, wherein the famous author and political science theorist details the causes and consequences of the Ukraine war. Mearsheimer became more well-known, and “controversial” in establishment circles, after it emerged that he clearly predicted going back to 2014 the war which kicked off in Feb. 2022. He had said in a 2014 University of Chicago lecture, “The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked.” This tragedy for the Ukrainian people is playing out now, with little hope that now totally defunct Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks will halt the fighting. Other than efforts of France’s Macron, attempts at basic diplomacy and direct communications are all but dead.

As the lecture intro describes: Prof. Mearsheimer focused on both the origins of the war in Ukraine and some of its most important consequences. He argues that the crisis is largely the result of the West’s efforts to turn Ukraine into a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. Russian leaders viewed that outcome as an existential threat that had to be thwarted. While Vladimir Putin is certainly responsible for invading Ukraine and for Russia’s conduct in the war, Prof. Mearsheimer states that he does not believe he is an expansionist bent on creating a greater Russia.

Regarding the war’s consequences, the greatest danger is that the war will go on for months if not years, and that either NATO will get directly involved in the fighting or nuclear weapons will be used — or both. Furthermore, enormous damage has already been inflicted on Ukraine. A prolonged war is likely to wreak even more devastation on Ukraine. Mearsheimer calls the war an “unmitigated disaster” and with “no end in sight” – for which he lays chief blame on the West. Lately student groups at the University of Chicago, as well as some pundits within the mainstream media, have sought to censor his views and “cancel” him – despite that he’s been on record and consistent in his predictions and views for years.

Oil refinery is a tricky business. Changes take time. Europe does not have time.

• Herr Habeck Firehoses Oil & Gas (Vilches)

One way to begin to understand the problem is agreeing and accepting that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyden made a historical bad joke, by saying “ The EU will make sure to phase out Russian oil in an orderly fashion to allow us and our partners to secure alternative supply routes minimizing the impact on global markets”. Nope, you can´t do that in 6 months Ursula, if ever. So if you accept that´d be absolutely impossible then you are on the right track to understand the rest. Otherwise you´d be just playing games running around in circles. Hint: it´d be like trying to change the engine oil while cruising at 150 km/hr on a German autobahn. Of course, you can stop the car and change the oil, but in this case it would mean shutting down Europe for months. You cannot do that, can you ?

By any standards, there are definitely not enough adequate oil blends around to come close to satisfying European refinery requirements comparable to homogenous continuous over-abundant constant Russian high-quality Urals which the EU now has decided to ban. And also please accept once and for all that a specific oil blend is not just “any oil blend” to be plugged & played anywhere anytime. Oil blends are not fungible. A very specific refinery or processing plant tune-up needs to be specifically matched with an always constant high-quality homogenous oil blend in large enough quantities and for a given desired output such as diesel fuel, or whatever. No “open architecture” is possible here, that´s just for IT nerds, not for refineries. And definetly there are no vendors all lined up happily willing and able to sell you their oil blend in unlimited quantities already fully adapted to whatever plant you may have ´as-is´ for whichever desired production output you may need delivered just-in-time on-demand and only when you need it.

How long has she been in DC? Last chance to use abortion to get votes, Nancy

• Pelosi Leads Democrats In Effort To Codify Roe v. Wade Into Law (JTN)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is vowing to fight in Congress to codify Roe v. Wade after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark decision. “Democrats will keep fighting ferociously to enshrine Roe v. Wade into law of the land,” Pelosi said. “This cruel ruling is outrageous and heart wrenching.” The California Democrat called the decision a “slap in the face to women about using their own judgment to make their own decisions about their reproductive freedom.” Democrats have tried to codify Roe v. Wade into law in the past, but it has never passed Congress. In September, the Democrat-led House passed the Women’s Health Protection Act, but the bill didn’t move forward in the Senate.

After the draft opinion of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade leaked in May, Democrats in the Senate tried to pass legislation to codify Roe, but Republicans were able to block the measure. Realizing they lack the votes to codify a right to abortion into law in the 50-50 Senate, Democrats are calling on their base to mobilize and vote in November. “This fall, Roe is on the ballot,” President Biden said at the White House on Friday. “Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty, equality they’re all on the ballot. Until then, I will do all in my power to protect a woman’s right in states where they will face the consequences of today’s decision.”

Pelosi also said Roe v. Wade is “on the ballot in November.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the decision to overturn Roe “makes crystal clear the contrast” between both parties as the November elections approach. “Elect more MAGA Republicans if you want nationwide abortion bans, the jailing of women and doctors and no exemptions for rape or incest,” Schumer said. “Or elect more pro-choice Democrats to save Roe and protect a woman’s right to make their own decisions about their body, not politicians.”

Done.

• White House: Biden ‘Does Not Agree With’ Expanding The Supreme Court (JTN)

The White House on Saturday confirmed that President Joe Biden has no desire to expand or pack the Supreme Court in the wake of the Court’s unprecedented repeal of Roe v. Wade earlier this week. Asked by reporters on Air Force One while en route to Munich about the possibility that Biden might move to add more justices to the Court amid the fallout from the ruling, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Saturday: “I was asked this question yesterday, and I’ve been asked it before…about expanding the Court. That is something that the President does not agree with.” “That is not something that he wants to do,” she added.

Progressives have argued that packing the Court with more justices could offer Democrats a remedy to the strong conservative majority the institution currently enjoys. President Donald Trump appointed three justices during his administration, all of whom are seen as reliably conservative votes on the bench. Though she said Biden has no plans to pursue such an agenda, Jean-Pierre on Saturday did take time to slam the court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which eliminated the half-century-old federalization of abortion rights first implemented in 1973. “It’s so out of step not only with this decision, but it’s also so out of step with the Constitution,” she argued.

They’ll hit the ground running.

• Top Republican Signals 2023 Investigation: Biden ‘Compromised’ By Son (JTN)

Some conservatives have fretted the four years it has taken federal prosecutors to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings. But make no mistake, the man most likely to run the main House investigative committee if Republicans win control of Congress next year is determined to document how President Joe Biden’s foreign policy has been compromised by his son’s infamous wheeling and dealing. “We feel that Hunter Biden is a national security threat,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) told Just the News in a wide-ranging interview Friday laying out his priorities if he becomes chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. “We’ve been poring over his financial records for many weeks now, and it’s troubling.

“So we’ve got a lot of questions about Hunter’s business dealings and questions for Biden administration officials to determine if thepresident is in fact compromised because of Hunter’s shady business dealings.” Comer was asked whether the evidence he has seen shows the president’s son ran “an influence peddling scheme” that sold access to his father to foreigners. “There’s no question,” he answered. “That was confirmed with the recent tape that emerged last week from the laptop that showed that Hunter Biden said that, you know, his dad would do anything he asked him to do,” said Comer. “I think that was the sales pitch that Hunter would make to the questionable shady figures in Russia who he received compensation from, the shady, questionable figures in communist China he would receive payments from, and those in Ukraine and Africa and everywhere else around the world.”

“No one would think that anyone wanted to do business with Hunter Biden because of his stellar resume or his record of achievement,” Comer added. “It was because his last name was Biden. And his father was the vice president of the United States.” Comer said the House oversight committee’s job wouldn’t be to focus on whether Hunter Biden evaded taxes, an issue already under investigation by federal prosecutors since late 2018, but rather on what government or policy favors countries and players got for paying the presidential son, including for a recent set of paintings.

“..directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces..”

• NYT Reports On Large CIA ‘Stealth Network’ Of Spies & Commandos In Ukraine (ZH)

A fresh New York Times report has confirmed what many already suspected – that the CIA is still very active inside Ukraine – especially with training as well coordinating weapons among its Ukrainian allies. The Times report details “a stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training,” based on US and European intelligence officials with knowledge of the operations. The report says Ukrainian forces are reliant on this Western clandestine network “more than ever” while outgunned by the Russians. This comes months after investigative journalist Zach Dorfman’s bombshell expose in Yahoo News which detailed how a prior 8-year long CIA covert program to train Ukrainian fighters helped provoke the Russian invasion. The only question that remained after that March report was the extent to which the CIA was still active in the ongoing fight against the invading Russians.

The new Times reporting confirms that the US program is not only active and ongoing, but appears larger in scale than previously thought given the CIA’s close cooperation with the Ukrainians is happening both inside and outside the country, across multiple locations. “Much of this work happens outside Ukraine, at bases in Germany, France and Britain, for example. But even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials,” the report indicates.

It appears much the CIA’s work in Ukraine is centered on coordinating intelligence with local intel services and counterparts. “Few other details have emerged about what the C.I.A. personnel or the commandos are doing, but their presence in the country — on top of the diplomatic staff members who returned after Russia gave up its siege of Kyiv — hints at the scale of the secretive effort to assist Ukraine that is underway and the risks that Washington and its allies are taking,” NY Times continues. Over the weekend, Canada also has been reported to have special operations troops inside Ukraine. This was reported months ago, but with a separate NYT report offering further confirmation. “Both CTV and Global News reported in late January that Canadian special forces had been sent to Ukraine, but National Defence did not comment on that deployment,” Ottawa Citizen writes Sunday.

“..the Government is right not to be concerned and has come to the conclusion that there is no need for restrictions.”

• Covid’s Infection Fatality Rate Now Same as Seasonal Flu (DS)

Death rates from Covid are lower than ever, according to an analysis by Professor Carl Heneghan and Dr Jason Oke carried out for the Mail on Sunday. The IFR is now ~0.0333%, similar to seasonal influenza. “Experts say there is little need to fear a recent surge in cases as fewer than one in 3,000 infected people now dies from coronavirus – with the rate even lower for the vaccinated. The analysis of official data by Oxford University shows the ‘infection fatality rate’ has dropped about 30-fold since the pandemic began due to a combination of vaccine protection and naturally acquired infection.

Professor Carl Heneghan of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, who carried out the analysis with statistician Jason Oke, said: “There have been an astonishing number of Covid infections so far this year, but deaths have come down. “Now we are looking at an infection fatality rate for Covid of around one in 3,000 which is comparable with seasonal influenza. That’s why the Government is right not to be concerned and has come to the conclusion that there is no need for restrictions.”

“..as the Left radicalized, and Taibbi stayed the same, the journalist found himself in a new space.”

• Taibbi Talks Reaction To Him Reviewing ‘What Is A Woman’ (DW)

Old-school liberal investigative journalist Matt Taibbi told Ben Shapiro on this week’s episode of “Sunday Special” that he “lost friends” for merely reviewing Matt Walsh and The Daily Wire’s groundbreaking documentary, “What is a Woman?” Taibbi was a star writer at “Rolling Stone” magazine and beloved by the elite liberal media, but as the Left radicalized, and Taibbi stayed the same, the journalist found himself in a new space. Like, for example, sitting down for a lengthy conversation with one of the most prominent conservative figures in American politics — and seeing a lot of agreement. “The response was unbelievable, just for reviewing the movie — forget about what I said about it,” Taibbi told Shapiro about his review.

“I lost friends over that. There were people who I’ve known for decades who basically said I’m a transphobe and I’m … out of their loop.” Taibbi explained that he first noticed an unwillingness from the Left even to discuss the transgender issue before he chose to review The Daily Wire documentary. “With the trans issue, there would be some people who would talk to me, and then there would be some people who were furious that you even called, would refuse to have any kind of discussion, would call you a transphobe for even asking certain kinds of questions — and this is before you even have a point of view on the subject,” he said, recalling a time he tried to gather quotes for a story. “I thought that was odd.”

Taibbi noted that this was a rehash of what he witnessed as a journalist in 2016 when reporting on former President Donald Trump. He recalled including a quote from a pro-union lifelong Democrat who said he voted Republican for the first time, for Trump, because he felt lied to about the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. The pushback from the leftist media community told Taibbi he wasn’t allowed to report or say true things if they went against the greater narrative. Taibbi didn’t abide by the leftist media rules with Trump and didn’t with the trans issue, either. Though, he admitted, the trans issue pushback did give Taibbi a momentary pause. “I had kinda tried to stay away from the issue. It’s complicated, and I try to stay away from issues I don’t know a whole lot about,” he said.

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Debt Rattle June 8 2022

Jun 082022

June 8, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 7:54 am Finance Tagged with: Assange, Brookings, Hunter Biden, Jan 6, Merkel, Navarro, parabolic state, Pelosi, prion disease, Qatar 41 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Napping 1932

• The Very Special Operation (Batiushka)

• Biden Works to Prolong Ukraine War (Craig Murray)

• The West and the Rest (Münchau)

• ‘I Don’t Blame Myself’: Merkel Defends Legacy On Russia And Ukraine (Pol.eu)

• Studies Show Link Between Prion Brain Disease and Covid-19 Vaccine (GP)

• This Is Why It Doesn’t Work (Denninger)

• FBI Seizes Retired General’s Data Related To Qatar Lobbying (AP)

• White House Refuses To Comment On Hunter Biden Pictures (Radar)

• Nancy Pelosi’s Husband Bought $2.1M Worth Of Apple, Microsoft Shares (NYP)

• Civil Liberties Are Being Trampled by Congress’s 1/6 Committee (Greenwald)

• Peter Navarro: Jan. 6 Panel’s Tactics Designed to Stop Trump Before 2024 (NM)

• Trafigura Warns Oil Prices Could Reach ‘Parabolic State’ In Threat To Economy (FT)

• Is Our Time Together Running Out? (Stella Moris)

Trump

This is why they all wanted him gone pic.twitter.com/ajUPUvFzNY

— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 8, 2022

“When evil comes disguised as progress, celebrated in ignorance as righteous, when truth triggers vitriol & disgust, as the good are slandered & silenced, and when the sick are hailed as heroes, while the natural state of things is ridiculed, then truly we are in dangerous times”

“Either Russia is victorious in this Very Special Operation or else we shall enter a Dark Age..”

• The Very Special Operation (Batiushka)

A Russian Orthodox priest and cultural historian, who has lived in several Western and Eastern European countries, including Russia and the Ukraine, I cannot fail to feel great sorrow at the events unfolding today. But I also feel great hope. The process of barbarous injustice that began in 1914 and ended the Old Europe and has been through all manner of fateful dates, 1917, 1929, 1939, 1945, 1968, 1989, 1991, 2014, to name but a few, is now further unfurling and reaching a global crescendo. As Nikolai Patrushev has stated, the Special Operation is not just a military event, it is far, far more profound than that, this is military, political, economic and cultural. This is why it took so long, eight years, to carry out the necessary painstaking preparations for the Operation, in view of the high probability that the West would refuse to get off its high horse of hubris and negotiate like reasonable people do.

Since the West did refuse to negotiate, the battleground is for now the ultra-militarised Eastern Ukraine. However, the War is not between brother Ukrainians and brother Russians, but between Washington with its NATO/EU vassals and Moscow with its Donbass Allies. There is no doubt that Russia will win in the Ukraine, as it has complete air and naval superiority. The Russian-speaking East and South of the Ukraine, Novorossija, part of Russia until 1922, is being liberated by a smallish expeditionary force of the Russian Army together with local troops. However, the Operation was never planned to be a short one, most knew that it would take months and perhaps, on account of possible NATO meddling, a year or more.

The War is longer because the Kiev Army has been preparing for it for eight long years. It has been building trenches and fortifications, arming itself with a huge amount of NATO training and weaponry, which the Russian Armed Forces are being forced to destroy, together with Ukrainian Nazis, Western mercenaries and NATO instructors. From this conflict a new Ukraine will be born. Perhaps it will once more be called Malorossija or perhaps it will keep its ‘Borderlands’ name. In any case it will be a smallish country, with a population of perhaps some 15 million, centred on Kiev. Whatever its name, it will effectively be the Kievan Protectorate, part of the Union State with the Russian Federation, Belarus and probably others.

[..] Let us be honest. Either Russia is victorious in this Very Special Operation or else we shall enter a Dark Age, from which there will be no end because it will be an Orwellian One World Government. Such One World Dictatorship will brook no opposition, all who challenge it will be repressed. This is our last chance to resist and strike back against the aggression that began in 1914, aggression that was military, political, economic and cultural, a totalitarian aggression that leads to total death, the death of body and soul. But according to all the military reports, let alone the prophecies, Russia will be victorious.

“..it is actually blocked in by Ukraine’s own mines, which they currently refuse to allow Turkey to remove.”

• Biden Works to Prolong Ukraine War (Craig Murray)

I was in Turkey to try to further peace talks, as an experienced diplomat with good contacts there, and as a peace activist. I was not there as a journalist and much of what I discussed was with the understanding of confidence. It will be probably be some years before I judge it reasonable and fair to reveal all that I know. But I can give some outline. Turkey continues to be the centre of diplomatic activity on resolving the Ukraine war. It is therefore particularly revealing, and a sign of Western priorities, that I did not come across a single western journalist there trying to follow and cover the diplomatic process. There are hundreds of Western journalists in Ukraine, effectively embedded with the Ukrainian authorities, producing war porn. There appear to be none seriously covering attempts to make peace.

There was a sea change two weeks ago when Ukraine shifted to a public stance that it would cede no territory at all in a peace deal. On 21 May, Zelensky’s office stated that “The war must end with the complete restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.” Previously while they had been emphatic that no territory in “the East” would be ceded, there had been studied ambiguity about whether that referred to Donbass alone or also the Crimea. The new Ukrainian stance, that there will be no peace deal without recovering the Crimea, has ended for now any hopes of an early ceasefire. It appears to be a militarily unachievable objective – I cannot think of any scenario in which Russia de facto loses Crimea, without the serious possibility of worldwide nuclear war.

This blow to the peace process was a setback in Ankara, and I should say that every source I spoke with believed the Ukrainians were acting on instructions conveyed from Washington to Zelensky by Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who openly stated he wanted the war to wear down Russian defence capabilities. A long war in Ukraine is of course massively in the interest of the US military industrial complex, whose dripping roasts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have gone rather off the heat. It also forwards the strategic objective of severely damaging the Russian economy, although much of that damage is mutual. Why we live in a world where the goal of nations is to damage the lives of inhabitants of other nations is a question which continues to puzzle me.

Turkey has for now turned towards the more limited goal of ensuring that grain supplies can be shipped out from the Black Sea through the Bosphorus. This is essential for developing nations and essential for world food supplies, which were already under pressure before this war began. Turkey is offering to clear sea lanes of mines and to police the ships carrying grain from the port of Odessa, which is still under Ukrainian control. Russia has agreed to the deal. Ukraine is objecting to this plan to export its own wheat, because it objects to the removal of the mines, which I should be clear were put down in the sea lanes by Ukraine to prevent amphibious attack on Odessa. There is monumental hypocrisy by the West on this, blaming Russia for preventing the export of the grain while it is actually blocked in by Ukraine’s own mines, which they currently refuse to allow Turkey to remove.

“..did we think we can adequately address a global starvation crisis by pointing the finger at Putin?”

• The West and the Rest (Münchau)

The pandemic and the war taught me something I sort of knew, but not really. It is a one thing to say that the world is interconnected, as a cliché. It is quite another to observe what actually happens on the ground when those connections get torn apart. The western sanctions were based on a formally correct but misleading premise, one that I believed myself at least up to a point: That Russia is more dependent on us than we are on Russia. Russia has more wheat than it can eat, and more oil than it can burn. Russia is a provider of primary and secondary commodities, on which the world has become dependent. Oil and gas are the biggest sources of Russian export revenues. But our dependency is most acute in other areas: food and also rare metals and rare earths.

Russia is not a monopolist in any of the categories. But when the largest exporters of those commodities disappears, the rest of the world experiences physical shortages and rising prices. Russia is the world largest exporter of gas, accounting for just under 20% of global exports. Russia is the largest exporter of oil, after Saudi Arabia, and accounts for 11% of world exports. It the largest exporter of fertilisers, and of wheat. Russia and Ukraine together account for almost a third of global wheat exports. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of palladium, a metal that is critical in the production of catalytic converters and fuel cells. Russia is also the largest world exporter of nickel, which is used in batteries, and in the production for hybrid cars. German industry is warning that it is reliant not only on Russian gas, but on other critical supplies from Russia.

Did we think this through? Did the foreign ministries that drew up the sanctions discuss at any point what we would do if Russia were to blockade the Black Sea and not allow Ukrainian wheat to leave the ports? Did we develop an agreed-upon response to Russian food blackmail? Or did we think we can adequately address a global starvation crisis by pointing the finger at Putin? The lockdown taught us a lot about our vulnerability to supply chain shocks. It has reminded Europeans that there have only two routes to ship goods en masse to Asia and back: either by container, or by rail through Russia. We had no plan for a pandemic, no plan for a war, and no plan for when both are happening at the same time. The containers are stuck in Shanghai. The railways closed because of the war.

“..she said Ukraine “was not a democratically consolidated country” then, still strongly influenced by oligarchs and plagued by corruption..”

“Then”? But not now? What changed?

• ‘I Don’t Blame Myself’: Merkel Defends Legacy On Russia And Ukraine (Pol.eu)

Angela Merkel defended her diplomatic legacy as German chancellor Tuesday, rejecting accusations that her policies while leading Europe’s largest economy for 16 years were indirectly to blame for Russia’s ongoing attack on Ukraine. In her first public interview since leaving office in December, Merkel argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have fully invaded his neighboring country much earlier if she and other allies had not taken controversial decisions such as blocking Ukraine’s membership bid for the NATO military alliance in 2008, or negotiating the Minsk peace accords in 2014 and 2015, which Ukraine viewed as disadvantageous for its own security. “I don’t blame myself,” Merkel told an audience at the fully sold-out Berliner Ensemble theater in the German capital.

“I have tried to work in the direction of preventing mischief. And if diplomacy doesn’t succeed, this doesn’t mean that it was therefore wrong. Thus I don’t see why I should say: ‘That was wrong.’ And therefore I won’t apologize.” However, Merkel — who condemned Putin’s invasion as “a brutal assault in defiance of international law for which there is no excuse whatsoever” — also showed some cautious self-criticism: She said she had failed during her tenure “to create a security architecture that could have prevented this [war] from happening.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in April called out Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, arguing their longstanding policy of “concessions to Russia” and opposition to putting Ukraine and Georgia on a path toward NATO membership had encouraged Moscow to think “they are allowed to do anything they want” with Ukraine and commit “even the most horrific war crimes” such as in Bucha.

Yet Merkel on Tuesday defended her decision not to grant Ukraine the so-called NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the alliance’s Bucharest summit in 2008, citing two reasons: First, she said Ukraine “was not a democratically consolidated country” then, still strongly influenced by oligarchs and plagued by corruption. Second, Merkel said she was convinced taking such a step would have certainly led to war. “I was very sure that Putin would not just let [Ukraine’s NATO membership] happen. That would have been … a declaration of war for him,” she said, arguing that the Russian leader would have used the NATO accession process, during which Ukraine probably would not have yet benefitted from the alliance’s mutual security guarantees, to “do something.”

Germany's Merkel says she does not agree at all with Russia's Putin on the Ukraine issue. "But we've also not been able to forge a security architecture that could have kept this from happening."

For more: https://t.co/BauTxSyMBV pic.twitter.com/bapULENpEk

— DW News (@dwnews) June 7, 2022

It’s getting very scary.

• Studies Show Link Between Prion Brain Disease and Covid-19 Vaccine (GP)

Two new clinical studies – one peer-reviewed by researchers in Turkey, and one pre-print by researchers in France – have begun to establish an alarming link between an incurable, degenerative brain disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and the experimental Covid-19 vaccine. CJD is a “rare” disease that is caused by abnormal infectious proteins in the brain called “prions,” according to NHS. Although the presence of prions is not necessarily dangerous or deadly, the proteins will cause degenerative brain damage if they become diseased or misfolded. Once this process begins, the malfunctioning prions will continue to corrupt other cells, leading to a prognosis that is always fatal.

As of right now, CJD is uncurable. There are zero treatment options available. The diagnosis is essentially a death sentence, but symptoms are traditionally dormant for several years before manifesting into a deadly complication. Unfortunately, with the new cases of CJD that have been linked to the vaccine, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The disease is progressing at an alarming and unprecedented rate. So much so that the team of French researchers highlighted their concerns of the experimental mRNA vaccines contributing directly to creating a new, more aggressive type of CJD. According to the French study, a total of 26 cases of vaccine-linked CJD were included in the research.

At the time of the study’s publication, a whopping 20 out of the 26 CJD patients had already passed away from the disease. Additionally, researchers found that there were “more than 50 cases” of the fatal disease that appeared after taking the experimental vaccines. Despite traditionally taking as much as a decade to manifest with symptoms, the study found symptoms in these new cases began appearing just 11.38 days post-vaccination. In these cases, the disease is killing the affected individuals in under 5 months’ time (4.76 months).

Everything “green” is falling apart.

• This Is Why It Doesn’t Work (Denninger)

Folks, right here: “To meet the nation’s clean energy goals, the US must develop a robust manufacturing capability to produce solar energy panels and components. It can do that by providing financial incentives to US manufacturers to help offset higher domestic production costs, which have been estimated to be 30% to 40% more than imports.” That is the problem. Congress handing out money will not solve it; forcing Americans to pay that 30-40% more simply bankrupts Americans but through a different way. There are many things we can do but they don’t make any sense to do. The only reason someone does it is that there’s a boot on someone’s neck (they’re a slave), the environment is destroyed without care (remediation costs money) and similar.

That’s the beginning and end of it, when you get down to facts. This is not just limited to solar panels. Its also true for EVs; you have to dig half a million pounds of earth up to make just one battery, and there is no economically viable means of recycling them either. Yes, technically they can be recycled, but then you get to pay even more. If the industry will collapse if the 30-40% has to be paid by the end consumer of the product then whatever you’re proposing does not work. Why would you pay 30 cents/kwh for power you can have for 10? Do you understand that this is exactly what we’re talking about here? At 30-40% more the panels are non-economic to put in and use; they’re simply not competitive. At 300% more than what you pay now for electric power you can’t heat or cool your house and eat at the same time.

Craziest story of the day?! The head of the Brookings Institution.

• FBI Seizes Retired General’s Data Related To Qatar Lobbying (AP)

The FBI has seized the electronic data of a retired four-star general who authorities say made false statements and withheld “incriminating” documents about his role in an illegal foreign lobbying campaign on behalf of the wealthy Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. New federal court filings obtained Tuesday outlined a potential criminal case against former Marine Gen. John R. Allen, who led U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan before being tapped in 2017 to lead the influential Brookings Institution think tank. It’s part of an expanding investigation that has ensnared Richard G. Olson, a former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan who pleaded guilty to federal charges last week, and Imaad Zuberi, a prolific political donor now serving a 12-year prison sentence on corruption charges.

Several members of Congress have been interviewed as part of the investigation. The court filings detail Allen’s behind-the scenes efforts to help Qatar influence U.S. policy in 2017 when a diplomatic crisis erupted between the gas-rich Persian Gulf monarchy and its neighbors. “There is substantial evidence that these FARA violations were willful,” FBI agent Babak Adib wrote in a search warrant application, referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Allen also misrepresented his role in the lobbying campaign to U.S. officials, Adib wrote, and failed to disclose “that he was simultaneously pursuing multimillion-dollar business deals with the government of Qatar.” The FBI says Allen gave a “false version of events” about his work for Qatar during a 2020 interview with law enforcement officials and failed to produce relevant email messages in response to an earlier grand jury subpoena.

Just keep publishing them. Hunter will have to resurface at some point.

• White House Refuses To Comment On Hunter Biden Pictures (Radar)

White House officials and representatives of Hunter Biden remained mum in the wake of Radar Online reports showing President Joe Biden’s son naked with an illegally obtained gun. Officials from the White House, Hunter’s criminal attorney Christopher Clark and Hunter’s lover, Hallie Biden, all ignored requests to comment after the Radar report. Hours after being asked, all three had yet to respond about the pictures or possible legal charges in the case. A White House press office representative told Radar to email its request for comment, but that email has gone unanswered. On Monday, Radar published a series of stories about new photos. The images showed a naked Hunter Biden in October 2018. They also showed him holding a gun, including his finger on the trigger.

The gun was illegally obtained as Hunter lied on an application about his past drug use. His substance abuse addiction has long been documented and he has spoken about it, but he put “no” on a form when asked if he had an issue. The photos also showed apparent drug use and a prostitute as Hunter Biden engages in sex games. Making a false statement on a federal criminal background check, known as ATF Form 4473, is a violation of federal law under Section 922(a)(6) of the U.S. criminal code. It also could violate Section 922(g)(3), which prohibits a drug user from possessing a firearm with ammunition. Hunter was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2014 after he tested positive for cocaine.

Eleven days after Hunter illegally purchased the weapon, his lover Hallie, the widow of his late brother Beau Biden, threw the gun into a supermarket garbage can, triggering a Secret Service, FBI, and Delaware State Police investigation. The photos are the latest in a string of wild behavior for the President’s son, including questions on his business dealings. His current partner, Hallie, is the widow of Hunter’s brother Beau, who died years ago. The newest gun pictures also come at a time when the White House is calling for new gun control measures after a series of mass shootings across the country.

Infallible stock tip. Your chance to do some insider trading.

• Nancy Pelosi’s Husband Bought $2.1M Worth Of Apple, Microsoft Shares (NYP)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband bought up to $1.5 million worth of Apple stock as well as up to $600,000 in Microsoft shares, according to recent financial disclosures submitted by the powerful Democratic lawmaker. The periodic transaction report, which was posted on the House of Representatives’ website, indicates that Paul Pelosi bought Apple call options between $500,001 and $1 million on May 13. Eleven days later, the venture capitalist bought additional Apple call options worth an amount between $250,001 and $500,000, according to the disclosure forms. That same day, Paul Pelosi also purchased Microsoft call options worth as much as $600,000.

A call option, or “call,” is a financial contract that gives the option buyer the right to purchase the stock at a certain price. In December, Nancy Pelosi, 82, revealed in filings that she and her husband made as much as $30 million in stock trades involving Big Tech firms. The financial windfall spurred lawmakers from both parties to push forward legislation that would ban members of Congress from trading in stocks. The latest disclosures come just days after it was learned that Paul Pelosi, 82, crashed a new Porsche just five miles from their multimillion-dollar Napa home and vineyard while allegedly under the influence of alcohol. Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, has been accused of profiting off companies which she is responsible for regulating.

The circus starts tomorrow.

• Civil Liberties Are Being Trampled by Congress’s 1/6 Committee (Greenwald)

[..] ever since the pro-Trump crowd was dispersed at the Capitol after a few hours of protests and riots, the same repressive climate that arose after 9/11 has prevailed. Mainstream political and media sectors instantly consecrated the narrative, fully endorsed by the U.S. security state, that the United States was attacked on 1/6 by domestic terrorists bent on insurrection and a coup. They also claimed in unison that the ideology driving those right-wing domestic terrorists now poses the single most dangerous threat to the American homeland, a claim which the intelligence community was making even before 1/6 to argue for a new War on Terror (just as neocons wanted to invade and engineer regime change in Iraq prior to 9/11 and then exploited 9/11 to achieve that long-held goal).

With those extremist and alarming premises fully implanted, there has been little tolerance for questions about whether proposed responses for dealing with the 1/6 “domestic terrorists” and their incomparably dangerous ideology are excessive, illegal, unethical, or unconstitutional. Even before Joe Biden was inaugurated, his senior advisers made clear that one of their top priorities was to enact a bill from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) — now a member of the Select Committee on 1/6 — to import the first War on Terror onto domestic soil. Even without enactment of a new law, there is no doubt that a second War on Terror, this one domestic, has begun and is growing, all in the name of the 1/6 “Insurrection” and with little dissent or even public debate.

Following the post-9/11 script, anyone voicing such concerns about responses to 1/6 is reflexively accused of minimizing the gravity of the Capitol riot and, worse, of harboring sympathy for the plotters and their insurrectionary cause. Questions or doubts about the proportionality or legality of government actions in the name of 1/6 are depicted as insincere, proof that those voicing such doubts are acting not in defense of constitutional or legal principles but out of clandestine camaraderie with the right-wing domestic terrorists and their evil cause.

When it comes to 1/6 and those who were at the Capitol, there is no middle ground. That playbook is not new. “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” was the rigidly binary choice which President George W. Bush presented to Americans and the world when addressing Congress shortly after the 9/11 attack. With that framework in place, anything short of unquestioning support for the Bush/Cheney administration and all of its policies was, by definition, tantamount to providing aid and comfort to the terrorists and their allies. There was no middle ground, no third option, no such thing as ambivalence or reluctance: all of that uncertainty or doubt, insisted the new war president, was to be understood as standing with the terrorists.

“..no senior White House official has ever been put in leg irons for a contempt-of-Congress charge.”

• Peter Navarro: Jan. 6 Panel’s Tactics Designed to Stop Trump Before 2024 (NM)

Peter Navarro, former trade adviser to former President Donald Trump, had some choice words for the federal government Tuesday on Newsmax in terms of its conduct with his arrest from last week and subsequent indictment on contempt-of-Congress charges, after defying a subpoena from the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. On “Eric Bolling The Balance,” Navarro characterized last week’s arrest and indictment experience as “beyond appalling,” before sharing a daily timeline of pre-arrest events with host Eric Bolling: On Tuesday of last week, Navarro said, he filed a lawsuit against the Jan. 6 House panel, which he called a “kangaroo committee.”

The rationale for the lawsuit: Navarro says the committee’s “illegal and unenforceable subpoenas” should never carry more weight than a senior White House official’s right of executive privilege. Also, Navarro bluntly says the Jan. 6 committee’s primary purpose isn’t to investigate the events leading up to the Capitol attack. Instead, their “No. 1 job is to stop Trump from running” for president in 2024. On Wednesday, Navarro says he penned a letter to the Jan. 6 panel’s deputy attorney, explaining that his executive-privilege rights would preclude him from speaking formally to the “witch hunt” committee. Later in the day, Navarro called the same FBI agent who visited his home the previous week, and said he’d be willing to surrender under “peaceful” circumstances.

Fast-forward to Friday morning: The feds apparently allowed Navarro to eat breakfast and pack for a quick domestic plane trip before making a “showy” arrest at the airport — with five FBI officials apparently taking Navarro down in public. After the arrest, Navarro said, federal officials didn’t let him make a phone call. Law enforcement officials also put Navarro in leg irons, strip-searched him, and provided no food or water, he said. Navarro’s perspective: This was akin to being in “solitary confinement.” In American history, Navarro said, “no senior White House official has ever been put in leg irons for a contempt-of-Congress charge.” He then added: “I remember thinking, while being held up in the cell, ‘This feels like Stalin’s Russia.'”

We’re not done.

• Trafigura Warns Oil Prices Could Reach ‘Parabolic State’ In Threat To Economy (FT)

The head of Trafigura has warned that the oil market could reach a “parabolic state” this year with prices surging to record highs and triggering a slowdown in economic growth. Jeremy Weir, chief executive of the commodity trader, said that energy markets were in a “critical” state as sanctions on Russia’s oil exports following its invasion of Ukraine had exacerbated already tight supplies created by years of under-investment. “We have got a critical situation,” Weir told the FT Global Boardroom conference on Tuesday. “I really think we have a problem for the next six months…once it gets to these parabolic states, markets can move and they can spike quite a lot.” A parabolic move in markets is generally defined as when a price that has been rising suddenly surges to hitherto unseen levels, mimicking the right side of a parabolic curve.

Weir added it was highly probable that oil prices could rise to $150 a barrel or higher in the coming months, with supply chains strained as Russia tries to redirect its oil exports away from Europe. Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, which is trading near $120 a barrel, hit an all-time peak of $147 on the eve of the financial crisis in 2008. The Trafigura executive was the latest to warn that the economy has not yet seen the worst of the energy crisis, with little way of lowering prices as already-squeezed global supplies are likely to get scarcer if Russian production falls further. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, warned last week that prices could reach $150 or $175 a barrel this year. Analysts at Goldman Sachs are forecasting oil could average more than $140 a barrel in the third quarter, when the US summer driving season is at its peak.

Weir said the rising price of other commodities, including metals such as copper and lithium, was also likely to weigh on global economic growth and could ultimately trigger a slowdown to curb demand. “If we see very high energy prices for a period of time we will eventually see demand destruction,” he said. “It will be problematic to sustain these levels and continue global growth.” Russian oil production had already declined by as much as 1.3mn barrels a day — or more than 1 per cent of global demand — with the country’s output of refined products of diesel and gasoline also falling by a similar amount, Weir said.

Moving. I don’t think we can afford to lose Julian Assange. Because we will lose ourselves.

• Is Our Time Together Running Out? (Stella Moris)

When Julian is taken from his cell to the prison yard he tilts his head up so his eyes can focus on the distance. If he narrows his eyes, the double razor wire above becomes a blur. Beyond is the open sky. Julian recently discovered a family of nesting magpies. He spotted their home subversively nestled between the razor wire. I think our family is like those magpies. When we are together, we are always a few metres from their nest. Our children — Gabriel, who is five, and Max, three — only have memories of their father within the brutal surroundings of Belmarsh prison. We don’t know how long our children have left with their father. We don’t know if we can visit him or even talk to him on the phone. If the extradition goes ahead, US authorities retain the right to put Julian in conditions so cruel that no one in his position is likely to survive.

It is impossible for Julian and me to escape a feeling that he is on death row. Our weekly visits may be the only time we have left together. But for how much longer? A few months more, a few weeks, a few days and then only a few hours? I fear in the end we will count the minutes and the seconds. Were it not for our children, this approaching catastrophe would be all-consuming. But Julian and I know these may be the only memories that our children will have of their father. We make our visits as joyous as possible. I don’t need to explain to Gabriel and Max the reality of this place where we go to visit their father. They live it. The children walk under razor wire and past layers and layers of security to reach their daddy.

Guards search inside their mouths, behind their ears and under their feet. The prison dogs sniff them head to toe, front and back. Last week, Gabriel slipped some daisies he had picked by the prison walls into his pocket to give to his father. After he passed through the metal detector his daisies were confiscated during the pat-down search by one of the guards, albeit reluctantly. During visits, our family is allowed to embrace at the beginning and end. We can hold each others’ hands across the table. Julian and I are not allowed to kiss. But Julian would rather kiss his wife and be penalised than have that taken away from him too. So, we kiss.

George Webb

Why does Sanofi- Aventis spend billions and years to build the Wuhan Institute of Virology only to be thrown out when the pandemic starts? pic.twitter.com/uftyixwzRL

— George Webb – Investigative Journalist (@RealGeorgeWebb1) June 2, 2022

Norm McDonald

Norm Macdonald was a comedic genius.

In his final comedy special prior to his death, Norm, oh so subtly eviscerates Wokeness. pic.twitter.com/KdX2vikFic

— Mythinformed MKE (@MythinformedMKE) June 7, 2022

Secretary bird

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Neutrality

Mar 162022

March 16, 2022 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 5:45 pm Finance Tagged with: Lavrov, neutrality, octogenarian, peace, Pelosi, Putin, war crimes, Yeltsin, Zelensky 23 Responses »

John Atkinson Grimshaw A moonlit lane 1874

It’s almost slapstick that people call for Putin to be hauled before some international court for war crimes, but it’s true; they do. It tells you what you need to know about your media, and then some. Because, whether you know it or not, the last 4-5 America presidents have been responsible for the deaths of millions of people in Libya, Syria, Afghanistan etc etc. Just not in Ukraine. Wait, that’s probably not true either. The estimated 15,000 deaths in the Donbass over the past 8 years would likely never have happened without some US help.

And we just see it all as par for the course. The “peace” negotiations between Ukraine and Russia look hopeful, but are they? Russia has always been very clear in what it wants from Ukraine, and that goes back way longer than the start of the “special military operation” 3 weeks ago, or Maidan in 2014. It goes back at least to the fall of the Berlin wall, but it’s really much earlier than that. How about 1945, and then throw in Brzezinski, and Wolfowitz, and Kissinger, and why not Mackinder as well?

But don’t let’s make it a book. To simplify, stop at 1991, when Yeltsin became president of Russia, with an alleged 1000 CIA operatives in his Kremlin tow. The Americans thought they had it made. That the deal with Gorbachev, in which he OK’d German reunification on the condition that NATO boundaries would stop right there, no longer mattered. But in 2000 Yeltsin made Putin his successor. I like the notion that the west promoted Putin because they thought he would do exactly what they wanted. But I also like the more romantic version that Yeltsin installed Putin because he felt remorse over selling out his country, and thought Putin might correct that. Fast forward to the “peace” negotiations. What Russia wants is crystal clear. As Robert Barnes put it:

What we see today is they are discussing “neutrality”. But that can still mean different things. Apparently, Russia has suggested a Sweden or Austria status, but Ukraine doesn’t find that safe enough. The idea becomes that if you are truly neutral, why would you need an army? The world’s most neutral country ever, Switzerland still has “something”, as Swissinfo says: “The Swiss Army largely is a non-career militia. Switzerland has compulsory military service for male citizens, though this and indeed the role of the army altogether have recently been called into question.”

That seems close to what Russia would seek for Ukraine. But why can’t Ukraine decide its status for itself? Well, 1/ it was part of Russia for a very long time, 2/ a lot of Russians live in the country, 3/ Russia doesn’t want NATO on its welcoming mat, 4/ it has allowed US/NATO to use its territory for activities that Russia sees as threatening to itself. Like 30 biolabs. That sort of thing. Oh, and 5/ they share a border.

Both sides said today that the talks appear to go well, there’s room for compromise, and Zelensky said yesterday that Ukraine won’t join NATO. And then today he asks the US Congress (both chambers) for more guns and bombs and planes and also a no-fly-zone, though he knows, and everybody knows, that it would be an all-out war declaration, reaching far beyond the borders of Ukraine. And gets cheered for it. But how does he -and they- think that went down in Russia? How is that supposed to solve the problem, and to end the military operation? “We need your help to start WWII!”. This is Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined! Applause, applause!

In that speech, he was also addressing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of whom we had a clip earlier today, that really should also make you wonder: how do the Russians see this, or the Chinese? We have tons of clips from Joe Biden exhibiting very strange behavior, for everyone to see, and now this from the 2nd most powerful person in Washington?! At a moment in time when one -even mistaken- push of a button could unleash hell on earth, are you sure a couple of feeble octogenarians are the best people for the job?

Me 12 beers deep at happy hour explaining geopolitics pic.twitter.com/X4fYYhFaAd

— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) March 15, 2022

Seriously, I know that Americans see this as normal behavior, but you should really ask yourself how the rest of the world sees it. How is Nancy Pelosi’s performance in that clip not something that would scare the heebees out of you, if you’re in Beijing or Moscow, or any capital city for that matter? To put a dark view on it: why would she care about the future? It’s not hers…

Zelensky is hailed as a hero, because he’s an easy on the eye person that’s ideal for the part, But that is the problem: Zelensky is an actor who plays a hero. What the situation needs is not Zelensky or Pelosi or god forbid Joe Biden (he’s flying to Europe next week). Or, you know, Jake Sullivan or Victoria Nuland.

What it needs is people like Lavrov, maybe Jimmy Carter, statesmen, there must be some sane people left in the US. We need people who genuinely seek peace, not trigger happy neocons and warmongers, on either side, on whatever side.

I think neutrality is possible, even if the Americans won’t like it and Zelensky is their puppet, simply because it’s by far the best, and quite likely the only solution. No Nukes is easy; that was never an option. So is No NATO, as Zelensky himself has already conceded. The crux may be No Nazis. Because Russia will want to make sure of that, before they even think of leaving. Theoretically, Ukraine can maintain an army (of sorts), but that would still be likely to have Azov et al elements.

The only acceptable way -to Moscow- would then be to install a court and drag all the “nazis” in front of it. But that would take a very long time, and the Russians would have to stay in the country for the duration. I wonder how they think that Gordian knot can be cut.

As for the news about Russian soldiers firing at people waiting in line for bread, or shooting at a convoy of people fleeing a city, or bombing a theater where 100s of people were sheltering, look we only get western news. And Russians are doing propaganda too, no doubt, but we can’t see that anymore after their news channels were banned over here. Don’t believe a word you hear or see, without solid proof. Indiscriminate targeting of civilians and children does not appear to be their MO. They could have flattened the entire country in just 3 days if it was.

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Debt Rattle October 1 2021

Oct 012021

October 1, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:26 am Finance Tagged with: Assange, boosters, corruption, Durham, NSW, Pelosi, variants 69 Responses »

M. C. Escher Development II 1939

• Boosters Aren’t Effective Because They Target Viruses Previous Identity (DCP)

• The Impact Of Covid Vaccination On Alpha And Delta Variant Transmission (Mxiv)

• It’s A MYSTERY! -The Hell It Is (Denninger)

• Berejiklian Resigns As New South Wales Premier (Sky)

• NSW Threatens Jail Time For Unvaccinated Who Try to Enter Businesses (SN)

• Los Angeles Moves Toward Barring The Unvaccinated From Most Businesses (R.)

• Majority Of Americans Think Those Refusing Vaccine Should Not Lose Job (JTN)

• ‘Build Back Better’ Act Proposes To Increase Unvaxx Fines Ten Fold (SN)

• Progressive Democrats Derail Pelosi’s Planned Vote On Infrastructure Bill (JTN)

• Durham Issues Fresh Round Of Subpoenas (CNN)

• The News is America’s New Religion (Taibbi)

• Julian Assange Supporters Write To Scott Morrison Over Reported CIA Plot (Abc.au)

Rand Paul
https://twitter.com/i/status/1443677734383898631

Land of the free

Draymond gives his thoughts on Wiggins’ COVID-19 vaccination status pic.twitter.com/Ohi6gCyWPN

— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) September 30, 2021

“..Iceland, where 77% are vaccinated but cases are now 677 per-cent higher than a year ago. Norway is 66% vaccinated and cases are up 1.067 per-cent.”

• Boosters Aren’t Effective Because They Target Viruses Previous Identity (DCP)

Dr. Ryan Cole, a pathologist and a Mayo Clinic-trained medical expert said the so-called “vaccines” against COVID-19 aren’t really effective because they are made to address the virus as it previously was, not as it is now. “It’s because the coronavirus mutates,” Dr. Cole said when he was interviewed on the Steve Deace Blaze TV show online. Dr. Cole has dealt with thousands of COVID cases in recent months. Deace posed questions about the extremely inconsistent results from around the globe. For example, in Israel, 80% of adults are vaccinated, yet year-to-year cases are up 130% and deaths are up 56%. And in Iceland, where 77% are vaccinated but cases are now 677 per-cent higher than a year ago. Norway is 66% vaccinated and cases are up 1.067 per-cent. But in Malta, cases are down 10% from a year ago.

Cole explained that the inconsistencies and randomness come because the vaccine really isn’t a vaccine; it’s more of a “therapy.” Dr. Cole added, “A true vaccine would allow one to be immune. We’re not seeing that.” “What would be good is to implement are the drugs that shall not be named, as prevention protocols,” Cole explained. Deace then commented, “The government and its media allies have for more than a year now tried to suppress access to and information about products like Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine which have been shown to reduce the impact COVID-19. Dr. Cole responded, “With the existing programs to withhold treatments for COVID, and push ‘vaccines,’ both the vaccinated and unvaccinated get sick.” “Early treatments save lives in both of those groups,” he added.

Dr. Cole further explained, “The viral mutations, however, prevent any developed vaccine from being fully effective, because it was made to address a previous rendition of the bug.” “What we have done is obviously made a shot that was partially effective, but these boosters are the wrong protection for the wrong virus,” Cole added.

3 months. 12 weeks. Until your next shot.

• The Impact Of Covid Vaccination On Alpha And Delta Variant Transmission (Mxiv)

Background Pre-Delta, vaccination reduced transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from individuals infected despite vaccination, potentially via reducing viral loads. While vaccination still lowers the risk of infection, similar viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals infected with Delta question how much vaccination prevents onward transmission.

Methods We performed a retrospective observational cohort study of contacts of SARS-CoV-2-infected index cases using contact testing data from England. We used multivariable logistic regression to investigate the impact of index case and contact vaccination on transmission, and how this varies with Alpha and Delta variants (classified using S-gene detection/calendar trends) and time since second vaccination. Results 51,798/139,164(37.2%) contacts tested were PCR-positive. Two doses of BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1 vaccines in Alpha variant index cases independently reduced PCR-positivity in contacts (aOR, adjusted odds ratio vs. unvaccinated=0.18[95%CI 0.12-0.29] and 0.37[0.22-0.63] respectively).

The Delta variant attenuated vaccine-associated reductions in transmission: two BNT162b2 doses reduced Delta transmission (aOR=0.35[0.26-0.48]), more than ChAdOx1 (aOR=0.64[0.57-0.72]; heterogeneity p<0.001). Variation in viral load (Ct values) explained only a modest proportion of vaccine-associated transmission reductions. Transmission reductions declined over time since second vaccination, for Delta reaching similar levels to unvaccinated individuals by 12 weeks for ChAdOx1 and attenuating substantially for BNT162b2. Protection from vaccination in contacts also declined in the 3 months after second vaccination.

Conclusions Vaccination reduces transmission of Delta, but by less than the Alpha variant. The impact of vaccination decreased over time. Factors other than PCR-measured viral load are important in vaccine-associated transmission reductions. Booster vaccinations may help control transmission together with preventing infections.

“Clotshot indeed.”

• It’s A MYSTERY! -The Hell It Is (Denninger)

“During the summer there was a 25 per cent rise in the number of people rushed to the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Clydebank with partially blocked arteries cutting blood supply to the heart.”

C’mon jackasses — a 25% increase in one year? You know good and damn well that’s not environmental nor is it due to people’s lifestyles. Yes, lifestyle causes this in many cases but it takes decades to get you due to your lifestyle, not months or a year. What did we change in the subject population less than a year ago, and since this is now happening what leads you to believe it is a one-off?

Oh, this is largely in older people too. Which is exactly who the US Government, anyway, would like to see take the dirt nap since that cuts down Medicare expenses and, to the extent they wind up in nursing homes later, Medicaid expenses too if they have no money. Congratulations on increasing your odds of pulling the short straw — by a lot. Oh, and how many people have an occlusive heart attack at 42? Not many. This guy did — here in the US. DVT, heart attack and a PE at 42? Uh huh. You’re damned lucky you’re not dead and you and I both know damned well why it happened too. Clotshot indeed.

Some things you can’t make up. Gladys Berejiklian is possibly the worst face of all lockdowns. She resigns because of a corruption investigation. What corruption? I kid you not: She’s been accused of taking tens of millions from Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

• Berejiklian Resigns As New South Wales Premier (Sky)

Gladys Berejiklian has resigned as premier of New South Wales after it was revealed she is under investigation from ICAC. She will also step down as the member for Willoughby, which will trigger a by-election. “I have made it clear on numerous occasions that if any of my ministers were the subject of allegations being investigated by an integrity agency or law enforcement, then he or she should stand aside during the course of the investigation until their name was cleared,” Ms Berejiklian said. “The reason for my stance was not to have made any presumptions, as to their conduct, but rather to maintain the integrity of the public office which has held, which that person is held whilst an investigation was completed.

“That same standard must always apply to me also as the premier, however standing aside is not an option for me as the premier of New South Wales as the people of this state need certainty as to who the leader is during the challenging times of the pandemic. “I cannot predict how long it will take the ICAC to complete this investigation, let alone deliver a report in circumstances where I was first called to give evidence in a public hearing nearly 12 months ago. “Therefore, it pains me to announce that I have no option but to resign from the Office of Premier, my resignation will take effect as soon as the New South Wales Liberal Party can elect a new parliamentary leader in order to allow the new leader and government, a fresh start.”

Clive Palmer

#Australia (con't): So here is the massive bombshell from @CliveFPalmer at last week's press conference – implicating NSW corrupt dictator @GladysB mired in a corruption scandal while being directed by #BigPharma lobbyists to push their #vaccines. Banana Republic level stuff… pic.twitter.com/U2bqNN66gT

— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) September 22, 2021

Yeah, same state, same woman.

• NSW Threatens Jail Time For Unvaccinated Who Try to Enter Businesses (SN)

Authorities in New South Wales are threatening to jail Australians who don’t show a COVID-19 vaccination pass when they enter businesses. Yes, really. NSW Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello threatened people who he described as “fraudsters” with arrest if they try to enter premises with “fake vaccine passports” “If people want to do the wrong thing, if they get found out, as I said, it could be jail time there,” said Dominello. According to the report, people who also try to enter without showing anything will also be subject to arrest.

“Mr Dominello reiterated that those who refuse to show their vaccine status when entering shops, restaurants and other venues should be reported to the police,” reports News.com.au. Enforcing such a system may be problematic however, as the Police Commissioner of New South Wales recently asserted that his officers wouldn’t be checking medical papers. “The role of police in terms of vaccine passports, we will not be walking through restaurants, cafes and pubs checking if people are double vaccinated,” said Mick Fuller. We now face a two tier society where the unvaccinated are not only brazenly discriminated against, but actually thrown in prison if they try to engage in basic commerce or lifestyle activities.

People are planning to leave LA in droves. Businesses will follow.

• Los Angeles Moves Toward Barring The Unvaccinated From Most Businesses (R.)

Los Angeles officials on Wednesday signaled they would vote next week to prohibit unvaccinated people from entering most businesses in the United States’ second-largest city, one of the nation’s most severe crackdowns so far of the COVID-19 pandemic. All but one of the City Council members present on Wednesday said they supported the proposed “emergency” ordinance, which would require proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, bars, shopping centers, gyms and other indoor spaces. “I am sick and tired of yahoos going into Trader Joe’s (grocery store) refusing to wear a mask,” City Council member Paul Kerkorian said in angry remarks. “I am fed up with people who want to make this into such a politicized issue they have lost all semblance of civility in our society.”

If the proposal is approved next week, as expected, Los Angeles would join San Francisco and New York among major U.S. cities requiring proof of vaccination for indoor businesses. The new rule would take effect in November. Political leaders across the United States, led by Democratic President Joe Biden, have ratcheted up pressure on the unvaccinated in recent weeks. Laws requiring proof of vaccinations are deeply controversial in the United States, with many Americans criticizing them as unconstitutional and authoritarian. A majority of the Los Angeles City Council was prepared to vote in favor of the proof-of-vaccine measure on Wednesday. They were frustrated in that effort by council member Joe Buscaino, who, by withholding his vote, stood in the way of a so-called “unanimous consent.” Buscaino said the vaccine mandate could not be enforced, citing a report by the city’s Department of Building and Safety that it was not equipped to take on such a law enforcement role.

Impossible to even imagine a year ago, But here we are.

“..83.5% of Republican voters don’t want the unvaccinated to lose their jobs while 47.9% of Democrats feel the same way..”

• Majority Of Americans Think Those Refusing Vaccine Should Not Lose Job (JTN)

New polling on President Joe Biden’s federal vaccine mandate shows the majority of Americans do not think unvaccinated workers should lose their jobs. Convention of States Action released the poll Wednesday, which reports that 65% of surveyed voters “do not believe Americans should lose their jobs if they object to taking the COVID-19 vaccine.” The poll also found 22.2% believe those who refuse the mandate should lose their job, while 12.8% aren’t sure. The data comes as health care workers around the country have lost their jobs for refusing the vaccine, causing staffing problems in some hospitals. Under Biden’s rule, millions of more workers could be in the same position.

Feelings on the mandate differed significantly based on political affiliation. According to the poll, “63.6% of Independent voters do not believe Americans should lose their jobs if they object to taking the COVID-19 vaccine, while 15.5% believe they should, and 20.9% aren’t sure.” Those independents tend to be key swing voters targeted by both parties in election years. The poll found 83.5% of Republican voters don’t want the unvaccinated to lose their jobs while 47.9% of Democrats feel the same way. The mandate in question requires all federal employees and government contractors to be vaccinated. It also requires all businesses with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or test them weekly, among other new rules and guidelines released by the Biden administration earlier this month.

“This plan will ensure that we are using every available tool to combat COVID-19 and save even more lives in the months ahead, while also keeping schools open and safe, and protecting our economy from lockdowns and damage,” the White House said when announcing the mandate. Convention of States Action partnered with The Trafalgar Group to conduct the survey Sept. 17th through Sept. 19th. They queried 1,000 likely 2022 election voters. Biden already faces lawsuits over the requirement, and more than two dozen Republican governors have made clear their opposition to the vaccine mandate. The legal challenges and nationwide split on the federal order have set up a likely legal showdown that could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A different poll from the same group released earlier this month found that Americans support the Republican governors who oppose the mandate. The poll reported that 58.6% of those surveyed “do not believe President Biden has the constitutional authority to force private businesses to require vaccine mandates for employees.”

“..any business that refuses to mandate COVID vaccination will face financial ruin…”

• ‘Build Back Better’ Act Proposes To Increase Unvaxx Fines Ten Fold (SN)

Joe Biden’s so called “Build Back Better’ Act has included COVID as an occupational hazard, and proposes to increase fines for non-compliant companies by TEN TIMES, meaning they could face punishments of $700,000 per violation for employees who are not vaccinated. The Daily Mail reports that fines for “willful and repeated violation” of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) will increase from $70,000 for each violation to $700,000 under the $3.5 trillion spending legislation. The report also notes that serious violations will go up from $7,000 to $70,000, while repeated violations will mean fines of no less than $50,000 per violation, increased from $5,000.

Any business that does not address and correct the violation within an allocated time period will then be fined $70,000 PER DAY, up from $7,000. In other words, any business that refuses to mandate COVID vaccination will face financial ruin. Biden has decreed that any company with over 100 employees will be subjected to the mandate. As we have previously noted, around half of Americans are opposed to the mandate, with almost 60 per cent saying they do not believe Biden has the constitutional authority to enforce vaccine mandates. Biden’s commerce Secretary has claimed that ‘no one is being forced’ to take the vaccines, and that “There’s always been a choice” for workers to stay at home.

Tastes like a game.

• Progressive Democrats Derail Pelosi’s Planned Vote On Infrastructure Bill (JTN)

Progressive Democrats derailed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s planned vote on the Biden-backed $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on Thursday. Moderate House Democrats had pushed for a vote on the bipartisan Senate infrastructure bill as opposed to waiting for the completion of the Democrats’ final filibuster-proof budget reconciliation bill. To pass the framework in August for the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, Pelosi negotiated with moderate Democrats and had agreed to hold a vote on the Senate-passed infrastructure bill by Sept. 27. As of Thursday morning, Pelosi was not backing down from holding a vote on that bill, but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said later in the day that he was not confident the bill would pass alone.

Meanwhile, on the Senate side, West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin reiterated he would not vote for the $3.5 trillion reconciliation proposal and tartly rejected its level of spending on new public benefit programs as “fiscal insanity.” Manchin indicated that he would support some of the tax reform items in the bill. Ahead of the scheduled House vote on the infrastructure bill, many progressives had said they were ready to vote against it if a final $3.5 trillion filibuster-proof budget reconciliation bill wasn’t voted on first. House Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal said recently that progressives had enough votes to sink the infrastructure bill. This scenario played out on Thursday evening when the vote was delayed, prompting Pelosi to send out a “Dear Colleague” letter indicating that she was pressing the pause button on the infrastructure bill vote.

“It has been a day of progress in fulfilling the President’s vision to Build Back Better,” Pelosi wrote. “Thanks to so many members and staff, the work is being done. Discussions continue with the House, Senate and White House to reach a bicameral framework agreement to Build Back Better through a reconciliation bill. Many thanks to members of our caucus for your participation and patience over the past few days. The bipartisan infrastructure bill has already had its rule passed and its debate has concluded. All of this momentum brings us closer to shaping the reconciliation bill in a manner that will pass the House and Senate.”

CNN getting worried about Durham?

• Durham Issues Fresh Round Of Subpoenas (CNN)

Special Counsel John Durham has issued a new set of subpoenas, including to a law firm with close ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, an indication that Durham could be trying to build a broader criminal case, according to people briefed on the matter. So far, Durham’s two-year probe into the FBI’s Russia investigation hasn’t brought about the cases Republicans has hoped it would. The grand jury subpoenas for documents came earlier this month after Durham charged Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann with lying to the FBI in a September 2016 meeting. During that meeting, Sussmann handed over data purporting to show links between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank. That tip became part of the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election but the FBI ultimately couldn’t find evidence of a link.

In seeking additional documents from Sussmann’s former law firm, Perkins Coie, investigators from the special counsel’s office appear to be sharpening their focus on the Democratic political machinery during the 2016 campaign and efforts to tie Trump to Russia. Perkins Coie’s clients in 2016 included the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The law firm also hired on the campaign’s behalf a research company that commissioned the dossier from ex-British spy Christopher Steele that alleged that Trump was compromised by Russia. Durham has already accessed reams of the law firm’s records, such as billing records, meeting calendars and a log of documents that the firm protects under attorney-client privilege. Some of the newly sought-after documents have been guarded so far by attorney-client privilege.

Durham’s new subpoenas could lead to a court fight over privileged information and draw more about the Clinton campaign into the open. While working for Perkins Coie, Sussmann also represented Rodney Joffe, a cybersecurity expert referred to in Durham’s indictment as “Tech Executive-1.” In 2016, Joffe, who has not been previously identified, worked with researchers to collect internet data about the Trump Organization that Sussmann took to the FBI. Durham’s continued use of the federal grand jury in Washington, DC, signals that he could be interested in adding to Sussmann’s charges or bringing cases against additional defendants. Still, more than two years after being commissioned by then Attorney General William Barr to investigate whether federal authorities improperly targeted the Trump campaign, Durham has little to show for his efforts.

His special counsel probe, which has lasted longer than Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, has so far brought only two lying charges against little-known figures, including the case against Sussmann, who has pleaded not guilty. The results have underwhelmed Trump supporters who had hoped former top FBI and intelligence officials would be prosecuted for “spying” on Trump and his campaign. Already the scope of Durham’s probe has narrowed after Barr announced last year that investigators had found no wrongdoing by the CIA. Yet Durham has continued his investigation, largely in secrecy, working out of a non-descript office building near trendy Washington’s Union Market.

Feels a bit stale, Matt.

• The News is America’s New Religion (Taibbi)

News in America used to be fun to talk about, fun to joke about, interesting to think about. Now it’s an interminable bummer, because the press business has taken on characteristics of that other institution where talking, joking, and thinking aren’t allowed: church. We have two denominations, both as fact-averse as real churches, as is shown in polls about, say, pandemic attitudes, where Americans across the board consistently show they know less than they think. Surveys found a third of Republicans think the asymptomatic don’t transmit Covid-19, or that the disease kills fewer people than the flu or car crashes. But Democrats also test out atrociously, with 41% thinking Covid-19 patients end up hospitalized over half the time — the real number is 1%-5% — while also wildly overestimating dangers to children, the percentage of Covid deaths under the age of 65, the efficacy of masks, and other issues.

This is the result of narrative-driven coverage that focuses huge amounts of resources on the wrongness of the rival faith. Blue audiences love stories about the deathbed recantations of red-state Covid deniers, some of which are real, some more dubious. A typical Fox story, meanwhile, might involve a woman who passed out and crashed into a telephone pole while wearing a mask alone in her car. Tales of each other’s stupidity are the new national religion, and especially among erstwhile liberals, we take them more seriously than any religion has been taken in the smart set in a long, long time.

In the eighties we made celebrities out of televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, but none were believable as religious authorities. They were too interesting: they dressed like Vegas club acts, humped everything that moved, and had the enormous balls to stare at cameras and ask for money so the minister and his wife could be driving the right fully-loaded Caddy when Christ returned. By the Reagan years no one believed in miracles or divine retribution anyway, not even Catholics, whose priests had all read Nietzsche and would quietly concede the church’s whole act was a well-meaning metaphor, if cornered by an adult. (Their rap to kids was obviously different; insert your own joke here).

By the time Trump arrived, there was only one route left for media companies, who’d lost ad revenue to Internet platforms, to make money: putting content behind a paywall. Essentially, news companies passed a hat and asked for donations, just like churches. Also like churches, they began to sell belief instead of fact. They turned viewers and readers into congregationalists, people who’d be less interested in news than calls to spiritual battle. Fox had already proven this revenue model could work. In the Trump years, led by the New York Times — which lost other forms of income but went from 1.2 million digital subscribers in 2016 to 7.5 million in 2020 — the rest of the commercial media followed suit.

I hope they don’t expect an honest answer.

• Julian Assange Supporters Write To Scott Morrison Over Reported CIA Plot (Abc.au)

A group of prominent Australians have written to the Prime Minister, asking what the government knew about an alleged CIA plot to kill or kidnap WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London, the ABC can reveal. The members of the group, who all visited Assange in London, have also demanded the government reveal whether they were caught up in the US plot and if their lives, too, were ever at risk. The group of 21 lawyers, journalists, academics, and activists wrote to Scott Morrison after revelations in the US media this week the CIA had contemplated kidnapping or assassinating Assange and others in 2017 while the WikiLeaks founder was living in Ecuador’s London embassy.

One of the letter’s signatories, barrister Julian Burnside, who has been negotiating with Canberra to have Assange returned to Australia since 2012, said the new allegations of a planned assassination were of concern. “It’s one thing [for the government] to ignore an Australian overseas who’s in difficulty,” Mr Burnside said. “It’s altogether another to ignore an Australian overseas who may be murdered by another government, a government that is ostensibly an ally.” Another of the signatories, Melbourne lawyer Lizzie O’Shea, said: “Recent events suggest that we’re in a closer relationship with the US than ever before.” “I would like to think that doesn’t come at the expense of our citizens’ rights, and this [letter] is one test of whether that’s true.”

The letter is signed by prominent Australians including Jennifer Robinson, Scott Ludlam, Mary Kostakidis and Kathy Lette. All of them have visited Assange at one time or another. All are concerned they may have been caught up in US intelligence operations. “We wish to know what surveillance or monitoring we have been subjected to by the intelligence agencies of our allies, the United Kingdom and United States,” the letter, sent yesterday afternoon, states. “Were any of us placed on speculative kill lists? “We also believe we have a right to know whether the Australian government was informed or consented to our communications and movements being tracked.”

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