Jul 042023
 


Giovanni Strazza The Veiled Virgin, Carrera marble 1850s

 

Ukrainian Counteroffensive Running Out of Time – Russian Ex-General (Sp.)
Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Failing in All Directions – Shoigu (Sp.)
Russia Will Stop Ukraine Joining NATO One Way Or Another – Medvedev (RT)
Zelenskyy: Ukraine’s Membership In NATO Depends On Biden (Az.)
NATO Might Use ‘Nuclear Incident’ to Enter Ukrainian Conflict (Dergalin)
Ukraine Already Had Statehood Under USSR – Scholz (RT)
Erdogan Blames Failure Of Ukraine Peace Process On ‘War Lobby’ (RT)
Turkish Parliament Speaker: Sweden’s NATO Accession Bid A ‘Pipedream’ (TASS)
Head of US Space Command Comments on Russia, China Hypersonic Weapons (Sp.)
We Can’t Buy Chinese Arms – Ukrainian Defense Ministry (RT)
US Close to Providing Ukraine With Widely Banned Cluster Bombs (Antiwar)
NATO Admiral Tells Ukraine No Fighter Jets In Short Term (RT)
Why CIA and FBI Would Have Never Hired Joe Biden (Sp.)
Lies About Afghanistan. Lies About Iraq. And Lies About Ukraine. (Chris Hedges)
Biden’s 3am Moment in Ukraine (Scott Ritter)
Meta Set To Launch Twitter Rival On Thursday (Az.)

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

Maersheimer

 

 

 

 

Julian

 

 

 

 

Ukraine’s Only Option: All-In Offensive Before NATO Summit Next Week

Ukrainian Counteroffensive Running Out of Time – Russian Ex-General (Sp.)

Leonid Reshetnikov, a retired lieutenant general of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), told Sputnik that the second stage of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the battlefield is expected by the time the Vilnius summit opens in just ten days. According to him, the Kiev regime needs results in order to get decisions in favor of further arms and financial support, and even NATO membership. “Faced with limited options, the Kiev regime has no other choice but to press on. This next phase involves a comprehensive review of tactics and strategy, coupled with the deployment of previously untapped reserves,” he said. According to Reshetnikov, reports indicate the possibility of introducing new elements, such as major provocations, similar to when Ukrainians blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant.

“So far, that explosion hasn’t had the desired result. Perhaps something along those lines, including possibly related to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. They are building up tension in this regard. It is possible that it will be used for the offensive,” he stressed. This offensive is expected to be launched before the upcoming summit in Vilnius. The ongoing nationwide mobilization signals growing understanding that Kiev’s current forces may not be sufficient to achieve a breakthrough. “Such plans exist. But I repeat, their offensive is inevitable,” Reshetnikov noted. However, the primary objective for Ukraine remains to break through the Russian defense lines to reach the Sea of Azov and the border with Crimea, the expert noted.

“In the first stage, Ukrainian forces were unable to breach the initial line of Russian defenses. In response, the second stage is based on the hope that a protracted defense will exhaust the defenders psychologically and technologically,” he said. Reshetnikov likewise noted that the Ukrainian military is pursuing a strategy of sending inexperienced soldiers on frenzied attacks in a desperate bid to locate potential weak links in the Russian defense. m“However, the Russian defense lines have been fortified while, as far as we know, a significant part of the reserves have not been put in place. So the Ukrainian plans are very questionable,” he noted. The commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Valery Zaluzhny recently told Western media that it would be impossible to conduct an offensive without additional supplies of NATO ammunition and aircraft.

Reshetnikov believes that these statements serve a dual purpose: to garner increased Western support and to justify the lack of success so far. “Nevertheless, it is important to note that Western assistance, while valuable, cannot single-handedly alter the situation on the ground. Substantial and sustained assistance would be required to have a significant impact,” he said. In an attempt to explain Kiev’s shortcomings, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar has propagated the idea that Russian forces are conducting an offensive in four directions – Avdeyevka, Maryinka, Krasny Liman and Svatovo. However, Reshetnikov believes that this claim is purely a propaganda tactic to rationalize Ukrainian setbacks. “While Russian forces have adopted an active defense strategy that includes counterattacks and advances on enemy [Ukrainian] strongholds, these actions fall short of a full-fledged offensive. In the event of another failed counteroffensive, the Russian army may seize the opportunity to launch a counteroffensive of its own, taking advantage of a worn-out Ukrainian military,” he said.

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Shoigu is still in place.

Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Failing in All Directions – Shoigu (Sp.)

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday that the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive has not reached its goals in any of the directions of the military campaign. “In general, the enemy did not achieve its goals in any of the directions. This testifies to the skill of our fighters and clearly inflated expectations from the vaunted Western weapons,” Shoigu told top military officials. He also announced that Russian forces managed to destroy some 920 armored vehicles, including 16 Leopard tanks, in Donbass and in Zaporozhye regions last month. At the same time, Shoigu accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out strikes against civilian targets to make up for Kiev’s inability to attain success on the battlefield.

“Kiev is trying to compensate for its inability to ensure success on the ground through terrorist attacks on civilian targets and thus achieve a propaganda effect,” the Russian defense minister said. Last month, Ukrainian forces finally launched the “counteroffensive” that Kiev had been announcing for months. Despite committing significant numbers of troops and military hardware to this undertaking, Kiev has so far failed to breach even the first line of Russian defenses despite sacrificing hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and losing a considerable number of tanks and armored vehicles supplied by NATO countries. Shoigu has also addressed the events that transpired in Russia on June 23-25 involving the forces of PMC Wagner. “I cannot but touch upon one more issue … We are talking about an attempt on June 23-25 to destabilize the situation in Russia. These plans failed primarily because the personnel of the armed forces showed loyalty to the oath and military duty,” he said.

On Friday, June 23, forces of the Wagner Group (PMC) seized the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in the city of Rostov-on-Don following accusations leveled against the Russian Ministry of Defense of striking the group’s camps. Both the Russian military and the Federal Security Service denied the allegations. Later that day, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko revealed that he had spent the entire day negotiating with Yevgeny Prigozhin, as agreed upon with Russian President Vladimir Putin. As a result of the talks, the Wagner group leader accepted Lukashenko’s proposal to stop the movement of his troops in Russia and take measures to de-escalate the situation. Putin guaranteed that the Wagner group fighters would have the opportunity to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, return home, or move to Belarus.

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“The Kiev regime must be annihilated. Banned by law as a fascist entity in civilized Europe..”

Russia Will Stop Ukraine Joining NATO One Way Or Another – Medvedev (RT)

Russia demands that its security concerns regarding NATO are respected, but has neither the intention nor the capability to “contain” the US-led military bloc, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said. The official argued in a keynote article on Sunday against the notion that Russia miscalculated in its attempt to prevent NATO’s expansion into Ukraine, and caused Finland and Sweden to apply for membership. Both Nordic nations “were already in association with the alliance”, he noted. What Russia has always called for was “not to invite into NATO the former parts of our country. Especially those with which we have territorial disputes,” Medvedev wrote. He pledged that Russia will stop “the threat” of Ukraine joining the bloc “one way or another.” Since NATO members say that a nation cannot join while being engaged in an armed conflict, “the conflict [with Ukraine] will be permanent, because Russia’s existence is at stake,” he warned.

The article detailed Medvedev’s view of the hostilities in Ukraine in the context of a wider geopolitical confrontation. According to the Russian official, Western nations are clashing with the rest of the world in an attempt to preserve their hegemony. Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy head of the Russian Security Council, admitted to having a pessimistic view of where things are going. “One does not need to be a prophet to realize: this phase of confrontation will… last for decades,” he predicted. Medvedev believes that since Western nations have the goal of defeating a nuclear power, it could escalate into a civilization-ending outcome. “An apocalypse is not only possible, but quite probable,” he warned.

The only alternative is a painfully negotiated rearrangement of the global balance of power, under which Ukraine would not exist in its current form of an “anti-Russia,” he said. “The Kiev regime must be annihilated. Banned by law as a fascist entity in civilized Europe,” he declared. A rebalanced world order would require a new international treaty akin to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and likely an overhaul of the United Nations, Medvedev argued. The accords were a key element of the US-USSR detente, and outlined the signatories’ commitments to preserve peace, security and respect for human rights.

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“It’s so important to feel that you are really being around allies in the future..”

Zelenskyy: Ukraine’s Membership In NATO Depends On Biden (Az.)

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on US President Joe Biden to invite Ukraine into NATO “now” – even if membership does not come until after the war, Report informs referring to CNN. Zelenskyy noted that Biden was “the decision maker” about whether Ukraine would be in NATO or not. “He supports our future in NATO,” but an invitation now would be a huge motivator for Ukrainian soldiers, Zelenskyy said in an exclusive interview with CNN.Ukraine’s aspiration to join is enshrined in its constitution and its relationship with NATO dates back to the early 1990s, according to the alliance. NATO is due to hold a summit in Lithuania on July 11 and 12 where leaders are expected to discuss Ukraine’s membership.


“Now,” Zelenskyy said in response to a question about why not wait for an invitation. “It’s very important.” “It’s so important to feel that you are really being around allies in the future,” he added. Zelenskyy added that he understood that Ukraine would “never be in NATO before war finishes.” NATO stipulates that the settlement of territorial disputes is “a factor in determining whether to invite a state to join the Alliance.”

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If somethig happens to Zaporozhye NPP, we know who did it.

NATO Might Use ‘Nuclear Incident’ to Enter Ukrainian Conflict (Dergalin)

The Kiev regime’s Western bosses may be looking to capitalize on the predicament at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in order to further their own goals in the Ukrainian conflict, said Renat Karchaa, advisor to the chief executive of Rosenergoatom, the Russian nuclear power station operations subsidiary. As Karchaa explained in an interview with a Russian media outlet, the much-hyped Ukrainian “counteroffensive” has already run out of steam and “Ukraine’s Western masters” now realize that Kiev cannot prevail on the battlefield even with all the military assistance provided by NATO.

And since the West has already raised the stakes to the point where Kiev’s defeat would mean its own defeat as well, “aggressive Western politicians” are now mulling drastic options, such as a black op at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant that would result in a “nuclear incident” and create a legal pretext for NATO to directly enter the Ukrainian conflict, he suggested. According to Karchaa, this is why the West has recently been fixed on portraying Russia as a country capable of perpetrating an act of nuclear terrorism, with the international community ready to single out “the guilty party before the event takes place.” He also spotlighted the stepped-up activity by the Kiev regime forces in the vicinity of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, claiming that the number of Ukrainian troops in the area has risen considerably over the past month.

Ever since the Zaporozhye nuclear station came under Russia’s jurisdiction last year, Ukrainian forces have repeatedly shelled the facility while simultaneously blaming these attacks on Russia itself. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called for establishing a safety zone around the plant and condemned the shelling, though for some reason this organization has been reluctant to publicly identify the perpetrator of these attacks. The situation around the Zaporozhye station exacerbated following the terrorist attack carried out by the Kiev regime’s forces on the nearby Kakhovka Dam last month. The damage sustained by the dam resulted in a drastic decrease in water levels in the Kakhovka Reservoir, practically to the point of it drying up. In fact, the Zaporozhye facility obtained water for its coolant systems from that reservoir.

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Crimeans are predominantly Russian-speaking. Why try to rewrite history? It was the Vikings. No, the Romans…

Ukraine Already Had Statehood Under USSR – Scholz (RT)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said the Ukrainian state was already in existence while the country was still part of the Soviet Union. He also insisted that Crimea, which joined Russia after a referendum in 2014, has long been part of Ukraine. In an interview with Germany’s ARD TV channel on Sunday, the host read a question from a viewer to Scholz, asking “Who does Crimea belong to?” The German chancellor replied by saying: “Crimea has for a very, very long time belonged to Ukraine.” He added that “already in the days of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was an independent state with UN membership,” and said Russia left the USSR before Ukraine did. Following the end of World War II, the Ukrainian SSR along with the Belarusian SSR as part of the Soviet Union were among the founding members of the United Nations and a signatory of its charter back in 1945.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia de facto became the sole legal successor of the defunct country. As for Crimea, the predominantly Russian-speaking peninsula was handed over to the Ukrainian SSR by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev back in 1954. In 2014, however, a referendum was held in Crimea, where the vast majority of its residents voted in favor of rejoining Russia. The plebiscite, which has not been recognized by Ukraine, the US, the EU and most other countries, was preceded by a coup in Kiev. Many Crimeans had then begun to voice concerns that radical nationalists were attempting to forcibly impose the Ukrainian language and discriminate against local Russian speakers.

Scholz also commented on the ongoing military conflict between Ukraine and Russia during the interview. He said Germany would not provide Ukraine with long-range missiles for fear that Kiev could use them to strike targets on Russian soil, pointing to the fact that the Biden administration in the US has had similar reservations. Scholz hastened to add, however, that Germany is the “second-biggest supporter of Ukraine after the US,” pledging to keep backing Kiev for “as long as necessary.” The chancellor also reiterated that Ukraine would not be able to join NATO as long as it is locked in a military conflict with Russia. According to Scholz, officials in Kiev are also well aware of this prerequisite. At the same time, Germany, together with its partners, has been working on post-bellum security guarantees for Ukraine, Scholz said.

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They took his moment of relevance.

Erdogan Blames Failure Of Ukraine Peace Process On ‘War Lobby’ (RT)

Efforts to resolve the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev have been “obstructed and eroded by the war lobby,” Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed. The president made the remarks on Monday while speaking to reporters in Ankara following a cabinet meeting. “The diplomatic efforts, which were initiated with the Istanbul process and proceeded with captive exchanges, have unfortunately been obstructed and eroded by the war lobby,” Erdogan stated. The president claimed Türkiye itself had been targeted by said “war lobby,” without naming any precise culprits. If Türkiye’s peace efforts had succeeded early on in the conflict, most of the destruction could have been avoided, Erdogan explained.


Türkiye hosted peace talks between Moscow and Kiev shortly after hostilities broke out in February 2022. The negotiations culminated into a preliminary peace deal, which was initialed in Istanbul. However, Ukraine broke its promises after Moscow withdrew its forces from the immediate vicinity of Kiev, shortly after the deal was reached.Russian and Ukrainian representatives haven’t met at the negotiating table to discuss peace prospects since then. Moscow, however, maintains that it is ready to resolve the crisis through diplomatic efforts, while repeatedly blaming the collective West for pushing Kiev into a war “to the last Ukrainian.” The Ukrainian leadership, for its part, has explicitly prohibited itself from ever engaging in talks with Moscow while Russian President Vladimir Putin remains in power.

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Sweden, Ukraine, what’s the difference?

Turkish Parliament Speaker: Sweden’s NATO Accession Bid A ‘Pipedream’ (TASS)

Joining NATO is a pipedream for Stockholm, which has been reluctant to meet Ankara’s demands, Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Numan Kurtulmus said in an interview with the Milliyet newspaper, published on Monday. “There is a trilateral agreement [between Turkey, Sweden and Finland]. They will engage in provocative actions [even as they are] asking for us to approve their NATO membership [application]. Excuse me, but Turkey is a country that means what it says. Whatever it says and whatever it promises, it delivers; but, we would also like our opponents to stand by their word. Becoming a NATO member is a pipedream for Sweden, which has been failing to fulfill its promises,” Kurtulmus stressed.

He noted that “Turkey is facing strong pressure” over the NATO bid by Sweden, “which supports and harbors terrorist organizations.” “On the other hand, Turkey will not take a single step on the matter until its demands are met,” Kurtulmus added. On June 28, 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, then-Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg held talks ahead of the annual NATO summit in Madrid. The parties signed a memorandum enabling the accession of Stockholm and Helsinki to NATO. On March 31, 2023, the Turkish parliament passed a protocol approving Finland’s accession to NATO, after which the Nordic country formally joined the North Atlantic Alliance on April 4.

However, Turkish lawmakers refused to approve a similar protocol approving Sweden’s NATO membership, demanding that Stockholm implement all provisions of the Madrid memorandum related to fighting terrorism. Ankara has been strongly critical of Stockholm for allowing demonstrations by supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, an organization that is outlawed in Turkey, which have taken place in Sweden, as well as for incidents involving burning of the Quran.

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The US thinks hypersonics is a space program?!

Head of US Space Command Comments on Russia, China Hypersonic Weapons (Sp.)

Hypersonic weapons are advanced military technology that travel at extremely high speeds, reaching Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) or more. Russia has deployed hypersonic missiles, including the Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile and the Zircon anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile. General James Dickinson, head of the US Space Command, addressed the issue of hypersonic weapons from Russia and China in an interview with British media. “Obviously, we have seen demonstrations of hypersonic weapons by other countries, particularly China and Russia. We continue to explore this area in how we can minimize this type of threat,” Dickinson said.

Dickinson reportedly said that the Pentagon remains confident in its capabilities amid concerns that the US is falling behind China in the space race. The head of Britain’s Space Command, Air Commodore Paul Godfrey, for his part, told the media outlet that China could begin mining the moon and asteroids in the next few decades. “China has published a ‘White paper’ looking at the major minerals on the moon. They’ve already sent samples from the moon back to Earth. They just want to go further in that direction. Mining asteroids will be a reality in our lifetime,” Godfrey said. He added that China and Russia are investing “billions” in space exploration and building space weapons.

China’s lunar probe program, named Chang’e after the heroine of ancient Chinese myths, consists of three stages: a flight around an artificial Earth satellite, a landing on the Moon, and a return from the Moon to Earth. The first lunar satellite, Chang’e-1, was launched in 2007 and was operating until 2009. The data it collected allowed Chinese scientists to create the first thermal map of the Moon. In 2019, China launched the next phase of its lunar program, the first-ever landing on the dark side of the Moon. The landing platform and Yutu-2 lunar rover have successfully operated in uncharted territory for several months, and continue to explore the Moon. Yutu-2 discovered two types of lunar mantle rocks on the Moon the existence of which scientists had doubted.

On 24 November 2020, China launched the Chang’e-5 re-entry vehicle; on 1 December, it landed in a designated area on the visible side of the Moon; over the next two days, a drilling device and a manipulator with a bucket attached to the lander collected lunar soil, which was placed in a special compartment for take-off. The whole mission lasted 23 days. The Chang’e 5 spacecraft delivered 1,731 grams of lunar samples back to Earth. It was the first lunar soil probe in 44 years. China was the third country to carry out such a mission, after the United States and the Soviet Union.

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Buy? With whose money?

NOTE: “..the ‘axis of evil’ – Russia, Iran and other similar nations. ”

We Can’t Buy Chinese Arms – Ukrainian Defense Ministry (RT)

Kiev does not buy Chinese weapons to avoid irritating the US, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Vitaly Deinega has claimed. The official made the comments while discussing the importance of drones in modern warfare. “As far as it was explained to me… we cannot buy anything Chinese so as not to hurt our relationship with the US,” Deinega told Ukrainian news outlet Leviy Bereg on Monday. The official was discussing the use of Chinese-made DJI Mavic quadcopters by Ukrainian troops. Kiev’s forces have the aircraft “in large quantities” but rely on purchases by volunteers for supplies, because “there is the position that the Defense Ministry cannot procure them,” Deinega explained.

He admitted that Russia currently has a drone advantage against Ukraine, but claimed that the situation would eventually change. “Every day we’ll get some new kind of drones. Let’s see what we’ve acquired in the year and a half of the war: naval drones, ground drones,” Deinega stated. He insisted that drones will be a key factor in future combat and that Ukraine will serve as a source of innovation for the West. “[In future] we and the Russians will have the same difference that we have in military vehicles” Deinega said, suggesting that the Western hardware provided to Kiev was superior to what Moscow has at its disposal. “Western drones will be more expensive than the drones of the ‘axis of evil’ – Russia, Iran and other similar nations.

They will be more expensive, more technologically advanced and precise,” Deinega said. Reports have claimed that the fear of reprisals from Washington prompted the government of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to torpedo the sale of manufacturing giant Motor Sich to Chinese investors. The Soviet-era military helicopter engine maker had been slated for a sale to foreign buyers for years, although the Ukrainian security services opposed the move. Kiev sanctioned Motor Sich’s potential Chinese buyers in January 2021, blocking the transfer of assets and the possibility of managerial control. It nationalized the company one year later, while long-time Motor Sich chief Vyacheslav Boguslaev was arrested for alleged dealings with Russia last October.

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They simply have tons of the stuff lying around that they are not allowed to use.

US Close to Providing Ukraine With Widely Banned Cluster Bombs (Antiwar)

The US is moving closer to sending widely-banned cluster bombs to Ukraine as the Biden administration is pushing Congress to put aside concerns about the harm the munitions cause to civilians, The Washington Post reported Saturday. The report said senior Biden administration officials have recently contacted Congress to make the case that cluster munitions are needed on the battlefield in Ukraine. Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer contacted members of Congress to gauge how they felt about sending the bombs. US officials told the Post that the White House was previously opposed to sending cluster bombs to Ukraine but is now reviewing the position.

The State Department was also opposed to the idea, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken has withdrawn his objection. Last week, a Pentagon official told Congress that Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM), a cluster munition with several variants, including a 155mm artillery round, would be useful for Ukraine on the battlefield. “Our military analysts have confirmed that DPICMs would be useful, especially against dug-in Russian positions on the battlefield,” Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, told the House Armed Services Committee.

Cluster bombs scatter small submunitions over large areas, making them especially hazardous to civilians who can find them years after they were dropped. Cluster munitions and other unexploded American bombs have killed and maimed civilians in Vietnam and Laos for decades after the Vietnam War. Because of their indiscriminate nature, cluster munitions have been banned by more than 100 nations. The US, Ukraine, and Russia are not parties to the treaty, known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Both sides in the current conflict in Ukraine have reportedly used cluster bombs, and Kyiv was using them against populated areas of Donestk in the Donbas war going back to 2014.

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“..the country has “an advantage” over Moscow thanks to its Western weapons and training..”

NATO Admiral Tells Ukraine No Fighter Jets In Short Term (RT)

Ukraine will not receive Western fighter jets for its current counter-offensive and will have to make do without them, the chairman of NATO’s military committee said, citing the lengthy training required for pilots and problems with logistics. Speaking to Britain’s LBC radio station for an interview on Monday, Admiral Rob Bauer, who heads the military committee as NATO’s most senior military official, said that discussion about fighter jets for Kiev must wait until after its ongoing offensive operation. “The discussion on the fighters is an important one, but it will not be solved in the short term for this counter-offensive,” he said. “Training those pilots, training the technicians, making sure there is a logistic organization that can actually sustain these aircraft will not be available before this counter-offensive.”

Though Bauer claimed Ukraine was in “an existential fight,” he went on to argue that the country has “an advantage” over Moscow thanks to its Western weapons and training. Still, he insisted Kiev’s supporters “shouldn’t mix” discussion about the counter-offensive and Ukraine’s requests for fighter jets, suggesting such transfers are simply not possible at the moment. While Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has repeatedly urged Western powers to hand over their war planes, only a small number of sponsors have agreed to do so, with Poland and Slovakia authorizing transfers of Soviet-era MiG fighters.

To date, Washington has denied demands for F-16s, citing availability issues as well as fears the weapons could escalate direct hostilities with Russia. However, US officials have backtracked after refusing to supply other weapons, including the Patriot missile defense system and the M1 Abrams main battle tank, and the Pentagon has already started training Ukrainian pilots on American planes. Germany and the UK have also rejected calls for fighter jets, though Britain has authorized the transfer of Storm Shadow missiles to Kiev, the longest-range munitions provided to Ukraine so far. London has also stated it is willing to partner with a “coalition” of states to supply fighter jets, though Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said the project is “not a straightforward thing,” pointing to training and logistics hurdles.

Ukraine launched its counter-offensive in early June, but the bulk of its attacks have been repelled with significant losses, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. President Zelensky has acknowledged the operations are moving “slower than desired” due to “tough resistance” from Russian forces, but military officials have maintained that large numbers of reserve troops have yet to be deployed. Late last month, senior Zelensky aide Mikhail Podoliak accused Ukraine’s Western patrons of being too slow with their weapons deliveries, claiming that had allowed Moscow to set up formidable defenses.

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Cause he’s a crook.

Why CIA and FBI Would Have Never Hired Joe Biden (Sp.)

If Joe Biden weren’t the US president he would have been unable to get a security clearance given the scale of scandals and ethical conflicts haunting his family, according to Just the News, an independent media outlet founded by award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon. The media outlet cited former CIA analyst and National Security Council chief of staff Fred Fleitz and retired FBI Assistant Director for Intelligence Kevin Brock, who said that neither of the federal agencies would have hired Joe “because there would be the concern that he might be compromised.” “Anyone who wants to become an FBI agent has to pass a polygraph specifically designed to determine if the applicant has any compromising entanglements with a hostile foreign power,” Brock told the media outlet. “If Joe applied and said he had none, the machine might not recover. The closest he’d come to being an agent are those aviator sunglasses.”

Over the past several months, Republican lawmakers have been focusing on Biden’s alleged wrongdoing, including uncorroborated bribery accusations, mishandling of classified memos, alleged involvement in his son’s money-peddling schemes, as well as making a false claim together with his 2020 campaign of his son’s laptop being “Russian disinformation” to sway an election. “There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant,” Biden said during his second and final 2020 presidential debate with Donald Trump. “Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except his good friend Rudy Giuliani.” However, in April, former Deputy Director of the CIA Mike Morell told US lawmakers it was Biden’s campaign operative Antony Blinken who asked that the infamous “laptop from hell” be smeared.

The laptop was later proven to be real. US conservatives lament the fact that regardless of the aforementioned accusations and emerging damning evidence, Joe Biden not only managed to win the 2020 presidential elections, but is now seeking re-election together with Vice President Kamala Harris, both being backed by the US Democratic Party. In addition, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) appears to shield the Biden family, according to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley. Shapley claimed that US Attorney David Weiss, who was assigned to carry out an investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter, said that he had been told by the DoJ that he could not bring charges against Hunter in California and Washington DC. An anonymous source quoted by the New York Times confirmed Shapley’s claim. Previously, Attorney General Merrick Garland insisted that Weiss had full authority to conduct the probe thus justified his decision not to appoint a special counsel in Hunter’s case.

In a Friday letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Weiss wrote that he had “ultimate authority” over the DoJ’s Hunter Biden investigation and was in charge of “deciding where, when, and whether to file charges” against the first son. However, author and investigative journalist Miranda Devine has drawn attention to the fact that Weiss acknowledged in his letter that his “charging authority is geographically limited to my home district,” and that, if he needs to charge in another district, he has to ask the respective US attorney if the latter wants to partner on the case. She recalled that Shapley specifically noted that US Attorney Matthew Graves in Washington, DC, declined to cooperate with Weiss and bring charges against Hunter for the 2014 and 2015 tax years. Likewise, US Attorney Martin Estrada in California declined to partner on Hunter’s case concerning his alleged tax crimes for the 2016–2019 years. “None of those charges ever were laid,” Devine wrote in her recent op-ed, suggesting that this fact indirectly shows that in reality Weiss did not have “full” authority over Hunter Biden’s case, contrary to AG Garland’s assertions.

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“First, equipping our friends on the front lines to defend themselves is a far cheaper way — in both dollars and American lives — to degrade Russia’s ability to threaten the United States..”

Lies About Afghanistan. Lies About Iraq. And Lies About Ukraine. (Chris Hedges)

The playbook the pimps of war use to lure us into one military fiasco after another, including Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Ukraine, does not change. Freedom and democracy are threatened. Evil must be vanquished. Human rights must be protected. The fate of Europe and NATO, along with a “rules based international order” is at stake. Victory is assured. The results are also the same. The justifications and narratives are exposed as lies. The cheery prognosis is false. Those on whose behalf we are supposedly fighting are as venal as those we are fighting against. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a war crime, although one that was provoked by NATO expansion and by the United States backing of the 2014 “Maidan” coup which ousted the democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Yanukovych wanted economic integration with the European Union, but not at the expense of economic and political ties with Russia. The war will only be solved through negotiations that allow ethnic Russians in Ukraine to have autonomy and Moscow’s protection, as well as Ukrainian neutrality, which means the country cannot join NATO. The longer these negotiations are delayed the more Ukrainians will suffer and die. Their cities and infrastructure will continue to be pounded into rubble. But this proxy war in Ukraine is designed to serve U.S. interests. It enriches the weapons manufacturers, weakens the Russian military and isolates Russia from Europe. What happens to Ukraine is irrelevant.

“First, equipping our friends on the front lines to defend themselves is a far cheaper way — in both dollars and American lives — to degrade Russia’s ability to threaten the United States,” admitted Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. “Second, Ukraine’s effective defense of its territory is teaching us lessons about how to improve the defenses of partners who are threatened by China. It is no surprise that senior officials from Taiwan are so supportive of efforts to help Ukraine defeat Russia. Third, most of the money that’s been appropriated for Ukraine security assistance doesn’t actually go to Ukraine. It gets invested in American defense manufacturing. It funds new weapons and munitions for the U.S. armed forces to replace the older material we have provided to Ukraine. Let me be clear: this assistance means more jobs for American workers and newer weapons for American servicemembers.”

Once the truth about these endless wars seeps into public consciousness, the media, which slavishly promotes these conflicts, drastically reduces coverage. The military debacles, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, continue largely out of view. By the time the U.S. concedes defeat, most barely remember that these wars are being fought. The pimps of war who orchestrate these military fiascos migrate from administration to administration. Between posts they are ensconced in think tanks — Project for the New American Century, American Enterprise Institute, Foreign Policy Initiative, Institute for the Study of War, The Atlantic Council and The Brookings Institution — funded by corporations and the war industry. Once the Ukraine war comes to its inevitable conclusion, these Dr. Strangeloves will seek to ignite a war with China. The U.S. Navy and military are already menacing and encircling China. God help us if we don’t stop them.

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Trump called at least twice with intel that saved many Russian lives.

Biden’s 3am Moment in Ukraine (Scott Ritter)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the press a day after the Prigozhin mutiny: “We always prepare for every contingency in terms of what happens in Russia. It’s an internal matter for the Russians to figure out. Of course, when we’re dealing with a major power, and especially a major power that has nuclear weapons, that’s something that’s of concern, something we’re very focused on. We haven’t seen any change in Russia’s nuclear posture. There hasn’t been any change in ours, but it’s something we’re going to watch very, very carefully.” Biden, a day after Blinken spoke, gave his own public statement, declaring that he had been in constant contact with U.S. allies to coordinate their response regarding the Prigozhin insurrection. Biden’s priority, it seemed, was to make sure no one pointed any fingers at the U.S.

“{W]e had to make sure we gave Putin no excuse,” Biden said, “to blame this on the West, to blame this on NATO. We made clear that we were not involved, that we had nothing to do with it. This was part of a struggle within the Russian system.” The man Biden tapped to send the signal to Russia and its leader was C.I.A. Director William Burns, who called Sergei Naryshkin, the director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, to make clear that the U.S. was not involved in the Prigozhin affair. But Burns’ claims ring false. The U.S. intelligence community, by its own admission, had extremely detailed intelligence about what Prigozhin planned to do, including the scope and scale of the involvement of the Wagner mercenaries he commanded, where they intended to go, what they intended to do, and when they intended to do it.

The U.S. intelligence community expected the results of this action to be “bloody.” According to Blinken, the U.S. was concerned about Russia’s nuclear weapons. And apparently there was a Russian nuclear weapons storage facility in the line of march of the Wagner fighters heading to Moscow. Moreover, the Russians had to be wondering why Burns was informing them of this after the fact. In 2017 and 2019, Trump had U.S. intelligence pass on to Russia information about possible terrorist attacks, which ended up saving scores, if not hundreds, of Russian lives. In June of 2023, Biden had intelligence about a pending violent insurrection which could have put Russia’s nuclear weapons, and the world, at risk. Biden opted not to share this information with Russia.

America’s silence speaks volumes. As Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian President who currently serves as the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia (Putin is chairman) noted, “The development of events shows that the actions of those who organized the military rebellion [of Prigozhin and Wagner] fully fit into the scheme of a staged coup d’état. The world will be brought to the brink of destruction, if the nuclear weapons are in the hands of bandits, the crisis will not be limited to one country.” In June, Biden was confronted with the ultimate “3 am phone call” moment. He could have made a phone call which could have helped reduce the threat of a nuclear crisis or worse, a nuclear war. He didn’t make the call.

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Data scraping Zuck style.

Meta Set To Launch Twitter Rival On Thursday (Az.)

Facebook owner Meta is launching its new app to rival Twitter and says it will go live on Thursday, Report informs, citing Yahoo. Screengrabs show a dashboard that looks similar to Twitter. Meta describes Threads as a “text-based conversation app”. The move is the latest in a rivalry between Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter owner Elon Musk. It appears from Meta’s Threads app that it will be a free service – and there will be no restrictions on how many posts a user can see. “Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” the description on the App Store says.

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Ursula

 

 


Richard Hirschman @r_hirschman I never claimed to be a doctor or scientist, I am an embalmer. I have been only sounding an alarm about what I am seeing! I can only say that this is not normal. In the 20 years prior to 2021 I never seen anything like this. Something is causing this, and I see it often.

 

 

Bird Talk

 

 

Cat birdies
https://twitter.com/i/status/1675969807663939585

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jun 202023
 
 June 20, 2023  Posted by at 9:11 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  82 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Fishing Boats on the Beach at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer 1888

 

We Need a Peace President (Ron Paul)
Blinken Says US Does Not Support Taiwan Independence (JTN)
Beijing Tells US To Respect ‘One China’ Policy (RT)
Future Of Humanity Depends On China-US Relations – Xi (RT)
Scholz: West Should ‘Brace’ Itself For Prolonged Conflict In Ukraine (TASS)
Biden Warns Of ‘Real’ Nuclear Threat (RT)
Greater Eurasian Partnership Becomes Russia’s Flagship Project – Lavrov (TASS)
BRICS Expansion, De-Dollarization and ‘Decline of US Empire’ (Tweedie)
Kiev Reportedly Can’t Account for ‘Hundreds of Millions’ in Weapons (Reed)
EU Wants to Mandate Arms Makers to Prioritize Orders for Ukraine
German Armor Too Wide To Transport – Bild (RT)
BlackRock, JP Morgan Set Up ‘Reconstruction Bank’ For Ukraine (HE)
Strange Days (James Howard Kunstler)
The New World War On Free Speech (Shellenberger)
Juneteenth, The Day Republicans Freed All The Democrats’ Slaves (BBee)

 

 

Rand Paul
https://twitter.com/i/status/1670604730794401793

 

 

 

 

Putin OUN

 

 

Lavrov Germany
https://twitter.com/i/status/1670747070372691969

 

 

Results of the counteroffensive …

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..we desperately need a peace president to do for us what JFK did for the US during the Cuba crisis..”

We Need a Peace President (Ron Paul)

Most people agree that we are closer to nuclear war than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Some would even argue that we are closer now than we were in those fateful days, when Soviet missiles in Cuba almost triggered a nuclear war between the US and the USSR. In those days we were told that we were in a life-or-death struggle with Communism and thus could not cede a square foot of territory or the dominoes would fall one-by-one until the “Reds” ruled over us. That crisis was very real to me, as I was drafted into the military in the middle of the US/USSR standoff over Cuba and we could all feel how close we were to annihilation. Fortunately, we had a president in the White House at the time who understood the dangers of nuclear brinkmanship.

Even though he was surrounded by hawks who could never forgive him for aborting the idiotic Bay of Pigs Cuba invasion, President John F. Kennedy picked up the telephone for a discussion with his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, which eventually saved the world. Historians now tell us that President Kennedy agreed to remove US missiles from Turkey in exchange for the Soviets removing missiles from Cuba. It was a classic case of how diplomacy can work if properly employed. It is all too clear that we do not have a John F. Kennedy in the White House today. Although we no longer face a Soviet empire and communist ideology as justification for taking a confrontational tone toward Russia, the Biden Administration is still dragging the US toward a nuclear conflict. Why are they putting us all at risk?

The same old “domino theory” that was discredited in the Cold War: If we don’t fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian, Putin will soon be marching through Berlin. This all started with Biden promising to only send uniforms and medical supplies to Ukraine for fear of sparking a Russian retaliation. From there we went to anti-tank missiles, multiple-rocket launchers, Patriot missiles, Bradley fighting vehicles, and millions of rounds of ammunition. The Biden Administration announced last week that it would send depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine, which poisons the earth for millennia to come. Rumors are that long-range ATACMs missiles are to be delivered soon, which could strike deep into Russia. Apparently, F-16 fighter jets are also on the way.

The escalation rationale from Washington, we are told, is that since the Russians have not directly retaliated against NATO for NATO’s direct support of Ukraine’s war machine, we can be sure they never will respond. Is that really a wise bet? It is clear to many that US-built F-16 fighters taking off from NATO bases with NATO pilots attacking Russians in Ukraine – or even Russia itself – would be a declaration of war on Russia. That means World War III – something we managed to avoid for the whole Cold War. Congress is silent – or compliant – as we lurch forward toward disaster for no discernable US strategic goal. Biden – or whoever is actually running the show – is forging straight ahead. As we move into the US presidential election cycle one thing is clear: we desperately need a peace president to do for us what JFK did for the US during the Cuba crisis. Hopefully it won’t be too late!

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“About 50% of the global commercial container traffic… goes through the Taiwan Strait every day,” Blinken remarked, including the vast majority of “high-end semiconductors.”

Blinken Says US Does Not Support Taiwan Independence (JTN)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a press conference Monday that the U.S. does not support Taiwan independence. “We do not support Taiwan independence,” Blinken said. “We remain opposed to any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side. We continue to expect the peaceful resolution of cross strait differences. We remain committed to continuing our responsibilities under the Taiwan Relations Act including making sure Taiwan has the ability to defend itself.” Blinken made clear that the U.S. does have some concerns about China and what its actions could have on the world. “At the same time, we and many others have deep concerns about some of the provocative actions that China has taken in recent years going back to 2016,” he continued, according to Fox News.


“And the reason that this is a concern for so many countries, not just the United States, is that were there to be a crisis over Taiwan, the likelihood is that could produce an economic crisis that could affect quite literally the entire world.” Blinken wrapped up his meeting with China President Xi Jinping and summarized it as “candid” and “constructive,” but admitted to “profound differences” as the two nations seek to repair “unstable” relations with each other. He said during an interview with NPR that it was important to maintain peace with the nation that China treats as its own. Taiwan is a massive contributor to the global trade market. “About 50% of the global commercial container traffic… goes through the Taiwan Strait every day,” Blinken remarked, including the vast majority of “high-end semiconductors.” “If either of those things were taken offline as a result of a crisis, it could have devastating consequences for the global economy,” he continued.

Blinken Taiwan

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Where Blinken got his talking points.

Beijing Tells US To Respect ‘One China’ Policy (RT)

The US should respect the One China principle and stop supporting Taiwan’s push for independence from Beijing, Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi has told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “China has no room to compromise or concede” on the status of Taiwan, Wang told Blinken during a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing on Monday. “The US must truly adhere to the One China principle… respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and clearly oppose ‘Taiwan independence’,” the director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission office of the Chinese Communist Party was quoted by local media as saying. Washington’s support for sovereignty in Taiwan, a self-governed island of 23.5 million which Beijing views as part of its territory, has been among the issues aggravating tensions between China and the US in recent years.

According to Wang, bilateral relations have now reached “a critical juncture.” He told Blinken that Washington needs to make a choice “between dialogue or confrontation, cooperation or conflict” with Beijing. “We must take a responsible attitude toward the people, history and the world, and reverse the downward spiral of US-China relations,” he said. China’s top diplomat also called upon the Biden administration to stop making threats towards Beijing and abandon its “suppression” of Chinese scientific and technological development. According to the US State Department, Blinken stressed the importance of “responsibly managing the competition” between the US and China “through open channels of communication to ensure competition does not veer into conflict.”

He also told Wang that Washington will “continue to use diplomacy to raise areas of concern and stand up for the interests and values of the American people.” Blinken is the first US secretary of state to visit Beijing in five years. His trip was initially scheduled to take place in February, was postponed due to the so-called “spy balloon” incident. Washington claimed it shot down a Chinese surveillance aircraft over its territory, while Beijing said it was merely a weather balloon, which had strayed into American airspace by accident. Following his meeting with Wang, Blinken held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping. His two-day visit also included negotiations with China’s recently appointed Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Sunday.

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“The international community [..] doesn’t want to choose sides in the event of a conflict..”:

Future Of Humanity Depends On China-US Relations – Xi (RT)

Stable relations between China and the US are vital for the international community, which doesn’t want to choose sides between the two countries, Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing on Monday. “Planet Earth is big enough to accommodate the respective development and common prosperity of China and the US,” Xi told Blinken, according to a statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The Chinese leader said that the world is interested in “generally stable” ties between Beijing and Washington, because “whether the two countries can find the right way to get along bears on the future and destiny of humanity.” The international community expects China and the US to “coexist in peace and have friendly and cooperative relations,” and doesn’t want to choose sides in the event of a conflict, Xi stated.

The Chinese president argued that competition with Beijing would not help Washington to solve America’s domestic problems or the challenges currently facing the world. “China respects US interests and does not seek to challenge or displace the US,” Xi stressed, adding that Beijing expects the same approach from the Biden administration. Xi called on the US to adopt a rational and pragmatic attitude towards China, and to jointly work on improving ties and making the global situation more stable. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Blinken had assured Xi during their 35-minute talk that the US does not seek conflict or a new Cold War with Beijing, and has no intention of trying to change China’s political system.

Washington expects to continue high-level engagement with Beijing, while keeping lines of communication open and managing differences responsibly, the top US diplomat said, according to the Chinese statement. Blinken is the first US secretary of state to meet Xi since 2018. He was initially scheduled to arrive in Beijing in early February, but the trip was postponed due to the so-called “spy balloon” scandal. The US claimed it had shot down a Chinese surveillance aircraft over its territory, while China insisted that the object was a weather balloon which had strayed into American airspace by accident. The two-day visit by Blinken also included a meeting with Beijing’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, earlier on Monday, as well as talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Sunday.

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“However, it’s obvious that NATO will not become a party to the conflict.”

Scholz: West Should ‘Brace’ Itself For Prolonged Conflict In Ukraine (TASS)

The West should adjust its policy with the expectation that the Ukraine conflict may go on for an indefinite period of time German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday. “We have to brace ourselves that the Russian [special military operation] act could last for a long time,” German Chancellor Scholz said speaking at a joint news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg “This is what we are preparing for and this is what we are orienting our policy toward,” Scholz told Stoltenberg. “Germany will continue to be a staunch supporter of Ukraine as long as it takes,” Scholz continued. “However, it’s obvious that NATO will not become a party to the conflict.”

On June 14, the German government has adopted the country’s first ever National Security Strategy, which enshrines the main principles and measures to counter potential external threats to the state in the coming years. “The determining factor” of the document’s development was Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the “Zeitenwende” or “tipping point,” as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it. The German government enshrined its NATO commitments and decided to increase defense spending by twp percent of GDP. “We express our strong commitment to NATO and the EU and strengthen the Bundeswehr (the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Germany) to meet the primary objective of national and alliance defense (of two percent),” the document said.

It pointed out that the authorities planned to reach the two-percent increase in defense spending in the term of “over several years.” “We will strengthen our security in cyberspace and space,” the document stressed. In addition, the German government said that it will reduce dependence on energy and raw materials supplies and work on their diversification. “We will reduce unilateral dependency on the supplies of raw materials and energy resources by diversifying them. We will work together with our businesses to promote raw materials projects, including creating strategic stockpiles,” the document said. The German authorities also added that they sought to expand national food, energy, and medicine reserves. The document included as well plans to overpass a law aimed at protecting critical infrastructure facilities.

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“Before blaming others, Washington could use some introspection.”

Biden Warns Of ‘Real’ Nuclear Threat (RT)

President Joe Biden has claimed there is a “real” threat that Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons, soon after the Kremlin announced that it would station some of its arsenal in a friendly neighboring state. Speaking to a group of donors in California on Monday, Biden suggested that Russia’s moves in Belarus could be a sign that it is preparing to use its smaller-yield tactical nukes, despite recent comments from the White House acknowledging no “imminent indication” of any such attack. “When I was out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado river drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy,” he said, adding “They looked at me like when I said I worry about [Russian President Vladimir] Putin using tactical nuclear weapons. It’s real.”

The statement came after the president slammed Russia’s upcoming deployments as “totally irresponsible” over the weekend. He previously told reporters he felt “extremely negative” about the decision. Moscow and Minsk finalized an agreement on hosting tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory last month. According to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, the atomic warheads will be mounted on Iskander-M missiles and fighter jets specifically modified for the purpose. Russia first revealed that talks for the deployments were underway in March, and said the decision was a response after Britain supplied depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine last year. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko that “everything is going according to plan,” adding that preparations for the missiles would be completed by July.

Responding to critical reactions from US officials, the Russian Embassy in the United States previously accused Washington of hypocrisy on the issue, pointing to some 150 American nuclear missiles stationed across Western Europe and Türkiye. “The United States has been for decades maintaining a large arsenal of its nuclear weapons in Europe. Together with its NATO allies it participates in nuclear-sharing arrangements and trains for scenarios of nuclear weapons use against our country,” it said, adding “Before blaming others, Washington could use some introspection.”

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Building a formidable bloc.

Greater Eurasian Partnership Becomes Russia’s Flagship Project – Lavrov (TASS)

Building support for the Greater Eurasian Partnership project could be seen as the flagship project of Russia’s foreign policy, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. “Our flagship foreign political project is to [build] support for the concept of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. What we’re talking about is facilitating the objective process of forming a broad integrative configuration that is open for all countries and associations across our vast continent. Practical steps are already being made [in this direction],” Lavrov said.


These include the processes of interlinking the complementary development plans of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, expanding interaction within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with the involvement of SCO observer states and dialogue partners, strengthening the strategic partnership between Russia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and establishing working contacts among the executive bodies of the EAEU, SCO and ASEAN, the foreign minister noted. “Among the concrete deliverables [of these processes] we envision the provision of mutually beneficial, interlinking infrastructure and the creation of a continent-wide architecture of peace, development and cooperation throughout Greater Eurasia,” Lavrov added.

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“I could give you ten other statistics and they all point in the same direction. This is an empire that is declining..”

BRICS Expansion, De-Dollarization and ‘Decline of US Empire’ (Tweedie)

Economist Richard Wolff told Sputnik that the US displaced its mother country Britain as the world’s dominant imperial power around 1920 — and that history was now repeating itself. “The American empire didn’t work the same way. It didn’t set up colonies the way the British had in India or South Africa or any of the other places,” Wolff said. “It had a more informal empire. [From] The way it had managed to control Latin America throughout the early years of this country to how they expanded and controlled the world by economic arrangements, by political deals, by alliances.” But the US empire peaked around the year 2000, the academic said, and is now in “decline.” “We lost the wars in Vietnam. We lost the war in Afghanistan. We lost the war in Iraq,” Wolff said.

“It’s not clear what’s going to happen in Ukraine. But I wouldn’t bet money on a different outcome there either. And that war is a war between the United States and Russia more than anything else, with the disaster being concentrated on […] Ukraine.” While the US leads the G7 group of the biggest Western economies, “there’s a different and other bloc, and that’s what’s new, it’s the bloc called the BRICS.” “The BRICS now account for 33 per cent, one third of the total output of goods and services on this planet, whereas the United States and its allies have slipped to under 30 per cent, about 29 per cent of total output.” “I could give you ten other statistics and they all point in the same direction. This is an empire that is declining,” he added.

The conflict in Ukraine and Western sanctions on Russia — the world’s biggest energy and food grain exporter — has accelerated that downfall. “The economic war between Russia and Europe is being lost by Europe, not by Russia, which was not the intent, but is the outcome,” Wolff said. “The Europeans are going to have to ask themselves, which side are you on? Are you going to stay with the US and the G7 and heading down the slide of your bloc as the BRICS blocs rises, or are you going to choose the other way?” The academic pointed out that when the UK had the world’s greatest empire from the 17th to the 19th centuries, the pound sterling was the “global currency.” With the rise of the US in the 20th century the dollar usurped the pound.

“What that means is that everywhere in the world, people need dollars to do their business. Central banks hold dollars as that alongside of gold, as the guarantor of the value of their currency,” Wolff explained. Now BRICS has overtaken the G7 as “the dominant economic bloc in the world,” a new contest has begun which will end in “the decline of the dollar and the rise of whatever alternative the BRICS settle on, either the Chinese currency or a composite that they’re producing.”

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Everybody takes their cut…

Kiev Reportedly Can’t Account for ‘Hundreds of Millions’ in Weapons (Reed)

The Zelensky regime spent “hundreds of millions” on weapons which have yet to materialize, according to a damning new [NYT] article which reported serious problems throughout the Ukrainian military supply chain. “Ukrainian government documents show that as of the end of last year,” Kiev’s leaders “paid arms suppliers more than $800 million since… February 2022 for contracts that went completely or partly unfulfilled,” the outlet noted. “We did have cases where we paid money and we didn’t receive,” a deputy Ukrainian defense minister working on arms procurement reportedly confirmed. When weapons do show up, their quality is reportedly a major source of frustration. Video of a “recent delivery of 33 self-propelled howitzers donated by the Italian government…. showed smoke billowing from the engine of one, and engine coolant leaking from another,” according to the outlet.

In a statement, Italy’s Defense Ministry claimed the vehicles were known to have been decommissioned long ago but that the Kiev regime demanded them regardless. The weapons were always meant “to be overhauled and put into operation,” the ministry insisted, given what it called “the urgent need for means to face the Russian aggression.” But the headaches didn’t end there. Efforts to fix the faulty howitzers were complicated by another setback in January after Zelensky’s officials claimed they paid a US company to carry out the necessary repairs, but 13 of them were still “not suitable for combat missions” when received. In a February letter to the Pentagon’s inspector general, Ukraine’s defense procurement director effectively accused Ultra Defense Corporation of defrauding the Kiev regime of millions of dollars, claiming the Florida-based weapons supplier took $19.8 million of Ukrainian government funds with “no prior intention to fulfill its obligations.”

However, the company’s chief executive, Matthew Herring, strenuously denies the accusations. “Every single one of them worked when we delivered them,” he reportedly wrote. In a statement which accused the Ukrainians of failing to maintain the weapons upon their arrival, he noted that one howitzer suffered from a coolant leak which “magically appeared after delivery in Ukraine.” The episode isn’t the only instance where Kiev officials’ stories didn’t exactly match up with the entities they partnered with. The documents, reportedly the product of a government audit this year, “showed that some of the most valuable sets of undelivered contracts are between the Defense Ministry and state-owned Ukrainian arms companies that function as independent brokers.” “In recent months, the ministry has sued at least two of those state firms over unfulfilled contracts, and Ukraine recently announced overhauls aimed at making those companies more efficient,” the outlet reported.

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With all those millions/billions missing, let’s spend more, and faster…

EU Wants to Mandate Arms Makers to Prioritize Orders for Ukraine

The European Union put forward a “temporary emergency measure” which will obligate manufacturers of explosives to prioritize the orders of firms producing ammunition for Ukraine, the military news portal reported on Monday, citing a European Commission spokesperson. “The Commission’s proposal provides for priority rated orders to help manufacturers – for example – with the supply of necessary raw materials where the Commission could ask suppliers to prioritize selling to those manufacturers,” the spokesperson told the outlet. At the moment, the “emergency measure” is getting through the EU’s approval process, the spokesperson was cited as saying.


The initiative has already drawn criticism from a number of member states and private companies that fear the Commission will get too much power assuming the role of regulator of the ammunition market, according to the report. They argue the plan will create conditions for the violation of trade secrets or the disclosure of confidential information. The unnamed Commission spokesperson allayed these concerns by telling that “the Commission has long-standing experience in handling such information in the context of other procedures and has the necessary safeguards in place.” In early May, the Commission announced it would allocate 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) for the production of ammunition for Ukraine. The EU plans to spend another 500 million euros on expanding the production of shells in Europe.

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“German media have mocked it as the ‘Pannenpanzer,’ or “breakdown tank.”

German Armor Too Wide To Transport – Bild (RT)

Germany’s main infantry fighting vehicle, the Puma, is too wide to be transported by train, the outlet Bild reported on Sunday. The IFV has struggled with a variety of mechanical problems since entering service in 2015. “In terms of firepower, the Puma is really good. But the transport is more than suboptimal,” one soldier told Bild. Tracked vehicles such as tanks and IFVs are normally transported to the area of operations by train, in order to save on fuel and track maintenance. Because the Pumas are so wide, their crews need to unscrew their side armor before loading it onto the rail cars – then repeat the procedure in reverse at the destination. A company of 14 Pumas can be “completely loaded and stowed in 24 hours,” a Bundeswehr spokesperson told Bild.

Military experts estimated that transporting an entire battalion of 44 vehicles can take “a few days.” One big bottleneck is a shortage of cranes, but the military said Puma companies will be “equipped with them in the future.” Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann developed the Puma between 1995 and 2009 to replace the older Marder IVF, which Berlin has since supplied to the Ukrainian military. The specifications called for a vehicle that could be airlifted to places like Africa and Afghanistan. “The Puma shows what mistakes were made in procurement,” Andreas Schwarz, a Bundestag member from the ruling SPD, told Bild. “Instead of relying on battle-tested and marketable weapon systems, a panzer was developed according to special requests that is too wide for train transport. That must end.”

Word of the new problems with the Puma comes during a difficult month for the reputation of German armor, as photographic and video evidence from Ukraine showed Leopard 2 tanks provided to Kiev getting destroyed in battles with the Russian military. Berlin paused the purchase of new Pumas last December, after a disastrous exercise that saw one of the vehicles catch fire and all 18 break down. The vehicle is supposed to have superior crew protection and excellent firepower, including a 30mm autocannon and anti-tank missiles. However, German media have mocked it as the ‘Pannenpanzer,’ or “breakdown tank.”

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They’re probably making deals for a Ukraine that includes the Donbass (the richest part) and Crimea. But there will not be such a Ukraine.

BlackRock, JP Morgan Set Up ‘Reconstruction Bank’ For Ukraine (HE)

BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase are reportedly aiding the Ukrainian government in setting up a reconstruction bank that could see rebuilding projects being heavily invested in by private entities. The Financial Times noted that it would cost Ukraine roughly $411 billion to rebuild their country amid the onslaught of attacks by Russia, but the cost is continuing to increase. The Ukraine Development Fund is still in the early stages of setting up the reconstruction bank, but potential investors will get an inside preview of how things will look during a London conference that is set to take place this week. With the steep cost to rebuild, the Ukrainian government reached out to BlackRock in November to see if there was a conceivable way of attracting investments. JPMorgan was soon added in February.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed last month that he was working with the two financial institutions and consultants at McKinsey, per the report. Philipp Hildebrand, BlackRock vice-chair, said: “So many of today’s long-term challenges are best addressed through blended finance and this is one. You need these vehicles to mobilise capital at scale.” Though BlackRock and JPMorgan are offering their services, they will likely have the first look at potential investments in the Eastern European country. The report noted that the current development has only deepened JPMorgan’s relationship with its long-standing client, Ukraine. The financial institution has helped Ukraine raise more than $25 billion in sovereign debt since 2010, and it led in the country’s $20 billion debt reconstruction in 2022.

BlackRock has claimed that Ukraine needs a “development finance bank” that would provide the country with infrastructure, climate, and agriculture opportunities. This will apparently make them more attractive to other long-term investors. JPMorgan was added to the venture due to its debt expertise. Stefan Weiler, JPMorgan’s head of debt capital markets in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, said: “The fund is being set up to also give public and private sector investors the opportunity to invest into specific projects and sectors.” “There will be different sectoral funds that the fund identified as priorities for Ukraine. That aim is to maximise capital participation.” However, it does not appear that Ukraine is expected to receive such investments until the end of the conflict with Russia.

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“..if Harris were flat-out forced to resign, then Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would automatically become president..”

Strange Days (James Howard Kunstler)

Strange doings at a strange time in a strange land. Videos of widespread military vehicle maneuvers around our nation popped up on the Web at mid-weekend while the American citizenry went about its holiday weekend business (including Father’s Day revels and “Juneteenth” celebration mass shootings): Scenes of armored personnel carriers rolling down Walnut Street in downtown Philly; B2 bomber wings over Minnesota; Tank columns galumphing along a California highway… leading to widespread suspicions that something untoward is up. Durned if I know what’s up. Among things one can know: The “Joe Biden” presidency is whirling around the drain in plain sight, and with it, likely, the Globalist hopes and dreams of making everybody eat bugs while they take away everything you own.

Last week, audiotapes surfaced of the main parties to the Ukraine grift (Biden and Poroshenko) working things out in 2016 over the phone in “JB’s” final days as vice-president. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee has got its mitts on Biden family bank records galore detailing the abstruse money-laundering activities that were run through obscure European banks and innumerable Biden shell companies. Well, sonofabitch…! It’s getting hard even for Democrats to ignore the accumulating evidence of the Biden family’s global grift operation, and “JB’s” obvious advancing mental deterioration, provoking moves that should lead to his ejection from office. Last week, their captive mainstream news media broadcast a cavalcade of embarrassing public idiocies committed by the Commander in Chief — declaring “God save the Queen” incongruously at the end of a Gun Safety Summit in Connecticut; groping actress Eva Longoria’s boobs after a White House movie screening; cracking a weird joke about the “Philadelphia girl” in his bed (Dr. Jill Biden); being introduced at an I-95 bridge collapse event by brain-damaged PA Senator John Fetterman who tossed up a word salad about the federal “delegadation” aiming to fix “infructure,” while dressed-up looking like Uncle Fester out of The Addams Family. The indignity of it all was really something to behold.

You understand, “Joe Biden’s” reelection campaign is another rank hoax, yet another trip laid on the American public by a desperate, degenerate Democratic Party that doesn’t know what to do next with public opinion souring on it. There’s no way this gibbering near-corpse can run again. He can’t even perform as a puppet anymore. He’s a broke-down engine pulling a train of failure, perfidy, and treason five miles long behind him. The Ukraine war project he presides over looks more and more like an effort to conceal and cover-up his family’s bribery schemes by laying waste to the pitiful chump of a foreign land that went along with the grift — and which, anyway, is winding up as yet another American military humiliation with the Russians finishing off what’s left of Ukraine’s army in the failed “spring offensive.”

Do you suppose that all these military vehicle movements around the country in recent days signal a constitutional crisis in the offing, necessitating martial law? Let me lay it out: Absolutely no one believes that Vice-president Kamala Harris is up to the job of stepping-in when “Joe Biden” gets bum-rushed out of the White House. Nor, I’m sure, are they willing to force her to resign hastily without a substitute vice-president (say, Gavin Newsom) in place — a cumbersome process that requires approval by both the House and Senate (with the Senate split 50-50 and no vice-president to preside over the body with a tie-breaking vote). But if Harris were flat-out forced to resign, then Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would automatically become president.

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“..hate speech” includes the reluctance of some people online to use female pronouns when referring to transwomen..”

The New World War On Free Speech (Shellenberger)

The war on free speech is hardly a novel phenomenon, instead mutating over the centuries. What is new, however, is its global aspirations: today, the conflict takes the form of a world war. You can see its shadow in every Western country, from the US and Canada to Ireland and Australia, as well as in every multinational organisation, from the EU to the UN. Rising levels of hate speech and misinformation, we are told, make it more urgent than ever for governments, corporations and multilateral organisations to adopt stronger measures to protect vulnerable populations online. It is for this reason that Biden’s Department of Homeland Security recently created a “Disinformation Governance Board”, the European Commission crafted a new Digital Services Act and Code of Practice on Disinformation, and the UN is proposing a “Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms”.

All of these initiatives are allegedly the product of good intentions; all of them, however, are rooted in the same fallacy: there is little evidence to suggest that hate speech and misinformation are on the rise. On the contrary, Western countries are more tolerant of racial, religious and sexual minorities than ever before. To take one example, the percentage of Americans who approve of marriages between white and black Americans has risen from 4% in 1958 to 87% in 2013 to 94% in 2021. There are, of course, plenty of examples of misinformation and hatred online, and Twitter and Facebook are right to reduce their spread — but often the threat is exaggerated. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), for instance, recently published a study that concluded that antisemitism was increasing on Twitter.

But there is no definitive evidence of rising hate online. The ISD study counted tweets criticising George Soros which didn’t mention his Judaism as antisemitic. Elsewhere, “hate speech” includes the reluctance of some people online to use female pronouns when referring to transwomen — even though one might oppose using female pronouns for natal males and harbour no animus toward transwomen. Here we can see that what people label as “hatred” and “misinformation” is often merely an opinion they don’t like or which they fear will encourage bad behaviour. In both the UK and the US, this led to government officials demanding that social media platforms censor “often-true” content, including about Covid vaccine side effects, out of fear that such stories would result in vaccine hesitancy.

What’s more, Facebook and Twitter have also started deleting a significant amount of true content. Between 2020 to 2021, for example, Facebook censored claims that the coronavirus came from a Chinese lab, even though that was always as likely, if not more so, than the natural-origin hypothesis. Twitter also censored an accurate New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop while allowing supporters of his father, Joe Biden, to falsely claim it was a result of “Russian disinformation”. The global campaign to censor disfavoured views on Twitter and Facebook is therefore rather curious. If there is no evidence that hatred and misinformation are increasing, and ample evidence of inappropriate censorship of true and accurate information, why are politicians across the West calling for greater power to censor?

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“Congress has also approved the building of a giant elephant statue in D.C. to honor the party responsible for the freeing of slaves from Democrat plantations..”

Juneteenth, The Day Republicans Freed All The Democrats’ Slaves (BBee)

The Senate has unanimously passed a resolution to recognize Juneteenth as a federal holiday, commemorating the glorious day Republicans freed the last of the Democrats’ slaves. “We are so proud to show the world how not racist we are by officially recognizing the day the Republicans came charging in to free all our slaves,” said Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer. “Yeah– we Democrats did a little ‘whoopsie’ with that whole slavery thing, but the Republicans corrected it. Thanks, Republicans!” During this year’s Juneteenth, the nation will gather to celebrate the American political party that was founded on protecting human rights of people of all skin colors.


Democrats around the country will write letters of apology and organize celebrations for the vast network of Christians, Catholics, Quakers, and Republicans who fought and died to end the scourge of slavery in America. Congress has also approved the building of a giant elephant statue in D.C. to honor the party responsible for the freeing of slaves from Democrat plantations. Biden has confirmed he will organize a celebration at the White House after he lays a wreath on the grave of his best friend Robert Byrd.

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Tom AI
https://twitter.com/i/status/1670759255044157440

 

 

Baby Hum
https://twitter.com/i/status/1670742749807620096

 

 

Tardigrade
https://twitter.com/i/status/1670749721365733376

 

 

Fibonacci

 

 

Manatee

 

 

 

 

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Feb 102023
 
 February 10, 2023  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  74 Responses »


René Magritte L’avenir (the future) 1936

 

The “Not-Ultimatum” Revisited (Observer R)
Russia Didn’t Start Hostilities In Ukraine, But Tries To End Them – Putin (TASS)
Ukraine Is Taking Care Of Europe – Zelensky (RT)
Zelensky Takes Credit For Derailing Minsk Agreements (RT)
Zelensky Reveals What He Does To Scholz (RT)
Ukraine’s Entry To NATO Would Spell World War – Hungary (TASS)
Much-Hyped Tanks For Ukraine In Short Supply – WSJ (RT)
UK Not Sending Fighter Jets To Ukraine (RT)
Russia-Iran Dump The Dollar And Bust US Sanctions (Escobar)
US Military At European Base Provide GPS-Targeting For Ukrainian Rockets (PM)
EU’s Aid For Ukraine Is Effectively Public Aid For Itself (RMX)
Details Emerge On Chinese ‘Spy Balloon’ – WSJ (RT)
GOP-Led House Panels Shift Gears, Go Full Throttle for Domestic Energy Production (ET)
Sy Hersh and The Way We Live Now (Craig Murray)
Rep. Higgins Tells Twitter Executives to Prepare to be Arrested (TP)

 

 

 

 

Laying the Groundwork For the Loss of Ukraine

 

 

 

 

Hudson

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..Ukraine was not actually in charge of its own destiny, but rather, the war was being controlled by the NATO powers..”

The “Not-Ultimatum” Revisited (Observer R)

Slightly over a year ago, in December 2021, Russia published a proposal for setting up a new security architecture for Europe. Russia also warned of unspecified serious consequences if this proposal was not acted upon. The United States and other Western countries either ignored the Russian offer, or more or less laughed at it. Russia wanted the line of NATO forces moved back to where it was when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. This meant getting NATO out of the former Eastern European countries, including Ukraine. The Russian proposal was widely termed the “Not-Ultimatum” for ease of discussion, since the Russians were polite about it, but at the same time threatening action. Analysts were busy trying to figure what exactly Russia might do, and offered many different scenarios.

[..] The proposal by Russia for negotiating a new security architecture for Europe was rejected by the US. That was extremely unfortunate for everyone, as it could have prevented the subsequent war in Ukraine. Then, following the Russian SMO, Ukraine and Russia sat down to negotiate in Turkey and came to some sort of agreement. Presumably along the lines of the Minsk Accords. Unfortunately again, this agreement was scuttled when the British Prime Minister flew to Ukraine and had a talk with the officials there. This action indicated that Ukraine was not actually in charge of its own destiny, but rather, the war was being controlled by the NATO powers.

The powers in the West clearly thought that they would come out on top in the war and that this would somehow preserve the US hegemony. Unfortunately yet again, the West guessed wrong and made what will likely be viewed in hindsight as a catastrophic decision. Russia cannot be defeated in a conventional war in Eurasia, and presumably the military experts and intelligence folks in the West should have been aware of this fact. Furthermore, the sanctions against Russia were counterproductive. Russia was already highly self-sufficient and the sanctions greatly sped up import substitution. The dream of a regime change in Russia was likewise a case of hope over reality.

Additionally, by refusing diplomacy, the US turned a problem in Eastern Europe into a de facto WWIII. Now the negotiations over a new security architecture will have to cover the entire globe. This will be a much more difficult undertaking and a problematical outcome for the West. The West is not in a military, nor economic, nor social position to be very successful in negotiations with the East and South. Even having negotiations is problematical, since the East and South view the West as being “not agreement capable.” Thus it will dawn sooner or later on the Western leaders that they bit off more than they could chew.

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“This is when they started the war. It lasted for eight years and aimed to exterminate the people who live there and feel themselves tied to Russia..”

Russia Didn’t Start Hostilities In Ukraine, But Tries To End Them – Putin (TASS)

Russia did not begin hostilities in Ukraine, but it is trying to stop them, as hostilities have been going on since 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with aviation industry representatives Thursday. “I would like to say it one more time: we did not start any hostilities, we are trying to end them. These hostilities were started by Ukrainian nationalists and those who supported them in 2014, when the coup took place; that is how it all began, the events in Crimea and in Donbass followed after that,” the head of state said.


Putin pointed out that Kiev started the war against Donbass in 2014, and, in violation of all agreements and obligations, effectively blockaded the Donbass regions. “Heavy military vehicles were used against them, major military operations were carried out against them,” the head of state noted. “This is when they started the war. It lasted for eight years and aimed to exterminate the people who live there and feel themselves tied to Russia, Russian culture and the Russian language by blood. How long could we have kept tolerating it?” The President also thanked the participants of the meeting for their support of the special military operation.

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The images of Europe’s “leaders” are making me sick. They are followers.

Ukraine Is Taking Care Of Europe – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed to EU lawmakers that Moscow poses to a threat to the entire continent. The leader was speaking at the European Parliament on Thursday as part of a tour to rally support and weaponry to prop up Ukraine amid the conflict with Russia. Starting his address with the slogan ‘Glory to Ukraine’, which is commonly associated with World War II-era Nazi collaborators but is widely used in present-day Ukraine, Zelensky reiterated Kiev’s aspirations to join the EU, describing it as “home.” “We want to come home to Europe,” the Ukrainian leader told the assembled lawmakers in Brussels. “I’m here in order to defend our people’s way home.” Zelensky went on to describe Russia as “the most anti-European force” in the world, alleging that Moscow is intent on destroying the “European way of life” for all 27 members of the EU.

“This is our Europe, these are our rules, this is our way of life,” Zelensky added, earning applause from the audience. “Europe will always be, and remain Europe as long as we are together and as long as we take care of our Europe, as we take care of the European way of life.” Joining the EU has been a significant talking point for pro-Western Ukrainian politicians for decades. Yet little to no actual progress had been made along that path prior to hostilities breaking out between Moscow and Kiev last February. The conflict has greatly sped up the accession process, with Ukraine receiving EU candidate status in June. Zelensky’s European tour began a day earlier when he traveled to the UK, meeting the leaders and lawmakers in London. The president inspected the ongoing training of Ukrainian troops on British soil and secured additional support from the UK.

“I am proud that today we will expand that training from soldiers to marines and fighter jet pilots, ensuring Ukraine has a military able to defend its interests well into the future,” said a statement from UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak after he met Zelensky. Ukraine has consistently increased its demands for advanced weaponry from the West, including tanks, drones, fighter jets, and longer-range missiles. Kiev has insisted that the hardware is needed to drive Russian forces out of territories that Ukraine claims as its own. Moscow has repeatedly urged the West to stop “pumping” Ukraine with weaponry, maintaining that continuous military aid will only prolong the hostilities, rather than change their ultimate outcome.

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“Ukraine, Germany, and France “lied to the people of Donbass, as they had a terrible fate planned for them, which Russia prevented..”

Zelensky Takes Credit For Derailing Minsk Agreements (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky personally refused to implement the 2015 Minsk agreements – a roadmap for peace in the east of the country, which was co-sponsored by Germany and France. He made the admission during an interview with Der Spiegel published on Thursday as he continues his tour across Europe. Zelensky said he viewed the agreements as a “concession” on Ukraine’s part, and never once actually sought to implement them. Instead, they were merely used to exchange prisoners with the two breakaway Donbass republics. The president claimed he openly told that to then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Russian President Vladimir Putin back in 2019, with all of them acting “surprised.”

“But as for Minsk as a whole, I told Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel: ‘We cannot implement it like this,’” Zelensky stated. “I told [Putin] the same as the other two. They were surprised and said: ‘If we had known beforehand that you would change the meaning of our meeting, then there would have been problems even before the summit.’” The Minsk agreements, originally brokered in 2014 and further expanded in 2015, envisioned a roadmap for reconciliation between Ukraine and the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The two regions rebelled against the country’s new authorities in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, which ousted democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich. Ukraine’s failure to implement the agreement, which would have seen the breakaway territories reintegrated with the country but retain a special status, ultimately led to the ongoing conflict.

Since the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, multiple politicians have taken credit for the failure of the Minsk agreements, admitting they were merely a ruse to give Ukraine time to build up its military. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko was the first to admit last year that Kiev never intended to abide by them and used the deal to “create powerful armed forces.” Merkel and another original signatory of the Minsk agreements, former French president Francois Hollande, have also since confirmed that this was actually the true goal of the deal.

Moscow considers these admissions to be evidence that the negotiations were conducted in bad faith and that the Ukrainian government and its backers had always intended for the Minsk agreements to flop and for the Donbass crisis to be resolved by force. Russia claims that its military campaign in Ukraine, launched last February, preempted an offensive planned by Kiev with NATO’s help. Ukraine, Germany, and France “lied to the people of Donbass, as they had a terrible fate planned for them, which Russia prevented,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said back in January. “Germany, France and Ukraine were playing a swindle game with the Minsk agreements. Now is payback time,” he stated at the time.

Coke

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“..I have to force him to help Ukraine and constantly convince him that this help is not for us, but for the Europeans..”

Zelensky Reveals What He Does To Scholz (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has revealed he keeps needing to “force” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to send arms to Kiev, constantly reminding him the deliveries are purportedly beneficial for the whole of Europe. The president made the revelation in a lengthy interview with Der Spiegel published on Thursday. Germany did a “good job” of delivering Iris-T anti-aircraft systems and ammunition for them last year, Zelensky said, while appearing to admit that Kiev has been actively spying on Berlin. “We have changed our relationship and understanding. We received IRIS-T anti-aircraft systems, for which I am very grateful to Germany. You saved a lot of lives. I told the chancellor: Olaf, listen, we’re short on rockets. I know that you don’t have any more yourself, we also have an intelligence service.

“I know you give us everything you have,” Zelensky stated, adding that Scholz somehow managed to push manufacturers into producing munitions for Iris-T faster. The looming supply of modern tanks to Ukraine has also proved to be a “difficult” issue for Kiev and Berlin, as Scholz was reluctant to do so. Zelensky claimed he has had to constantly remind the chancellor about the purported importance of such support and its alleged value for the whole of Europe. “Now we are yet again in a difficult phase with this debate about the German tanks, it is emotional and complex. I have to force him to help Ukraine and constantly convince him that this help is not for us, but for the Europeans,” Zelensky stated.

Germany has long been reluctant to deliver modern tanks to Kiev, with Scholz giving in to Kiev’s demands on January 25 and pledging to send in 14 Leopard 2 armored vehicles, as well as allowing other European operators of the German-made tanks to re-export them to Ukraine. Apart from that, Berlin also pledged to send in some 187 older Leopard 1 models to Ukraine from its stocks as well.

Zel EU

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All too obvious. But some want that world war.

Ukraine’s Entry To NATO Would Spell World War – Hungary (TASS)

The Hungarian government does not back Ukraine’s aspiration to join NATO and makes Kiev’s potential entry to the EU contingent on protecting the rights of Ukraine’s national minorities, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyas told reporters Thursday. Answering a question regarding Ukraine’s desire to join NATO, he noted that any country can file a membership application. “However, right now, Ukraine’s immediate accession to NATO would mean world war,” Gulyas cautioned. Speaking about the prospects of Ukraine’s EU membership, he underscored that Kiev must ensure progress in protecting the rights of national minorities – particularly, Ukraine’s Hungarians in the Trans-Carpathian Region – if it wants Budapest to endorse its membership application. So far, legislation on education and the national language, adopted in Ukraine, “does not comply with European norms.” “Progress has to be made” on these issues, the Hungarian official emphasized.

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“The Netherlands and Denmark will not send any of their tanks, but agreed to help Germany fund the purchase and refurbishment of around 100 older Leopard 1 models, which were retired 20 years ago and are currently in various states of disrepair..”

Much-Hyped Tanks For Ukraine In Short Supply – WSJ (RT)

NATO members have developed “sudden misgivings” about sending tanks to Ukraine because they don’t seem to have any to spare, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Finland, which pressured Germany to approve exports of Leopard 2 tanks, may only be able to send “a few” of its own – and most likely not until it formally joins the US-led military bloc. This has left Berlin as the only major supplier of tanks to Kiev, something Chancellor Olaf Scholz had been keen to avoid, the Journal noted. There are more than 2,000 Leopard 2 tanks in the stocks of various European NATO armies, but only Berlin and Warsaw have committed to sending any. Germany and Poland have promised about 14 apiece. Warsaw will also throw in 60 of its modified T-72s, while Berlin is buying up almost 190 decommissioned Leopard 1s for refurbishment, some of which may need to be cannibalized for parts.

In a December interview, Ukraine’s top general asked for 300 tanks right away. Canada has promised four tanks, while Portugal wants to send three. “The fact that there are so few operational battle tanks and that they are so incompatible with each other should be taken as an alarm signal in Europe,” Nico Lange, a former German defense official who is now a senior fellow at the Munich Security Conference, told the Journal. The Netherlands and Denmark will not send any of their tanks, but agreed to help Germany fund the purchase and refurbishment of around 100 older Leopard 1 models, which were retired 20 years ago and are currently in various states of disrepair. Denmark only has 44 Leopards and the Dutch operate 18 that are on lease from Germany, noted Minna Alander of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Finland faces a different “limitation” due to its own need to protect the country’s long border with Russia, she added.

Finland will be “part of the Leopard 2 cooperation in some way,” an anonymous senior official told the Journal, but declined to give any details. Helsinki has “signaled” it would “most likely” avoid tank deliveries until it officially joins NATO, according to a senior bloc official, likewise unnamed. Even then, it may only be able to spare a few of its 240 operational tanks. The UK has promised 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks, saying they ought to be delivered by the end of March. The US pledged 31 Abrams tanks as well, but getting them to Ukraine might take up to two years. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has already moved on, demanding fighter jets on his trip to London, Paris and Brussels. The US and its allies have spent over $120 billion to prop up the Kiev government over the past year, while insisting they are not a party to the conflict. Moscow has warned them that supplying Ukraine with weapons only prolongs the fighting and risks direct confrontation.

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Nor France.

UK Not Sending Fighter Jets To Ukraine (RT)

The UK is currently focused on helping Ukraine ensure air cover by providing long-range missiles and drones, rather than the less “realistic” option of sending fighter jets, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on Thursday. Speaking to the BBC, Wallace cautioned that sending aircraft to Kiev could potentially take months, and ruled out any immediate transfers, while saying it would be “more realistic and more productive” to provide Ukraine with aircraft after the conflict with Russia has ended, for long-term security purposes. “This is not a simple case of towing an aircraft to the border,” Wallace told the broadcaster, adding that Britain “knows what Ukraine needs and is very happy to help in many ways” which would not take as long as fighter jet deliveries would.


Wallace dismissed suggestions made by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson that London could provide Kiev with 100 Typhoon warplanes. The defense secretary insisted that he has a duty to ensure the UK and NATO maintain a sufficient number of fighter planes to ensure their own defense. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky made his first trip to the UK since the fighting broke out between Kiev and Moscow. Ahead of the visit, the UK prime minister’s office announced that Britain would be providing training to Ukrainian pilots on how to operate NATO-standard aircraft. PM Rishi Sunak also committed to expanding the UK’s recruit training program, which has already seen 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers brought to battle readiness in the last six months. The UK now hopes to train an additional 20,000 troops this year.

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It’s a slow development, but it does continue.

Russia-Iran Dump The Dollar And Bust US Sanctions (Escobar)

The agreement between the Central Banks of Russia and Iran formally signed on 29 January connecting their interbank transfer systems is a game-changer in more ways than one. Technically, from now on 52 Iranian banks already using SEPAM, Iran’s interbank telecom system, are connecting with 106 banks using SPFS, Russia’s equivalent to the western banking messaging system SWIFT. Less than a week before the deal, State Duma Chairman Vyachslav Volodin was in Tehran overseeing the last-minute details, part of a meeting of the Russia-Iran Inter-Parliamentary Commission on Cooperation: he was adamant both nations should quickly increase trade in their own currencies.

Confirming that the share of ruble and rial in mutual settlements already exceeds 60 percent, Volodin ratified the success of “joint use of the Mir and Shetab national payment systems.” Not only does this bypass western sanctions, but it is able to “solve issues related to mutually beneficial cooperation, and increasing trade.” It is quite possible that the ruble will eventually become the main currency in bilateral trade, according to Iran’s ambassador in Moscow, Kazem Jalali: “Now more than 40 percent of trade between our countries is in rubles.” Jalali also confirmed, crucially, that Tehran is in favor of the ruble as the main currency in all regional integration mechanisms. He was referring particularly to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), with which Iran is clinching a free trade deal.

The SEPAM-SPFS agreement starts with a pilot program supervised by Iran’s Shahr Bank and Russia’s VTB Bank. Other lenders will step in once the pilot program gets rid of any possible bugs. The key advantage is that SEPAM and SPFS are immune to the US and western sanctions ruthlessly imposed on Tehran and Moscow. Once the full deal is up and running, all Iranian and Russian banks can be interconnected. It is no wonder the Global South is paying very close attention. This is likely to become a landmark case in bypassing Belgium-based SWIFT – which is essentially controlled by Washington, and on a minor scale, the EU. The success of SEPAM-SPFS will certainly encourage other bilateral or even multilateral deals between states.

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That makes the US a participant.

US Military At European Base Provide GPS-Targeting For Ukrainian Rockets (PM)

The United States has provided Ukraine with HIMARS, which are targeted missile systems, and it turns out the US is also providing Ukraine with the targets at which to launch those missiles. Biden has said the US would fund Ukraine’s war effort “as long as it takes.” A report from the Washington Post states that “Ukrainian officials say that they almost never launch HIMARS rounds without detailed coordinates provided by U.S. military personnel situated elsewhere in Europe.” Those coordinates are either “provided or confirmed” by the US and its NATO allies before Ukraine launches their strikes against Russia, which invaded Ukraine nearly one year ago. That the US was giving over not only the HIMARS but the means by which targets would be ascertained by the Ukraine military was not previously disclosed by the Pentagon.

What this means is that the Pentagon is not only providing weapons and aid, but is actively engaged in making war on Russia. This is not something the Biden administration has been forthcoming about. The Pentagon issued a statement from Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, reading “We have long acknowledged that we share intelligence with Ukraine to assist them in defending their country against Russian aggression, and we have optimized over time how we share information to be able to support their requests and their targeting processes at improved speed and scale. The Ukrainians are responsible for finding targets, prioritizing them and then ultimately deciding which ones to engage. The U.S. does not approve targets, nor are we involved in the selection or engagement of targets.”

Biden has insisted that the US is merely helping Ukraine have the tools to wage war, but actively assisting Ukraine in assessing targets and then attacking those targets is not something that, to the knowledge of the American public, has been approved by Congress. A US official who spoke to WaPo under the condition of anonymity said that the US providing “targeting assistance” increased the ability of Ukraine to launch missiles with accuracy, thereby not wasting their limited amunition. Ukraine uses their own targeting methods for attacks with their own weapons, but when it comes to HIMARS, the “U.S. provides coordinates and precise targeting information solely in an advisory role.”

As to how that process works, it was reported that it goes like this: “Ukrainian military personnel identify targets they want to hit, and in which location, and that information is then sent up to senior commanders, who then relay the request to U.S. partners for more accurate coordinates. The Americans do not always provide the requested coordinates, the official said, in which case the Ukrainian troops do not fire. A third Ukrainian official cited by WaPo “confirmed that targeting all goes through an American installation on NATO soil and described the process as ‘very fast.'”

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The emptiest gesture so far?! “One of the most important questions is how Ukraine will use the bulbs when it’s suffering power outages as a result of the war?”

EU’s Aid For Ukraine Is Effectively Public Aid For Itself (RMX)

Let there be light! President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has announced that the EU is to deliver 35 million energy-saving LED light bulbs to Ukraine worth €50 million. They will be made available free of charge at post offices across the country. She said that Ukraine should be an inspiration to Europe, with thousands of Ukrainians changing to LED bulbs to work towards cleaner energy. “They are energy-saving, very good,” she says in footage shot during the visit. The EU once again shows it thinks climate change is more important than anything else. The light bulbs are an even more surreal gift than the 5,000 helmets the Germans gave at the start of the war.


One of the most important questions is how Ukraine will use the bulbs when it’s suffering power outages as a result of the war? Finally, we should not have the wool pulled over our eyes. If the EU bought these bulbs from the largest European producers, which come from Germany, the Netherlands, and France, this is nothing more than a way of giving public aid to these companies. Once again, Germany shows its transactional face.

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Not terribly convincing so far.

Details Emerge On Chinese ‘Spy Balloon’ – WSJ (RT)

The alleged Chinese “spy balloon,” shot down off the coast of South Carolina last weekend, was equipped with advanced surveillance equipment capable of picking up sensitive communications, an unnamed senior State Department official told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. The Biden administration is reportedly planning to retaliate. While China has maintained the balloon was a civilian airship that drifted off course while collecting meteorological data, the source claimed its manufacturer had a “direct relationship” with the Chinese military. It was fitted with “large” solar panels to power the extensive instrumentation on board, which allegedly included antennas, sensors and other equipment capable of intercepting communications and gathering other intelligence.

The unnamed official said the US military spent the eight days the alleged spy craft was traversing the continental US gathering information about the device, using high-altitude U2 spy planes. Authorities are also reportedly examining the debris found floating in the Atlantic Ocean. The House and Senate are set to be briefed by military, intelligence and diplomatic officials regarding the balloon on Thursday. The newly declassified information is meant to “justify the US’s impending action” that President Joe Biden is preparing to take against “China’s surveillance program,” the outlet said. Beijing uses similar balloons for surveillance across five continents, administration officials claimed on Wednesday. The Pentagon asserted that China had nearly doubled the size of its satellite fleet between 2018 and 2021 and now had 260 surveillance, intelligence and reconnaissance satellites monitoring the globe.

The balloon, which drifted over a nuclear missile site and other sensitive military assets, could have been carrying explosives in its multi-ton payload, US Northern Command Chief General Glen VanHerck told Politico on Monday, adding that several similar Chinese craft have flown over the US before, but the Pentagon somehow missed them. Despite the apparent threat of explosives, the White House has said the military waited to destroy the balloon until it was over water, so as not to imperil any civilians or property with falling debris. Airspace over parts of North and South Carolina was closed, as fighter jets were finally sent to shoot it down on Saturday. China’s Foreign Ministry has demanded the return of what was left of the balloon, reminding Biden on Tuesday that “the airship does not belong to the US – it belongs to China.”

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Did Biden just say the US needs fossils only for 10 more years? Was he just talking about himself there?

GOP-Led House Panels Shift Gears, Go Full Throttle for Domestic Energy Production (ET)

With Republicans assuming control of the U.S. House of Representatives following the November 2022 midterm elections, the newly installed GOP leadership has been doing just that across the chamber’s 20 standing permanent committees and their 104 subcommittees and select temporary panels. That transitional shift-change has been clearly evident this week in seminal session meetings of the 52-member House Energy and Commerce Committee and its six subcommittees and in the 45-member House Natural Resources Committee and its five subsidiary panels.

During four years of Democratic control, climate change, environmental protection, and “green” energy development were among the primary policy drivers in adopting legislation designed to coax the nation away from reliance on oil and gas, including the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and $740 billion Infrastructure Reduction Act (IRA). Over two days and nearly eight hours of hearings before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Feb. 7 and the House Natural Resource Committee on Feb. 8, Republicans made it clear that many initiatives passed under the Biden administration promoting electric vehicles, carbon capture, green energy, and environmental protection are on the proverbial chopping block.

During the near-six hour House Energy and Commerce Committee meeting, six witnesses testified on a raft of 17 Republican-sponsored measures that proponents argue are key to “restoring American energy dominance.” Among the proposals that will dominate the committee’s and its subsidiary panels’ agendas in the coming months are bills prohibiting restrictions on hydraulic fracking without congressional approval, expanding natural gas exports, repealing the IRA’s Green House Reduction Fund, and amending the Clean Air, Toxic Substances Control, Solid Waste Disposal, and National Gas Tax acts. Within the tranche of proposed legislation on the committee’s “unleashing American energy agenda” are bills calling for permitting reform, promoting development of “critical minerals,” and prohibiting the import of Russian uranium.

In kicking off the day-long hearing, Republicans argued that “unleashing American energy, lowering energy costs, and strengthening supply chains” must be a priority if the United States is to be economically competitive in the 21st century and beyond. “America has been blessed with an abundance of natural resources. We should be working towards developing a predictable regulatory landscape across-the-board that inspires innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological leadership, hydropower, nuclear, fossil energies, wind, solar, and batteries,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said in opening the proceedings.

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“..Hersh tells the story of the US destruction of the Nordstream pipelines in forensic detail, giving dates, times, method and military units involved..”

When you feel compelled to smear your only left real journalists, you’re in deep.

Sy Hersh and The Way We Live Now (Craig Murray)

It is a clear indicator of the disappearance of freedom from our so-called western democracies, that Sy Hersh, arguably the greatest living journalist, cannot get this monumental revelation on the front of the Washington Post or New York Times, but has to self-publish on the net. Hersh tells the story of the US destruction of the Nordstream pipelines in forensic detail, giving dates, times, method and military units involved. He also outlines the importance of the Norwegian armed forces working alongside the US Navy in the operation. One point Sy does not much stress, but it is worth saying more about, is that Norway and the USA are of course the two countries who have benefitted financially, to an enormous degree, from blowing up the pipeline.

Both not only have gained huge export surpluses from the jump in gas prices, but Norway has directly replaced Russian gas to the tune of some $40 billion per year. From 2023 the United States will appear in that list in second place behind Norway, following the opening in the last two months of two new Liquefied Natural Gas terminals in Germany, built to replace Russian gas with US and Qatari supplies. So Russia lost out massively financially from the destruction of Nordstream and who benefited? The USA and Norway, the two countries who blew up the pipeline. But of course, this war is nothing to do with money or hydrocarbons and is all about freedom and democracy… To return to Hersh’s account, particularly interesting are the series of decisions taken to avoid classification of the operation in various ways which would require it to be reported to Congress.

In terms of United States history, this ought to be a big deal. For the Executive to commit what is an act of war without the approval of the Legislature is fundamentally unconstitutional. But that is one of those quaint remnants of democracy that the neo-liberal elite consensus can quietly sidestep nowadays. Hersh sets out the well known background in compelling detail, including the fact that, from Biden down, the Americans effectively announced what they were going to do, openly. But what most worries me about the entire story is the unanimous complicity of the mainstream media in ignoring the completely obvious.

[..] The secret is not that people genuinely believe an outrageous claim. The secret is that people do genuinely believe that they are in a battle of good against evil, and it is necessary to accept the narrative being promoted, in the interests of fighting evil. Don’t question, just follow. If you do question, you are promoting evil. I am sure that is how it works. State and corporate stenographer journalists are actually intelligent individuals. If they thought about it, they would realise that the narrative that Russia blew up its own pipeline is obvious nonsense. But they are convinced it is morally wrong to think about it. Which is why none of them challenged the equally mad claims that Russia was repeatedly shelling its own forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, and indeed is why none of them challenged the utterly risible official version of the Skripal story.

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Pretty crazy hearings.

Rep. Higgins Tells Twitter Executives to Prepare to be Arrested (TP)

On Wednesday, former top executives at Twitter appeared before the House oversight committee to give testimony regarding the social media giant’s management of information related to Joe Biden’s son and interference with the 2020 election. The hearing marks the start of the agenda of the newly-Republican controlled House, highlighting their focus on long-standing claims that major tech companies exhibited a bias against conservatism. At one point during the hearing, Republican Rep. Clay Higgins unleashed on former Twitter execs James Baker, Vijaya Gadde & Yoel Roth, saying that they need to get ready to be arrested. “The bottom line is that the FBI had the Biden crime family laptop for a year,” Higgins said. “They knew it was leaking, they knew it would hurt the Biden campaign.”

“So the FBI used its relationship with Twitter to suppress criminal evidence being revealed about Joe Biden one month before the 2020 election,” he continued. “You ladies and gentlemen interfered with the United States of America 2020 presidential election, knowingly and willingly,” Higgins hammered. “That’s the bad news. It’s going to get worse.” “This is the investigation part, later comes the arrest part, your attorneys are familiar with that,” Higgins said. “I’d like to spend five hours with these ladies and gentlemen doing depositions surely yet to come”.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1623412720199426048

At another point during the hearing, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene unleashed on former Twitter executive Yoel Roth for allowing child exploitation on Twitter and for advocating for teenagers to use gay hookup act Grinder. “I’m so glad you’ve lost your jobs. Thank God Elon Musk bought Twitter,” she said. “It’s amazing to me Mr. Roth as the head and Trust and Safety at Twitter your ability or should I say inability to remove child porn,” Taylor Greene said. “Now here is something that disgusts me about you. In your doctoral dissertation entitled ‘Gay Data,’ you argued that minors should have access to grinder, an adult male gay hook-up app,” she continued. “Minors. Really?” “You know, Elon Musk took over and he banned 44,000 accounts that were promoting child porn,” Greene added. “You permanently banned my Twitter account, but you allowed child porn all over Twitter.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

FAA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1622316296837660674

 

 

LNP
https://twitter.com/i/status/1623731239239798789

 

 

Clotting
https://twitter.com/i/status/1623751085629267968

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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


Edward Hopper Room in Brooklyn 1932

 

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

 

 

 

 

Ritter

 

 

 

 

Tucker MT balloon

 

 

 

 

Maher

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

“Western attempts are futile..”

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

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

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

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

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

Zakharova

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Scholz plays both sides.

Putin Did Not Threaten Germany – Scholz (RT)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

US Fails Miserably in Efforts to Isolate Russia (NC)

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

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

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

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

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NATO seeks escalation. Ukraine volunteers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

EU Sanctions Blocked Nord Stream Repairs – Company (RT)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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The balloon is boring me.

Cut The BS – NOW (Denninger)

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

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

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

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

The Good News About Vaccine Hesitancy (Atlantic)

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

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

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

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

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When will US and EU follow suit?

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

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

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

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

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Visual effects

 

 


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

 

 

King

 

 

 

 

Hug

 

 

U2

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 032022
 


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

 

Elon Musk Releases THE TWITTER FILES (ZH/Taibbi)
Russia’s Lavrov Repeats: US is Participant in War (Celente)
Russia Withdraws From The Western Project (Khramchikhin)
Stop the Empire’s War on the World (Batiushka)
The Bleak Reality Of Service With Ukraine’s ‘International Legion’ (Livshitz)
Finland PM Sanna Marin Says Europe Is ‘Not Strong Enough’ Without The US (G.)
Russian Strikes In Ukraine ‘A Response,’ Putin Tells Scholz (RT)
Scholz Wants Post-conflict ‘Agreements’ With Russia (RT)
The Goldilocks War (Dmitry Orlov)
EU’s Oil Cap May Result In ‘Violent’ Price Spikes – The Economist (RT)
NATO’s Handling Of Ukraine Crisis May End In Disaster – Clare Daly (RT)
Switzerland Considers Electric Vehicle Ban To Avoid Blackouts (OP)
Trudeau Denounces China for its Failure to Allow Covid Protests (Turley)
Rand Paul: Fauci Caused 7 Million People To Die (SN)
Edward Snowden Awarded Russian Passport (Az.)

 

 

 

 

Yoel Roth

 

 

 

 

Suddenly
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598569139630739456

 

 

 

 

Tucker Malhotra

 

 

 

 

Elon Musk gave the files to Matt Taibbi, who turned them ito a 42-tweet thread. More to come. James Woods is gold.

Elon Musk Releases THE TWITTER FILES (ZH/Taibbi)

The release was telegraphed one week ago, when Musk acknowledged that revealing Twitter’s internal discussions surrounding the censorship of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story right before the 2020 US election is “necessary to restore public trust.” Recall that the Post had its Twitter account locked in October 2020 for reporting on the now-confirmed-to-be-real “laptop from hell,” which contained still-unprosecuted evidence of foreign influence peddling through then-Vice President Joe Biden – including a 2015 meeting with an executive of Ukrainian gas giant Burisma. Users who tried to share the link to the article were greeted with a message saying, “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.”

Then, days after Musk’s tweet, Twitter’s former head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, admitted it was a ‘mistake’ to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story. In his first public appearance since becoming an ex-employee, Roth suggested that the Hunter Biden laptop story was simply ‘too difficult’ for Twitter to verify. Alternatively, the company could have perhaps simply trusted the Post, one of America’s oldest publications that doesn’t have a reputation for fabricating bombshell stories – like Twitter does with countless anonymous bombshells from other major publications. “We didn’t know what to believe. We didn’t know what was true. There was smoke,” Roth said during an interview at the Knight Foundation conference, as noted by the Epoch Times. “And ultimately for me, it didn’t reach a place where I was comfortable removing this content from Twitter.”

“It set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 ‘hack and leak campaign’ alarm bells,” he said, referring to a notorious team of cyberspies affiliated with Russian military intelligence. “Everything about it looked like a hack and leak.” When asked whether if it was a mistake to censor the story, Roth replied, “In my opinion, yes.” Would Roth have suppressed the story if it was a Don Jr. laptop full of incriminating evidence?

Finally, it will be very interesting to see which “independent”, “impartial” and “objective” members of the Mainstream Media cover the Twitter Files, which unlike all that Russia collusion bullshit, was a real and actionable attempt to interfere with US democracy by covering up one of the most explosive political stories of a generation, not to mention an event that would have swayed the 2020 presidential election.

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WWIII.

Russia’s Lavrov Repeats: US is Participant in War (Celente)

Russia’s top diplomat said Thursday what The Trends Journal has been saying for months: that the U.S. and NATO are parties to the Ukraine War by providing intelligence, weapons, and training to keep the war going in hopes Moscow emerges a weaker country. Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, told reporters in a video call that it was inaccurate to say that the U.S. and NATO are not “taking part in this war.” “You are directly participating in it,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “And not just by providing weapons but also by training personnel. You are training their military on your territory, on the territories of Britain, Germany, Italy and other countries.”

The U.S. and NATO allies have been pumping Ukraine’s military with an historic amount of artillery. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, a former Raytheon board member, told reporters early in the war that it is his hope “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” In September, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council and the former Russian president, has been critical of NATO’s nearly unlimited support for Ukraine’s war effort. He said it is inevitable that the “military campaign” in Ukraine will move to another level if the support continues. Medvedev took to Telegram and said eventually “everything will catch fire.”

He said the West is intent on weakening Russia by proxy and won’t be able to sit it out. Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, told state television that Moscow has “repeatedly warned the U.S. about the consequences that may follow if the U.S. continues to flood Ukraine with weapons,” The Associated Press reported in September.

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“The West still has some purely quantitative advantage over today’s Russia in the living standards and quality of life, but even that can be claimed only with very large reservations.”

Russia Withdraws From The Western Project (Khramchikhin)

Half a century ago, the West, with its classical democracy, was qualitatively superior to the then Soviet Union in all respects – both in terms of the living standards and quality of life, and in terms of democratic freedoms (competitive elections, real pluralism of opinions, equality of all before the law). If a Soviet person had the opportunity to emigrate, only two things could stop them – patriotism (in relation to the country and its culture, and not to the system) or sincere adherence to communist ideology (although there has been no smell of communism in the USSR for a long time). Today the situation has changed radically. The West still has some purely quantitative advantage over today’s Russia in the living standards and quality of life, but even that can be claimed only with very large reservations.

As far as the level of democratic freedoms is concerned, the West and we have now became practically equal, and in some ways, perhaps, we even surpassed the West. Therefore, today there are only two rational reasons for emigration – the guaranteed availability of a well-paid job in the West, or a fanatical adherence to the left-liberal ideology with its tolerance, the cult of “identities” and such things as the “cancellation culture” that have nothing to do with the real democracy. So, the Western model (even if taken independently of the current state of relations with the West) can no longer serve as a model or guide for Russia, thus reconciliation with the West becomes meaningless. At the same time, the reconciliation also became impossible due to the intellectual degradation of the Western political elites (which we will discuss later), due to their feminization and a significant presence of the representatives of sexual minorities.

Who are, in fact, hired according to the quotas – as it was practiced in the USSR for workers and peasants. Feminists and the representatives of sexual minorities make negative contribution to the politics of those states where they are allowed into the power structures. Moreover, all such people view Russia not so much as a geopolitical, but as an ideological adversary, reconciliation with whom is fundamentally impossible.In addition, the West has absolutely inadequately assessed its “victory” in the Cold War, assuming Russia was a country which lost and which has to to acknowledge its defeat and live with that knowledge forever, giving up protection of its national interests.

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“One of the reasons for centuries-old Russophobia, the Western elites’ unconcealed animosity toward Russia, is precisely the fact that we did not allow them to rob us during the age of colonial conquests..”

Stop the Empire’s War on the World (Batiushka)

For millennia, civilisations have lived side by side. As we have said, they have from time to time spontaneously clashed and clashed violently about ethnic identity, territory and resources. However, Western Civilisation is quite unique. Western Civilisation, which has basically existed for a thousand years (meaning that it is quite recent in comparative historical terms) is the only one which claims to be unique and which has consistently implemented its supposed infallibility and resulting intolerance on a systematic and institutionalised basis via organised violence throughout its millennial existence. Thus, we had the First Crusade (1096-1099), which began by massacring and robbing Jews in the Rhineland and then went on to massacre Orthodox Christians and Muslims, shedding blood, which flowed up to their knees in what they claimed to be the ‘holy’ city of Jerusalem. Should we mention the Inquisition or the Spanish and Portuguese atrocities in what we now call Latin America?

Of course, in fairness, we cannot avoid mentioning the Protestant-Catholic European ‘Wars of Religion’ (sic), in which millions died. The Protestant sects also fought with each other, no doubt in order to prove which was the nastiest-minded and most bigoted. The Protestants, not the Catholics, had witch-hunts, in which they burned to death thousands of poor women, old and young. This was a form of social bullying of those who were in some way different. The Protestants went on to massacre the natives of North America and park the survivors in concentration camps, which they elegantly masked under the name of ‘reservations’ and enslave millions of Africans to work in their labour camps, which they called ‘plantations’. After all, ‘Arbeit macht frei’, ‘Work makes you free’. Though not if you are white, which is why you kindly allow non-whites to work for you.

Much of the witch-hunting goes back to the Protestant hatred and fear of women and so its obsession with sex (‘the only sin’), which it directly inherited from Papacy-imposed obligatory clerical celibacy in eleventh- and twelfth-century Western Europe. Today the old Puritanism of persecuting women has been transformed into the ‘green’ movement. Here, instead of abstention from sexual uncleanness, we now have the equally fanatical abstention from material uncleanness, sexual purity is replaced by environmental purity – ‘green is clean’, the only sin is not recycling. This is just the new Puritanism of such as the clearly clinically depressed and neurotic Greta ‘Funberg’. (What a laugh she is; it must be the dark Swedish nights). However, the ultimate deviation is the legitimisation of homosexuality: what could be more woman-hating than sodomy?

The great difference between the West and all other civilisations is its unique intolerance because it is convinced that it is infallible. (Papal infallibility may have been dogmatised only in the nineteenth century, but it had already been proclaimed by Hildebrand/Gregory VII in the eleventh century). The West has to impose. Conversely, President Putin accepts all, as did the USSR, as did the Russian Tsars. Listen again to two parts of his speech on 30 September this year: ‘What, if not racism, is the West’s dogmatic conviction that its civilisation and neoliberal culture is an indisputable model for the entire world to follow? ‘You’re either with us or against us’…. One of the reasons for centuries-old Russophobia, the Western elites’ unconcealed animosity toward Russia, is precisely the fact that we did not allow them to rob us during the age of colonial conquests and we forced the Europeans to trade with us on mutually beneficial terms. This was achieved by creating a strong centralised State in Russia, which grew and got stronger on the basis of the great moral values of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as Russian culture and the Russian world that were open to all’.

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“..the greatest mystery of all is why he was hired by the International Legion in the first place, let alone sent to the front line on his very first outing..”

The Bleak Reality Of Service With Ukraine’s ‘International Legion’ (Livshitz)

It’s been confirmed that Trent Davis, a 21-year-old US citizen who travelled to Ukraine to fight in the International Legion, has been killed in combat. The tenth American known to have met their end in the conflict, his premature death highlights the enormous dangers facing foreigners joining Kiev’s fight. Davis was an army veteran, having enlisted at just 17. However, he had no actual combat experience, having served as a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) defense specialist, before leaving in December 2021. He reportedly travelled to Ukraine in March to join the Georgian Legion, a unit so notorious for executing Russian prisoners of war that even the Western media has been forced to acknowledge its savagery. The foreign mercenaries, however, considered Davis incompetent and insufficiently experienced to take part in hostilities, so he was sent home two months later.

Davis returned in October, and two weeks later was overjoyed to inform his mother that he had signed a contract and was now officially part of the International Legion, created on 26 February by Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to attract foreign fighters. “Anyone who wants to join the defense of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come and fight side by side with the Ukrainians,” Zelensky said in a statement at the time, in which he eased visa restrictions to facilitate their arrival. Davis told his mother he would soon be heading out to fight in a counteroffensive in the south of Ukraine. His mother and father never heard from their son again. On 8 November, he was killed on his very first mission, as Ukrainian forces attempted to recapture Kherson.

The details of how Davis died are murky, although the greatest mystery of all is why he was hired by the International Legion in the first place, let alone sent to the front line on his very first outing. Officially at least, combat experience – which he of course lacked – and a “belief in freedom and democracy” are the basic requirements for enlistment in the unit. When contacted by the Military Times, the International Legion declined to comment on why Davis was sent to the front, only remarking that “recruiting decisions are made by officers in western Ukraine,” and amazingly alleging: “no commander takes on inexperienced soldiers who did not have the appropriate training and skills.” Clearly, a commander did in respect of Davis. And there is no reason to believe he is in any way unique.

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Poor girl.

Finland PM Sanna Marin Says Europe Is ‘Not Strong Enough’ Without The US (G.)

Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin has called for Europe to build its own defence capabilities in the wake of the war in Ukraine, saying that without US help it is not resilient enough. “We should make sure that we are stronger,” Marin said in Sydney on Friday. “And I’ll be brutally honest with you, Europe isn’t strong enough. We would be in trouble without the United States.” Her remarks came in response to a question about China’s responsibility to “rein in Russia”. Marin said that while China could play a role, “We shouldn’t only rely on that.” Marin insisted Ukraine must be given “whatever it takes” to win the war, adding that the United States had been pivotal in supplying Kyiv with the weapons, finance and humanitarian aid necessary to blunt Russia’s advance.

“We have to make sure that we are also building those capabilities when it comes to European defence, the European defence industry, and making sure that we could cope in different kinds of situations,” she said. Marin said that when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, the priority of most Finns changed “overnight” to security. Until Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland’s priorities were to have working bilateral relations with Russia and be close partners with members Nato, but not be a member, she said. “That was the best way to secure our nation.” Finland and Sweden applied to join the alliance in May, but are waiting on Turkey and Hungary to ratify their requests, which have been approved by the other 28 nations in the group.

In June, Putin warned that if Nato installed military infrastructure in Finland and Sweden, Moscow “would be obliged to respond symmetrically and raise the same threats for those territories where threats have arisen for us”. Asked what the likeliest scenario was in terms of threats posed by Russia to Finland, with which it shares a 1,300km border, Marin said: “We have extensive military forces, so we’re not expecting them to engage in that account and we’re not seeing any military action near the Finnish border.” “But of course we are prepared for different kind of hybrid attacks that we might see.” “We are preparing for different kinds of cyber-attacks … we’re preparing for different kinds of hybrid attacks, for misinformation.”

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Scholz is a mental midget representing a once great nation.

Russian Strikes In Ukraine ‘A Response,’ Putin Tells Scholz (RT)

Russian precision attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure are a necessary response to Ukrainian sabotage on Russian soil, including the bombing of the Crimean Bridge, President Vladimir Putin has told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The two leaders spoke on the phone on Friday at Berlin’s request, according to a statement released by the Kremlin. Putin explained the logic behind Russia’s military operation against Ukraine and stated that the Western policy of arming and training Ukrainian troops was “destructive,” according to the readout. “It was noted that the Russian Armed Forces had been refraining from conducting precision missile strikes on certain targets in the Ukrainian territory for a long time, but now such measures have become necessary and unavoidable as a reaction to Kiev’s provocative attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure, including the Crimean Bridge and energy facilities,” the Kremlin said.

The “terrorist attack” against the Nord Stream undersea pipelines “stands in the same category” and requires a transparent investigation that would include Russia, Putin told the German leader. Scholz’s office said the conversation lasted for about an hour and that the “chancellor condemned the Russian airstrikes against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and stressed Germany’s determination to support” Kiev. Russia changed its military tactics in Ukraine days after a powerful bomb damaged the Crimean Bridge in early October. Russian investigators accused Ukrainian military intelligence of masterminding the attack, which killed three people, including the driver of the truck that carried the disguised bomb.

In retaliation, Russian forces started targeting Ukrainian energy facilities, which the Defense Ministry believes to be instrumental for Kiev’s military logistics. The damage forced Ukrainian authorities to introduce rolling blackouts. The Ukrainian government and its Western backers accused Moscow of using terrorist tactics. The blasts that damaged the two undersea Nord Stream pipelines happened in late September, severing links that would have enabled Germany to get natural gas directly from Russia. Moscow said the obvious beneficiary of the sabotage was the US, which had long sought to force Berlin to reduce its energy trade with Russia and replace Russian fuel with more expensive liquified natural gas produced by American companies.

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Parroting Biden, he wants Russia to leave Ukraine and THEN talk. Never going to happen.

Scholz Wants Post-conflict ‘Agreements’ With Russia (RT)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has declared that peace in Europe depends on the revival of post-Cold War security agreements with Russia. Despite his apparent willingness to work with Moscow in the future, Scholz ruled out a return to the “partnership” of the past. “We have to go back to the agreements which we had in the last decades and which were the basis for peace and security order in Europe,” Scholz said at the Berlin Security Conference on Wednesday, according to a Times report. The chancellor explained that there was a “willingness” in Berlin to discuss arms control and missile deployment treaties with Moscow, but that building this “peace order” would depend on Russia making some significant concessions. Chief among these would be an acceptance that “there is no aggression coming from NATO.”

Moscow has argued since the 1990s that the eastward expansion of NATO threatens Russia’s security, and that Ukraine’s membership in the alliance – which Kiev insists will happen and NATO has not ruled out – presents an existential threat to the Russian state. Scholz also declared that Germany will “support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” a phrase that US, EU, and NATO leaders have repeatedly used when referring to their multibillion-dollar arms shipments to Kiev. The chancellor admitted that Germany will likely never return to the “strong partnership” it enjoyed with Russia before the conflict in Ukraine. This partnership – in which German industry achieved Europe-wide dominance with the help of inexpensive Russian gas – was scuppered first by Berlin’s backing of the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions regime, and then by the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, which preclude an easy return to the pre-conflict status quo.

Citing Germany’s economic reliance on Russia, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed last month that when Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine in February, the German government reckoned “it would be better for the whole thing to be over quickly, and for Ukraine to fold.” While Berlin has since written Johnson’s claim off as “utter nonsense,” Germany is currently paying a stiff cost for abandoning its partnership with Russia. Unemployment and energy costs have risen, and the German economy is forecast to enter recession next year. With an immediate return to pre-conflict relations with Russia off the cards, Scholz admitted on Wednesday that the EU’s continued support for Ukraine “will mean major adaptations for all of us in Europe.

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“..these Western organizations did whatever they could to drive the Russian people toward eventual biological extinction and replace them with a more docile and less adventurous race.”

The Goldilocks War (Dmitry Orlov)

[..] allow me to introduce Goldilocks with her three bears and her porridge not to hot and not too cold. What Russia seems to be doing is keeping their special military operation moving along at a steady pace—not to fast and not too slow. Going too fast would not allow enough time to cook the various fish; going too fast would also increase the cost of the campaign in casualties and resources. Going too slow would give the Ukrainians and NATO time to regroup and rearm and prevent the proper thermal processing of the various fish. In an effort to find the optimal pace for the conflict, Russia initially committed only a tenth of its professional active-duty soldiers, then worked hard to minimize the casualty rate.

It opted to start turning off the lights all over the former Ukraine only after the Kiev regime tried to blow up the Kerch Strait bridge that linked Crimea with the Russian mainland. Finally, it called up just 1% of reservists to relieve the pressure from the frontline troops and potentially prepare for the next stage, which is a winter campaign—for which the Russians are famous. With this background information laid out, we can now enumerate and describe the various ancillary objectives which Russia plans to achieve over the course of this Goldilocks War. The first and perhaps most important set of problems that Russia has to solve in the course of the Goldilocks War is internal. The goal is to rearrange Russian society, economy and financial system so as to prepare it for a de-Westernized future.

Since the collapse of the USSR, various Western agents, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the US State Department, various Soros-owned foundations and a wide assortment of Western grants and exchange programs have made serious inroads into Russia. The overall goal was to weaken and eventually dismember and destroy Russia, turning it into a compliant servant of Western governments and transnational corporations that would supply them with cheap labor and raw materials. To help this process along, these Western organizations did whatever they could to drive the Russian people toward eventual biological extinction and replace them with a more docile and less adventurous race.

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That wasn’t the plan?

EU’s Oil Cap May Result In ‘Violent’ Price Spikes – The Economist (RT)

As the European Union’s sanctions on Russian oil are about to kick in next week, the measure could result in price shocks on the global market, The Economist reported on Friday. The EU has agreed on a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil. According to the report, European insurers and shipping firms have long had a “vice-like hold” on energy markets. Fully 95% of property and indemnity insurance for all oil tankers has been handled by firms from the UK and the EU. This appeared to be a lever with which the West could control the sale of Russian oil globally. However, if Russian oil fails to make it to the market, then global oil prices may spike, hurting Western consumers, the outlet writes.

“Hence America’s Treasury Department has since devised a cunning plan to water it down: to let European firms continue to offer their services, provided the oil involved is bought at a suppressed price set by the West.” Everything depends on how Moscow responds, according to the Economist report, which warns the Kremlin could cut its oil exports, relying on a smaller group of non-Western tankers and insurers, and sending global prices spiraling. “The other uncertainty is how much power the West will ultimately wield over global oil markets.” The report noted that countries such as China, India and Indonesia want to avoid participating in Western sanctions and embargoes.

They are reportedly seeking alternative sources of day-to-day insurance–and, because the ban was announced six months ago, “have had time to prepare.” According to The Economist, the “true balance of power” in oil markets will become apparent after December 5, with a “violent price spike” possible. “Just as financial sanctions have energized attempts to evade the Western banking system, so the war will lead China, India and others to circumvent the West’s energy infrastructure. As weapons, sanctions and embargoes have their limits–and a finite shelf-life,” the outlet concludes.

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You don’t say…

NATO’s Handling Of Ukraine Crisis May End In Disaster – Clare Daly (RT)

Irish MEP Clare Daly accused NATO of bringing “terror, death, lawlessness [and] rape” to Libya, and claimed that the US-led alliance’s strategy in Ukraine will yield similar results. Daly made her declaration after voting against a resolution calling for greater EU involvement in Libya. Daly, along with fellow Irish leftist Mick Wallace, voted last week against a resolution that called on the EU to play “a more active role” in rebuilding war-torn Libya, including by setting up police and military units under the command of the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA). While the EU as a whole supports the GNA, the rival Libyan National Army (LNA) has the backing of France and has reportedly hired private military contractors from Russia to bolster its forces.

Amid this ongoing power struggle, Daly sees NATO’s 2011 bombing campaign as the root of Libya’s problems. “I voted against this report,” she declared, in a video posted to her Twitter page on Wednesday. “Its timing is pretty appropriate coming, as it does, a few short weeks after the 11th anniversary of the day Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed during the NATO assault on Libya: sodomized with a bayonet and shot in the head.” “The NATO intervention in Libya, carried out in the name of protecting freedom, democracy and human rights, is one we’d do well to remember as NATO plays out its proxy war in Ukraine in the name of, you’ve guessed it, freedom, democracy and human rights,” she continued.

Gadaffi was deposed and tortured by NATO-backed militants in October 2011, with his mutilated corpse left on display in a meat market in the city of Misrata. Once an oil-rich and prosperous nation, Libya descended into anarchy following his murder, with an Amnesty International report earlier this year describing conditions there as “hellish.” “What happens after NATO intervenes in your country on this basis?” Daly asked EU lawmakers. “Terror, death, lawlessness, rape, poverty, starvation.” “Libya is a country riven by conflict, its economy shattered, its population – formerly the wealthiest in Africa – ridden and mired in poverty,” she continued. “Migrants are bought and sold in slave markets. It’s a country of mass graves, of crimes against humanity. This is NATO’s legacy.”

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Coming soon to a town near you. This will be a big story. First in Europe.

Switzerland Considers Electric Vehicle Ban To Avoid Blackouts (OP)

Switzerland could limit the use of electric vehicles (EVs) in cases of electricity supply shortages this winter under a new four-step plan to prevent power cuts and blackouts. To ensure energy security this winter, Switzerland could become the first country to limit the driving and use of EVs, German daily Der Spiegel reports, citing multiple media reports on the Swiss four-stage action plan to avoid blackouts. Driving EVs could be banned in Switzerland unless in cases of “absolutely necessary journeys” in stage three of the power conservation plans. The country also plans a stricter speed limit on highways in the recently proposed action plan, which has yet to be adopted. Switzerland typically imports electricity from France and Germany to meet all its power demand, but this year supply from its neighbors is constrained.

In France, the nuclear fleet availability is much lower than usual, which has led to the country becoming a net importer of electricity after decades of being a net exporter. The French electricity grid is at higher risk of strained power supplies in January 2023 than previously estimated due to lower nuclear power generation. The country could face the risk of power cuts this winter when electricity supply may not be enough to meet demand, Xavier Piechaczyk, the head of grid operator RTE, said earlier this week. In Germany, the situation is similar, as utilities are having to make do with no Russian pipeline gas supply.

Switzerland’s power supply remains uncertain for the winter and troubles with enough electricity capacity cannot be ruled out, the Swiss Federal Electricity Commission, Elcom, said as early as in June. Due to the expected lower availability of French nuclear power generation and of France’s power exports to Switzerland, the Swiss imports of power generated in France is likely to be much lower this winter compared to previous winter seasons, Elcom said. Therefore, Switzerland may need to cover its electricity import needs of around 4 gigawatt hours (GWh) from imports from its other neighbors Germany, Austria, and Italy. However, the power export availability of those countries would heavily depend on the available fossil fuels, mostly natural gas, according to Elcom.

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Trudy, like Fauci, should henceforth only be allowed to speak in a courtroom. Under oath.

Trudeau Denounces China for its Failure to Allow Covid Protests (Turley)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau left many of us gobsmacked this week when he denounced China for its crackdown on protesters. Many of us denounced Trudeau for his authoritarian crackdown on truckers protesting Canada’s Covid policies. Trudeau used terrorist laws to freeze bank accounts, treat truckers as terrorists, and treat trucks as effective weapons. This is a continuation of Trudeau’s utter lack of self-awareness (and the media continuing lack of objectivity). He previously was praised for his stance against Cuba’s crackdown on protesters. Trudeau told the media Tuesday, “Obviously everyone in China should be allowed to express themselves, should be allowed to, you know, share their — their perspectives, and indeed protest. We’re going to continue to ensure that China knows we’ll stand up for human rights, we’ll stand with people who are expressing themselves.”

That is coming from the man who invoked the 1988 Emergencies Act for the first time to freeze accounts of truckers and contributions by other Canadian citizens. It was entirely unnecessary and, while the media is largely supportive of Trudeau, the powers have been condemned by civil liberties groups in Canada. The 1988 law is meant to address the greatest national threats when existing laws are insufficient. However, there are ample laws allowing the clearing of roads and bridges. Trudeau is using the Act to intimidate not just the truckers but anyone who supports them. That includes sending lists of names to banks for accounts to be frozen and going to court to prevent donations from reaching the truckers. Ironically, it was Trudeau’s father, who used the predecessor to the Act for the first time in peacetime to suspend civil liberties.

Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act on Oct. 16, 1970, after separatist terrorists calling themselves the Front de libération du Québec kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. The prior Act had never been used in peacetime and only twice before during prior wars. Justin Trudeau, like his father, has never been a strong supporter of free speech. Indeed, he has more often championed its limitations. He previously declared that “freedom of expression is not without limits . . . we owe it to ourselves to act with respect for others and to seek not to arbitrarily or unnecessarily injure those with whom we are sharing a society and a planet.”

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“..Fauci appeared in a fawning Washington Post interview, where he was labeled a “hero,” complained about being a victim, and couldn’t think of anything he did wrong.”

Rand Paul: Fauci Caused 7 Million People To Die (SN)

Senator Rand Paul asserted Thursday that Anthony Fauci is directly responsible for funding dangerous research that likely killed millions of people, and that he “won’t get away.”“Likely there is no public health figure who has made a greater error in judgement than Dr Fauci,” Paul declared in a Fox News appearance, adding “the error of judgement was to fund gain of function research in a totalitarian country.”Fauci funded “research that allowed them to create super viruses, that in all likelihood leaked into the public and caused seven million people to die,” Paul declared.“This is right up there with decisions, some of them malevolent or military to kill millions of people,” The Senator further urged.

The Senator made the comments after Fauci appeared in a fawning Washington Post interview, where he was labeled a “hero,” complained about being a victim, and couldn’t think of anything he did wrong. Paul further noted that “It goes to judgement, talk about errors, you think he might apologise to the world… to support that kind of research then look the other way and say nothing to see here, and to cover it up.”“For the last two years he’s been covering his tracks, but we’ve caught him red handed and he won’t get away,” Paul asserted, adding “historically [Fauci] will be remembered for one of the worst judgments in the history of modern medicine.” Paul also commented on efforts he is leading to overturn the Biden Administration’s COVID vaccine mandate for military personnel.


“They deserve to have their religious freedom, as well as their medical choices and freedom to decide what goes into their body,” Paul noted.He continued, “We know this, and this is a scientific fact, the vaccine does not prevent you from getting an infection, it doesn’t prevent you from transmitting an infection, and for young people there isn’t significant evidence to show that it reduces the severity or hospitalisation.” “The military has become so ‘woke’ and they’re demanding you get a vaccine that you don’t need, so something’s got to change,” the Senator further urged.

Ryan Cole
https://twitter.com/i/status/1598182715765198848

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Think of the contrast with Julian.

Edward Snowden Awarded Russian Passport (Az.)

Former NSA (National Security Agency) employee Edward Snowden took an oath and was granted a Russian passport, his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told TASS on Friday. “Yes, he received a passport. He took the oath,” Kucherena said in a response to a question as to whether Snowden has been given a Russian passport, adding that he personally met with Snowden yesterday. The lawyer also said that Snowden’s spouse is currently submitting the required documents for Russian citizenship as well. Snowden and American acrobat and blogger Lindsay Mills married in Moscow in 2017. Snowden’s US passport was annulled in 2013, but the White House explained back then that it was a routine legal procedure following the issuance of an arrest warrant and his citizenship status remained unchanged.


In late September, a Russian presidential decree was published stating that Snowden was eligible to be granted the Russian citizenship. In 2013, Snowden leaked information on the electronic surveillance methods used by American intelligence services, including illegally eavesdropping on foreign leaders’ conversations. Fleeing punitive consequences from US federal authorities, Snowden sent requests for asylum to several countries, including Russia. On August 1, 2014, he obtained a temporary Russian residence permit and later was granted an open-ended residency permit. Back in the United States, Snowden is facing two counts of violating the Espionage Act, and he risks up to ten years in prison on each count.

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Tucker Max Keiser 2,3

 

 

 

 

Nakamura

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 072022
 
 November 7, 2022  Posted by at 9:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Small self portrait 1627-28

 

Dead Hand’s Revenge: What Would Happen If The West Strikes Russia? (Duncan)
Ukraine Conflict Approaching Its Stalingrad – Serbian President (RT)
Democrats, Not Democracy, Are In Danger This Election (Turley)
The Trojan Horse Presidency (Dmitry Orlov)
There May Not Be a 2024 Election – Martin Armstrong (USAW)
Researchers Find Massive Anti-Russian ‘Bot Army’ (Cronau)
Scholz‘s 11-hours Visit to Beijing Spells Catastrophe (Pattberg)
US ‘Privately’ Urging Ukraine To Negotiate – WaPo (RT)
US Presidential Adviser Sullivan In Confidential Talks With Kremlin -WSJ (RT)
Kiev Prepares For Total Blackout – NYT (RT)
Maersk Warns Of ‘Dark Clouds On The Horizon’ (RT)
Energy Disaster Awaits EU After This Winter – Oil CEOs (RT)
Europe May See Forced De-Industrialization As Result Of Energy Crisis (ZH)
Biden Press Secretary Under Fire For ‘Mega MAGA Republican’ Comment (ZH)
Twitter Ad Boycott Organized By Soros, Clinton, Foreign Networks (Schachtel)
Wot’s In The Shots? (Weisser)

 

 

“I am so disappointed with my Grandpa. He is voting Democrat next week.
When he was alive, he was a staunch Republican.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seen this man?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1588920818943557634

 

 

 

 

Gates
https://twitter.com/i/status/1589050562942844929

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Having suddenly started, the nuclear war ended just as suddenly, destroying everyone. There were no winners or losers.”

Dead Hand’s Revenge: What Would Happen If The West Strikes Russia? (Duncan)

One of Perimeter’s developers, Alexander Zheleznyakov, described a possible scenario for using the system as follows: “Two hours after the start of hostilities, when it seemed that there was nothing and, most importantly, no one to fight, in the remote Siberian taiga, in the Kazakh steppes, in the swamps of central Russia, the hatches of mine launchers almost simultaneously opened, and dozens of silver giants rushed into the sky. Thirty minutes later, the fate of Moscow and Leningrad, Kiev and Minsk, Berlin and Prague, Beijing and Havana was shared by Washington and New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Bonn and London, Paris and Rome, Sydney and Tokyo. Having suddenly started, the nuclear war ended just as suddenly, destroying everyone. There were no winners or losers.

[..] Is the Dead Hand dead? Yarynich was the one to blow the whistle on Perimeter after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the early 1990s, he spoke cautiously about the key details of the Dead Hand system with American nuclear security expert Bruce Blair, who revealed the existence of the system in a New York Times op-ed, not mentioning the Russian colonel, though his colleagues were well aware who had leaked the information. In 2003, Yarynich himself wrote a book, ‘C3: Nuclear Command, Control, Cooperation,’ providing even more details. He had spent the rest of his life fighting for transparency within the nuclear command and control mechanisms of Russia and the US. “Nuclear weapons should not be viewed as a political instrument,” he believed.

“Today, we are facing an obvious absurdity,” Yarynich wrote in the introduction to his book. “On the one hand … the United States and Russia have become unprecedentedly open with each other, exchanging information that used to be completely secret during the Cold War.” “Now publicly accessible computer databases include information about the various types of American and Russian ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, their numbers, characteristics, location, design bureaus and production facilities … The results of such decisive steps is evident: the process of nuclear arms reduction has started and is successfully continuing.” However, Yarynich argued, this isn’t enough: absolute secrecy still reigns when it comes to command and control of nuclear weapons. “Two issues are of greatest importance here,” he explained.

“First, what measures have been taken by the nuclear powers against accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons, and how reliable are those measures? Second, what is the ideology for hypothetical authorized deployment of nuclear weapons?” In 2007, Yarynich gave a detailed interview to Wired magazine. In it, he repeated his story about the technical features of the Perimeter, and most importantly, confirmed that the system is constantly being updated, and that he’s proud to have been involved in its development: it successfully managed its task in the Cold War and can continue to serve. All he wanted was for the system to be talked about. Yarynich believed that publicity around the system would be useful to Russia: no one wants to die in vain.

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“..we’re facing the Battle of Stalingrad, the decisive battle in the conflict in Ukraine, the battle for Kherson..”

Ukraine Conflict Approaching Its Stalingrad – Serbian President (RT)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has compared the anticipated battle for Kherson between Russian and Ukrainian forces to the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II, warning that aftershocks from the fighting would be felt far outside the conflict zone. “Challenging times are ahead of us. Next winter will be even harsher than this one because we’re facing the Battle of Stalingrad, the decisive battle in the conflict in Ukraine, the battle for Kherson,” Vucic said in an interview with Pink TV on Sunday. Both sides are likely to deploy thousands of tanks, aircraft and artillery pieces in the struggle for the key city, he predicted. “The West [which is backing Ukraine in the conflict and supplying it with arms] thinks it’ll be able to ruin Russia that way, while Russia believes it’ll be able to defend what it obtained at the start of the war and bring it to an end,” the Serbian leader said.

The massive fighting in Kherson “is going to create additional problems everywhere,” Vucic warned. Stalingrad is believed to have been the biggest and bloodiest battle of World War II, and proved to be a turning point in the conflict. According to some estimations, the fighting between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany between August 1942 and February 1943 resulted in up to two million casualties, with more than a million dead. The city of Kherson on the Dnieper River came under Russian control just days after Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February. Kherson Region was officially declared part of the Russian state in early October, together with Zaporozhye Region and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, after people in those territories overwhelmingly supported the move in referendums.

The Ukrainian government has made the recapture of Kherson one of its main goals, having planned a large-scale offensive on the city for months. In recent weeks, the Kiev troops have repeatedly tried to advance in the area, but all of those attacks have been repelled. On Sunday, Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the regional administration, warned that Ukraine had been “deploying more and more APCs and tanks” near Kherson in what could be preparation for another offensive. Russia has been making plans to defend the city from a possible attack. Last month, the authorities started relocating civilians from Kherson and areas on the right bank of the Dnieper over concerns that Ukrainian strikes on the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam could lead to major flooding.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that “those living in Kherson must be evacuated from the most dangerous zone of action. The civilian population must not suffer from shelling, any kind of offensive and counter-offensive, and other activities related to military operations.”

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“.. it is democracy or death, gas or grandchildren — you choose.”

Democrats, Not Democracy, Are In Danger This Election (Turley)

Historian Michael Beschloss’s warning on MSNBC — speculating that “our children will be arrested and conceivably killed” if Republicans win control of Congress — summed up the final pitch by President Biden and fellow Democrats ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections. Apparently, it is not gas prices, the economy or crime that once again are the top polling issues for voters. Instead, it is democracy or death, gas or grandchildren — you choose. Biden returned to this theme in what White House chief of staff Ron Klain called his “final warning” to voters. The president ominously cautioned voters who might be thinking of voting for Republicans that, “make no mistake, democracy is on the ballot for all of us.” In other words, be afraid, be very afraid.

Biden was widely criticized for an earlier Philadelphia speech that denounced political opponents as fascists plotting to overthrow democracy. Yet he and others have returned to that theme as Democrats appear to be losing ground even in traditional blue states. Among others, Hillary Clinton warned that the GOP is trying to “steal” the election and that “they’re going after democracy.“ The president’s attacks do not appear to be gaining much traction, with polls showing that most people view him as inciting political unrest. Nevertheless, on almost every network and cable news program, the mantra seems unrelenting: If the GOP prevails in the midterms, democracy could be lost.

Whereas the media once pushed a false Russia collusion claim in the 2016 election, this time it is pushing a claim that the GOP itself represents the threat to our liberties and very lives. As Democratic alarm over a GOP win in both houses of Congress has increased with polling in the past two weeks, so has the alarming rhetoric. Beschloss, for instance, warned that not only may democracy have just a few days left but there may be no one allowed to record its fall: “Fifty years from now, if historians are allowed to write in this country and if there are still free publishing houses and a free press — which I’m not certain of, but if that is true — a historian will say what was at stake … was the fact whether we will be a democracy in the future, whether our children will be arrested and conceivably killed.”

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“What if the president is an organo-servo-robot, a senile puppet, backed up by a vice president specifically chosen for being even more feeble-minded?”

The Trojan Horse Presidency (Dmitry Orlov)

The US midterm elections are nigh and, as I happen to be a good and patriotic Russian national, it behooves me to meddle in them. Election-meddling is an example of Russia’s soft power, which is much nicer than Russia’s hard power, so you should be glad that it’s still on offer. I am on record saying that “The United States is not a democracy and it doesn’t matter who is president” multiple times in multiple places, and I stand by that statement, which I believe to be a provable statement of fact. Statistics show that there is zero correlation between public preferences and public policy decisions but a strong correlation between business lobby group preferences and pubic policy decisions. Thus the US is not a democracy (rule by the people) but an oligopoly (rule by business groups).

From this it follows that it doesn’t matter who is president because both parties of the Democrat-Republican duopoly are owned by the same set of business groups. And so it doesn’t matter who is president and your vote means nothing? Granted; but then does it matter WHETHER there is a president? Methinks, it does! What if the president is an organo-servo-robot, a senile puppet, backed up by a vice president specifically chosen for being even more feeble-minded? This is an excellent ploy for putting in power an extremist group that is only tangentially related to the usual business lobbies that determine what gets done in Washington. Don’t think of some vast and amorphous “deep state”: executing such a power grab requires tight coordination, some amount of secrecy or, at least, discretion, and, of course, vast sums of money.

Think instead of a singularly well-endowed evil oligarch and his multiple minions whom he has carefully groomed and insinuated into positions of power.The overall goal of such an extremist group may well go far beyond the usual interests of business lobbies, such as preserving shareholder equity, a wider spot at the federal subsidy trough, knocking down transnational barriers to trade and movement of capital, lower business taxes and so on. These zealots may well have an altogether different view of the future in mind, in which a tiny group of ultra-rich owns everything while the rest of us own nothing but, being made tame and docile through all sorts of medical and technical manipulation, feel happy about this state of affairs… like so many animals in a menagerie… not too many animals, mind you: drastic population reduction is likely a key goal of theirs.

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“It’s just so corrupt, it is over the top. It doesn’t matter who wins. Nobody is going to accept this thing, and that is the problem.”

There May Not Be a 2024 Election – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong says, “The cheating in the midterm election next week is going to be so great that it is almost impossible to make a prediction. . . . In a fair midterm election, the Republicans would win the House and the Senate.” So, what does his Socrates program see for next week? Armstrong, says, “It’s going to be tight, and the Republicans have a shot at taking the House. Technically, they should take the House and the Senate. I am just not sure. The corruption is so bad, it’s crazy. Pennsylvania sent out hundreds of thousands of ballots to people who are not documented or even American. I’ve gotten emails from people in Canada, they are getting mail-in ballots. They mailed them to Canada. .Where this ends up, who knows? It’s just so corrupt, it is over the top. It doesn’t matter who wins. Nobody is going to accept this thing, and that is the problem.”

The cheating is going to be so in your face President Trump may not even be able to run for President two years from now. Armstrong contends, “We may not even have an election in 2024. It is not looking very good, and it’s probably because this election is not going to be accepted. When it is so over-the-top corrupt, what do you do for the next one? The United States will not exist after 2032. After 2028 and 2029, we are going to have to redesign a government from scratch. America is being destroyed. Republics always end in absolute corruption. We just saw the same thing happen in Brazil. They staged a major effort to take Bolsonaro out. . . . This is a worldwide effort. They had to get rid of Trump. The other one who stood in their way is Bolsonaro. Then there is Putin (Russia) and Xi Jinping (China). I think you are going to have historians look back at this 50 years from now, and they will call this period ‘The Climate Change Wars’. .They are trying to take down as much oil energy capacity as possible.”

Armstrong is still seeing very strong signals on domestic violence everywhere. Armstrong explains, “Our computer is showing it’s going to be a rocket launch for volatility and civil unrest next year.” Armstrong also contends there will be a major loss of confidence in government around the world. That means gold will start having big demand from big money. Armstrong also predicts, “The whole monetary system as we know it is collapsing. That was what the bond crisis in the UK was about.”

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Set up well before Feb 24.

Researchers Find Massive Anti-Russian ‘Bot Army’ (Cronau)

A team of researchers at the University of Adelaide have found that as many as 80 percent of tweets about the 2022 Russia-Ukraine invasion in its early weeks were part of a covert propaganda campaign originating from automated fake “bot” accounts. An anti-Russia propaganda campaign originating from a “bot army” of phony automated Twitter accounts flooded the internet at the start of the war. The research shows that of the more than 5 million tweets studied, 90.2 percent (both bot and non-bot) came from accounts that were pro-Ukraine, with fewer than 7 percent of the accounts being classed as pro-Russian. The university researchers also found these automated tweets had been purposely used to drive up fear amongst people targeted by them, boosting a high level of statistically measurable “angst” in the online discourse.

The research team analysed a massively unprecedented 5,203,746 tweets, sent with key hashtags, in the first two weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from Feb. 24. The researchers looked at predominately English-language accounts. A calculated 1.8 million unique Twitter accounts in the dataset posted at least one English-language tweet. The results were published in August in a research paper, titled “#IStandWithPutin versus #IStandWithUkraine: The interaction of bots and humans in discussion of the Russia/Ukraine war,” by the University of Adelaide’s School of Mathematical Science.The size of the sample under study, of over 5-million tweets, dwarfs other recent studies of covert propaganda in social media surrounding the Ukraine war.

The little-reported Stanford University/Graphika research on Western disinformation, analysed by Declassified Australia in September, examined just under 300,000 tweets from 146 Twitter accounts. The Meta/Facebook research on Russian disinformation reported widely by mainstream media, including by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) a fortnight later, looked at only 1,600 Facebook accounts. Reports on the new research have appeared in only a few independent media sites, and on Russia’s RT. The ground-breaking study exposing a massive anti-Russia social media disinformation campaign has been effectively ignored by Western establishment media, showing how stories that don’t fit the desired pro-Western narrative are routinely buried.

The Adelaide University researchers unearthed a massive organised pro-Ukraine influence operation underway from the early stages of the conflict. Overall, the study found automated “bot” accounts to be the source of between 60 to 80 percent of all tweets in the dataset. The published data shows that in the first week of the Ukraine-Russia war there was a huge mass of pro-Ukrainian hashtag bot activity. Approximately 3.5 million tweets using the hashtag #IStandWithUkraine were sent by bots in that first week. In fact, it was like someone had flicked a switch at the start of the war as pro-Ukraine bot activity suddenly burst into life. In that first day of the war the #IStandWithUkraine hashtag was used in as many as 38,000 tweets each hour, rising to 50,000 tweets an hour by day three of the war.

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“Germany is a beaten, crushed, debilitated US-occupied nation. It should not exist in this form.”

Scholz‘s 11-hours Visit to Beijing Spells Catastrophe (Pattberg)

[..] the lazy China experts fall over each other on German regime tv, regime press, and anti-Chinese social media, laureating aeriform German stuff like unfreedom, German democracy, and holocaust guilt. And what are they demonizing? Of course, they are demonizing China’s evil trinity of poverty alleviation, superior technologies, and unbelievable material wealth. Mr. Scholz wanted to be the first Western leader to meet Mr. Xi in person. He is a busy man. Mr. Scholz, I mean, not Mr. Xi. Mr. Xi is always in Beijing, fixing his own country and guiding his people. That wanker Scholz, on the other hand, has been, let me see, so far been to…. HOLY MOTHER!…. 47 foreign capitals in 2022 alone! What an Emperor of Man! What a Ruler of the Universe! Stoltz‘s AWESOME!!!

Germany depends on China’s industries A LOT. China might be the only nation that unconditionally keeps up with the German poop and still deals with the neonazis after Berlin started WW III with Russia this summer. If the Middle Kingdom was Middle Earth [an Anglo-Saxon fantasy world], then the Germans would be the Balin dwarves toiling under the mountains. It would be good for cave king Stoltz to discuss steel legions, rare earth mining, and bolt-throwers. But maybe the German mines ran dry and empty, so the Stoltz people crawled back to the surface with this new business plan of… morally harassing orcses, wizards, and little Chinese girls alike. Germany is a beaten, crushed, debilitated US-occupied nation. It should not exist in this form. But the victorious Western allies did not release these poor wretched people.

Instead, they decided to chain them to the BRD regime [Federal Republic of Deutschland] and tell lies about how great it is to change from a glorious 1000-year-old Reich into a homo anal-fixated Iew-worshiping seepage. Watch any US movie and the villains are probably Germans. Also, watch gay porn, German’s best.This century of humiliation went smoothly for roughly 60 years, from 1949 until 2009, before the World Wide Web took off and became unstoppable. Suddenly, Germans could share experiences online, check the facts, and compare historic accounts. Their country, they found, is a US strap dildo. Their mountain,… the misty mountain of Saruman the Schmuel. People started to expose this false US love bombing. Now the BRD regime is in trouble under a mountain of lies and make-beliefs: Deutschland was never a free, sovereign land since 1949.

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“..the encouragement isn’t aimed at pushing Ukraine to engage in actual peace talks with Moscow..”

US ‘Privately’ Urging Ukraine To Negotiate – WaPo (RT)

The White House is privately asking top Ukrainian officials to show openness to peace talks with Russia, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. Kiev’s public refusal to negotiate with Moscow unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power in Russia must be abandoned, people familiar with the discussions told the paper. However, the encouragement isn’t aimed at pushing Ukraine to engage in actual peace talks with Moscow to put an end to the fighting, which has been underway since late February, the sources pointed out. The move is more of a “calculated attempt” to make sure Vladimir Zelensky’s government retains the support of foreign nations in which the public have become increasingly concerned about the prospect of the conflict continuing for years, they explained.

“Ukraine fatigue is a real thing for some of our partners,” an unnamed US official told the WaPo. Last month, Zelensky signed a decree, which officially made it “impossible” for him to hold talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The move followed the incorporation of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, into the Russian state as a result of referendums held in those territories. Russia, which has repeatedly invited Ukrainian authorities to come to the negotiating table in recent months, has blamed Kiev for undermining any potential for a peaceful settlement of the crisis. “How can we discuss any possible agreements when there’s no willingness to even talk to us from the other side?”Putin said on Monday. “So, we’ll wait. Maybe the necessary conditions will come about.”

Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov suggested last week that the negotiations should also include the US. Any peace deal with Kiev would have little credibility because it could be instantly rescinded by Ukraine’s backers in the West, he said. “The deciding vote rests with Washington,” Peskov insisted.

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Ukraine demands things they know Russia will not oblige. The only hope for peace appears to be China.

US Presidential Adviser Sullivan In Confidential Talks With Kremlin -WSJ (RT)

President Biden’s top national-security adviser has engaged in recent months in confidential conversations with top aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to reduce the risk of a broader conflict over Ukraine and warn Moscow against using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, US and allied officials said, Report informs referring to The Wall Street Journal. The officials said that US national-security adviser Jake Sullivan has been in contact with Yuri Ushakov, a foreign-policy adviser to Putin. Sullivan also has spoken with his direct counterpart in the Russian government, Nikolai Patrushev, the officials added. The aim has been to guard against the risk of escalation and keep communications channels open, and not to discuss a settlement of the war in Ukraine, the officials said. Asked whether Sullivan has engaged in undisclosed conversations with Ushakov or Patrushev, National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said: “People claim a lot of things” and declined to comment further. The Kremlin didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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“..a contingency plan that anticipates the evacuation of approximately 3 million of its remaining residents..”

Kiev Prepares For Total Blackout – NYT (RT)

Authorities in Ukraine’s capital city, Kiev, are reportedly working on a contingency plan that anticipates the evacuation of approximately three million of its remaining residents, should power supply become completely cut off, the New York Times has claimed. The article published on Saturday quoted Roman Tkachuk, the director of security for the Kiev municipal government, as having warned that the city “may lose our entire electricity system,” if Russia continues striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure. According to the report, Kiev authorities expect that, if worse comes to worst, they would have at least 12 hours’ notice before the grid collapses completely. Tkachuk explained that if there are signs of imminent failure, “we will start informing people and requesting them to leave.”

Should the Ukrainian capital face a total blackout, there would also be no water supply, and the sewage systems would grind to a halt, too, the official warned. He hastened to assure, however, that the situation is currently under control, and there is no exodus of city residents. With winter approaching, Kiev authorities are preparing some 1,000 heating shelters that can double as bunkers during Russian strikes. In a bid to prevent uncontrollable failures, Ukraine’s national energy utility has been imposing rolling blackouts in several regions, including the capital, over the past several weeks. In its statement on Saturday, Ukrenergo explained that the measures were needed to “ensure sustainable balancing of the power system and avoid repeated accidents” affecting the national power grid.

In early October, Moscow launched massive long-range missile and ‘kamikaze drone’ strikes on Ukrainian military, energy and communication facilities. That followed what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a series of “terrorist attacks” masterminded by Kiev on Russian soil, including a truck bombing that damaged the Crimean Bridge, a strategic link connecting the peninsula with the mainland. Such tactics, Putin said, posed a threat to Russia and could not be left without a response. According to Ukrainian authorities, as much as 40% of the country’s energy infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed as a result.

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Supply chain tension.

Maersk Warns Of ‘Dark Clouds On The Horizon’ (RT)

Danish shipping group Maersk warned this week of slowing demand for transport and logistics and said it had slashed its forecast for container demand for this year.“It is clear that freight rates have peaked and started to normalize during the quarter, driven by both decreasing demand and easing of supply chain congestion,” Maersk CEO Soeren Skou said in a statement.The world’s biggest shipping company, which is often seen as a barometer of global trade, now expects container demand to contract between 2% and 4% in 2022, down from its previous projection of +1% to -1%. “With the war in Ukraine, an energy crisis in Europe, high inflation, and a looming global recession there are plenty of dark clouds on the horizon,”Skou warned. “This weighs on consumer purchasing power which in turn impacts global transportation and logistics demand.


“While we expect a slow-down of the global economy to lead to a softer market in Ocean, we will continue to pursue the growth opportunities within our Logistics business,” he added. Freight rates soared in line with higher consumer demand during the pandemic, resulting in congested ports and delays. Although rates have since come down, it still costs more to ship a container than before the pandemic.Maersk anticipates its average contract rate still coming in higher this year than in 2021, although it now expects the figure to be $200 lower per container than its August forecast. On Wednesday, the company reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $10.9 billion for the quarter, above the analyst consensus projection of $9.8 billion and up by around 60% from the same period a year ago.

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“..the Czech Republic where households saw their energy bills increase tenfold..”

Energy Disaster Awaits EU After This Winter – Oil CEOs (RT)

The EU is “in good shape” in terms of energy reserves this winter, however, a real risk of a shortfall lies ahead in 2023, major oil and gas executives have warned. The region is facing an unprecedented energy crunch following a drop in imports from Russia. The oil and gas shortages, and record-high inflation, have resulted in an overall cost-of-living crisis across the bloc. But while concerns are focused on the turmoil of the coming winter, it is the next cold season that they should really worry about, CEO of major oil trader Vitol, Russell Hardy, has said. “We’ve got a difficult winter ahead, and subsequent to that we’ve got a more difficult winter in the year ahead of that because the production that is available to Europe in the first half of 2023 is considerably less than the production we had available to us in the first half of 2022,” he said at a conference in Abu Dhabi last week.

Energy prices have gone off the charts and are close to “unaffordability” with many households “spending 50% of their disposable income on energy or higher,” BP CEO Bernard Looney has warned, agreeing with his colleague that the next winter “in Europe could be even more challenging.” Even though the EU has managed to fill its energy stockpiles by 90%, according to IEA data, the reserves are made up mostly of Russian gas. But as the bloc is speeding up the transition away from Russian pipeline deliveries, there will be no supplies from the bloc’s former biggest supplier.

“The issue is not this winter. It will be the next one because we are not going to have Russian gas – 98% [less] next year, maybe nothing,” Eni chief Claudio Descalzi pointed out. Given the demand from China, a major importer of gas, and skyrocketing LNG prices, executives of energy companies are worried about possible social unrest, pointing at some EU countries, like the Czech Republic where households saw their energy bills increase tenfold.

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“..a government trying to juggle energy shortages with climate goals without extending the lives of nuclear power plants.”

Europe May See Forced De-Industrialization As Result Of Energy Crisis (ZH)

The European Union has been quietly celebrating a consistent decline in gas and electricity consumption this year amid record-breaking prices, a cutoff of much of the Russian gas supply, and a liquidity crisis in the energy market. Yet the cause for celebration is dubious: businesses are not just curbing their energy use and continuing on a business-as-usual basis. They are shutting down factories, downsizing, or relocating. Europe may well be on the way to deindustrialization. That the European Union is heading for a recession is now quite clear to anyone watching the indicators. The latest there—eurozone manufacturing activity—fell to the lowest since May 2020. The October reading for S&P Global’s PMI also signaled a looming recession, falling on the month and being the fourth monthly reading below 50—an indication of an economic contraction.

In perhaps worse news, however, German conglomerate BASF said last month it would permanently downside in its home country and expand in China. The announcement served as a blow to a government trying to juggle energy shortages with climate goals without extending the lives of nuclear power plants. “The European chemical market has been growing only weakly for about a decade [and] the significant increase in natural gas and power prices over the course of this year is putting pressure on chemical value chains,” said BASF’s chief executive, Martin Brudermueller, as quoted by the FT, in late October. Yet it is worth noting that the energy crisis was not the only reason for BASF’s plans to shrink its presence at home and grow abroad. Increasingly tighter EU regulation was also a factor behind this decision, Brudermueller said.

Other industries also seem to have problems with new EU regulations. The trade body for the steel and aluminum industries, which have also suffered significantly from the energy cost inflation, recently proposed that the EU takes a gradual approach with its new Cross-Border Adjustment Mechanism, also known as the import carbon tax.

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“We request that you promptly investigate these potential violations and immediately intervene to ensure that the government officials do not abuse their official authority..”

Biden Press Secretary Under Fire For ‘Mega MAGA Republican’ Comment (ZH)

A government watchdog group has filed a complaint against White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, alleging that she violated the Hatch Act when she made comments about “Mega MAGA Republican” officials. In a Nov. 3 complaint, Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) told the US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) that Jean-Pierre violated the federal law that limits the political activities of federal employees, when she said during a Nov. press conference, “Unfortunately, we have seen mega MAGA Republican officials who don’t believe in the rule of law,” adding “They refuse to accept the results of free and fair elections, and they fan the flames of political violence through what they praise and what they refuse to condemn.”

PPT director Michael Chamberlain said the comments were “disparaging President Biden’s political opponents,” adding that her statements “were clearly made in her role as an employee of the White House and appear to be political in nature, seeking the defeat of her political opponents in the Republican party in the upcoming general election less than a week away on November 8.” As The Epoch Times further notes; “The watchdog group is asking the OSC to “promptly investigate Ms. Jean-Pierre’s conduct as a potential Hatch Act violation based on her use of her official position to advocate for the defeat of a political party.” “We request that you promptly investigate these potential violations and immediately intervene to ensure that the government officials do not abuse their official authority in an attempt to influence the results of the impending 2022 general election.”

“The comments appear to be clearly designed to influence voters in next week’s election,” Chamberlain said in a separate statement. “A quick and complete investigation into these statements would be a good first step in helping to restore the American public’s trust in its government.” PPT in a release said that Jean-Pierre’s statement is an “attempt to sway an election” and is a “direct violation of the Hatch Act’s prohibition” against government employees using their office to influence an election. The group alleges that her statement cannot be attributed to “an insufficient knowledge of the restrictions of the Hatch Act,” in part because her predecessor, Jen Psaki, and White House Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, have previously been found in violation of the same federal law. Furthermore, Jean-Pierre herself “has on several occasions cited the Hatch Act as justification for avoiding responding to queries from the press corps,” PPT noted.

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Arabella.

Twitter Ad Boycott Organized By Soros, Clinton, Foreign Networks (Schachtel)

The campaign to pull corporate advertising from Twitter, following its purchase by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, is being led by a network of left wing dark money activists with ties to prominent Democrat politicians and mega donors. An advocacy group formed in 2020 called Accountable Tech is organizing the pressure campaign, which has thus far succeeded in having the likes of Pfizer, Audi, General Mills, and other corporations pull their advertising expenditures from the platform. Accountable Tech has taken credit for organizing an “open letter” signed by dozens of progressive groups, which demanded that multinational corporations cease advertising with Twitter immediately.

The far-left activist groups wrote: “Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter came with his promise to advertisers like you that the social network would not transform into a “free-for-all hellscape” and would remain “warm and welcoming to all.”The letter continues: “We, the undersigned organizations, call on you to notify Musk and publicly commit that you will cease all advertising on Twitter globally if he follows through on his plans to undermine brand safety and community standards including gutting content moderation.” You get the gist of it by now. The parties to this letter are attempting to force Elon Musk to revert Twitter back to its old, state-attached form. Now here’s some background on Accountable Tech.

Accountable Tech is financed by The North Fund, a D.C. nonprofit that is controlled by Arabella Advisors. Yes, there are multiple levels of confusion and separation, and this is on purpose. But the relevant outfit here is Arabella Advisors. “Arabella” is a for-profit “philanthropic consulting company” founded by Clinton confidant Eric Kessler. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jesse Lehrich, another Clinton network operative, is a co-founder of Accountable Tech. The organization also employs former Clinton campaign operative Zach Praiss as its digital director. Arabella is considered the leading “dark money” political outfit in the United States. Yes, it’s much bigger and much more influential than the highly publicized “Koch Network.”

The Arabella network shields the sources of its funding by funneling its cash and political expenditures through 501c4 non profits. However, its for-profit outfit brought in $1.7 billion in 2020, and spent $1.2 billion on the 2020 election cycle. Through its subsidiaries, Arabella has dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into projects such as fighting the Kavanaugh nomination and impeaching President Donald Trump. They’ve also financed the “NeverTrump” political advocacy of progressive war activist Bill Kristol.

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“..the contract between Pfizer and the US government prohibits independent researchers from studying the vaccines..”

Wot’s In The Shots? (Weisser)

What is in the Pfizer vaccines? Recently, Dr David Nixon, a Brisbane GP, decided to find out, putting droplets of vaccine and the blood of vaccinated patients under a dark-field microscope. That’s a more radical decision than it might sound. According to Sasha Latypova, a scientist with 25 years of experience in clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies, the contract between Pfizer and the US government prohibits independent researchers from studying the vaccines. They claim it would ‘divert’ these precious resources away from their intended use fulfilling an ‘urgent’ need. Is that true in Australia? Who knows? All the Commonwealth Department of Health has said about its contract with Pfizer is that it is commercial-in-confidence.


The Therapeutic Goods Administration performs tests on all Covid vaccines for composition and strength, purity and integrity, identity and endotoxins, but it provides scant details other than the batch numbers tested and whether they passed. (Spoiler alert: they did.) In the US, the Centers for Disease Control specifically states that all Covid-19 vaccines are free from ‘metals, such as iron, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and rare earth alloys’ and ‘manufactured products such as micro-electronics, electrodes, carbon nanotubes, and nanowire semiconductors’.Notably, this list does not include graphene oxide which has been widely investigated for biomedical applications. Some researchers sing its praises, its ‘ultra-high drug-loading efficiency due to the wide surface area’, its exceptional ‘chemical and mechanical constancy, sublime conductivity and excellent biocompatibility’.

But there’s a catch. ‘The toxic effect of graphene oxide on living cells and organs’ is ‘a limiting factor’ on its use in the medicine. So is there graphene oxide in the Pfizer shots? What Nixon found, and filmed, is bizarre to say the least. Inside a droplet of vaccine are strange mechanical structures. They seem motionless at first but when Nixon used time-lapse photography to condense 48 hours of footage into two minutes, it showed what appear to be mechanical arms assembling and disassembling glowing rectangular structures that look like circuitry and micro chips. These are not ‘manufactured products’ in the CDC’s words because they construct and deconstruct themselves but the formation of the crystals seems to be stimulated by electromagnetic radiation and stops when the slide with the vaccine is shielded by a Faraday bag. Nixon’s findings are similar to those of teams in New Zealand, Germany, Spain and South Korea.


An Italian group led by Riccardo Benzi Cipelli analysed the blood of over 1,000 people, one month after they were vaccinated, who had been referred for tests because they had experienced side effects. They ranged in age from 15 to 85 and had had between one and three doses. More than 94 per cent had abnormal readings, deformed red blood cells, reduced in counts and clumped around luminescent foreign objects which also attracted clusters of fibrin. Some of the foreign objects dotted the blood like a starry night, some self-assembled into crystalline structures and others into spindly branches and tubes. The Italians think the objects are metallic particles and say they resemble ‘graphene oxide and possibly other metallic compounds’. They believe the damaged blood is contributing to post-vaccine coagulation disorders, which in turn contribute to increased malignancies, while graphene-family materials are associated with oxidative stress, DNA damage, inflammation and damage to those parts of the immune system that suppress tumours.

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Gorilla

 

 

A flying gurnard fish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 062022
 
 November 6, 2022  Posted by at 8:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Ivan Shishkin The wilds 1881

 

Berlin – Moscow – Beijing (Escobar)
The End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End (Batiushka)
Global Bankers ‘Very Pro-China’ – UBS (RT)
Russia Seeks Sanctions Waiver To Facilitate Grain Exports (RT)
The Oil Nationalization Two-Step (Luongo)
Media Identifies Major Beneficiary Of Ukraine Crisis (RT)
US Wants Official Of Ukrainian Descent To Run NATO (RT)
Over 50 Countries Vote Against Anti-Nazism UN Measure (RT)
The Great Unwind II (Alasdair Macleod)
Lockdown Lefties Struggle In Governor’s Races, Reopen Righties Win (JTN)
If Republicans Win On Tuesday, Thank The Election Integrity Movement (Fed.)
Biden’s Midterms Message Includes False And Misleading Claims (CNN)
NY Times Report That Biden Exaggerates His Economic Wins Stuns Twitter (Fox)
Biden Unleashes Tirade Over Musk Restoring Free Speech on Twitter (Turley)
The Twitter Massacre (MoA)
Understanding the Reveal Stage of the Pandemic Play – Are We Winning? (LDS)

 

 

 

 

The Oil Price Cap Idiocy

 

 

 

 

Tucker Pelosi

 

 

Until proven otherwise

 

 

 

 

Pepe sees some optimism. It goes through China.

“..the Scholz caravan went to Beijing to essentially lay down the preparatory steps for working out a peace deal with Russia, with China as privileged messenger..”

Berlin – Moscow – Beijing (Escobar)

Solid German business sources completely contradict the “message” delivered by the German Council on Foreign Relations on the trip to China. According to these sources, the Scholz caravan went to Beijing to essentially lay down the preparatory steps for working out a peace deal with Russia, with China as privileged messenger. This is – literally – as explosive, geopolitically and geoeconomically, as it gets. As I pointed out in one of my previous columns, Berlin and Moscow were keeping a secret communication back channel – via business interlocutors – right to the minute the usual suspects, in desperation, decided to blow up the Nord Streams. Cue to the now notorious SMS from Liz Truss’s iPhone to Little Tony Blinken, one minute after the explosions: “It’s done.”

There’s more: the Scholz caravan may be trying to start a long and convoluted process of eventually replacing the US with China as a key ally. One should never forget that the top BRI trade/connectivity terminal in the EU is Germany (the Ruhr valley). According to one of the sources, “if this effort is successful, then Germany, China and Russia can ally themselves together and drive the US out of Europe.” Another source provided the cherry on the cake: “Olaf Scholz is being accompanied on this trip by German industrialists who actually control Germany and are not going to sit back watching themselves being destroyed.” Moscow knows very well what the imperial aim is when it comes to the EU reduced to the role of totally dominated – and deindustrialized – vassal, exercising zero sovereignty.

The back channels after all are not lying in tatters on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Additionally, China has not provided any hint that its massive trade with Germany and the EU is about to vanish. Scholz himself, one day before his caravan hit Beijing, stressed to Chinese media that Germany has no intention of decoupling from China, and there’s nothing to justify “the calls by some to isolate China.” In parallel, Xi Jinping and the new Politburo are very much aware of the Kremlin position, reiterated again and again: we always remain open for negotiations, as long as Washington finally decides to talk about the end of unlimited NATO expansion drenched in Russophobia. So to negotiate means the Empire signing on the dotted line of the document it has received from Moscow on December 1st, 2021, focused on “indivisibility of security”. Otherwise there’s nothing to negotiate.

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5 May 2024.

The End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End (Batiushka)

Many ask how much longer will the US war against Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine last? Some say only another two or three months, others much longer, even five years and more. For my own reasons I say another eighteen months, until 5 May 2024. Whatever you think, it all depends on how much the American neocon/neoliberal elite via their NATO allies, especially the UK, the Zelensky sect and their hired killers (so-called mercenaries – for few Kiev nationalists are now left to fight) want to escalate their war. And they do, which is why it did not all end last March when it could have ended. In other words, how much does the American elite want their subject-peoples, in Northern America, Western Europe and the Ukraine, to suffer?


It appears that the US elite wants them to suffer until they are all dead. But that will not happen, for the worm will turn, long, long before that. Indeed, in today’s energy and water-restricted Ukraine, some worms are already turning. And even some cold and hungry people in Western Europe and Northern America are turning too. What the elite wants, and what the people, especially in the Ukraine, will put up with, are two different things. It could all be ended tomorrow, if the elite wanted. Much more likely, this is going to take quite some time, for the war is not between the Ukraine and Russia, but between the USA and Russia. The Ukraine is merely the battlefield. No, I repeat, wait patiently until May 2024.

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“Don’t bet against China and Hong Kong..”

Global Bankers ‘Very Pro-China’ – UBS (RT)

International investment bankers are bullish about the Chinese economy despite worrying reports by the Western media, the chairman of UBS Bank, Colm Kelleher, said on Wednesday. Kelleher was speaking at the Global Financial Leaders Investment Summit in Hong Kong, which brought together more than 200 bankers and investors from 20 countries, after more than two and a half years of Covid restrictions there. Hong Kong is now reportedly seeking to boost its status as an international financial hub. “We’re not reading the American press, we actually buy the [China] story,” he said, as quoted by the Financial Times. “But it is a bit of waiting for zero-Covid to open up in China to see what will happen.

According to the FT, Kelleher’s reference to the media was “an apparent joke and a nod” to earlier remarks made by Fang Xinghai, the vice chair of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Fang, along with other Chinese officials, used pre-recorded video interviews to reassure international investors of the country’s economic strength. He told attendees: “I would advise international investors to find out what’s really going on in China and what’s the real intention of our government by themselves. Don’t read too much of the international media.” Fang’s comments, which came after a record sell-off of Chinese equities last week in the wake of President Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power, prompted laughs and applause from the audience. “Don’t bet against China and Hong Kong,” he added.

Last week, the Chinese stock market had its worst day since the 2008 global financial crisis, with the yuan hitting a new 14-year low against the US dollar, as Xi secured his third term and undertook a major leadership reshuffle. The sharp selloff was triggered by concerns that a number of senior officials who have backed market reforms and opening up the economy were missing from the new top team. This sparked investor concerns about the future direction of the country and its relations with the US.

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The west doesn’t care about feeding the poor.

Russia Seeks Sanctions Waiver To Facilitate Grain Exports (RT)

Russia has asked the EU and other Western nations to lift sanctions on state lender Rosselkhozbank, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing sources. According to the news agency, such a move would allow the bank to restore relations with its correspondent banks abroad and process payments for Russian grain and fertilizer exports. Prior to the introduction of anti-Russia sanctions, such payments were serviced by international banks and subsidiaries of Russian banks in Switzerland, the report says. According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Rosselkhozbank is currently “servicing the lion’s share” of Russia’s fertilizer and food related transactions. The report did not mention whether Russia has received a response to its appeal. According to Reuters, the request was made during talks on the fate of the Ukrainian grain deal, which expires later this month.


As part of the agreement, reached in July, Western countries were supposed to ease restrictions on Russian agricultural exports. While the sanctions do not directly target these exports, certain curbs on payment processing, shipping and insurance have created obstacles for Russian exporters. Washington has taken steps to convince businesses that there are no sanctions on Russian food exports, a senior State Department official told the news outlet. The department reportedly sent out letters of reassurance to companies seeking proof that their deals with Russia would not violate restrictive measures. Nevertheless, Moscow has repeatedly said that sanctions make agricultural exports next to impossible and has demanded their cancellation. Rosselkhozbank fell under Western sanctions along with Russia’s other largest banks earlier this year, and its assets and correspondent accounts in US dollars and euros were frozen.

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Narrative.

The Oil Nationalization Two-Step (Luongo)

[..] say your goal is to legitimize the state takeover, or advance another step forward the state takeover, of an industry. Let’s use oil and gas for today’s lesson. The first thing you do is manufacture a crisis that will disrupt the supply of the product you want to takeover. In this case, it started with COVID-19, which disrupted far more than just the energy sector. More than 2 million barrels per day of refining capacity was lost world wide thanks to COVID-19. Given the current hostility to new refineres (more on this later), those barrels are not coming back. Don’t forget, that for a “Straussian Two-Step” this big you will have to brainwash and/or gaslight two entire generations into hating themselves for being rich, wasteful, spoiled, alive or worse, just plain white.

So, they are already primed to hate all the things at play here — capitalism, Big Oil, Banks, Old White Guys (rich or poor) — and enrage your useful idiots by pushing their already tenuous hold on reality to the literal breaking point. “I can’t even….” isn’t the most common phrase uttered on Tik-Tok for nothing. That’s the Thesis part. So, when the crisis hits thanks to natural gas disruption you forbid buying of from a particular country… — Hello, Vlad? We’re in a helluva pickle, would you mind invading Ukraine…? Nyet…? Well, we’ll see about that…. — MISSING PAGES FROM THE RETURN OF DR. STRANGELOVE WORKING SCRIPT. … you demonize not only Vlad but the industry itself for price gouging and preying on the widdle guy during a war. There’s a word for this… chutzpah.

Predictably, you then allow your fake political opponents … [enter Cocaine Mitch from Stage Right] … to produce the opposite argument. In this case, the counter is obviously we need free markets to produce oil and gas. The refiners are just responding to the market. That fake opposition, of course, also blames Vlad for this crisis to ensure the market’s champion looks not only patriotic but also suitably bought and paid for by Big Oil, Old White Guys, etc.

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“..EU nations have committed to about $230 billion in new weapons purchases since the Russian military offensive against Kiev started..”

Media Identifies Major Beneficiary Of Ukraine Crisis (RT)

Yahoo News has identified a major beneficiary of the Russia-Ukraine slugfest: the US military industrial complex, which is reaping a windfall even as the bloody conflict causes economic havoc, energy shortages and a looming food crisis around the world. As the media outlet reported on Saturday, EU nations have committed to about $230 billion in new weapons purchases since the Russian military offensive against Kiev started in February. US defense contractors are poised to land the lion’s share of those orders, given their dominance as suppliers to European militaries, Yahoo added. Many European nations turn to US arms makers for more than half of all their weapons purchases. Yahoo cited data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) to show examples of US dominance in European arsenals.

For instance, US-made arms accounted for 95% of the weapons purchases by the Netherlands from 2017 to 2021. The ratios were 83% US weaponry for Norway, 77% for the UK, and 72% for Italy. European weapons imports jumped 19% during the five-year period as then-President Donald Trump prodded his NATO allies to meet their obligations for defense spending. The Ukraine crisis is set to create an even bigger windfall, as President Joe Biden leads an international campaign to flood Ukraine with weapons and the conflict triggers accelerated steps by European nations to bolster their own defenses. “This is certainly the biggest increase in defense spending in Europe since the end of the Cold War,” Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Center for European Reform, told Yahoo. The crisis in Eastern Europe dispelled the notion that war on the continent is no longer possible, he added.

“They’re waking up to the fact that not only is it very possible, but it is happening, and it’s happening not that many miles away from them.” Since Biden took office in January 2021, European countries entered at least the initial stage of negotiations for $33 billion in arms purchases, including $21 billion since February, Yahoo said, citing figures from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. US defense contractors will also benefit from Washington’s massive military aid to Kiev, as the Pentagon races to replenish stocks of artillery pieces, rocket launchers and other weapons. Biden has set aside more than $65 billion in military and economic aid for Ukraine since the conflict began. Russia has warned that the influx of Western weapons will prolong the crisis while making the US and other NATO members de facto participants.

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This comes far too close to putting Bandera in charge.

US Wants Official Of Ukrainian Descent To Run NATO (RT)

The “prime candidate” favored by Washington to replace outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is Chrystia Freeland, currently Canada’s Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, the New York Times reportedon Friday. The bloc reportedly aims to install a woman at its helm for the first time, with other likely contenders being Estonian premier Kaja Kallas, Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, former president of Croatia, who was also Zagreb’s ambassador to Washington. The “strong contenders”list provided by the NYT corresponds with earlier media reports this year. The selection of a new NATO Secretary General, however, is still months away and “the names that surface first” may not survive the bargaining among the bloc’s members, unnamed NATO officials told the NYT.

Incumbent head of the bloc Stoltenberg was set to leave his post on September 30, but his term was prolonged to late 2023 amid the conflict in Ukraine. The NATO boss might ultimately end up having his tenure extended for another year, one of the officials reportedly suggested. Still, Freeland is believed to be the “prime candidate” for the post of NATO chief, favored by the US itself. “Where any of the candidates come down on support for Ukraine in the war against Russia will be a critical factor,” the paper writes. Freeland, whose mother was Ukrainian, is known to have a strong pro-Ukrainian stance. She is the granddaughter of Michael Chomiak, described by the NYT as a “grateful immigrant to Canada” who was during World War Two a “younger man involved with a Ukrainian nationalist movement that saw the Nazis as useful foils to counter the Soviets.”

The paper didn’t mention, however, that Chomiak was a prominent Ukrainian Nazi collaborator and the editor-in-chief of a Ukrainian-language propaganda daily Krakivs’ki Visti. The outlet, published between 1940 and 1945, was funded directly by Nazi Germany and described by Canadian historian – and Chomiak’s son-in-law – John-Paul Himka as a “vehemently anti-Semitic”publication. Freeland has been extremely ambiguous on her ancestry, not only refusing to condemn her maternal grandparents but somewhat endorsing them instead. In 2015 she wrote an essay called “My Ukraine,” stating that her Nazi collaborator grandparents “saw themselves as political exiles with a responsibility to keep alive the idea of an independent Ukraine.” “That dream persisted into the next generation, and in some cases the generation after that,” Freeland wrote in the essay.

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Pretzel: You can’t condemn nazism without also condemning Russia, which fights nazism.

Over 50 Countries Vote Against Anti-Nazism UN Measure (RT)

A UN resolution opposing the celebration of Nazism and related ideologies has met with significant resistance from the US and other western democracies, with 52 countries voting against it on Friday. The draft resolution “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,” introduced by Russia’s representative to the UN, was adopted with 105 votes in support. In addition to the 52 votes against it, 15 countries abstained from choosing sides.

The resolution expresses profound concern about glorifying Nazism, neo-Nazism and former Waffen SS members, condemning the construction of monuments and the holding of public ceremonies honoring the Third Reich. Introducing the resolution, the Russian delegate referenced an increase in xenophobia, anti-migrant sentiment, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, among other forms of discrimination, as necessitating it. The US and several of its allies attempted to explain their vote against the measure by claiming Russia was exploiting Nazi atrocities to justify its military operation in Ukraine, insisting that to join them in condemning the lionization of Nazis would be letting them get away with weaponizing the Holocaust to serve their nefarious ends.

The UK accused Moscow of “furthering lies and distorting history,” even while acknowledging it was using “legitimate human rights concerns raised by neo-Nazism mobilization” to justify its activities in Ukraine. The US went further, arguing that Russia’s “pretextual use of fighting neo-Nazism undermines genuine attempts to combat neo-Nazism.” And Ukraine claimed Moscow’s anti-Nazism message had “nothing in common with the genuine fight against Nazism and neo-Nazism,” which Kiev stressed it condemned in all forms. Australia, Japan, Liberia and North Macedonia proposed an amendment to clarify that while they were very much anti-Nazi, they were also profoundly anti-Russian.

Their addition “notes with alarm that the Russian Federation has sought to justify its territorial aggression against Ukraine on the purported basis of eliminating neo-Nazism,” reminding everyone that the “pretextual use of neo-Nazism to justify territorial aggression seriously undermines genuine attempts to combat neo-Nazism.” Russia opposed the amendment, accusing the writers of “trying to drive a wedge between states” by dropping it on the committee at the last minute. It was adopted with 63 votes approving, 23 against, and 65 abstaining. Moscow introduced a similar resolution last year, before the military operation in Ukraine had begun but after the US-backed coup had installed a government that allowed neo-Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion and lionized Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator whose Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of Poles and Jews during World War II. The 2021 resolution was opposed by just two states: the US and Ukraine.

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Banks have been encouraged to increase risk and leverage. Now that bites.

The Great Unwind II (Alasdair Macleod)

Imagine, for a moment, that you are the CEO of a commercial bank involved in lending to businesses and with profit centres acting in a range of financial activities. As CEO, you are answerable to the board of directors for the bank’s performance, and ultimately the bank’s shareholders for maintaining and advancing the value of their shares. Furthermore, let us set this imaginary exercise in the present. These are the issues that should keep you awake at night: In common with your competitors, the ratio of your balance sheet assets to total equity is almost the highest in the history of the bank, in many cases for other banks over twenty times leaveraged. Official inflation, measured by the CPI is about ten per cent, and producer prices are rising somewhat faster.

Your central bank expects a return to the 2% target in two- or three-years’ time. But your contacts at the central bank have privately admitted to you that they cannot imagine the circumstances where this would be true without a deep recession. Bond yields are rising, and losses are beginning to impact on the bank’s investments. The bank has relatively little direct exposure to corporate bonds and equities, but they are commonly held as collateral against customer loans. How are higher interest rates impacting the quality of the bank’s loan book? The bank supported its business customers through the covid pandemic, which increased the indebtedness of them all. This exposes the bank to excessive default risk if rates rise further.

The mortgage loan book has been a profitable business for decades. But the bank is beginning to see a material rise in delinquencies. If loan guarantees are not forthcoming from government agencies, the bank may have to shut this activity down. What impact will higher interest rates have on the bank’s derivative exposure? What are the counterparty risks in derivative chains? Derivatives that involve inadequately capitalised counterparties should perhaps be sold on, or where the bank has the option to do so, closed down. The underlying problem is that the conditions that led to the bank becoming increasingly involved in diversified activities, such as investment banking, trading, and investment management have now changed.

Since financial deregulation in the 1980s, the bank has expanded into these profitable areas. The whole industry moved from dealing in credit into generating fee income. The growth in fee income can be directly related to the long-term trend of falling interest rates, which apart from interruptions such as the dot-com excesses and the Lehman crisis, stimulated growth in corporate finance, underwriting, investment management, and trading in financial securities. The expansion of these activities in turn led to a massive expansion of derivative markets, with new instruments being devised, such as credit default and interest rate swaps.

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“Don’t mess w people’s kids. It lands differently — and they will hold a grudge.”

Lockdown Lefties Struggle In Governor’s Races, Reopen Righties Win (JTN)

Some of the Democratic governors most associated with harsh and prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns are facing stiff electoral headwinds in the midterms, while Republicans who endured national scorn by quickly reopening their states are cruising toward reelection. Republicans were already in an advantageous position with voters on crime and the economy, particularly inflation, the top two issues in polling this fall. Education issues, which propelled Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to victory a year ago, are a leading concern in some races. And while elections tend to focus more on the future than the past, the starkly contrasting performances of lockdown lefties and reopen righties suggests that a reckoning on pandemic policies may be a stealth issue in major governor’s races.


The repercussions of lockdown policies are also felt indirectly in the top issues for voters, from supply-chain problems and inflation driven by COVID relief spending to plummeting test scores and parental outrage over school curricula resulting from remote learning. “Red wave is coming Tuesday,” freespoken sports show host Colin Cowherd tweeted Thursday. “Don’t mess w people’s kids. It lands differently — and they will hold a grudge.” “I lean mostly left, but data clearly proved kids 18 and under were safe,” and yet many were kept out of school, resulting in plunging test scores, rising suicides and “[c]haos for parents,” he continued. “A price will be paid and hopefully a lesson learned.” “Her Excellency the Queen of Michigan,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), “made it illegal … to visit friends, sell paint, mow grass, and golf” while flouting her own unilateral orders, The Spectator wrote in a recent list of “Eight Democrats we all hope lose this November.”

Maher

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No chance it will go smooth.

If Republicans Win On Tuesday, Thank The Election Integrity Movement (Fed.)

If Republican candidates do as well as expected on Tuesday, they can credit the new, widespread, and coordinated effort to begin securing U.S. elections, helping give candidates the best opportunity possible to win a fair fight in the new voting environment of mail-in balloting. The Republican National Committee, other party entities, and dozens of public interest election nonprofit groups built over the last two years a multimillion-dollar election integrity infrastructure that passed laws improving voter ID and other election security measures, defended those laws from legal attacks by Democrats, and sued states and localities that failed to follow the law. They also recruited, educated, trained, and placed tens of thousands of new election observers and other workers throughout the long midterm voting season.

And they did it all in one of the most hostile propaganda environments on record. The 2020 election was a massive wake-up call for many Americans on the right. In the months leading up to it, Democrats forced through changes to hundreds of laws and processes governing how elections are conducted. The rule-change scheme was run by Marc Elias, a Democrat election attorney who also ran his party’s Russia collusion hoax, which falsely claimed Donald Trump stole the 2016 election by colluding with Russia. Sometimes Democrats’ 2020 changes were instituted legally. Frequently, though, they were effected by other means, such as getting a friendly state or local official to change the rules unilaterally.

The 2020 election plan, some of which was admitted to in a flattering Time magazine story, sought to flood the zone with tens of millions of unsupervised mail-in ballots, historically understood to be riper for fraud and other election irregularities than supervised, in-person voting. The plan also involved the private takeover of government election offices to run Democrat-focused get-out-the-vote operations. Mark Zuckerberg, one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men, financed the project, doling out $419 million to two left-wing groups that focused grants and assistance to government offices in the Democrat areas of swing states.

This radical change — “practically a revolution in how people vote,” as Time put it — included the widespread practice of placing ballot drop boxes predominantly in Democrat areas of the country, mailing out unsolicited mail-in ballots or applications for mail-in ballots, using well-funded teams of ballot harvesters both inside and outside of government, lowering and changing the standards for mail-in ballot acceptance, and fixing or “curing” ballots that were improperly filled out. Corporate media and other Democrats claimed the election was the best-run in history. In reality, it was a mess. Big Tech and the media ran coordinated disinformation campaigns to benefit Democrats by suppressing news that hurt the party. Big Tech also deplatformed effective conservative voices and media outlets, suppressed fundraising emails from Republicans, and elevated certain information to help Democrats.

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Biden loses both CNN and NYT mere days before the midterms.

Biden’s Midterms Message Includes False And Misleading Claims (CNN)

Social Security, part 1 Biden said at a Democratic fundraiser in Pennsylvania last week: “On our watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are going to get the biggest increase in their Social Security checks they’ve gotten.” He has also touted the 2023 increase in Social Security payments at other recent events. But Biden’s boasts leave out such critical context that they are highly misleading. He hasn’t explained that the increase in Social Security payments for 2023, 8.7%, is unusually big simply because the inflation rate has been unusually big. A law passed in the 1970s says that Social Security payments must be increased by the same percentage that a certain measure of inflation has increased. It’s called a cost-of-living adjustment.

Social Security, part 2 Biden said at a Democratic rally in Florida on Tuesday: “And on my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks.” The claim that the 2023 increase to Social Security payments is the first in 10 years is false. In reality, there has been a cost-of-living increase every year from 2017 onward. There was also an increase every year from 2012 through 2015 before the payment level was kept flat in 2016 because of a lack of inflation. The context around this Biden remark in Florida suggests he might have botched his repeat campaign line about Social Security payments increasing at the same time as Medicare premiums are declining. Regardless of his intentions, though, he was wrong.

A new corporate tax Biden repeatedly suggested in speeches in October and early November that a new law he signed in August, the Inflation Reduction Act, will stop the practice of successful corporations paying no federal corporate income tax. Biden made the claim explicitly in a tweet last week: “Let me give you the facts. In 2020, 55 corporations made $40 billion. And they paid zero in federal taxes. My Inflation Reduction Act puts an end to this.” But “puts an end to this” is an exaggeration. The Inflation Reduction Act will reduce the number of companies on the list of non-payers, but the law will not eliminate the list entirely. That’s because the law’s new 15% alternative corporate minimum tax, on the “book income” companies report to investors, only applies to companies with at least $1 billion in average annual income.

The debt and the deficit Biden said at the Tuesday rally in Florida: “Look, you know, you can hear it from Republicans, ‘My God, that big-spending Democrat Biden. Man, he’s taken us in debt.’ Well, guess what? I reduced the federal deficit this year by $1 trillion $400 billion. One trillion 400 billion dollars. The most in all American history. No one has ever reduced the debt that much. We cut the federal debt in half.” Biden offered a similar narrative at a Thursday rally in New Mexico, this time saying, “We cut the federal debt in half. A fact.” There are two significant problems here. First: Biden conflated the debt and the deficit, which are two different things. It’s not true that Biden has “cut the federal debt in half”; the federal debt (total borrowing plus interest owed) has continued to rise under Biden, exceeding $31 trillion for the first time this October. Rather, it’s the federal deficit – the annual difference between spending and revenue – that was cut in half between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2022. Second, it’s highly questionable how much credit Biden deserves for even the reduction in the deficit. Biden doesn’t mention that the primary reason the deficit plummeted in fiscal years 2021 and 2022 was that it had skyrocketed to a record high in 2020 because of emergency pandemic relief spending. It then fell as expected as the spending expired as planned.

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“..don’t blame this poor old man it’s not his fault.”

NY Times Report That Biden Exaggerates His Economic Wins Stuns Twitter (Fox)

Critics of President Biden got a surprise on Friday, as the New York Times published a report grilling the 46th president for making exaggerations about his successes on the economy. Times reporters Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley published a piece on Friday titled, “As Elections Approach, Biden Spins His Economic Record,” which claimed that the president’s boasts about his economic achievements were not true. The report began by summing up the White House economic spin, “As President Biden and his administration have told it in recent months, America has the fastest-growing economy in the world, his student debt forgiveness program passed Congress by a vote or two, and Social Security benefits became more generous thanks to his leadership.” The piece declared, “None of that was accurate.”

The report also claimed, “The president, who has long been seen as embellishing the truth, has recently overstated his influence on the economy, or omitted key facts.” It then mentioned an erroneous claim recently made by the White House on Social Security. Quoting Biden and then correcting him, the Times said, “’On my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks,’ he declared. The problem: That increase was the result of an automatic cost-of-living increase prompted by the most rapid inflation in 40 years.” The piece added, “Mr. Biden had not done anything to make retirees’ checks bigger — it was just a byproduct of the soaring inflation that the president has vowed to combat.”

The official White House Twitter account made that same claim about Social Security this week, receiving a swift, community-based fact check from Twitter. The White House then took the tweet down. Further skewering Biden, the Times stated, “It is common for presidents to spin economic numbers to improve their pitch to voters,” yet “the president’s cheerleading has increasingly grown to include exaggerations or misstatements about the economy and his policy record.” The piece did insist that Biden’s “economic exaggerations generally pale in comparison to the tales spun by his predecessor, President Donald J. Trump,” though the very fact that a major liberal media outlet would go after Biden on falsehoods, turned heads on social media.

Conservative journalist Michael Caputo encouraged the paper to go further: “Go ahead say it, NYTimes, do it. You can say it: Biden is a liar.” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., tweeted, “I’m suspicious of NYT’s motivation for printing the truth about Biden. It’s out of character for them. Perhaps blaming him and his gaffs for the midterm results is the beginning of the left’s effort to replace him with a different nominee in 2024.” [..] National Review’s Jeff Blehar commented, “don’t blame this poor old man it’s not his fault.”

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One week after Musk took over, and 4 days before the midterms, Biden accused Twitter of “spewing lies all across the world”. I don’t recall Biden having said this before, but he must have, right?! Because content moderation hasn’t changed at all yet, as per Musk. Oh, and 60 orgs call on advertizers to withdraw their money. But what exactly made Twitter toxic? Just that Musk mentioned free speech?

There is no way this is not coordinated.

Biden Unleashes Tirade Over Musk Restoring Free Speech on Twitter (Turley)

Elon Musk has not actually changed the “content moderation” policies at Twitter yet, but President Joe Biden went on a virtual rave on Friday over the prospect of free speech breaking out on a single social media site. As a type of censor-in-chief, Biden has led calls for censorship on social media, which have been largely heeded by companies like Facebook and Twitter. Now Biden is accusing Twitter of “spewing lies all across the world” by seeking to reduce one of the largest censorship systems in history. The President lamented that the influence of the media will be “de minimus.” He is a bit late on that front. President Biden has previously accused social media companies of “killing people” by refusing to impose robust censorship over a wide range of subjects.

Many of those banned or censored were doctors with opposing views on the data and the science related to the pandemic. Some of those doctors were the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for a more focused Covid response that targeted the most vulnerable population rather than widespread lockdowns and mandates. Many are now questioning the efficacy and cost of the massive lockdown as well as the real value of masks or the rejection of natural immunities as an alternative to vaccination. Yet, these experts and others were attacked for such views just a year ago. Some found themselves censored on social media for challenging claims of Dr. Fauci and others. The Great Barrington Declaration was not the only viewpoint deemed dangerous.

Those who alleged that the virus may have begun in a lab in China were widely denounced and the views barred from being uttered on social media platforms. It was later learned that a number of leading experts raised this theory with Fauci and others early in the pandemic. We are now seeing increasing evidence of back channels used by government and political figures to maintain a censorship system by surrogate in the social media companies and foreign allies. The President, however, was in full censor-in-chief mode this week, referring to censors as “editors.” He denounced Musk who “goes out and buys an outfit that spews lies all across the world.” He then claimed “There are no editors anymore. There are no editors anymore.” The President added “the ability of newspapers to have much impact is de minimis.”

That last statement seemed to lament the loss of a close and active ally for the Democrats. Neutrality is anathema if you have largely been able to control political and social exchanges on social media. What the President said next. however, was particularly telling and chilling: “How do people know the truth? What do they — how do they make — make a distinction between fact and fiction? There’s so much — so much going on. And we’re in the middle of this.” Indeed, perish the thought that citizens might be left to pursue the truth on their own without the government or surrogates in the media framing it for them. How could we possibly “know the truth” without our social media overlords?

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“If one trains the system with badly categorized data it will be badly categorize data. It does not need an extra team to learn that.”

The Twitter Massacre (MoA)

I am amusing myself with watching the panic some people express over Elon Musk’s cleanup of Twitter. Yesterday 3,700 of its 7,500 workers were fired. That is not good, but the company was losing money and making money is at the core of the capitalist game. Of interest is what functions were eliminated. The Guardian provides this list: From news reports and terminated employees’ announcements, here’s what we know so far about the teams that have been hit by the layoffs of thousands of Twitter employees: • The human rights team has been laid off, according to a now former employee, Shannon Raj Singh, who said the team worked to protect those at risk in global conflicts, including in Ukraine, Afghanistan and Ethiopia. • The ML (machine learning) Ethics, Transparency and Accountability team is gone, according to a tweet of a laid-off manager. • The “internet technology team”, which helps keep the site running, has been cut to “a skeleton crew”, two sources told the Times. • An accessibly experience engineering team has been cut, according to a laid-off engineering manager. • The curation team, responsible for the Moments feature on Twitter, has also been cut, former employees reported.

Twitter’s communications department is almost entirely gone, according to the Verge. Other areas that have been heavily impacted, the Verge reported, include product trust and safety, policy, research and social good. What were these teams actually doing? The human rights team leader gave some hints: Shannon Raj Singh @ShannonRSingh – 17:58 UTC · Nov 4, 2022. “Yesterday was my last day at Twitter: the entire Human Rights team has been cut from the company. sI am enormously proud of the work we did to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights, to protect those at-risk in global conflicts & crises including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and to defend the needs of those particularly at risk of human rights abuse by virtue of their social media presence, such as journalists & human rights defenders.”

The human rights team was the ‘regime change’ force on Twitter. It intervened in conflicts where the U.S. preferred a certain side. Shannon Raj Singh had previously meddled in Afghan and other countries’ cultures: “Shannon Raj Singh is a Legal Counsel for SAHR, advising a Kabul-based team on sexual violence litigation in Afghanistan, which aims to end the invasive and discriminatory practice of female virginity testing. She is an international criminal law attorney focused on victim-centered responses to mass atrocities. Currently based in The Hague, she has experience working with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and a number of human rights NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa. She has also practiced as a litigator in the United States, appearing in both state and federal courts and assisting with overseas corruption investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The machine learning ethics, transparency and accountability team was also fired. Machine learning, also glorified as ‘artificial intelligence’, is essentially an (often lousy) pattern recognition system. It can be trained with categorized data and, after that, can categorized other data it gets presented. All one needs to know about its ethics, transparency and accountability is the old IT wisdom ‘garbage in garbage out’. If one trains the system with badly categorized data it will be badly categorize data. It does not need an extra team to learn that. I do not know what the ‘Internet technology team’ was doing but the function obviously still exists. It was merely downsized.

NBC Twitter

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“The SPARS PANDEMIC 2025-2028, published by the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security in October 2017..”

“You are the long-term data. You may die in the process but that’s science in the 21st century!”

Understanding the Reveal Stage of the Pandemic Play – Are We Winning? (LDS)

The SPARS PANDEMIC 2025-2028, published by the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security in October 2017, is another of those amazingly prescient, yet “entirely fictional” scenario plans that ended up looking like the blueprint for the actual covid pseudo pandemici. It is in fact the prequel to that other freakishly coincidental pandemic wargame, Event 201, hosted in October 2019 (a few weeks before SARS-COV-2 hit the headlines) by the same institution along with the CIA and the World Economic Forum (WEF). What business does the CIA and its brainchild, the WEF, have going anywhere near public health strategy planning? Absolutely none, unless of course public health strategy is to be used as a nefarious special purpose vehicle for intelligence services and the global corporate oligarchy.

[..] It is a masterclass in absurdity which has its roots in the inherent contradiction in drafting a plan that purports to deal with the inevitable fallout of a manufactured crisis while pretending that the crisis is not manufactured. Its aim is to present failure scenarios to public health spin doctors, referred to as “public health risk communicators”, and invite them to “mentally rehearse responses” to these failures. But, in providing pitiful explanations for all the failure scenarios, it effectively exposes the Medical Counter Measures (MCMs) of a corrupt pseudo pandemic for the sham that they are. Instead of mitigating the consequences of a real pandemic, the MCMs are the very things that perversely create the necessity for narrative spin and psyops.

[..] It is undoubtedly sinister because of its prediction of all the ‘errors’ and ‘mistakes’ that were made in the manufactured covid ‘pandemic’. In the latter sections of the document – the Reveal stage – the planners anticipate fallout from being unable to keep a lid on vaccine injury. Nevertheless, a somewhat happy ending for the pandemic planners is fashioned in their Pandemic Play. So, will they succeed in constructing the reality they desire? In the 2017 playbook, as “claims of adverse side effects beg[i]n to emerge”, the pandemic planners coyly suggest that the demands for the “removal of the liability shield protecting the pharmaceutical companies” will be deflected by the “emergency appropriation of [taxpayer] funds”. Because God forbid that Big Pharma, having siphoned off billions from the taxpayers’ purse for efficiently distributing poison, might then be subjected to the humiliation of footing the bill for the injuries caused by it.

The pandemic planners were also prepared for the ethical quandary of hastily mass injecting an experimental preparation with no long-term safety data. The ‘rare’ side effect rebuttal is alluded to by reference to “relatively few reports of neurological symptoms” while the problem is framed as an overblown social media response. Ultimately the blame is placed squarely at the feet of an ignorant public – those “demand[ing] proof that the vaccines [do] not cause long-term effects” are “displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific research”! You just don’t get it, so let me spell it out to you on behalf of the pandemic planners. You, the entire public, the 5.3 billion people injected so far – you are the subjects of the experiment, and the experiment isn’t over until the CDC, FDA, MHRA et al say it is. You are the long-term data. You may die in the process but that’s science in the 21st century!

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Turkey map 2050

 

 

 

 

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Aug 222022
 
 August 22, 2022  Posted by at 8:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  63 Responses »


Edouard Vuillard The window 1894

 

‘Russophrenia’ From Supposedly Smart People In The West (Diesen)
Russian Ambassador: We Simply Have No Contact With Western Diplomats (Antiwar)
US And Its Allies Lack Self-awareness (Robert Bridge)
German Chancellor’s Ratings Hit New Low (RT)
Scholz Told Putin When Ukraine Could Join NATO (RT)
Scholz Promises Kiev More Weapons ‘Soon’ (RT)
China Is Preparing To Go To War (Chang)
Drought Causes Yangtze River To Dry Up, Sparking Shortage Of Hydropower (G.)
Britain Warned Of ‘Humanitarian Crisis’ (RT)
UK Energy Bills To Skyrocket (RT)
British Soldiers To Prepare For Fighting Russia (RT)
Saskatchewan Warns Trudeau’s Federal Nitrogen Agents Could Be Arrested (TCS)
Peter Strzok: Fired FBI Official Is Making the Case Against Himself (Turley)
No Evidence Of Political Motivation Behind Mar-a-Lago Raid – Liz Cheney (CNBC)
In FBI vs. Trump, The People Lose (Maté)

 

 

Biden rent

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tucker T celll damage
https://twitter.com/i/status/1561336135300706304

 

 


Swedish artist Karl Jilg shows how much public space we’ve surrendered to cars

 

 

 

 

“We have been moving slowly towards a major European war for 30 years and there are no good solutions anymore..”

‘Russophrenia’ From Supposedly Smart People In The West (Diesen)

The author and holocaust survivor, Victor Klemperer, identified two distinct styles of language that defined Hitler’s propaganda against the Jews: either “scornful derision” of the inferior race or “panic-stricken fear” of their threat to civilisation. Anti-Russian propaganda over the past centuries has similarly produced two contradictory positions – disdain for Russians as an uncivilised and backward people, and simultaneously an immeasurable threat looming over Europe. A state of affairs described by one writer as “Russophrenia: the idea that Russia is simultaneously about to fall apart, and also take over the world.” Russia is hopelessly inept and weak, yet it is also capable of subverting the democracies of the world and restoring a global empire.

Moscow is so impaired that the West does not need to acknowledge or accommodate its basic security interests, yet NATO’s 30 member states need ever-more weapons to defend against the dreaded Russians. Exaggerating the weakness or the strength of an adversary (or both) is a key component of propaganda, which carries with it the obvious risk of miscalculations, as the real capabilities of the opponent are not accurately assessed. The war in Ukraine is a good case study of this phenomenon. To encourage more NATO, more military spending and containment of Russia, it is commonly argued that we have underestimated the threat of the Russians. During the Cold War, it was falsely argued that the Soviets enjoyed a huge positive missile gap vis-à-vis the US, which incentivised further military spending in the US.

After the Cold War, NATO expansion and raison d’etre have continued to rely on an exaggerated Russian threat. To encourage a more forceful approach to Russia, it is now argued that we have overestimated Moscow’s strength. Case in point, an article by The Atlantic argues that “Ukraine Has Exposed Russia as a Not-So-Great Power”. It suggests that because the Russian army “has seized only 20 percent of Ukraine”, it is time to shed the illusion of Russia being a great power. This conclusion supports an even more hard-line position towards Russia as opposed to Kissinger’s argument that great powers must be accommodated for peace. In other words, more of the same policies that fuelled tensions and brought us to this horrific conflict. [..] We have been moving slowly towards a major European war for 30 years and there are no good solutions anymore. But an end to wishful thinking must be the beginning.

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“..the lack of contact between officials means there is no potential to end the war through talks.”

Russian Ambassador: We Simply Have No Contact With Western Diplomats (Antiwar)

In an interview with the Financial Times, a top Russian diplomat says there is no communication with Western diplomats at the UN. The complete freeze in contact led the Kremin to assess there is no possibility of a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine. Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, told FT, “We do not have any contacts with the western delegations,” he said of his day-to-day work in Geneva. “On the protocol side we do not see each other … Privately we do not have any contacts, unfortunately … we simply do not talk to each other.” He said the lack of contact between officials means there is no potential to end the war through talks.

“Now, I do not see any possibility for diplomatic contacts. And the more the conflict goes on, the more difficult it will be to have a diplomatic solution,” Gatilov said. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has only spoken with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov once in the past six months. Gatilov said Western military support for Ukraine and preventing peace talks means the war will have a military end. “And so they [Kiev and its western supporters] will fight until the last Ukrainian,” he said. Lavrov said Ukraine made a workable proposal in March before Kiev broke off talks the following month. Multiple sources reported, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kiev as talks were progressing, discouraging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from engaging with the Kremlin.

Gatilov praised Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan for attempting to facilitate a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine. Ankara has hosted talks between Kiev and Moscow. Turkey and the UN were essential in crafting a deal that allows wheat to be exported through Black Sea ports. While Russia is happy with Turkey’s mediation efforts, FT reported two weeks ago that Western diplomats were concerned about Ankara’s ties with Moscow. On Saturday, deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told Turkish Deputy Finance Minister Yunus Elitas that Russian companies and individuals are attempting to bypass Western sanctions in Turkey. Adeyemo warned the White House was attempting to enforce those sanctions.

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“.. Islamic State militants, who scattered their forces throughout the civilian population thereby turning civilians into ‘human shields’ – a technique now being employed by Ukraine.”

US And Its Allies Lack Self-awareness (Robert Bridge)

Efforts are underway in the US Senate to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Before going down that road, lawmakers may wish to consider some inconvenient facts. If Russia’s military operation in Ukraine is doing anything – aside from eradicating the resurgence of fascism on the European continent – it is revealing the shocking lack of self-awareness in Western capitals. Perennial American Russophobes from opposite sides of the political spectrum, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Sen. Lindsey Graham, are now agitating members of Congress to include Russia in Washington’s list of ‘state sponsors of terrorism,’ which presently includes North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Syria. Meanwhile, the Baltic State of Lithuania signed off on its own legislation in May declaring Russia a ‘terrorist state.’

Yet Vilnius didn’t stop there, accusing Russia of carrying out ‘genocide’ on its neighbor’s territory. The resolution states that Russia is committing “genocide against the Ukrainian people,” while saying that the Russian military, like some kind of modern-day Huns, “deliberately and systematically target civilian targets…”. Consider how US-led coalition forces ‘liberated’ the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State militants, who scattered their forces throughout the civilian population thereby turning civilians into ‘human shields’ – a technique now being employed by Ukraine. The US-led Coalition’s relentless four-month ‘precision’ bombardment against IS killed and injured thousands of civilians, while reducing homes, businesses and infrastructure to rubble. Surveying the damage on the ground, Amnesty International concluded that the US-led Coalition “launched strikes likely to cause excessive harm to civilians and failed to distinguish between military targets and civilians.”

The tragic irony of the situation, from Russia’s perspective, is that while Moscow is attempting to spare infrastructure and human lives, it is branded the ‘terrorist state,’ whereas Ukraine is granted hero status as it employs those same tactics that put civilian life at grave risk. Naturally, tragedies will occur and Russia, like any country that finds itself at war, will eventually be accused of killing innocent civilians. Yet these casualties are vastly exacerbated by the fighting techniques of the Ukrainian military, which, it should be emphasized, has been receiving its training from NATO forces since 2014. Time and again, when Russian troops enter a city, they find the enemy fortified behind civilian infrastructure, like hospitals, kindergartens and schools. This automatically turns the facility into a military target for Russian forces, which Ukraine then uses as ‘proof’ that Moscow is deliberately targeting civilians.

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Did Mutti pick this dude, for his lack of charisma?

German Chancellor’s Ratings Hit New Low (RT)

The approval rating of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has reached the lowest mark since he took office in December. Only 25% of the public is satisfied with the job he’s doing, a survey published by Bild on Sunday reveals. “It’s not working” for both Scholz and the ‘traffic light’ coalition government, the tabloid said as it shared the results of the poll, conducted by Germany’s INSA research institute. A mere 25% of those surveyed approve of the chancellor’s job, with 62% expressing disapproval. If an election were held right now, Scholz would only finish third with 18% of the vote. Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Green Party and Friedrich Merz, who heads the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), are currently more popular, backed by 25% and 19% respectively, the poll shows.

The numbers for the ‘traffic light’ coalition, which unites the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP), and the Greens, were as bad as those for Scholz. Only 27% told the pollsters they were happy with the government, while 65% said they have a negative view of its decisions. Scholz’s ratings have been on a steady decline since becoming chancellor eight months ago, Bild said. In March, when the conflict in Ukraine – in which Berlin sided with Kiev, supplying it with arms and slapping harsh sanctions on Moscow – had just started, he was backed by 46%, but in April, the number dropped to 38%.

Economic problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have been further exacerbated by the Western restrictions on Moscow and the subsequent decrease in Russian gas supplies to the EU. Despite being Europe’s top economy, Germany has been hit hard by soaring gas prices as it faces the risk of energy shortages this winter. On Sunday, the head of the German central bank warned that “an inflation rate of even 10% is possible in the autumn months,” something which has not been seen in the country for more than 70 years.

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Imagine you’re Putin and you have to listen to this:

“..Ukraine would have been blocked from joining NATO for 30 years..”

“..NATO was never a threat to Russia..”

Scholz Told Putin When Ukraine Could Join NATO (RT)

The German chancellor said he had sought to assure the Russian president that Ukraine would not join the bloc in the near future German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine would have been blocked from joining NATO for 30 years, in a bid to assure Moscow of the military bloc’s good intentions. Over the weekend, the German leader revealed some details of his talks with Putin before Russia began its military operation in Ukraine, adding that he now believes Russia sought to “conquer its neighboring country” all along. “NATO was never a threat to Russia,” Scholz said he told Putin. The chancellor did not specify which conversation he was referring to, though Scholz met Putin in Moscow in mid-February.


Speaking to journalists this weekend during an ‘open-doors day’ at the chancellor’s office, Scholz also denied that the military alliance had disregarded Russian security interests. When the two leaders spoke about the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO, Scholz assured Putin that “it will not happen in the next 30 years,” the chancellor revealed. Scholz also said that he would not abandon dialogue with Russia but struck a harsher tone when assessing Moscow’s motives. He particularly accused Putin of starting the conflict for “completely absurd” reasons. “This is a war that Putin, Russia, started, … clearly with the intention of conquering its neighboring country,” he told journalists, adding that he believes “that was the original goal” that Moscow had in its military campaign. The chancellor also recalled how Putin had “explained” to him that Ukraine and Belarus should not be “separate states.”

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Problem is, they don’t have them.

Scholz Promises Kiev More Weapons ‘Soon’ (RT)

Berlin supplies “a lot of weapons” to Kiev and will continue to provide Ukraine “with what it needs for its defense,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, in response to criticism from a former Bundeswehr general. Germany is currently “in the process of supplying the most modern and efficient equipment,” Scholz stressed during a traditional ‘open-doors day’ this weekend, citing recent multiple deliveries of self-propelled ‘Gepard’ anti-aircraft guns and PzH 2000 howitzers. The German leader claimed that his main focus remains on “ensuring that there is no escalation of the war,” when a retired Bundeswehr general Klaus Wittmann accused him of a lack of “leadership” and appearing “intimidated” by Russian President Vladimir Putin, as cited by the German news outlet NTV.


Even more weapons “will be there soon,”Scholz vowed, apparently referring to the long-promised deliveries of an Iris-T SLM anti-aircraft missile system and a Cobra artillery radar, but providing no clear timeline. Back in June, Berlin promised to send Kiev one Iris-T unit for free, but Ukraine wants at least a dozen and has offered to purchase the rest directly from the manufacturer, even though Germany’s armed forces reportedly do not have enough air-defense systems themselves. Kiev is expected to receive the first such system no earlier than November, according to previous reports. Last month, Germany also committed a Cobraartillery radar to Ukraine, reportedly set for delivery in September. According to German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, Kiev has already signed the contract for the materials and troops should have starting training to operate “this highly complex system.”

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Centralizing decision making.

China Is Preparing To Go To War (Chang)

Last month, a Chinese entrepreneur making medical equipment for consumers told me that local officials had demanded he convert his production lines in China so that they could turn out items for the military. Communist Party cadres, he said, were issuing similar orders to other manufacturers. Moreover, Chinese academics privately say the ongoing expulsion of foreign colleagues from China’s universities appears to be a preparation for hostilities. The People’s Republic of China is preparing to go to war, and it is not trying to hide its efforts. Amendments to the National Defense Law, effective the first day of last year, transfer powers from civilian to military officials. In general, the amendments reduce the role of the central government’s State Council by shifting power to the CMC, the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission.

Specifically, the State Council will no longer supervise the mobilization of the People’s Liberation Army. As Zeng Zhiping of Soochow University told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, “The CMC is now formally in charge of making national defense policy and principles, while the State Council becomes a mere implementing agency to provide support for the military.” In one sense, these amendments were window dressing. “Recent changes to China’s National Defense Law that diminish the power of the State Council are largely political posturing,” Richard Fisher of the Virginia-based International Assessment and Strategy Center told me soon after the amendments went into effect. “The Chinese Communist Party and particularly its subordinate CMC have always held supreme power over decisions regarding war and peace.”

Why then do we care about the National Defense Law amendments? The amendments, Fisher tells us, “point to China’s ambition to achieve ‘whole nation’ levels of military mobilization to fight wars and give the CMC formal power to control the future Chinese capabilities for global military intervention.” “The revised National Defense Law also embodies the concept that everyone should be involved in national defense,” reports the Communist Party’s Global Times, summarizing the words of an unnamed CMC official. “All national organizations, armed forces, political parties, civil groups, enterprises, social organizations, and other organizations should support and take part in the development of national defense, fulfill national defense duties, and carry out national defense missions according to the law.”

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Small impact for now.

Drought Causes Yangtze River To Dry Up, Sparking Shortage Of Hydropower (G.)

A record-breaking drought has caused some rivers in China – including parts of the Yangtze – to dry up, affecting hydropower, halting shipping, and forcing major companies to suspend operations. A nationwide drought alert was issued on Friday as a long-running and severe heatwave in China’s heavily populated south-west was forecast to continue well into September. The loss of water flow to China’s extensive hydropower system has sparked a “grave situation” in Sichuan, which gets more than 80% of its energy from hydropower. On Sunday the provincial government declared it was at the highest warning level of “particularly severe”, with water flow to Sichuan’s hydropower reservoirs dropping by half. The demand for electricity, meanwhile, has increased by 25% this summer, local media reported.

Last week the province suspended or limited power supply to thousands of factories and rationed public electricity usage due to the shortage. Toyota, Foxconn and Tesla are among companies reported to have temporarily suspended operations at some plants over the last fortnight. On Sunday the South China Morning Post reported plans to restart production this week had been postponed. The Yangtze is the world’s third largest river, providing drinking water to more than 400 million Chinese people, and is the most vital waterway to China’s economy. It is also crucial to the global supply chain, but this summer it has reached record-low water levels, with entire sections and dozens of tributaries drying up. Water flow on the Yangtze’s main trunk is more than 50% below the average of the last five years.

Shipping routes in the middle and lower sections of the river have also closed, the SCMP reported. Across the affected regions of China authorities are rushing to ensure water and power supply, as the region approaches harvest season for water-intensive crops like rice and soy. On Sunday authorities discharged 980m cubic meters of water from reservoirs in an effort to replenish lower levels of the river, state media said. The drought has affected at least 2.46 million people and 2.2m hectares of agricultural land in Sichuan, Hebei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui and Chongqing. More than 780,000 people have needed direct government support because of the drought, according to China’s ministry of emergency management.

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I’d venture it’s too late already.

Britain Warned Of ‘Humanitarian Crisis’ (RT)

The UK could face a “humanitarian crisis” involving ill health, excess deaths and rising inequality if the government does not take urgent action on rising energy bills, the National Health Service (NHS) Confederation warned on Friday. The organization wrote to the chancellor of the exchequer, claiming that failing to act would add more pressure on health services that were already strained. According to the NHS, if energy bills become unaffordable, the country’s health and social care system will be left to “pick up the pieces.” “The country is facing a humanitarian crisis. Many people could face the awful choice between skipping meals to heat their homes and having to live in cold, damp and very unpleasant conditions,” wrote the head of the NHS Nadhim Zahawi.


“This, in turn, could lead to outbreaks of illness and sickness around the country and widen health inequalities, worsen children’s life chances and leave an indelible scar on local communities.” The NHS highlighted that, in addition to causing more sickness, mass fuel poverty was also likely to “increase the already high number of annual deaths associated with cold homes.” It noted the situation could also affect mental health. “Health leaders are clear that unless urgent action is taken by the government, this will cause a public health emergency,” Zahawi stressed. The warning comes as energy bills for the average household in Britain are projected to rise to more than £4,200 ($4,960) per year from January 2023 after the next increase in the price cap. Last October, it was set at £1,400 ($1,653).

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Worse than Germany?!

UK Energy Bills To Skyrocket (RT)

The average British household can expect to see annual energy bills soar to £6,000 (nearly $7,100) in 2023, according to the latest outlook issued by the UK independent energy consultancy Auxilione on Saturday. The analysts project that the price cap on bills, an officially set reference point, could reach £6,089 as soon as next April. The cap, which currently stands at £1,971, is expected to climb to £3,576 in October and £4,799 in January. Last October, it was set at £1,400 ($1,653). Earlier this month, the UK energy industry regulator Ofgem announced plans to adjust the cap quarterly rather than every six months due to the volatility in energy markets.


The latest figure represents a substantial increase to what was already a gloomy forecast made last week, when the consultancy projected annual average energy bills growing to more than £5,000 (nearly $6,100) next year. Auxilione expects bills to peak at over £6,000 in April before slowly decreasing in the second half of next year, eventually coming down to £5,160 in October. According to the latest poll by Opinium, about 40% of respondents said they would not be able to afford the rise in the cap due to be announced by the energy regulator Ofgem without falling behind on other essential bills.

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“We are the generation that must prepare the Army to fight in Europe once again.”

Maybe feed your people first?

British Soldiers To Prepare For Fighting Russia (RT)

The UK’s top ‘other ranks’ soldier has said that British troops must be ready to fight Russia, and should prepare their families for the prospect of an “extended” deployment. His advice comes after the UK’s new head of General Staff said that British forces must become capable of “defeating Russia in battle.” Writing for the latest issue of the British Army’s ‘Soldier’ magazine, Carney said that “the Army is shaping itself to meet the threat from Russia,”and “will be ready, with the right equipment, to play our part in deterring a future war in Europe.” “Deterring” in this case seemingly means deploying. “I want us all to check we are physically fit for operations. And it is also important we prepare loved ones and families, who often have the hardest role in our absence,”he continued.

“My ask is that you have discussions about a potential deployment with them now…we could be out of contact for extended periods on tour.” Carney’s warning does not signal an imminent change in the UK’s role in the conflict in Ukraine. However, a warning in June by Britain’s new chief of the General Staff, General Patrick Sanders, suggests that the Army views Russia as its next major opponent. “There is now a burning imperative to forge an Army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle,” Sanders wrote in a letter to his charges. “We are the generation that must prepare the Army to fight in Europe once again.”

The UK has given Ukraine £2.3 billion ($2.7 billion) in military aid since Russia’s military operation began in February. British forces are currently training Ukrainian recruits in the UK, and its intelligence agencies are allegedly sharing information with their Ukrainian counterparts. The UK is a member of the NATO alliance, and in the event that it became involved in open war with Russia, the bloc’s 29 other member states, including the US, would be obliged to enter the conflict.

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Private land.

Saskatchewan Warns Trudeau’s Federal Nitrogen Agents Could Be Arrested (TCS)

Saskatchewan Minister Jeremy Cockrill has sent a warning to the Trudeau government that officers sent by Ottawa will be arrested if they continue to trespass on farmland to test nitrogen levels. According to Cockrill, Trudeau’s government has been unlawfully sending federal employees onto Saskatchewan farmlands to test for nitrogen levels without the consent of landowners. In the letter, the Minister raised multiple complaints from Saskatchewan farmers that raised “serious concerns about Government of Canada employees, in clearly marked Government of Canada vehicles, trespassing on private lands.” The farmers reporting these trespasses made clear that these government agents did not request permission to access the land and were not in any other manner given consent to access it.

Minister Cockrill further pointed out to the Trudeau government that these actions constitute a breach of the Saskatchewan Trespass to Property Act, and warned that these actions could carry with them serious penalties, including fines of up to $200,000 and up to six months in prison. By sending this letter, the Saskatchewan government has provided a clear order to the Trudeau government to cease and desist with any unlawful trespasses and warned them that should it continue, their employees could face arrest and prosecution. What is more concerning to some than the actual trespass are the motivations of the federal agents. According to the land owners who confronted the federal agents trespassing on their land, they were told that the purpose of them being there was to test the water in the farmers’ dugouts to measure nitrate levels.

For those following recent news in the agricultural world, this is being seen as connected to the Trudeau government’s recently announced policy to reduce the use of fertilizer on Canadian farms by 30%. This policy has been widely criticized by farmers across the country and by provincial governments in the Western provinces. Some observers have said that there is reason to suspect that these actions are the first steps in replicating the attacks on farmers that have provoked widespread unrest in the Netherlands and other places in Europe. While the federal government has not yet confirmed it, there is speculation that the water sampling we now know is underway, will be used as baseline measurements to enforce reductions in fertilizer usage going forward.

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“After he was fired, the former special agent was given a lucrative book deal, lionized on the left, featured prominently as an expert by CNN, and given a teaching job at Georgetown.”

Peter Strzok: Fired FBI Official Is Making the Case Against Himself (Turley)

Peter Strzok is back in the news this week. Career colleagues at the Justice Department previously referred Strzok for possible criminal charges and he was fired for his bias and unprofessional conduct. However, Strzok was immediately embraced by many in the media and establishment for his anti-Trump sentiments. After he was fired, the former special agent was given a lucrative book deal, lionized on the left, featured prominently as an expert by CNN, and given a teaching job at Georgetown. It was an extraordinary recovery from a scandal where he showed flagrant bias, engaged in an affair with another married colleague at the FBI, and fought to continue to investigate Russian collusion claims despite early warnings over the questionable basis of the allegations pushed by the Clinton campaign. (Strzok’s colleague and former paramour, Lisa Page, was given a contract as a legal analyst with NBC and MSNBC).

Now, Strzok appears liberated in showing precisely the bias and unhinged hostility alleged by his critics. He has been in the news lashing out at Trump and trolling his objections to the raid on Mar-a-Lago. The seizure of Trump’s passports has raised more doubts about the seemingly unlimited scope of the search. One of the passports taken in the raid was Trump’s active diplomatic passport, according to an email from the Justice Department made public by Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich. The other two passports alleged were expired. Last week, Strzok was one of the first to jump on the bandwagon with CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell, who blasted out a tweet claiming DOJ sources refuting Trump’s claim that the FBI took his passports.

The “CBS Evening News” anchor reported that the Department of Justice did not have Trump’s passports, tweeting, “According to a DOJ official, the FBI is NOT in possession of former President Trump’s passports.” In fact, the FBI did take the passports and had to later return them. The clear import of O’Donnell’s tweet was that Trump was lying. That was clearly the message received by various critics, including Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who is purportedly serving as an unbiased member of the January 6th committee. Kinzinger, R-Ill., wrote, “Lies lies lies and more lies.” Notably, Strzok was also among those eager to spread the O’Donnell report, tweeting, “And unsurprisingly, Trump’s statement turns out not to be true.” He later deleted it.

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None at all.

No Evidence Of Political Motivation Behind Mar-a-Lago Raid – Liz Cheney (CNBC)

Representative Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., told ABC News that there was no political motivation in carrying out an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s resort home in Palm Beach, Florida. “I’ve seen no evidence that there was any political motivation,” Cheney told ABC News when asked about the Mar-a-Lago raid carried out by FBI agents. “I was ashamed to hear Republicans immediately and reflexively attack the FBI agents who executed the search warrant. I was disgusted when I learned that President Trump had released the names of the agents when he released the unredacted search warrant, and that has now caused violence,” Cheney said in the interview, which aired on Sunday. “This is a really dangerous moment,” she added.

On the heels of her congressional primary loss, Cheney also said that she will work with bipartisan political leaders to ensure that Trump never holds the nation’s highest office again. “I think, I think we have to make sure that he is not our nominee,” Cheney told ABC News. Cheney warned that Trump’s characterizations of U.S. elections as rigged is dangerous and disrupts the “fundamental function and principle at the center of our constitutional republic.” “There’s just simply no way that the nation and in my view, excuse that and put him in a position of power again,” Cheney said, referencing Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss and then the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

When asked about the Jan. 6 committee, which she serves as vice chair, Cheney declined to say whether Trump would be called to testify. “I don’t want to make any announcements about that this morning. I think it’s very important. As I said in the first hearing and the second hearing. His interactions with our committee will be under oath,” she said. Cheney noted that the committee has been in discussions with former Vice President Mike Pence’s legal counsel. “When the country has been through something as grave as this, everyone who has information has an obligation to step forward. So I would hope that he will do that,” Cheney said.

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“..an intra-elite, symbiotic feud that simultaneously boosts Trump among his base, and the national security state among his foes..”

In FBI vs. Trump, The People Lose (Maté)

For my money, the early beneficiary of the FBI’s espionage investigation of Donald Trump is Donald Trump. According to the Washington Post, “Trump has told advisers that in the nearly two years since leaving office, no issue had better galvanized Republican voters around him.” A Politico poll of Republican voters in the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago raid gave Trump a 10-point boost over his closest possible primary rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump’s ensuing fundraising campaign has done even better, quickly topping $1 million on at least two days, a jump of at least 700%. Over the long run, it is difficult to form a conclusive judgment on Trump’s potential culpability in the absence of any confirmed detail about both the contents of the documents that Trump allegedly mishandled, and the evidence to support the Justice Department’s suspicions.

But if the last six years of routine Trump standoffs with the national security state are any guide, the walls are nowhere closer to closing in. Whatever your views on Trump, it is undeniable that the permanent military-intelligence bureaucracy in Washington does not see him as one of their own, and has gone to extraordinary lengths to target him when it sees fit. It is also undeniable that the national security state’s spats with Trump have distracted the public from vital issues that impact working people’s lives and the future of the planet. This includes, I have long argued, Trump’s most harmful policies as president, which were routinely overshadowed and even exacerbated by his standoffs with the “deep state.”

Accordingly, it is reasonable to expect that this latest “scandal” over the potential mishandling of classified documents will continue the trend that has defined the Trump era: an intra-elite, symbiotic feud that simultaneously boosts Trump among his base, and the national security state among his foes. Pundits and politicians are resoundingly confident that the FBI must have the goods on Trump to have taken the unprecedented step of searching the former president’s home. This argument can only be made by ignoring that the FBI and other intelligence agencies took far more unprecedented and consequential actions against Trump when he was president, on grounds that were not only baseless, but fraudulent.

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Peptides

 

 

 

 

 

29/2 1956
https://twitter.com/i/status/1561098798268436480

 

 

 

 

Ode to Joy 2
https://twitter.com/i/status/1561070756343300096

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

May 092022
 


Henri Gervex Rolla 1878

 

It’s Not Over. It’s Just Begun (Naomi Wolf)
FDA: Americans Should Treat COVID-19 Like the Flu (ET)
White House Warns Of Covid Surges In The Winter (Pol.)
US Senator Says Biden Admin Disinformation Board Likely Illegal (JTN)
Ukraine Will Prevail As Europe Did In 1945 – Scholz (G.)
Bono Showed up in Kyiv, Ukraine Along with Justin From Canada (CTH)
Europe’s Mad Ban on Russian Oil (Vilches)
Biden To Deliver Remarks On Inflation Tuesday (CNN)
Michigan Police Seize Voting Machine (JTN)
Courts Find No Government Coercion Of Big Tech On Covid ‘Misinformation’ (JTN)
Anatomy of the American Baby Formula Shortage (JTN)

 

 

“On Victory Day, let’s remember the heroic peoples of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and elsewhere that fought together, making unbelievable sacrifices to liberate Europe from the horrors of fascism. Nothing – including today’s NATO-Nazi marriage of convenience – can erase that history.”

 

 

 

 

Biden prostitute
https://twitter.com/i/status/1523317412179111937

 

 

MEP Christine Anderson
https://twitter.com/i/status/1523255207312130048

 

 

 

 

 

 

Renz Harari

 

 

Naomi Wolf works on the Pfizer docs with a whole team of people.

It’s Not Over. It’s Just Begun (Naomi Wolf)

On MSNBC that morning, Dr Anthony Fauci, that entangled mass of compromised spiritual matter, who had presided over the intentional wastelands of the pandemic; who had for two years delivered in his nasal Brooklyn cadences its lie-based soundbites with their dearth of scientific studies, that wrecked livelihoods, destroyed kids’ educations, and that drove whole communities into destitution — had declared, as if he were God Himself, that the pandemic was over. Well — okay then! I realized as we drove that my grief was not actually grief. As any pop psychologist will tell you, just beneath depression is rage. I realized — I was furious.


Brian and I had been fighting, side by side, relentlessly, for over two years, in a bitter, exhausting war to return America to — simply to normal; to its historic status as a great, free society, in which people could enjoy their Constitutional liberties. We were part of a loose community —a movement, say — of people braver and more dedicated than we; we were part of what you might call a liberty movement. But these heroes and heroines alongside whom we fought, were all pitiably few in number. There were maybe hundreds; maybe a few thousand. Many more perhaps were in sympathy with us, but our energies were still spread very thin. As I have written before, these heroes and heroines risked medical licenses, risked livelihoods. They were smeared and mocked by their peers. They were stripped of credentials. They staked their savings and lost them as they had their incomes taken away.

But they burned, as the rebels in 1775 had burned, to defend our way of life and our institutions. They would not let the dream of America die. They were the miserably few real doctors and real reporters, real activists and real lawyers. They were the truck drivers; they were teachers and cops and firefighters. They were patriots. They did not have easy lives. You know who had easier lives over the past two years? The damn quislings. The people who stayed at the cocktail parties and who mocked the unvaccinated. The doctors who were silent about vaccine harms when teens presented with heart damage, because they might lose their licenses if they breathed a word of what they knew.


The ex-Brooklynites who were supposed to be journalists but who smeared and attacked the medical freedom movement instead of reporting on Pfizer’s internal documents showing massive undisclosed medical catastrophes, in what is turning out to be one of the great corporate coverups of our generation. I realized the source of my rage: the labor and nightmares and isolation and persecution and money worries and — well — awful battles waged by us few hundreds, few thousands, had helped these quislings and collaborators have back what — what we had wanted them to have back; indeed, what we had wanted us all to have back; our America.

Naomi Wolf Pfizer

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FDA and CDC need to be disbanded.

FDA: Americans Should Treat COVID-19 Like the Flu (ET)

Several top Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials, including Commissioner Robert Califf, admitted that Americans will now have to accept COVID-19 as another respiratory virus, comparing it to influenza. Califf, Principal Deputy Commissioner Janet Woodcock, and top vaccine official Dr. Peter Marks wrote for the Journal of the American Medical Association that COVID-19 will be around for the foreseeable future while suggesting that it will require yearly vaccines targeting the most threatening variations of the virus. “Widespread vaccine- and infection-induced immunity, combined with the availability of effective therapeutics, could blunt the effects of future outbreaks,” the officials said, referring to another name for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

“Nonetheless, it is time to accept that the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is the new normal.” The virus “will likely circulate globally for the foreseeable future, taking its place alongside other common respiratory viruses such as influenza. And it likely will require similar annual consideration for vaccine composition updates in consultation with the [FDA],” they continued. It’s a departure from the rhetoric that was expressed by public health officials in 2020 and 2021. In late October 2020, for example, current White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci said that President Donald Trump’s comparisons to the flu were false, telling NBC at the time “it is not correct to say it’s the same as flu.”

About a year later, Fauci told CBS News that Americans will “likely” have to deal with COVID-19 in a similar manner as influenza. “That’s entirely conceivable and likely, as a matter of fact, we are not going to be in a situation of this degree of intensity indefinitely,” he said when asked about the Omicron variant. Data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that while cases have trended slightly upward in the United States, the numbers are a fraction of the cases that were reported in mid-January when the seven-day average stood at around 800,000 per day. As of May 6, the seven-day average was about 68,000 per day.

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Ha ha ha. The White House knows better than the FDA.

White House Warns Of Covid Surges In The Winter (Pol.)

Covid cases surged during the last two winters and are likely to again this year — unless the country can prepare and act, White House Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said Sunday morning. “If we don’t get ahead of this thing, we’ll have a lot of waning immunity, this virus continues to evolve and we may see a pretty sizable wave of infections, hospitalizations and deaths this fall and winter,” Jha said on ABC’s “This Week.” Congress needs to provide resources, Jha said, specifically $22.5 billion, a number that will help with a vaccine supply that’s dwindling. In March, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said: “If the science shows that fourth doses are needed for the general population later this year, we will not have the supply necessary to ensure shots are available.”


The money, once allocated, would go toward Covid vaccine supply and coronavirus testing. “If Congress doesn’t step up and fund these, I think, urgent and emergent priorities … they can’t wait until the fall, it will be too late,” Jha said. And the proof is in the jab. With cases increasing in the Northeast, deaths remain low because of high vaccination rates. “That’s not true for the whole country,” Jha said. With enough resources to get more people vaccinated and more therapeutics in place, he said, “I do think we can get through this winter without a lot of suffering and death.”

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“Federal funding available for the board and for Jankowicz’s salary “is ‘none,’” he said, because “Congress explicitly defunded it, just weeks ago.”

US Senator Says Biden Admin Disinformation Board Likely Illegal (JTN)

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., says the creation of a board within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tasked with combating “disinformation” is likely illegal. Creating the board and hiring its new director without Congressional authorization violates several federal laws, Hagerty, R-Tenn., said. Knowingly and willfully violating one of them carries a $5,000 fine and up to two years in prison, he adds. Hagerty sent a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas saying his “actions merit review by Congress, both as a general matter, as well as under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) and because the actions may be in violation of provisions of the Antideficiency Act.”

He told Mayorkas that “you will comply with the requirements” of the CRA when it comes to the creation of DHS’ disinformation board because the law requires “any agency action that falls within the definition of a ‘rule’ must be submitted to Congress for review before it can take effect.” Creating the board and hiring its new director, Nina Jankowicz, “may also be a direct violation of provisions of the Antideficiency Act,” Hagerty wrote. The law prohibits “making or authorizing an expenditure from, or creating or authorizing an obligation under, any appropriation or fund in excess of the amount available in the appropriation or fund unless authorized by law.” Federal funding available for the board and for Jankowicz’s salary “is ‘none,’” he said, because “Congress explicitly defunded it, just weeks ago.”

Citing a section of the fiscal 2022 Omnibus Appropriations Act, Hagerty said the law “specifically prohibits the Secretary of Homeland Security from using any funds provided by Congress to carry out Section 872 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which means it defunded any action to ‘allocate or reallocate functions among the officers of the Department of Homeland Security or to establish, consolidate, or alter organizational units within the Department of Homeland Security.’” Hagerty also put Mayorkas on notice, writing: “As you know, an officer or employee, including you, who violates the Antideficiency Act ‘shall be subject to appropriate administrative discipline,’ and, for willful violations, faces a criminal fine, imprisonment, or both.”

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The man whose country was defeated, for which 25-40 million Russians gave their life. Maybe that man should shut his face on Victory Day.

Ukraine Will Prevail As Europe Did In 1945 – Scholz (G.)

Ukraine will prevail over Russia as freedom prevailed over the Nazi dictatorship in 1945, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will say in a TV address to mark the 77th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, in which he will accuse Vladimir Putin of falsifying history. In the speech, which will be aired on German TV at 8.20pm CET (7.20pm BST) on Sunday, Scholz says the “legacy of 8 May” for his country must be to help to ensure that there will never again be genocide or tyranny in Europe. “I am deeply convinced. Putin will not win the war,” the centre-left politician says. “Ukraine will prevail. Freedom and safety will win, just like freedom and safety triumphed over servitude, violence and dictatorship 77 years ago.”

Scholz says it is “falsifying history and disgraceful” of Russia’s president to equate his own “barbaric war of aggression” with the fight against National Socialism. “It is our duty to state this clearly,” his speech says. In keeping with previous postwar German leaders’ messages on 8 May, Scholz thanks the Allied forces for their defeat of Nazi Germany, and says his country owes a debt to both Russia and Ukraine, which suffered millions of casualties in the second world war. Scholz has repeatedly declared Germany’s support for Ukraine’s defensive effort but diplomatic relations between Berlin and Kyiv have been frosty. Ukrainian diplomats have accused his left-liberal coalition government of stalling over embargoes on Russian energy and deliveries of military hardware.

The chancellor, meanwhile, appeared personally piqued after Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, previously a Social Democratic party (SPD) ally, was told last month he was not welcome to visit Kyiv along with eastern European leaders. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week he had made up with Steinmeier and invited Scholz to pay a symbolic visit to Ukraine’s capital on 9 May. The German leader did not give any indication on Sunday of whether he was likely to accept or not.

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“Bono’s appearance in any State Dept/CIA construct usually precedes the bombing of the proverbial milk factories and subsequent “babies are casualties of war” narrative.”

Bono Showed up in Kyiv, Ukraine Along with Justin From Canada (CTH)

It’s the new cool thing. It’s the latest rage on Insta. All the most virtuous people are doing it. Don’t miss out on your opportunity to support the movement. Travel to Kyiv, Ukraine, snap a few selfies… Social media archives will record history. According to pop culture, the Facebook, Insta, Twitter and YouTube social media campaign to save Kyiv, is bigger than the Berlin wall falling. The CIA, DoS, DHS and Nina Jankowicz have declared it true. When the conflict in Ukraine first began, the White House announced the victor would be the one who could “tell a better story.” The war in Ukraine would be determined by who was more likeable on social media. From that moment forth, winning the PR battle has been the focus.


Within days of the White House declaring the strategy, Google, DuckDuckGo, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter all announced they would filter and block content that did not support World War Reddit. Anyone who was not supporting Ukraine and “churchill in a T-Shirt” ran the risk of being deplatformed; and so, the strategy has continued through today. After writing pro-Ukraine poems for Nancy Pelosi to read to congress, now Bono travels to Ukraine. I said on March 1st when Bono shows up, that’s the moment when you know western propaganda over Ukraine will soon apex. Bono’s appearance in any State Dept/CIA construct usually precedes the bombing of the proverbial milk factories and subsequent “babies are casualties of war” narrative.

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May I call you Ursula ?

Europe’s Mad Ban on Russian Oil (Vilches)

May I call you Ursula ? Thank you. “We will make sure that we phase out Russian oil in an orderly fashion [… a phenomenal bad joke of sorts… ] in a way that allows us and our partners to secure alternative supply routes and minimises the impact on global markets” you said. Question: will the Russians just idly watch you trying to execute such enormity at the EU´s preferred speed and political and geopolitical sequencing? And the Russians would never dare to strike back with natural gas or other restrictions no? For starters, what about nickel, uranium, and lithium? Not having them would be like trying to prepare tasty food without salt, pepper or mustard. Without uranium no nuclear power is possible, did you know? [ more on that later ]. Ursula, your pink unicorn wishful thinking is unfathomable gal.

This mad-ban requires EU approval with conditional support from Hungary, Greece, and others. So some special EU members will be exempted while regular EU ´kelpers´ will not. Now could that lead to serious friction ? How many years will it take all of Europe to reconvert its industry and supply chains? “This is why we will phase out Russian supply of crude oil within 6 months and refined products by the end of the year.” Okay, so Aunty Ursie you believe the Russians are dumb enough to let you phase this idea out nice and easy at your own pace and whenever you decide to act per your own special EU schedule. No market dynamics involved as Europe plays everybody else´s pieces too as grandpas would do with 3-year-old grandkids.

No way Ursula, the Russians play world-class professional chess while you play elementary school checkers, not even being good at that either. The instant Russia perceives the initial execution of your game plan regarding banning of Russian oil, they´ll make their moves, not yours. And those Russian moves will not be nice and pretty. For one, Europe will not have anywhere nearly ready its own diesel refining capacity by the end of 2022 while the middle distillate market is ever much tighter everywhere as demand recovers from the Covid pandemic. So the EU “plan” is to frantically search for hard-to-find or simply non-existent substitutes while investing tons of time, money, effort and risk. Well, the Russians know that already even before you start. Diesel is already in critically short supply in the EU. Furthermore, Europe will continue buying Russian oil and distillates via third countries once it introduces any embargo only that at much higher prices than today. Such old, quick and dirty business is known as “triangulation” Ursula.

The existential threat imposed on Russia by the EU with its macabre “Ukraine Plan” and sanctions has not left Russia any way out other than playing hardball for keeps. Furthermore, the Russian non-military retaliation domain is actually unlimited due to the full-scale and open-ended addiction that Europe has developed for Russian imports of different sorts including commodities of any and every imaginable type. Without such, Europe will cease to exist as we know it in a matter of a very few months, if not weeks. As Francis Fukuyama should posit, Europe´s dependency on Russian commodities is the end of its own history.

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They think they found a way to blame the GOP – and Putin, of course.

Biden To Deliver Remarks On Inflation Tuesday (CNN)

President Joe Biden will deliver remarks on inflation Tuesday, a White House official said, as his administration looks to further address one of the key economic concerns for voters heading into November’s midterm elections. “He’ll detail his plan to fight inflation and lower costs for working families, and contrast his approach with Congressional Republicans’ ultra-MAGA plan to raise taxes on 75 million American families and threaten to sunset programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,” the official said in an email. A CNN poll released last week found 8 in 10 US adults said the federal government wasn’t doing enough to curb inflation, and a majority said the President’s policies have hurt the economy.


Even within the Democratic Party, just 7 in 10 approve of Biden on the economy (71%) and helping the middle class (71%), considerably lower than the 86% of Democrats who approve of his performance overall. Inflation rates have been increasing sharply since August 2021 and have been out of the normal 2%-to-4% range for a full year. The Consumer Price Index rose 8.5% for the year ending in March, a rate that hadn’t been seen since December of 1981. “It’s our job to make sure that inflation of that unpleasant high nature doesn’t get entrenched in the economy,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said last week, just after he announced a half-point interest rate hike to combat inflation.

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2000 mules coming right at you.

Michigan Police Seize Voting Machine (JTN)

Michigan State Police seized a voting machine as part of an investigation into possible unauthorized access to election equipment. Law enforcement and officials at Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office had a warrant and took a voting machine from Irving Township into custody, officials told CNN and The Epoch Times. “The Township intends to fully cooperate with law enforcement, and the Township attorneys have been in contact with the Michigan State Police regarding this matter. The Township has no further comment at this time,” Irving Township supervisor Jamie Knight told The Epoch Times. County clerk Pamela Palmer told CNN that she did not know about any machine issue until police notified her of the equipment’s seizure. The 2020 election investigation has expanded in Michigan. “As we found out more information we’ve expanded our area to see if any other places were compromised,” Michigan State Police Lieutenant Derrick Carroll said. “We have gone to other regions.”

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Not every court will be this blind.

Courts Find No Government Coercion Of Big Tech On Covid ‘Misinformation’ (JTN)

Social media users alleged that federal authorities used an old gangster tactic to compel Twitter and Facebook to censor purported COVID-19 misinformation: “Nice place you’ve got here, be a shame if something happened to it.” Federal judges in Ohio and California didn’t buy those arguments, dismissing both First Amendment cases Thursday for lack of legal standing. Both claimed Facebook and Twitter might have punished the plaintiffs anyway under their own terms of service. “The 1st amendment is a dead letter,” Stanford University medical professor Jay Bhattacharya, also a target of censorship for his anti-lockdown Great Barrington Declaration, tweeted in response to the rulings.

“The judges are looking at this very technically,” faulting the absence of direct orders to censor, New Civil Liberties Alliance lawyer Jenin Younes, counsel in the Ohio case, told Just the News. She believes her three clients have better chances in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, pointing to its 2019 ruling against the University of Michigan, which both the court and feds ignored. The 6th Circuit let a First Amendment group represent students challenging the university’s “bias response team,” agreeing it imposed an “objective chill” on their speech regardless of whether it had “actual power to punish” them. The student-run Harvard Law Review blasted the ruling at the time for a “lax view of standing” that “seemingly dispensed with the requirement that a plaintiff show actual injury.

The setbacks may take a backseat to a broader lawsuit filed Thursday. The attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana accused the Biden administration of “colluding” with Big Tech to censor information about the Hunter Biden laptop story, origins of COVID and security of voting via mail during the pandemic. Justin Hart, identified by MIT researchers as an “anchor” for data-driven mask skepticism on Twitter, sued Facebook, Twitter, President Biden, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and federal offices last summer in California, alleging “state action” against his posts. Murthy and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki publicly disclosed “within days” of Hart’s suspensions from Facebook and Twitter that the feds were pressuring social media to remove “misinformation super-spreaders” and that White House “senior staff” were directly contacting the companies.

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An unexpected emergency?! “..the Biden Food and Drug Administration was alerted by a whistleblower last fall..”

Anatomy of the American Baby Formula Shortage (JTN)

At the outset of his presidency, Joe Biden promised competence by a bigger, better government. A few days ago, one of his loyal allies exposed a gross incompetence by federal officials on Biden’s watch that defied that promise and inflamed a baby formula shortage now panicking parents nationwide. Rep. Rose DeLauro, D-Conn., a reliable liberal ally, unveiled documents showing the Biden Food and Drug Administration was alerted by a whistleblower last fall about potential contamination issues at the Abbott Nutrition baby formula factory in Michigan and failed for months to act aggressively. “The FDA reacted far too slowly to this report,” DeLauro said in releasing a letter to the Health and Human Services inspector general demanding an immediate investigation to an incident that has led to babies being sickened and dying and a belated recall that has emptied shelves of formula nationwide.

The congresswoman, the chairwoman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, laid out a four-month-long trail of federal bumbles and stumbles: the report came in Oct. 20, the whistleblower didn’t even get interviewed for two months, the plant didn’t get inspected until Jan. 31 and the recall didn’t get issued until Feb. 17. “Why did the FDA not spring into action?” she implored during a congressional hearing. “Why did it take four months to pull this formula off store shelves? How many infants were fed contaminated formula during this time, by parents who trusted that the formula they were buying was safe? How many additional illnesses and deaths were there due to FDA’s slow response?”

Now the bureaucratic stumbling has escalated into a national crisis, as video of bare shelves and panicked parents harken in America some of the same fears and images as the bread lines and rationing that befell the Soviet Union in the early 1990s just before its collapse. The problems began even before the recall as inflation, labor shortages and supply chain slowdowns began putting pressure on the baby food staple last fall. In November, baby formula was already substantially more expensive and supply shortages had already risen to 11%. By the first week of April, the shortages had soared to 31%, and last week the number stood at a stunning 40%, according to statistics kept by Datasembly.

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Musk SNL
https://twitter.com/i/status/1523366203242262529

Buffett

 

 

 

 

 

Joe Rogan Vikings

 

 

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