Mar 022023
 


Camille Pissarro Plum Trees in Blossom, Éragny 1894

 

Zelensky, Cronies In Major Corruption Scandal In Ukraine – And US? (Lavrenin)
Zelensky Floats ‘Strategic Pullback’ From Bakhmut (ZH)
Germany’s Scholz: Russia Must Take First Steps Towards Peace In Ukraine (TASS)
UK Ex-Foreign Secretary: US Makes Decisions On Arms Supplies To Ukraine (TASS)
Ready to Die for Ukraine? Russia Warns of Nuclear Annihilation (Celente)
Deep State Absolutely Wants to Kill You – Alex Newman (USAW)
EU Is Threatening Serbia – Vucic (RT)
Pentagon Says It Struggles To Track US Weapons In Ukraine (RT)
Deadly Balancing Act For Region With US Hell Bent On China War (Lo)
US Rallying Allies For New China Sanctions (RT)
Russiagate Spells Journalism’s Death (Chris Hedges)
Greek Consumers Pay Up To 45% More This Year For Basic Food Items (K.)
Ghislaine Maxwell Reportedly In Solitary After Saying Epstein Was Murdered (GP)

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

Penn Blitzer

 

 

 

 

Bukele
https://twitter.com/i/status/1630958207530065927

 

 

Keir Simmons
https://twitter.com/i/status/1631096391488471042

 

 

 

 

“..we can be certain that the inspectors won’t disclose any serious abuses following the audit, since this would deal a blow to President Joe Biden..”

Zelensky, Cronies In Major Corruption Scandal In Ukraine – And US? (Lavrenin)

The corruption scandals in Ukraine are being actively publicized by the media and are linked not only to the government’s political opponents, but also to Ukraine’s partners, primarily the United States. For example, Bihus.Info published an investigation into Yermak’s ties with former deputies from the now banned “Opposition Platform – For Life” party. This was Ukraine’s second largest political faction, until it was prohibited by Zelensky, as part of his crackdown on political opponents. Many experts have viewed the saga as an attempt by the American government to solve its own pressing issue of Republican demands that the White House establishes control over US aid to Ukraine. Having gained a majority in the House of Representatives, the Republican Party wants stricter controls over the expenditure of multibillion-dollar tranches allocated to Kiev. In Ukraine, the political consequences may also be significant.

On January 29, several inspectors arrived in Kiev from the US. The commission included Inspectors General Diana Shaw, Robert Storch, and Nicole Angarella from the US Department of State, the Pentagon, and the Agency for International Development (USAID), respectively. According to the US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, the purpose of their visit was “to advance independent oversight of US assistance to Ukraine”. The offices of all three inspectors have established an interdepartmental working group that includes similar services in other departments and several government auditing services – 17 in total. The group will be responsible for holding meetings with “key American and Ukrainian officials, colleagues in various government agencies and non-governmental organizations implementing programs funded by the United States.” The inspectors are clearly trying to work with the civilian population, bypassing the Ukrainian authorities.

Among the inspectors, Robert Storch is closely familiar with Ukraine’s internal affairs. From 2007 to 2009, he worked in Ukraine as a consultant on anti-corruption issues, and in 2014, he returned to Kiev to help develop anti-corruption legislation. He also advised the authorities on the creation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). Storch has already been active in Ukraine. He met with Vitaliy Shabunin, director of the Anti-Corruption Centre (ACC), who recently criticized the Ukrainian Presidential Office and raised issues of graft in the higher echelons of power, and who was in turn criticized by Reznikov. After the meeting with Storch, however, the anti-corruption activist wrote in his Telegram channel that “all three inspectors-general are deeply aware both of corruption in food purchases and other problems in the Ministry of Defence (which will soon become public)”.

Storch also made time to hold a meeting with Reznikov directly. What’s next? It remains unclear whether the increased interest in policing corruption is an initiative by Ukraine’s pro-Western structures or is part of a new strategy from Washington. Nevertheless, the US inspectors’ main goal was to investigate the misuse of allocated funds. Given that the aid accounts for about half of Ukraine’s budget, the US reasonably expects the funds to be used for achieving set goals and not enriching officials. Consequently, we can be certain that the inspectors won’t disclose any serious abuses following the audit, since this would deal a blow to President Joe Biden and would also reflect negatively on American officials.

Read more …

PR dep. working overtime.

Zelensky Floats ‘Strategic Pullback’ From Bakhmut (ZH)

Zelensky officials are now openly talking about a possible ‘strategic pullback’ from the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut. This comes after Zelensky himself said he’s not ready to order a continued defense of the city at all costs. By all accounts both sides are suffering huge casualties, but Russia has the superior artillery fire, which has been sustained around the clock, also as Kremlin forces have the city almost completely surrounded. According to The Hill: “A Ukrainian presidential adviser on Tuesday said troops may “strategically pull back” from the town of Bakhmut, the focus of intense and brutal fighting for the past few months. Alexander Rodnyansky told CNN the Ukrainian army has not yet pulled out of the city, but Kyiv may soon decide the cost of holding Bakhmut “outweighs the benefits.”


“Our military is obviously going to weigh all of the options,” the Zelensky aide told CNN. “So far they’ve held the city, but if need be, they will strategically pull back because we’re not going to sacrifice all of our people just for nothing.” President Zelensky has also admitted defense of the town has proven “most difficult” for his forces. However, in rare comments, Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said Ukrainian forces continue putting up a fierce resistance on Wednesday. So far they’ve been throwing an immense amount of manpower into Bakhmut, he said. “The Ukrainian army is throwing extra reserves into Artyomovsk and trying to hold the town with all their strength,” Prigozhin said, using the Russian name for Bakhmut, in an audio message published by Wagner’s press service. “Tens of thousands of Ukrainian army fighters are putting up furious resistance. The bloodiness of the battles is growing by the day.”


Russia just took Khromove

Read more …

“He would like to see the withdrawal of Russian troops in the first place..”

Germany’s Scholz: Russia Must Take First Steps Towards Peace In Ukraine (TASS)

The German government thinks that Russia should be the first to take a step towards achieving peace in Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a joint press conference with Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins in Berlin on Wednesday. Scholz argued it was “clear” to him that Russia had attacked Ukraine, and that Russia was the country that “must do something” to make peace possible. He would like to see the withdrawal of Russian troops in the first place. Scholz stated that attention should now be paid to what he described as “the security policy situation on NATO’s eastern flank.” “In the event of an attack, we will together defend every centimeter of the alliance’s territory,” Scholz argued. He assured that the West would continue to “support Ukraine as much as necessary.”

Read more …

UK=Perfect Puppets.

UK Ex-Foreign Secretary: US Makes Decisions On Arms Supplies To Ukraine (TASS)

Britain will not be able to independently expand the supply of arms to Ukraine, since the main decisions in this regard are still being made in Washington, former British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a conversation with Russian pranksters Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) and Alexei Stolyarov (Lexus), published on Wednesday. Hague served as Britain’s Foreign Secretary from 2010 to 2014. In a conversation with pranksters who called him on behalf of Ukraine’s former president, Pyotr Poroshenko, he said that he remained in touch with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, advised him on the need to increase arms supplies to Ukraine and was sort of a mentor for the head of the British Cabinet. “Great Britain will not change its policy without the United States, without coordinating it with the United States. In other words, the main decisions are still made in Washington,” Hague said.


He noted that if Britain had free reign to make a decision to supply long-range weapons to Ukraine, there would be no doubt on that score. He added that the process of Ukraine’s accession to NATO, in his opinion, would last for years. Hague speculated that the scheme that existed between the United States and Israel might serve as a solution for such a transition period. This is not an agreement or a defensive alliance, he said, but political certainty that Israel will always have the most advanced systems for defense. Ukraine, too, can have such relations with Britain, the US and many other Western states. “As for NATO, you can only imagine how long all this coordination will take in the alliance,” Hague said.

Read more …

“If the issue of the very existence of Russia is raised seriously, it won’t be decided on the Ukrainian front. [It’ll be decided] together with the issue of the further existence of the entire human civilization.”

Ready to Die for Ukraine? Russia Warns of Nuclear Annihilation (Celente)

Last week, in an article published in Izvestia newspaper, the former president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev warned of a nuclear ‘apocalypse’ if NATO and the U.S. continued to ramp up the Ukraine War. Noting that the West and its “satellites” represent only 15 percent of the world’s population, he wrote it is “delusional” if they think that, “after putting the Soviet Union to rest, it’ll be able to also bury modern Russia without significant problems for itself, by throwing the lives of thousands of people involved in the conflict [in Ukraine] into the furnace,” and that those are “extremely dangerous misconceptions.”

The now deputy chair of the Russian Security Council also noted that “If the issue of the very existence of Russia is raised seriously, it won’t be decided on the Ukrainian front. [It’ll be decided] together with the issue of the further existence of the entire human civilization.” He warned the more weapons the U.S., NATO and its allies send to Ukraine while failing to discuss peace, the more it’s “…bound to lead to a total fiasco; the defeat for everyone; a collapse. An apocalypse when the former life would have to be forgotten for centuries, until the smoky debris ceases to emit radiation.” Echoing Medvedev’s nuclear warning, on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow must take into account NATO’s nuclear capabilities as he claimed that the West wants to destroy Russia.

“Where the leading NATO countries have proclaimed their main goal to be the strategic defeat of Russia, in order for our people ‘to suffer’ as they put it, how, in these conditions, could we not take into account their nuclear potential?” he asked. Putin said the West is complicit in “crimes” being committed by Ukraine by supplying the country with weapons and that the end goal is to destroy and divide Russia. Resonating that sentiment on Monday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said America and its allies want to “isolate, and even dismember” Russia and the future world order is being formed.

Read more …

Mengele, Rockefeller, Schwab.

Deep State Absolutely Wants to Kill You – Alex Newman (USAW)

Award-winning journalist Alex Newman, author of the popular books “Deep State” and “Crimes of the Educators,” predicted at the beginning is this year that the Deep State demons will have one crisis after another to keep people confused and afraid. The latest crisis is the economic and ecological disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. Newman says expect many more disasters and explains, “All across the country we are seeing very bizarre things happen. Factories and chemical plants going up in flames, food processing facilities blowing up, airplanes crashing in mysterious ways, and I think we are heading into an era of really serious crisis. Last summer, I was putting together the wave of crises that the Deep State was preparing for us, and one of the terms I used was ‘polycrisis.’ Then, right before the World Economic Forum meeting this year, they actually put on their website is 2023 the year of the polycrisis? Of course, it will be the year of the polycrisis.

I think we are prepared and being groomed for cyber-attacks, currency crisis, economic crisis and, of course, Russia/Ukraine and China/Taiwan. I think all of this is going to be used for a series of never-ending crises until we are ready to give up our freedoms, give up our national sovereignty and self-government, and move towards this crazy totalitarian, technocratic system they want.” Newman says it’s not going to be a kind transition for most people. Newman says, “The thing that is so hard for people to understand is that there are very powerful people that are working together, and they absolutely want to kill you. That is not speculation. These people have been openly saying for a century that they believe there are too many people on this planet. . . . The eugenics movement never died. Margaret Sanger, the Rockefellers, Dr. Joseph Mengele was funded by the Rockefeller dynasty. These people are very much still around. Bill Gates is the perfect example. His dad was on the board of Planned Parenthood, the largest butcher of unborn babies in America. . . . Bill Gates says openly and frequently that there are too many people on this planet. He wants to use vaccines and healthcare to reduce the number of people on the planet.”

Newman has a dark warning for America and explains, “Now that they are done with America and we are no longer useful and an obstacle to this global agenda, they need to knock us out. They may not want to resort to nuclear bombs, but if they did, it would not surprise me. . . . America is founded on very important ideals, and these are, once again, making a resurgence. Our self-evident truths that are enshrined in our Constitution, that God created us equally, that God gave us the right to property. God gave us our right to life. Government exists to protect these rights. These are Biblical ideas distilled into a political document. . . . These are ideals that are fundamental to liberty, and as long as the United States exists in its present form . . . . America is a major threat to this agenda. I don’t think we should put it past them that they would use nuclear bombs against us. I also think there is a fifth column in Washington that would be more than happy to collaborate.

Read more …

“Vucic vowed that he would never sign any “formal or informal recognition of Kosovo” as long as he is Serbia’s president..”

EU Is Threatening Serbia – Vucic (RT)

Serbia has not agreed to the EU’s “normalization” proposal on its relations with the breakaway province of Kosovo, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday while appearing on national TV. He added that Belgrade was facing threats from Brussels, but still refused to discuss the recognition of Kosovo and its accession to the UN. His words came a day after the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said on Twitter that both Belgrade and Pristina supported the Franco-German proposal for a “path to normalization” of relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti then said he had offered to sign the plan, but that Vucic refused to do so, even though he had apparently “agreed to” it. On Tuesday, however, Vucic said that the sides “did not agree,” but simply agreed on continuing the talks. He added that “nothing has been signed in Brussels.”

Serbia is “ready to work on the implementation of many [points of] this plan,” Vucic said, but Belgrade still does not want to discuss “mutual recognition” as well as Kosovo’s accession to the UN. Serbia has not struck any “secret agreements,” the president said, adding that “not a single agreement is hidden” and he has “nothing to hide.” Vucic also called Borrell’s statement “very vague” and said that he was ready to discuss the “concept” of normalization. Vucic vowed that he would never sign any “formal or informal recognition of Kosovo” as long as he is Serbia’s president. He also admitted that Belgrade was facing pressure from Brussels and that the consequences of rejecting the plan would be a halting of Serbia’s integration into the European Union and a withdrawal of EU investments.

“We currently have 80,000 people working in German-owned factories alone. They threatened a number of other measures, including that Serbia would become a pariah isolated from the [rest of the] world,” Vucic said. An EU plan published by the bloc’s External Action Service says that Serbia and Kosovo would “develop normal, good-neighborly relations with each other on the basis of equal rights” and their dialogue would be guided by UN principles, including “those of the sovereign equality of all States.” The EU has insisted on Serbia recognizing Kosovo’s independence as a precondition for joining the bloc, even though five member countries – Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece, and Romania – do not recognize it either.

Read more …

“..refused to say whether his team had encountered any such corruption in Ukraine..”

Pentagon Says It Struggles To Track US Weapons In Ukraine (RT)

A classified report last year found that the Pentagon was unable to keep tabs on tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons sent to Ukraine. Details of the report were revealed – apparently inadvertently – by a Republican lawmaker during a hearing on Tuesday. Speaking at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee in Washington on Tuesday, Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch noted that the US has allocated $113 billion in aid to Ukraine since the conflict there began last February, around 60% of which went to the country’s military. Storch – who is tasked with ensuring that this money is accounted for and not lost to waste, fraud, or abuse – refused to say whether his team had encountered any such corruption in Ukraine. However, Republican Rep. Mike Johnson stated that a report from Storch’s office last October found that the Pentagon was unable to carry out monitoring of weapons deliveries to Ukraine in line with its own policies.

Storch responded that the report in question was supposed to remain classified, but admitted that it was “accurate” in acknowledging “challenges” faced by the US in Ukraine. Monitoring of such arms deliveries is governed by the 1996 Arms Export Control Act. Questioned by Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz – a vocal opponent of military aid to Ukraine – Storch would not confirm or deny under oath whether the Pentagon was complying with this act. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby claimed in January that the Biden administration has “not seen any signs” that military or economic aid “has fallen prey to any kind of corruption in Ukraine.” However, the classified document mentioned by Johnson appears to back up a slew of reports suggesting that weapons often disappear once delivered. Reports from last year – backed up by Amnesty International – claimed that as little as 30% of Western weapons sent to Ukraine were actually making it to the front lines.

American and Canadian officials admitted at the time that they had no idea where most of these weapons were ending up, with one US intelligence source telling CNN that they vanish “into a big black hole” once they enter Ukraine. The Kremlin has claimed that up to $1 billion worth of these weapons are funneled from Ukraine to criminals and terror groups in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia every month, while Europol and Interpol both warned that weapons have likely been transferred from Ukraine to criminal organizations in Europe. Pressed by Gaetz on Tuesday, Storch admitted that “there’s a long history of issues with corruption in Ukraine.” Earlier on Tuesday, a former American soldier who fought for Ukraine’s foreign legion before defecting to Russia told RT that he had personally seen commanders selling off Western missile launchers and rifles.

Read more …

“Why talk when you can just pull out a gun? That’s America’s style..”

Deadly Balancing Act For Region With US Hell Bent On China War (Lo)

In one respect, Antony Blinken’s latest claim about Taiwan is right. The US secretary of state said any cross-strait crisis is “a matter of concern to quite literally the entire world”. That’s true because Washington has made it so by deliberately escalating what are already high tensions into a powder keg. When arsonists like Blinken are threatening to torch a house, which is Taiwan, to save it, it’s no wonder the whole neighbourhood is alarmed. It doesn’t help when top US military men just keep on predicting a war with China, any time now, and up to 2027 at the latest. It also doesn’t help when the United States keeps selling more weapons to the island, and is now increasing its military presence with actual boots on Taiwanese ground. If that’s not provocation, I don’t know what is.

There is an easier and sensible way to ease tensions with China, and that’s by trying to reach an understanding with Beijing over the island, as both the US and the mainland have managed to do in the past 40 years, until now. But then the US decides it must openly confront and contain a rising China. And what’s more convenient than playing the Taiwan card, Asia’s peace and security be damned? After all, if the whole region goes up in smoke, that’s someone else’s neighbourhood, not America’s. It’s déjà vu. How many times have we seen this film before? Why talk when you can just pull out a gun? That’s America’s style. It’s apparently even written into its constitution. Washington plans to significantly increase its presence of troops on Taiwan, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, by quadrupling the number to 200 military personnel in the coming months.

Meanwhile, separate reports also say Taiwanese troops will be sent to the US for combat training. Until recently, there were not supposed to be any US troops on Taiwan; and even up to the start of 2021, no more than two dozen were reported. The military exchange will be a real escalation. Such moves are usually between the militaries of two sovereign countries. It’s clear while the Joe Biden White House claims to uphold the one-China principle, its actions say otherwise. For a while, President Tsai Ing-wen tried to put a lid on the rising US presence of troops, but now she doesn’t even bother. Washington keeps arguing for increasingly assertive and overt support, especially with frequent US naval operations across the strait. It’s the only way to help deter “Chinese aggression”. That’s a matter of perspective. For Beijing, it just looks like deliberate provocation.

Read more …

All these economies are overflowing with Chinese imports.

US Rallying Allies For New China Sanctions (RT)

The US is coordinating with its close allies to impose new sanctions on China should it decide to support the Russian campaign in Ukraine, according to Reuters. Beijing has rejected claims that it intends to offer military aid to Moscow, and recently unveiled a plan seeking a peaceful settlement to the conflict. Washington is in “consultations” with foreign partners, namely those from the G7 nations, regarding new economic penalties, several unnamed US officials told the outlet on Wednesday. They declined to provide details about the potential sanctions, only confirming that discussions are “laying the groundwork for potential action.” The report follows repeated warnings toward China from the US and other Western nations, which claim Beijing intends to supply weapons to Russian forces for the campaign against Ukraine.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg echoed the charges during a recent interview with the Associated Press, saying “we have seen some signs that they may be planning for that,” but without offering evidence. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that Washington would “not hesitate” to target Chinese firms with sanctions in the event that Beijing supplies lethal aid to Moscow, saying the move would carry “implications and consequences.” Blinken added that he raised the issue with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi when they met at the Munich Security Conference last month. China has dismissed the charges as “groundless speculation,” arguing that it does not intend to provide weapons to Russian troops while accusing Washington of hypocrisy.

“The US has no right to dictate China-Russia relations, and we will never accept coercion and pressure from the US,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday. She went on to observe that it is Washington, not Beijing, that has been “pouring lethal weapons into the battlefield in Ukraine.” While Western nations have long pressured China to sever ties with Russia, accusations toward Beijing have only grown louder since it unveiled a 12-point roadmap for a diplomatic settlement for the conflict in Ukraine last month. Moscow has signaled willingness to “carefully analyze” the details of the proposal, though US officials quickly rejected the plan, claiming Beijing has adopted “Russia’s false narrative about the war” and is not “serious” about ending hostilities.

Read more …

Russiagate to Covid to Ukraine. Who could have predicted?

Russiagate Spells Journalism’s Death (Chris Hedges)

Gerth, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who worked at The New York Times from 1976 until 2005, spent the last two years writing an exhaustive look at the systemic failure of the press during the Trump-Russia story, authoring a four-part series of 24,000 words that has been published by The Columbia Journalism Review. It is an important, if depressing, read. News organizations repeatedly seized on any story, he documents, no matter how unverified, to discredit Trump and routinely ignored reports that cast doubt on the rumors they presented as fact. You can see my interview with Gerth here. The New York Times, for example, in January 2018, ignored a publicly available document showing that the F.B.I.’s lead investigator, after a 10-month inquiry, did not find evidence of collusion between Trump and Moscow.

The lie of omission was combined with reliance on sources that peddled fictions designed to cater to Trump-haters, as well as a failure to interview those being accused of collaborating with Russia. The Washington Post and NPR reported, incorrectly, that Trump had weakened the GOP’s stance on Ukraine in the party platform because he opposed language calling for arming Ukraine with “lethal defensive weapons” — a position identical to that of his predecessor President Barack Obama. These outlets ignored the platform’s support for sanctions against Russia as well its call for “appropriate assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine and greater coordination with NATO defense planning.” News organizations amplified this charge. In a New York Times column that called Trump the “Siberian candidate,” Paul Krugman wrote that the platform was “watered down to blandness” by the Republican president.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, described Trump as a “de facto agent” of Vladimir Putin. Those who tried to call out this shoddy reporting, including Russian-American journalist and Putin critic Masha Gessen were ignored. After Trump’s first meeting as president with Putin, he was attacked as if the meeting itself proved he was a Russian stooge. Then New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote of the “disgusting spectacle of the American president kowtowing in Helsinki to Vladimir Putin.” Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s most popular host, said that the meeting between Trump and Putin validated her covering the Trump-Russia allegations “more than anyone else in the national press” and strongly implied — and her show’s Twitter account and YouTube page explicitly stated — that Americans were now “coming to grips with a worst-case scenario that the U.S. president is compromised by a hostile foreign power.”

The anti-Trump reporting, Gerth notes, hid behind the wall of anonymous sources, frequently identified as “people (or person) familiar with” — The New York Times used it over a thousand times in stories involving Trump and Russia, between October 2016 and the end of his presidency, Gerth found. Any rumor or smear was picked up in the news cycle with the sources often unidentified and the information unverified. A routine soon took shape in the Trump-Russia saga. “First, a federal agency like the CIA or FBI secretly briefs Congress,” Gerth writes. “Then Democrats or Republicans selectively leak snippets. Finally, the story comes out, using vague attribution.” These cherry-picked pieces of information largely distorted the conclusions of the briefings.

Read more …

Great! Now go run a homeless kitchen…

Greek Consumers Pay Up To 45% More This Year For Basic Food Items (K.)

Greek consumers are paying up to 45% more this year for basic food items compared to a year ago, as estimates of temporary price appreciation, which started before the war in Ukraine and intensified later on, turned out to be false hopes, Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data show. Although there were eventually no food shortages and the market caps imposed on some products in the first weeks after the Russian military invaded Ukraine, such as flour, sunflower oil, sugar and chicken, did not have to last for long, the price increases have not only not been contained since then, but are continuing in 2023. Despite the significant de-escalation in recent months, the prices of electricity and natural gas also remain high, having been up to four times higher in the past year than in 2021, even after the government subsidies for household consumers’ bills.

Increased spending on food and other household essentials, as well as inflated energy bills, despite subsidies, resulted in more than half of households reporting that their monthly income was sufficient up to the 18th of each month. Out of a total of 62 food items, only in one case was there a price reduction in January 2023 compared to a year earlier and that was negligible (-0.02% for fresh fish). All other products saw prices increase from 0.29% (fresh fruit) to 44.96% (sugar). In fact, the increase is over 20% in 14 types of food, which includes the most basic ones, such as milk (24.29% for fresh milk with even greater increases in other types), bread (25.55%), flour (26.89%), eggs (26.27%), cheeses (26.61), yogurt (21.65%), olive oil (22.37%), beef (20.15 %), lamb and goat (21.35%).

For a “basket” with 25 basic products – food and household items – on March 1, 2022 Greeks paid 76.26 euros, while the exact same products (same brand and code) now cost €91 – i.e. 19.33% more money. In some cases the increases even reach 60%, such as in branded toilet paper or detergents and shower gels, where price hikes of over 50% are recorded.

Read more …

“I probably wish I had stayed in England.”

Ghislaine Maxwell Reportedly In Solitary After Saying Epstein Was Murdered (GP)

Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was reportedly punished by authorities at the Federal Correctional Institute Tallahassee over a recorded jailhouse interview that aired in January. The onetime British socialite, who was accused of procuring underage girls for convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, “was handcuffed and slung into solitary confinement for 48 hours after prison authorities accused her of profiting from a media interview,” the Daily Mail reported Monday. “She protested her innocence but was marched off to the Special Housing Unit (SHU) — a ‘prison within a prison’ comprising tiny, grim cells where inmates are locked up for 23 hours at a time and fed through slits in the door.”

The news outlet quoted unnamed “insiders” as saying that the inmate they know as “Max” “was just minding her own business when they came in, turned her around and handcuffed her.” “She got really upset, she was crying, she was yelling that she hadn’t received any money, but nobody saw her again for three days.” The Mail’s source said, “The SHU is not a nice place.” “It’s like a little box and you’re only allowed out to shower once a day. There’s no contact from anyone, no privileges, they slide your meals through a slot.” According to the report, Maxwell’s interview, which was aired Jan. 23 on TalkTV, would have violated the terms of her 20-year federal prison sentence if she received payment for the appearance.

Also in question was how the interview was obtained. As federal prisoner number 02879-509, she is permitted video calls with only those family members and friends on a list approved by the federal prison, according to the report. She apparently conducted the interviews during phone calls with her friend, filmmaker Daphne Barak. Maxwell made headlines for several remarks made during those interviews. One much-publicized comment was that she believed Epstein, contrary to the official narrative, did not commit suicide in his jail cell in 2019. “I believe that he was murdered,” Maxwell said.

When she heard the news of his death, “I was shocked,” she said. “And I wondered how it had happened. Because as far as I was concerned, he was going to … I was sure he was going to appeal. And I was sure that he was covered under the non-prosecution agreement.” She also expressed regret for her association with Epstein during the interview. “I honestly wish I’d never met him, you know, looking back now,” she told the interviewer. “I probably wish I had stayed in England.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 


Fingers don’t have muscles, apart from the arrector pili, which are completely unrelated to motion. The 34 muscles that actually move human fingers are all located in the palm and forearm

 

 

AI sign language

 

 


Chand Baori is the deepest and probably the oldest stairwell in the world

 

 

Silent flight

 

 


The tufted ground squirrel is noted for having the largest known tail to body size ratio of any mammal, with the volume of its tail including the air included in the fluff being 130% of the volume of its body

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 152023
 
 February 15, 2023  Posted by at 9:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  67 Responses »


Edward Hopper Dawn before Gettysburg 1934

 

Palestine, Ohio Train Wreck: It’s The Dioxin (Coppolino)
Russia Wants UN Probe Into Nord Stream Blasts (RT)
Kiev Readying ‘Great Event’ To Accuse Russia Of Violating Nuclear Safety (TASS)
US Wants to Help Ukraine Retake More Territory Before Negotiating (Antiwar)
US Ambitions Mean Destruction Of Ukraine, Huge Loss Of Life – Zakharova (TASS)
Ban On Access To Bakhmut Prelude To Ukrainian Troop Withdrawal? (TASS)
Stoltenberg Denies NATO Involvement In Conflict With Russia (TASS)
Russia Gives High Marks To Serbia’s Balanced Foreign Policy (TASS)
Snow White and the Wicked Queen (Batiushka)
The Bloody Sore On Humanity’s Conscience (Saker)
Nord Stream Terror Attack: The Plot Thickens (Escobar)
NATO Eyes Fighting Two Wars – Bloomberg (RT)
Snowden Calls UFO Craze A Distraction (RT)
How George Soros’ Propaganda Machine Has Corrupted The Media (Livshitz)
‘World’s First’ Unvaccinated Dating Service Launches in Hawaii (ET)

 

 

 

 

Ohio river
https://twitter.com/i/status/1625327940392067072

 

 

 

 

Is this why the White House is absent?

 

 

Tucker Ohio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It happened on February 3rd. 12 days ago. Without Twitter, would we even ever have known?

I’m not sure what is the most dangerous chemical involved. But the intentional “flaring off” of the whole thing feels crazy.

Will anybody ever live there again?

Palestine, Ohio Train Wreck: It’s The Dioxin (Coppolino)

Most coverage of the train wreck in Palestine, Ohio is missing one word: dioxin. There were reportedly 14 tanker cars full of vinyl chloride, a precursor to polyvinyl chloride — that is, vinyl. Burning vinyl is the most serious source of dioxin in the environment — whether from trash incinerators, house fires or chemical spills. This mess of 14 tanker cars (really, many more, but 14 had vinyl chloride) was then set on fire by the government, apparently to make it easier to clear the railroad tracks. This was the worst possible decision. It has turned many, many miles into no-man’s land. Note that dioxin goes by several other names, including TCDD and is sometimes abbreviated 2,3,7,8. Dibenzofurans, or furans for short, are identical in their toxicity but spoken about less often.

This is not a local issue. This massive plume will spread far and wide, and is being blown by the prevailing winds across Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York State, toward the population centers of the northeastern U.S. And via land and water, the toxins can spread in many directions, via water, soil movement and air (since the prevailing winds are only an average). And the contamination is so serious that even soil tracking will spread significant amounts. What few people remember is how the town of Times Beach, Missouri was evacuated, purchased by the federal government, leveled and had its zip code removed, from far, far less dioxin contamination. It’s now a state park, though I’m not sure who would want to have a picnic there.


[..] Neil Donahue, a professor of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University in nearby Pittsburgh, said he worries that the burning could have formed dioxins, which are created from burning chlorinated carbon materials. “Vinyl chloride is bad, dioxins are worse as carcinogens and that comes from burning,” Donahue said. Dioxins are a group of persistent environmental pollutants that last in the ground and body for years and have been one of the major environmental problems and controversies in the United States. Dr. Lynn Goldman, dean of George Washington University’s School of Public Health, agrees this is a possible risk, but is more concerned about uncombusted vinyl chloride vapors that could be lurking in the immediate vicinity. “Until there has been a thorough assessment, the soot as well as any other materials should in my opinion be treated as contaminated by vinyl chloride and/or dioxins or other contaminants until proven otherwise,” she said.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1625303244267220992

https://twitter.com/i/status/1625553361641537536

Read more …

“..Stoltenberg announced the formation of a new “coordination cell” to work on securing undersea infrastructure..”

Russia Wants UN Probe Into Nord Stream Blasts (RT)

The Russian parliament’s committee for international relations has approved a motion to ask the UN Security Council for an investigation into last September’s explosions on the Baltic Sea pipelines, for which they blame the US. The motion was introduced on Tuesday and is expected to be approved by the State Duma later this week. The proposal describes the blasts as “an act of international terrorism” and a “monstrous sabotage,” calling on the UN to hold accountable both those who gave the order and those who carried it out. The criminal act has threatened the security of all Eurasia, TASS reported, quoting the text of the document. US President Joe Biden’s administration “gave the illegal order and bears full responsibility for the multi-billion-dollar damage to the infrastructure of Russia, Germany, France and the Netherlands,” according to the document.

It describes the pipeline sabotage as inflicting long-term damage to the security, economy and environment of the entire region. The lawmakers are referring to last week’s expose by American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who described how the pipelines were damaged in a joint operation between the US and Norway. US actions require “a thorough international investigation, punishment of those responsible and compensation for the damage caused.” The committee has requested putting their proposal on the agenda of Thursday’s session of the State Duma, where it may be up for a vote. A series of explosions heavily damaged both Nord Stream pipelines, which were built under the Baltic Sea to deliver Russian natural gas to Germany and the rest of the EU.

The blasts happened near the Danish island of Bornholm, in an area where the US Navy and its NATO allies conducted BALTOPS 22 exercises several months prior. Last week, Hersh described how American divers planted the explosives under the cover of the naval exercise, saying they were later activated by a Norwegian patrol airplane. When Hersh asked the US government for comment, it denounced the story as “fiction” and “false.” It has received little to no media attention in the West since. On Monday, NATO’s secretary-general – and former Norwegian prime minister – Jens Stoltenberg announced the formation of a new “coordination cell” to work on securing undersea infrastructure.

Read more …

No surprise. They call for a special session, just in time for Russia to be accused.

Kiev Readying ‘Great Event’ To Accuse Russia Of Violating Nuclear Safety (TASS)

Kiev, backed by the US, is preparing a provocation (“a great event”) ahead of the 11th special session of the UN General Assembly to accuse Russia of violating nuclear safety during the special military operation in Ukraine, the Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response said in a statement on Tuesday. “The Kiev regime, supported by the US and European countries, is wrapping up preparations of a major media provocation (“a great event”) to accuse the Russian Federation, ahead of the start of work of the eleventh extraordinary special session of the UN General Assembly on February 22, of allegedly ‘gross violation’ of commitments of the Nuclear Safety Convention during the special military operation,” the statement said.

It also said representatives of the Kiev regime planned to provide some “substantial evidence” to the world community, which will purport to prove that “as a result of actions by Russian servicemen at the Chernobyl NPP and in the exclusion zone in February-April 2022, a radioactive contamination of significant territories of Ukraine took place.” The purpose of the provocation is mainly to create a negative background by forcing countries that didn’t support sanctions against the Russian Federation to vote for the Kiev “peace formula” at the upcoming 11th special session of the UN General Assembly. In addition, Kiev is hoping for further initiatives for the illegal confiscation of Russian assets abroad to “support Ukraine” and the creation of an “international tribunal”.

The special session of the UN General Assembly on Ukraine will begin its work on February 22. According to Paulina Kubiak, a spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly, the request to hold the session came from some Western countries on February 10.

Read more …

Crime(a).

US Wants to Help Ukraine Retake More Territory Before Negotiating (Antiwar)

The Washington Post reported on Monday that Biden administration officials say they want to help Ukraine retake as much territory as it can from Russia over the next few months before they sit down at the negotiation table with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The report, which cited unnamed Biden administration officials, said that some “optimists” think Ukraine can stop Russian advances in the east, regain territory in the south, and negotiate a deal by the end of the year. But there are “skeptics” who recognize that Russia has been reinforcing its positions with hundreds of thousands of troops. Russia has been making more gains around the eastern Donetsk city of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces have been taking heavy casualties.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia has started its long-awaited offensive, but it’s not clear if Russia has launched a major push or the momentum is just on its side in Bakhmut, where Russian and Ukrainian forces have been locked in battle for months. Ukraine’s Western backers, including those in the Biden administration, think Kyiv has been sinking too many resources in the battle of Bakhmut and want them to focus elsewhere. The Post report said that American military analysts and planners think it’s unrealistic for Ukraine to continue defending Bakhmut and launch a spring counteroffensive in another area. The report said that the Biden administration conveyed to Ukraine that it might not be able to receive the massive amount of assistance Washington has provided indefinitely.

“We will continue to try to impress upon them that we can’t do anything and everything forever,” an administration official said. The message to Ukraine is that they face a pivotal moment in the war, and the recent weapons packages and ones that will soon be announced will give them their best chance to turn the tide. The US has recently pledged a series of massive arms packages to Ukraine that include longer-range missiles, Abrams tanks, and Bradley fighting vehicles, although some of the equipment could take years to deliver. The report cited conservative Republicans who have said they want to stop providing aid and the fact that it’s not clear how long Europe can support the war as reasons why the assistance might not continue at these levels. This message comes despite constant pledges from the US and its allies that they will support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”

“‘As long as it takes’ pertains to the amount of conflict. It doesn’t pertain to the amount of assistance,” the administration official said. There are other signs that the US is thinking about an end game for the war, including recent comments from Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), the head of the House Armed Services Committee. Rogers suggested the US and NATO should pressure Ukraine on what victory will look like, which he said should help “drive Putin and Zelensky to the table to end this thing this summer.” Ukrainian officials have maintained their goal is to drive Russia out of all the territory it controls, including Crimea. But officials in the US don’t think taking Crimea is a realistic goal. Any deal that Russia and Ukraine reach in the future would likely involve Kyiv ceding more territory than it would have if an agreement was reached earlier in the war or if the Minsk agreements were implemented before the Russian invasion. The Minsk agreements were drawn up to end the Donbas war and would have involved Kyiv ceding autonomy to separatists in the east, but the region would have remained part of Ukraine.

Read more …

“..American neoliberals destroyed Ukraine and are exterminating Ukrainian people..”

US Ambitions Mean Destruction Of Ukraine, Huge Loss Of Life – Zakharova (TASS)

American ambitions have led to enormous fatalities and the annihilation of Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday. “The so-called ‘West’s war against Russia until the last Ukrainian.’ American neoliberals destroyed Ukraine and are exterminating Ukrainian people. American hegemonic ambitions lead to colossal victims,” she wrote on her Telegram channel commenting on a statement by one of the White House officials that the US is pushing Kiev to more active combat.

Read more …

“..the Ukrainian military cannot secure even areas in the city that had been considered relatively safe before..”

Ban On Access To Bakhmut Prelude To Ukrainian Troop Withdrawal? (TASS)

The ban on civilian and volunteer access to Artyomovsk (known as Bakhmut in Ukraine) imposed by Kiev on Monday could be a prelude to a Ukrainian withdrawal from the city, the New York Times reported. According to the newspaper, the decision to ban civilians from entering the city may suggest that the Ukrainian military cannot secure even areas in the city that had been considered relatively safe before, such as districts on the western bank of the Bakhmutka River. The New York Times quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as saying that the village of Krasnaya Gora, lying north of Artyomovsk, had been taken by Russian troops.


Ukraine’s Klymenko Time news outlet reported on Sunday, citing a Ukrainian commander who goes under the nickname of Madyar, that the military would close access to Artyomovsk for all civilians, including volunteers, starting on Monday. Only those having a special permit will be able to enter the city, the news outlet added. According to it, the ban is needed to guarantee security to civilians.

Read more …

And neither is the arms industry.

Stoltenberg Denies NATO Involvement In Conflict With Russia (TASS)

NATO does not consider itself a party to the conflict with Russia but will keep supplying more advanced and heavier weaponry to Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said upon his arrival at a meeting of the bloc’s defense ministers on Tuesday. “Neither NATO nor NATO allies are party to the conflict. What we do as NATO allies and NATO, is to provide support to Ukraine. Ukraine is defending itself. Ukraine has the right to defend itself. And of course, we have the right to help Ukraine uphold the right for self-defense. So NATO and NATO allies are not party to the conflict, but we support Ukraine in the right of self-defense,” the NATO chief said, replying to a corresponding question. The type of weapons supplied to Ukraine “has evolved as the war has evolved,” Stoltenberg said.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1625406892087320581

“In the beginning there was enormous focus on javelins, on anti-tank, light anti-tank weapons, and then we saw the urgent need for artillery and allies started to step up the delivery of advanced modern artillery. Then air defense has been a main focus and now heavy weaponry…,” he said. As Stoltenberg said, “actually since 2014, NATO has implemented the biggest reinforcements of collective defense in a generation, because the war didn’t start in February last year. It started in 2014.” Tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and munitions are now a NATO priority in weaponry deliveries to Ukraine, Stoltenberg said. “So the issue of aircraft is not the most urgent issue now. But it is an ongoing discussion. We have ongoing consultations among allies on the type of systems allies should deliver to Ukraine,” he said. “The urgent need now is to deliver what has always been promised” and this “will be a top issue at the meetings today here at NATO,” Stoltenberg said.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1625404892348137474

Read more …

Serbia, Hungary. Expect regime change.

Russia Gives High Marks To Serbia’s Balanced Foreign Policy (TASS)

Russia highly appreciates Belgrade’s balanced foreign policy under complex international circumstances, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a telegram to his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic sent on the occasion of Serbia’s Statehood Day. According to the Serbian leader’s press service, the telegram was presented to Vucic by Russian Ambassador to Belgrade Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko on Tuesday. “Please accept sincere greetings on the occasion of your country’s national holiday, Statehood Day. Serbia is Russia’s important and reliable partner. We greatly cherish the balanced foreign policy course conducted by Belgrade under the current complex international circumstances.


“We support your efforts directed at defending the country’s territorial integrity and resolving the Kosovo issue. I am confident that the further development of the Russian-Serbian strategic partnership fully corresponds to the interests of our fraternal peoples,” the telegram said. “I sincerely wish you good health and success as well as well-being and prosperity to all Serbian citizens,” the Russian leader said. Statehood Day is marked in Serbia on February 15 and 16 commemorating the First Serbian Uprising (1804-1813) which launched the country’s fight for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Serbia’s first constitution was approved on February 15, 1835.

Read more …

Nice parabel.

Snow White and the Wicked Queen (Batiushka)

Now it came to pass that a Prince who was travelling in the mountains with his soldiers happened onto the Kings’ House, where he sought shelter for the night. He saw the coffin with Snow White in it and read what was written on it with golden letters. Then he said to the Three Kings: ‘Let me buy the coffin from you. I will give you anything you want for it’. But the Kings answered: ‘We will not sell it for all the gold in the world’. Then he said, ‘Then give it to me, for I cannot live without being able to see Snow White. I will honour her and respect her as my most cherished one’. When he said this, the good Kings felt sorry for him and gave him the coffin. The Prince had his soldiers carry it away on their shoulders. But then one of them stumbled over a stone and that freed the piece of poisoned apple which had lodged in Snow White’s throat.

At once she coughed it up, opened her eyes, lifted the lid from her coffin, sat up and was alive again. ‘Good heavens, where am I?’ she cried out. The Prince said joyfully: ‘You are with me’. He told her what had happened, and then said: ‘I love you more than anything in the world. Come with me to my castle and we shall be King and Queen’. Snow White fell in love with him and went with him. When they got to the castle, the people were very happy and they invited the whole world to their wedding feast.Now the Wicked Queen in the West was also invited to the wedding feast and when she had arrayed herself in her most beautiful garments, she stood before her mirror and said: ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who’s the strongest of them all?’ The mirror answered: ‘You, my Queen, are not strong at all, it is true. And the young Queen is much, much stronger than you’.

The Wicked Queen was furious. Not knowing that the young Queen was Snow White, she went to the wedding to try and kill her. But as soon as she saw her, she realised that she was Snow White. And at once the vain heart of the Wicked Queen filled with the deepest dread and she died in a rage of narcissism. So, at last freed from her wickedness, the Kingdom of the West began to make friends with the Three Kings of the North, South and East. Having forgotten the Wicked Queen completely, he became the Fourth King. The whole Family was together again at last. And soon after that the Four Kings took wives and were very happy. As for the King and Queen Snow White, every year on the anniversary of their freedom from wickedness, they would hold a huge ball to which they invited the Four Kings from the Four Kingdoms of the world and all their families. And there they would all make merry and the music and the feasting and the singing and the dancing and the laughing would last until dawn. And so they lived happily ever after.

Read more …

“..the Woke ideology is following Dubya’s “you are either with us or with the terrorists“, but on steroids..”

The Bloody Sore On Humanity’s Conscience (Saker)

Each society, each country has at least two foundational bases: an official ideology and a number of foundational myths (and these myths can be very close to the historical truth or not). In the case of the West (roughly Zone A), the official ideology is “western liberal democracy” (itself based on a lionization of capitalism and “free market values”). However, once we look “under the hood”, so to speak, we see that since its birth in the Middle-Ages the foundational myth of the West has been exceptionalism and its inevitable by-product, imperialism. And it does not matter one bit what verbiage this myth has been wrapped it. It can be the demented claims of universal authority the Papacy, or the so-called “universal values” (aka human rights) of Freemasonry, the racial superiority of the Nazis or globalist agenda of the transnational financiers.

The past two decades or so have, however, seen a very interesting phenomenon: the wholesale abandonment of any “pious” ideology other than the minimal lip-service needed to show a (totally non-existing) loyalty to any values. That is, however, not to say that no ideology currently exists. It does, very much so, but it is one *openly* based on hatred of the “other”. I am talking, of course, of the Woke ideology which is so powerfully expressed by the actions of the “Biden” Administration. The Woke ideology is not different from its predecessors by its underlying hatred of the “other” (all the previous western ideologies were also based on that hatred of the “other”), but by its unapologetic proclamation of this hatred. You could say that the Woke ideology is following Dubya’s “you are either with us or with the terrorists“, but on steroids.

And like all western ideologies, the Woke ideology demands that you not only accept a lie (many lies, in fact), but that you also loudly proclaim it. And, of course, the bigger the lie, the more vociferously it is proclaimed urbi et orbi.Again, this is hardly anything new but, as Hegelian dialectics affirms, quantity can have a quality of its own. We clearly see this today in the post-Christian society all of Zone A lives in: not only are falsehoods proclaimed as “secular dogma”, but the very notion of “truth” has lost any meaning. To repeat, while in the past the rulers of the West did proclaim and even impose ideologies based on lies, today these same rulers have basically retired the very *concept* of “truth” in any other meaning than “in agreement with the official party line/narrative”.

Read more …

“..the terror attack planning preceded, by months, not only the SMO..”

It had nothing to do with the SMO. Or Ukraine. It was about Germany. Who are now silent.

Nord Stream Terror Attack: The Plot Thickens (Escobar)

The Special Military Operation (SMO) was launched on February 24, almost a year ago. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 blow up happened on September 26. Hersh assures there were “more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to ‘sabotage the pipelines’”. So that confirms that the terror attack planning preceded, by months, not only the SMO but, crucially, the letters sent by Moscow to Washington on December 2022, requesting a serious discussion on “indivisibility of security” involving NATO, Russia and the post-Soviet space. The request was met by a dismissive American non-response response.

While he was writing the story of a terror response to a serious geopolitical issue, it does raise eyebrows that a first-rate pro like Hersh does not even bother to examine the complex geopolitical background. In a nutshell: the ultimate Mackinderian anathema for the U.S. ruling classes – and that’s bipartisan – is a Germany-Russia alliance, extended to China: that would mean the U.S. expelled from Eurasia, and that conditions everything any American government thinks and does in terms of NATO and Russia. Hersh should also have noticed that the timing of the preparation to “sabotage the pipelines” completely blows apart the official United States government narrative, according to which this a collective West effort to help Ukraine against “unprovoked Russian aggression”.

The narrative leaves no doubt that Hersh’s source – if not the journalist himself – supports what is considered a lawful U.S. policy: to fight Russia’s “threat to Western dominance [in Europe].” So what seems a U.S. Navy covert op, according to the narrative, may have been misguided not because of serious geopolitical reasons; but because the attack planning intentionally evaded U.S. law “requiring Congress to be informed”. That’s an extremely parochial interpretation of international relations. Or, to be blunt: that’s an apology of Exceptionalism. And that brings us to what may be the Rosebud in this Orson Welles-worthy saga. Hersh refers to a “secure room on the top floor of the Old Executive Office Building …that was also the home of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board”. This was supposedly the place where the terror attack planning was being discussed.

Read more …

“NATO defense ministers will also discuss in Brussels a boost in military spending by member states..”

NATO Eyes Fighting Two Wars – Bloomberg (RT)

NATO is set to adopt a guidance that lays out plans for a scenario in which member states find themselves fighting on the home front and beyond the borders of the alliance at the same time, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. This comes as the US increasingly shifts its priorities to confronting China. The classified document is to be discussed and signed off on by NATO defense ministers during a two-day summit in Brussels that starts on Tuesday, the news outlet reported. Members will be asked to prepare national plans for future military engagements. The guidance will map out ways for NATO to engage in a “high-intensity so-called Article 5 conflict” – defending a NATO nation attacked by a foreign party under the treaty’s mutual defense provision – and “an out-of-area, non-Article 5 event.” The contents of the guideline were revealed to Bloomberg by “people familiar with the matter.”

While NATO bills itself as a defensive alliance, it has an extensive record of engaging in hostilities on foreign soil, including in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and against Libya in 2011. Critics regard the bloc as a tool of US foreign policy that is aligned with Washington’s goals and in rivalry with China and Russia. “The Americans get what they were aiming for,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov remarked in an interview earlier this month, discussing NATO’s increasing reach. “There are military blocs being created against China and Russia in the Asian Pacific region, like AUKUS. There is a drive to drag new members into them.” The ability to fight a two-theater war was at the core of US military planning during the Cold War.

Think tanks and US officials pushed the strategic objective of having a military force strong enough for two simultaneous ground conflicts, arguing for higher Pentagon budgets and against spending cuts. According to Bloomberg’s sources, NATO defense ministers will also discuss in Brussels a boost in military spending by member states. Countries that fail to meet the target of 2% of GDP would be pressured to accept this level as a mandatory floor rather than merely as a recommendation. Such a change may be adopted during a summit of NATO leaders in Vilnius in July, the outlet said. The structure of spending would be pushed towards increased procurement of weapons by European allies, according to the article, since the US “may decide to move some of its assets” from the continent closer to China.

Read more …

You don’t say…

Snowden Calls UFO Craze A Distraction (RT)

The media frenzy over “spy balloons” and unidentified flying objects over North America is sadly not about first contact with extraterrestrials, but an engineered panic for political misdirection, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden argued on Monday. “It’s not aliens. I wish it were aliens. But it’s not aliens. It’s just the ol’ engineered panic, an attractive nuisance ensuring [national security] reporters get assigned to investigate balloon bullshit rather than budgets or bombings” such as the Nord Stream, Snowden tweeted. Award-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a story last week describing how the US and Norway blew up the pipelines transporting Russian natural gas to Germany last September. The US government denounced it as false.

Over the next several days, the US military began shooting down “objects” in the sky over North America. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Monday that the US government still doesn’t know who owns the three “objects” brought down over the weekend. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said there was “no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity,” however. Kirby had announced the downing of a “high-altitude object” off the coast of Alaska on Friday. US fighter jets brought down an “unidentified, unmanned object” over Yukon in northwest Canada on Saturday. The third “object” was shot down on Sunday afternoon over Lake Huron, as it approached Michigan. “While authorities don’t yet know what the objects are, they are not a threat,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters on Monday.

“They do not present a military threat to anyone on the ground. They do however present a risk to civil aviation and potentially an intelligence collection threat. And we’ll get to the bottom of it,” he added. Austin also said the three “objects” were different from the Chinese “spy balloon” the US shot down over South Carolina last week. The aerostat, which Beijing described as a weather balloon blown off-course by the winds, had passed over most of the continental US before it was destroyed by a F-22 fighter jet. The Pentagon’s reluctance to describe the “objects” or show any debris that may have been recovered has fueled speculation about their possible extraterrestrial origin. Space magnate Elon Musk joked about “friends of mine” stopping by.

Meanwhile, opposition lawmakers have expressed frustration at the lack of official explanations by the White House. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who sits on the Homeland Security Committee, demanded the Pentagon and the president “tell us what they know – and what they don’t – immediately.” “What in the world is going on?” wondered fellow Kentuckian and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor. “The administration has still not been able to divulge any meaningful information about what was shot down,” he said, asking if the radar sensitivity may have been turned up after the Chinese balloon incident.

Read more …

”..Newsbusters lists Project Syndicate as the biggest propaganda platform funded by the Hungarian..”

How George Soros’ Propaganda Machine Has Corrupted The Media (Livshitz)

A new report from the US-based Newsbusters has exposed a vast web of media and activist organizations, funded with millions of dollars, annually, by the billionaire George Soros. The outlet bills itself as “an online rapid-response vehicle for documenting, exposing, and neutralizing liberal bias in the media.” The extensive global influence of the Hungarian tycoon is well-known, and Soros himself has admitted it on countless occasions – including boasts about his efforts in Ukraine. Soros openly declared his role in promoting the 2014 US-orchestrated Maidan coup in Kiev, stating at the time: “I set up a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia [sic]. The foundation has been functioning ever since. And it played an important part in events now.”

In a lengthy interview with the New York Times in October of 2019, Soros explained: “The arc of history doesn’t follow its own course [and] needs to be bent,” and he was “engaged in trying to bend it in the right direction.” The Newsbuster report identifies the hundreds of media, humanitarian, and social justice organizations that Soros funds annually and asserts that his donations allow him to “wield massive power over information in international politics,” and “mold public opinion on practically every continent and in many languages.” Who gets the money? Newsbusters lists Project Syndicate as the biggest propaganda platform funded by the Hungarian. It styles itself as “the world’s opinion page” and has a “global audience” that includes “prominent politicians, policymakers, scholars, business leaders, and civic activists from six continents” and “over 140 heads of state.”

From 2016 – 2020, he funneled at least $1.5 million to the outlet. It actively promoted abortion, criticism of Israel and pushed for global climate lockdowns during this period. The Poynter Institute is also at the top of this list, which Newsbusters condemns as “a global Soros-backed Ministry of Truth.” It received $492,000 during the same period. This money was used to finance Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network, which brings together 100 so-called “fact-checkers”. The network includes the controversial PolitiFact, and actively works with major social media platforms to boost their operations, while censoring alternative voices and opinions. Newsbusters argues that these initiatives in reality serve only to restrict opinions on issues like abortion, transgenderism, and COVID-19. The reports also points out that there is significant academic research to suggest fact-checking does not stop the spread of false information online, raising questions about why so many organizations and wealthy individuals pump huge amounts of money into such entities in the first place.

Read more …

Unjected. How much for blood transfusions? Donor organs?

‘World’s First’ Unvaccinated Dating Service Launches in Hawaii (ET)

Nowadays, online dating seems less a game of hit or miss than medical truth or dare, given the deal-breaker question, “Are you vaccinated?” Businesswomen Shelby Thomson and Heather Pyle of Maui, Hawaii, found the online dating game a frustrating experience for the un-jabbed at the height of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in 2021. Faced with discrimination and censorship, many unvaccinated people lost jobs and relationships because they chose to remain unvaccinated. The un-jabbed “didn’t have the option to say they were unvaccinated” to potential online dating partners, Thomson said. “They were only allowed to be vaccinated. And you had to have this badge in your [online] profile.” Too often, the unvaccinated would hear on dating sites, “Swipe left”—move on.

In May 2021, the two business partners, moms, and best friends launched “Unjected,” a dating app for the unvaccinated, on the Google and Apple stores. “We started seeing people wanting to find partners,” Thomson said of their unvaccinated friends. However, soon after the app’s launch, Thomson and Pyle started receiving hate emails, then negative publicity in the media. Apple decided to remove “Unjected” from the app store, claiming it provided medical disinformation. “We tailored everything and played this chess game until it [met] Apple standards,” Thomson recalled. But it still wasn’t enough. “It took us until July 31 to get banned.”

When Google threatened to follow suit, Thomson and Pyle pulled the plug on both media giants, and Unjected.com went live using the web domain host GoDaddy in August 2021. “We decided—OK—the big-tech world is not our friend. They don’t want us to exist in this realm. They’ll always go out of their way to ensure we’re censored or taken down.” Thomson said “Unjected” is more than a dating service for the unvaccinated. It’s also a blood bank database and a fertility bank for the unvaccinated. The dating service alone boasts 110,000 subscriptions in 85 countries and 3,000 to 5,000 new clientele every month, Thomson said.


SB99 in TN is a must-pass bill, requiring labeling on all meat that contains mRNA vaccines. Idaho S.1018 is similiar.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Assange

 

 

Chickens

 

 

 

 

Rob Roos
https://twitter.com/i/status/1625513008054128641

 

 

 

 

Man and woman

 

 

Blue ringed octopus
https://twitter.com/i/status/1625563331036606464

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 032023
 
 February 3, 2023  Posted by at 9:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  80 Responses »


Henri Cartier-Bresson A visitor to the Forbidden City, Beijing 1948

 

White House Denies Biden Offered Putin ‘20% Of Ukraine’ (RT)
German Politicians Eye Revival Of Fascism — Lavrov (TASS)
Germany ‘Open’ To Idea West Behind Nord Stream Sabotage – The Times (RT)
Lavrov: Moldova Could Become A New “Anti-Russia” (RT)
Serbia More Objective On Ukraine Conflict Than Other Nations – President (TASS)
EU Urged To Sanction Steven Seagal (RT)
One Ukrainian Billionaire Funded Hunter Biden, Zelensky, Azov (Kanekoa)
Hunter Biden Email Promising Russian Oligarch Info Raises Fresh Concern (NYP)
Hunter Biden Finally Admits Infamous Laptop Is His (NYP)
Joe Biden’s Shady Plan To Funnel $10 Million To Hunter’s Legal Fund (TPN)
The Press Versus The President, Part Four (CJR)
Jaw-Dropping Story of Covid Conspiracy and a Worldwide Cover-Up (Dalgleish)
‘Stunning Increase’ in Serious Harm Reports in Young Healthy Pilots (ET)
Dr. Peter McCullough Unbowed After Winning Legal Case (DW)
100% of COVID Deaths in Canada Now Due to mRNA Vaccine (NP)

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

Putin unipolar
https://twitter.com/i/status/1620977797710905346

 

 

Putin trust

 

 

 

 

Vit. D, Covid

 

 

Nuke Moscow

 

 

 

Putin: “Those who draw countries into a new war and declare this as a fait accompli, those who expect to defeat Russia on the battlefield, must understand that a modern war with Russia will be completely different for them.

 

 

Veritas

 

 

 

 

I don’t think this came out of nowhere.

White House Denies Biden Offered Putin ‘20% Of Ukraine’ (RT)

President Joe Biden allegedly sent CIA chief William Burns on a secret mission to Moscow and then Kiev in mid-January, according to a report in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NNZ) on Wednesday. The White House and the CIA both addressed the allegeations on Thursday, saying it was not true that the US had offered Russia 20% of Ukrainian territory as part of a peace proposal. According to confidential conversations with two German lawmakers dealing with foreign policy – one from the ruling coalition, the other from the opposition – Burns reportedly offered a “land for peace” deal in which Russia would keep some “20% of Ukraine’s territory” – about the size of the Donbass.

The Swiss-German newspaper mentioned the supposed proposal in passing, focusing on the chain of events that led to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US President Joe Biden announcing they would send Leopard 2 and Abrams heavy tanks to the government in Kiev. The NZZ report is “not accurate” and the CIA will say the same, deputy spokesperson for the White House’ National Security Council, Sean Davett, told Newsweek. A CIA official then told the US outlet that reports of a secret Moscow trip by Burns, or a peace proposal on behalf of the White House were “completely false.” The Washington Post reported earlier that Burns had taken a secret trip to Kiev ahead of the tank announcement, in order to meet and brief Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.


From what the two German politicians told NZZ, the peace offer hinted at a split in Washington regarding the conflict. While Burns and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan want to wrap up the fighting in Ukraine quickly to focus on China, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are committed to backing Kiev. The Swiss outlet further pointed to the recent report by the Rand Corporation, urging Washington to avoid a “long war” in Ukraine – among other reasons, so the US can focus on China. Both Ukraine and Russia refused the US proposal, NZZ claimed. Kiev said it was unwilling to give up any territory, while Moscow was confident of victory. Asked about the NZZ report, Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy told Newsweek he found it “interesting” but declined to comment on “speculation.”

Lula

Read more …

“Why do people refuse to see the Nazi ideology that lies at the heart of the Kiev regime?”

German Politicians Eye Revival Of Fascism — Lavrov (TASS)

Seeking Russia’s defeat as the “final solution to the Russian question” is nothing more than Nazism and there are politicians in the West, for instance, in Germany, who wouldn’t be against resurrecting it, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a Thursday interview with TV news anchor Dmitry Kiselyov. According to the top diplomat, in its pursuit of “the final solution to the Russian question”, the West is gunning to hand Russia “a strategic defeat so it won’t recover for a long time.” “Is this not racism, is this not Nazism, is this not an attempt at the ‘final solution to the Russian question?” he pondered. “Yes, not yet in gas chambers at this point. There are still a lot of decent people in Germany who won’t permit the revival of Fascism but there are also those who wouldn’t be against it at all,” he insisted.


The Russian foreign minister noted that now, just like during the Great Patriotic War, Nazi dogma is being used against Russia.”Why do people refuse to see the Nazi ideology that lies at the heart of the Kiev regime?” he wondered. “And all these statements voiced by its enthusiasts and puppeteers are impossible to be perceived as anything other than an attempt at the final solution to the Russian question,” he stressed. “This is why we are in the epicenter of a geopolitical battle,” Lavrov stressed. “There is no sense in doubting this and those who are confronting practical tasks on the frontlines are doing the most important thing. They are heroes and the feats they perform are feats for the sake of mankind’s future,” he added.

Putin Stalingrad

Read more …

“Lavrov: The United States directly participated in the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline.”

Germany ‘Open’ To Idea West Behind Nord Stream Sabotage – The Times (RT)

German officials are “open to theories” that the sabotage of the Nord Stream undersea pipelines was carried out by a Western nation “with the aim of blaming it on Russia,” The Times reported. In a Wednesday report, the British newspaper described the mystery of who was behind the attacks as “one of the biggest questions of the 21st century.” The two pipelines, each of which has two strings, were damaged by explosions in late September. Germany, the recipient of Russian natural gas, for which the undersea energy routes were built, as well as Sweden and Denmark, in whose territorial waters the damage was done, are each running a separate investigation. Citing European officials, the Times said a failure to provide transparency in the probes risks encouraging “dangerous conspiracy theories” and “wild speculations.”

“This was a major infrastructure attack. It’s strange that we’ve heard very little,” an unidentified Western analyst was quoted as saying. The German investigation is thought to have made little progress and is “yet to uncover any compelling evidence” pointing to Russia, The Times said, adding that Berlin is “open to theories that a Western state carried out the bombing with the aim of blaming it on Russia.” It noted that 23 diplomatic and intelligence agencies across nine Western nations had also told the Washington Post recently that they had yet to see evidence implicating Russia and some said they did not believe Moscow was the culprit. Following the blasts, however, Kiev and some of its most-vocal backers were quick to assign blame on Russia, claiming that it damaged its own infrastructure to put pressure on the EU.


Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, explained the apparent irrationality of such a move, telling The Times that Moscow “relies on actions which are illogical but that it believes will intimidate.” The Russian government described the sabotage as a “terrorist attack” and said that the US was the nation that benefited most from it, by speeding up Europe’s attempts to wean itself off Russian gas. US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland declared that she was “gratified” with the destruction of the Nord Stream 2 project during a Congress hearing last week. Responding to the remark, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday that the US diplomat had essentially “confessed” Washington was behind the sabotage.

Read more …

And a new battlefield?!

Lavrov: Moldova Could Become A New “Anti-Russia” (RT)

Moldova could follow in Ukraine’s footsteps and become a new “anti-Russia,” Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has suggested in an interview with the Russian media. The diplomat claimed that the West had installed a president in Chisinau who is hell-bent on bringing the former Soviet republic into the US-led fold. On Thursday, Russia’s RIA Novosti and Rossiya 24 media outlets published an interview with Lavrov. He was asked which country, in his opinion, could go down the same path as Ukraine and become an “anti-Russia.” The foreign minister responded by claiming the West was “currently considering Moldova for this role.” He said the country had been chosen primarily because the West succeeded in installing “through some very peculiar methods, far from free and democratic [ones],” a pliant president at the helm there.

Maia Sandu is “rushing into NATO” and “has Romanian citizenship,” Lavrov noted. The diplomat concluded that the Moldovan head of state is ready to merge her country with neighboring Romania and to “do practically anything.” Lavrov said the West and Moldova’s leadership have effectively put on hold the normalization process regarding the breakaway region of Transnistria in the 5+2 format. This involves the US and Russia, along with the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, as well as Moldova and Transnistria. He claimed that the new Moldovan government is no longer interested in the process and is considering retaking the region by force and booting Russian peacekeepers out of Transnistria. Late last month, President Sandu told Politico “there [was] a serious discussion” underway in Chisinau “about our capacity to defend ourselves, whether we can do it ourselves, or whether we should be part of a larger alliance.”


While she did not identify NATO directly, Sandu has consistently been pursuing pro-Western policies since coming to office back in 2020. Moldova was granted EU candidate status last year. It has also been actively cooperating with NATO in recent years, sending its troops to participate in the military bloc’s force in Kosovo. The Moldovan president held a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in New York in September 2021, and the country’s foreign minister attended a meeting of the organization in Romania last December. However, the outstanding issue of Transnistria precludes Moldova from becoming a member state of the US-led organization, as NATO requires all aspiring entrants to resolve all territorial and ethnic disputes first.

Read more …

Whoever wants to be objective will be accused of being pro-Russian.

Serbia More Objective On Ukraine Conflict Than Other Nations – President (TASS)

Belgrade is capable of assessing the developments in Ukraine in the most objective manner because it refrains from putting labels on the parties to the conflict, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said at a special session of the country’s parliament on Thursday. “In Serbia, we can freely figure out what both parties to the war think. It’s not like this in other countries as there is total censorship everywhere. There are no [opinions] of the two parties, just one party is good and the other is bad,” the Serbian leader noted. “Today, we are witnessing a kind of World War III, which will grow in size and scale, becoming more difficult than it is now as early as in the coming days, weeks and months,” the Serbian president stressed.


Vucic pointed out earlier that Serbia was not providing weapons to Ukraine and had no plans to do so. He emphasized that Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine was the reason for the West’s immense pressure on Serbia, particularly in terms of sanctions on Russia. Vucic has repeatedly noted that Serbia’s joining the policy of sanctions against Russia would not produce any results. Addressing the nation soon after the launch of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Vucic said that though his country supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity, it would not impose sanctions on Russia. He also announced that his country would temporarily suspend all army and police drills with foreign partners. He noted that Serbia viewed Russia and Ukraine as fraternal nations, regretted the developments in Eastern Europe and was ready to provide humanitarian assistance to Kiev.

Read more …

“..a coalition consisting of senior members of the US Congress, MEPs, and Ukrainian parliamentarians handed a list of individuals it wants sanctioned..”

EU Urged To Sanction Steven Seagal (RT)

Hollywood action movie star Steven Seagal is among ten individuals facing calls for sanctions by a group of politicians in the US-Europe Sanctions Coalition for their alleged support of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, Euractiv reported on Thursday. According to the news website, a coalition consisting of senior members of the US Congress, MEPs, and Ukrainian parliamentarians handed a list of individuals it wants sanctioned to Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister Tobias Billstrom earlier this week. The list was previously sent to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, in late December, according to Ukrainian MP Aleksey Goncharenko, a member of the coalition who spoke to Euractiv.

The request reportedly includes Russian tycoons Magomed Gadzhiev, Vladimir Lisin and Vladimir Potanin, politician Franz Klintsevich, and Ksenia Sobchak – a Russian opposition figure and former presidential candidate. Also featured are entertainers such as Philipp Kirkorov and Igor Krutoy, a Russian state company official, the co-chair of Ukrainian Opposition Platform – For Life party, Vadim Rabinovich, as well as US actor Seagal. The ‘90s Hollywood star, who has been a Russian citizen since 2016, was included in the list for expressing his support for the Kremlin’s military operation in Ukraine and flying to Moscow in April to celebrate his 70th birthday with associates of President Vladimir Putin, whom he called a “great world leader.”


Back in August, it was also reported that the actor was working on a documentary about Kiev’s war against the Donbass republics, which have since joined Russia after holding public referendums. According to Ukrainian MP Aleksey Goncharenko, a member of the coalition who spoke to Euractiv, the purpose of the list is to “synchronize sanctions” across all member countries. The official insisted that “those who are guilty of the crime of aggression against Ukraine” must be held responsible and “pay their price.”

Read more …

Reportedly, he’s under investigation from Kiev now.

One Ukrainian Billionaire Funded Hunter Biden, Zelensky, Azov (Kanekoa)

The real person who was the benefactor to, and the boss of, Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, was not the CEO of Burisma Holdings, Mykola Zlochevsky, but it was instead Ihor Kolomoysky, who was part of the newly installed Ukrainian Government, which the Obama Administration itself had actually just installed in Ukraine, in what the head of the “private CIA” firm Stratfor correctly called “the most blatant coup in history.” Shortly after the Obama Administration’s Ukrainian coup, on March 2, 2014, Kolomoysky, who supported Yanukovych’s overthrow, was appointed the governor of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. Hunter Biden, with no experience in the industry or region, would join Kolomoysky’s Burisma Holdings two months later, on May 12, 2014.


A 2012 study of Burisma Holdings done in Ukraine by the AntiCorruption Action Centre (ANTAC), an investigative nonprofit co-funded by American billionaire George Soros and the U.S. State Department, found that the true owner of Burisma Holdings was none other than Ukrainian billionaire-oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky.

Read more …

“Classified” files.

Hunter Biden Email Promising Russian Oligarch Info Raises Fresh Concern (NYP)

A Hunter Biden email sent to an American aluminum company and promising information on Russian oligarchs is raising fresh concerns about the first son’s access to classified documents recently discovered in his father’s Wilmington, Del., home as lawmakers prepare to investigate allegations of influence peddling. Documents dating back to 2011 on his notorious “laptop from hell” showed Hunter offered to sell intelligence on Russian oligarchs to the US aluminum firm Alcoa Inc. for $55,000, according to The Post’s exclusive October 2021 report. As his father served as former President Barack Obama’s second-in-command, Hunter Biden offered to provide a “statistical analysis of political and corporate risks, elite networks associated with Oleg Deripaska, the Russian CEO of Basic Element company and United company RUSAL,” which had just signed a metal supply agreement with Alcoa.

Hunter Biden also offered the company a “list of elites of similar rank in Russia, map of [Deripaska’s] networks based on frequency of interaction with selected elites and countries.” The deeply detailed proposal has come under sharp scrutiny given recent revelations that Hunter Biden had access to the Delaware lake-front home where secret papers from his father’s time as vice president were discovered in a garage, basement and library — combined with Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the high-profile former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, told The Post that the Alcoa solicitation fits within a broader picture. “The Biden family is the most corrupt family in the history of American politics,” he said. “The biggest question facing Republican investigators: Where to begin?”

Banks is not alone. Others, such as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), have raised suspicions that Hunter Biden, who has previously listed the 6,850-square-foot mansion as his home, may have used the classified documents in business dealings. Johnson said an April 12, 2014 Hunter Biden email to his business partner about Ukraine from 2014 looked “suspiciously” like it could have come from classified information. “It reads like one of those scene-setters — highly detailed information in terms of Ukraine,” Johnson told Fox News Tuesday. The email from Hunter to Devon Archer included a 22-point memo he described as “thoughts after doing some research” included prescient predictions that Petro Poroshenko would be elected Ukraine’s president and “some sort of decentralization will likely occur in the East.”

“If it doesn’t the Russians will continue to escalate there [sic] destabilization campaign, which could lead to a full scale take over of the eastern region most critically Donetsk,” Hunter Biden wrote. “The strategic value is to create a land bridge for RU[ssia] to Crimea.” In hearings to start next week, the House Oversight Committee will investigate Hunter Biden’s alleged influence peddling, cashing in on ties to his then-vice president father to rake in millions from foreign companies, its chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), told the National Press Club on Monday.

Read more …

“51 former intel “experts” promised us the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinfo.”

Hunter just admitted it was all real.

They all deserve jail time.”

Hunter Biden Finally Admits Infamous Laptop Is His (NYP)

So much for “the laptop ‘could be’ mine.” First son Hunter Biden’s lawyers admitted late Wednesday that the infamous laptop that the now-52-year-old abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop in the throes of his crack cocaine addiction does indeed belong to him. The revelation came in a petulant letter from Hunter’s lawyers seeking a criminal probe into what they called attempts to “weaponize” its contents. In the 14-page letter to Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell claimed that repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac “unlawfully” accessed Hunter’s laptop data and worked with former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to “weaponize” sordid and incriminating contents on it against Joe Biden.

“This failed dirty political trick directly resulted in the exposure, exploitation, and manipulation of Mr. Biden’s private and personal information,” Lowell wrote. “Mr. Mac Isaac’s intentional, reckless, and unlawful conduct allowed for hundreds of gigabytes of Mr. Biden’s personal data, without any discretion, to be circulated around the Internet.” Mac Isaac took possession of the laptop and hard drive late in 2019 after trying and failing for months to notify Hunter that the device was ready to be picked up. Once the shop owner saw the laptop’s contents — including emails detailing influence-peddling involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and videos of the younger Biden smoking crack and having sex with prostitutes and his work subordinates — he alerted the FBI.


[..] Lowell’s letter singles out Mac Isaac, Giuliani, Costello, former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon, former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler, Bannon associate Jack Maxey, and Yaacov Apelbaum, founder and CEO of cyber analytics firm XRVision and former aide to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), as parties who gained unauthorized access to the laptop’s contents and disseminated it to the media and lawmakers. “We believe that the facts and circumstances merit further investigation as to whether the conduct of Messrs. Mac Isaac, Costello, Giuliani, Bannon, Ziegler, Maxey, and Apelbaum violated several provisions of Delaware’s criminal code — including, but not necessarily limited to, computer-related property offenses … theft … possession of stolen property … and misapplication of another’s property … Each of these offenses, if violated, has the potential to be a felony, depending on the value of the property in question,” Lowell writes.

Tucker laptop

Read more …

They appear a bit surprised.

Joe Biden’s Shady Plan To Funnel $10 Million To Hunter’s Legal Fund (TPN)

According to the Washington Post and NBC News, allies of President Joe Biden are working on creating a legal fund to help out Hunter Biden, the son of the current president, as he faces investigations and legal challenges now that the GOP controls the House of Representatives. The Washington Post, which first reported on the matter, claimed that the fund could add up to about $10 million dollars, giving Hunter a significant backdrop on which to rely as the GOP starts probing into his alleged influence peddling, particularly his connections in communist China. NBC, reporting on the effort to help pay Hunter’s legal bills, reports that the effort is still in its preliminary stages, as those seeking to help Hunter are trying to decide on what method of fighting back against GOP accusations and investigations will be most effective, with the new legal strategy being a change in tack from the way Hunter and his allies have been dealing with accusations against him up until now. In that outlet’s words:

“The discussions are in the preliminary stage, and as of now Hunter Biden’s legal advisers have not been planning for the potential creation a defense fund to help him pay for representation in the face of GOP investigations they view as unfounded and overtly political. There have been ongoing discussions within Hunter Biden’s circle of advisers about how to respond to Republican probes and accompanying GOP attacks, said multiple people with knowledge of the discussions. Until recently, the strategy was to exercise caution and restraint, preparing for future moves quietly until the federal criminal investigation into Hunter Biden, which has been run out of Delaware, has reached a conclusion about whether charges will be filed.”


While Hunter and his allies have been trying to “exercise caution and restraint”, NBC notes that the new legal fund, if created and funded with enough to help Hunter hire some of the best lawyers, would give him the ability to ” shift to a more proactive legal strategy in the coming months”. What form that new strategy would take is unclear. The legal fund’s creation comes as the sharks start to circle Hunter. Rep. James Comer, for example, recently sent a letter demanding answers from Hunter’s art dealer, saying: “Your arrangement with Hunter Biden raises serious ethics concerns and calls into question whether the Biden family is again selling access and influence.”

Read more …

“..all these countries,” aware of Bolton’s hawkish views, “thought we were going to blow them up” when Bolton sat in on the negotiations.”

The Press Versus The President, Part Four (CJR)

sTrump, in July 2018, finally had a summit meeting with Vladimir Putin, the man he mistakenly claimed in 2015 to have met years earlier and his supposed puppet master, according to Steele’s dossier. In advance of the summit, Trump met with his national security adviser, John Bolton, to discuss how to deal with Russian meddling. The president “remained unwilling or unable to admit any Russian meddling because he believed doing so would undercut the legitimacy of his election and the narrative of the witch hunt against him,” Bolton wrote in his 2020 memoir The Room Where It Happened. At a press briefing, the final question was whether US intelligence or Putin should be believed with regard to meddling in the 2016 election. After going on a tangent about the server at the DNC, Trump said, “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia that did it. Then, a bit later in his answer, he expressed “great confidence in my intelligence people.”

The first remark received all the attention. Some outlets, like the Times, didn’t include his comments about “great confidence” in US intelligence in their stories, while others, such as the Post, did. Trump flew home to Washington, and when aides talked to him the next day about the reaction, he said he meant the opposite. A clarification was released, but the cleanup was not enough for critics such as Roger Cohen, then a columnist at the Times, who wrote of the “disgusting spectacle of the American president kowtowing in Helsinki to Vladimir Putin.” Rachel Maddow, the MSNBC host, saw the day’s events as affirmation of her having covered the Trump-Russia matter “more than anyone else,” because, as her blog pointed out, Americans were now “coming to grips with a worst-case scenario that the US president is compromised by a hostile foreign power.”


For his part, Trump, when asked about Helsinki in my interview, blasted Bolton. “Bolton was one of the dumber people, but I loved him for the negotiations,” he said, because “all these countries,” aware of Bolton’s hawkish views, “thought we were going to blow them up” when Bolton sat in on the negotiations.

Read more …

“Suppression of debate has “cost… at least a trillion pounds, given the disastrous legacy of lockdown on education, mental health and misdiagnosis leading to early deaths from cardiac and cancer.”

Jaw-Dropping Story of Covid Conspiracy and a Worldwide Cover-Up (Dalgleish)

We wrote a manuscript and shared it with the Government, Cabinet and scientific advisors saying that it was extremely likely that this was a laboratory escape and had clear and present security implications. Imagine our surprise when we were told quite categorically that there was no way it could have been a laboratory escape and was a natural zoonosis. We tried to publish this on many occasions and each and every one of the top journals, including Nature, Science, The Lancet and many others refused to publish this as it was not in the public interest. What was to follow was a complete suppression of any debate about the origin, which would appear to have been driven by Tony Fauci from the NIAID in America.

Indeed, he was so intent on quashing any evidence of the origin that he commissioned a paper from a group of scientists, who we now know also had concerns that it may not be natural but nevertheless, they published the paper in Nature Medicine saying all the evidence showed it was completely natural and was not a laboratory leaked virus. This paper was published in Nature Medicine and then used by Tony Faucci as absolute proof that it was not a lab leak. What was incredible was that this narrative was picked by governments throughout the world, all the mainstream media and the majority of scientists, who should have known better than to accept the narrative rather than look at the evidence. Birger Sorensen and I were only able to get our observations out under the disguise of a vaccine paper, which was published in QRB Discovery, a journal with a biophysics bent which appreciated our argument that the inserts affected the charge of the virus and this was why it was able to be so infectious.


Although ignored, this paper was soon to be downloaded a record of over a quarter of a million times! The narrative that this could not have possibly come from a laboratory, even though it was very strange the outbreak should have occurred in a place not known for coronavirus outbreaks, was so strongly adhered to that even in the West any suggestion that it may have been due to a laboratory accident was shut down with cries of xenophobia. Among many other put-downs was the allegation this was some sort of conspiracy theory. The ‘lab leak as conspiracy theory’ narrative was so strong that it ended up censoring discussion on all the social media networks and only scientists who produced theories or suggestions that it came from a bat in an original roundabout way were allowed any voice. China’s put-down was especially strong and it was so very obvious that they were covering up something as all specimens and databases were either altered or withdrawn.

Read more …

DMED Is the most accurate adverse event reporting system.

‘Stunning Increase’ in Serious Harm Reports in Young Healthy Pilots (ET)

It’s been a year since four Department of Defense (DOD) whistleblowers found a sudden increase in various diseases in the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED), which coincided directly with the introduction of COVID-19 vaccinations. Now, new data shows more evidence. That’s according to Lt. Col.Theresa Long, M.D., MPH, a board-certified aerospace medicine doctor and Army Brigade flight surgeon with specialty training as an aviation mishap investigator and safety officer, who was one of the four whistleblowers. Long’s background has uniquely equipped her to recognize what she described as “unusual diagnoses and alarming trends only after the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccinations.” Long said what she has now found has led her to file yet another whistleblower complaint with Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) office.

She described this data as “more alarming DMED data” after she “went back into the ‘fixed’ DMED again to look for signals of harm for Army aviation.” “What I found was a clear signal, that something in 2021 changed the health of service members,” Long told The Epoch Times. She said these signals were consistent with those in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports. But unlike VAERS reports, DMED data showed spikes in the number of diagnoses “made by a healthcare professional within the DOD on service members.” According to the Military Health System, the DMED provides remote access to a subset of data contained in the Defense Medical Surveillance System (DMSS). The DMSS contains up-to-date and historical data on diseases and medical events (including reportable events) and “is available to authorized users such as U.S. military medical providers, epidemiologists, medical researchers, safety officers or medical operations/ clinical support staff for surveying health conditions in the U.S. military.”


“After querying all pilots across the DOD, for all-cause morbidity and mortality, I found a stunning increase in the number of reportable events, spiking from an average of 226 reportable events a year (2016-2019) to 4,059 reports in 2022,” she explained. A DOD reportable event is any patient safety event resulting in death, permanent harm, or severe temporary harm—and all require a comprehensive systematic analysis and a follow-on corrective action implementation plan report. “The point is there is a statistically significant increase in death, permanent harm, or severe temporary harm in young healthy fit pilots,” she continued.

Menstrual cycle
https://twitter.com/i/status/1621342165010890753

Read more …

“Baylor accused McCullough in the $1 million lawsuit of “reputational harm..”

Dr. Peter McCullough Unbowed After Winning Legal Case (DW)

A district judge vindicated Texas cardiologist and outspoken COVID vaccine critic Dr. Peter McCullough on Wednesday, dismissing a lawsuit filed against him approximately two years ago by his former employer Baylor Scott and White Health system. McCullough, dubbed a prominent purveyor of COVID misinformation by his detractors, was sued by the health system two years ago for allegedly violating a separation agreement and bringing the Baylor Scott and White Health name into the media. Associate Judge Tahira Khan Merritt of the Judicial District Court Dallas County dismissed the suit with prejudice. “This is a strong victory for freedom of speech and fair balanced publication and media presentation of clinical data as it has emerged over the course of the pandemic crisis,” McCullough told The Daily Wire.

“My analyses and conclusions have been accurate, consistent, and have always been my own, not those of any institution.” Baylor accused McCullough in the $1 million lawsuit of “reputational harm,” stating that McCullough gave several media interviews and was published in journals that mentioned Baylor as an affiliate even though he had parted ways with the employer. Baylor Scott & White Health told The Dallas Morning News in a written statement at the time of the filings that McCullough’s views don’t represent those of the health care provider. “The lawsuit was filed to enforce this separation and avoid public confusion,” the statement said. “We take very seriously our responsibility to be a trusted source of medical information in the communities we serve.”


Yet, representatives for the cardiologist asserted McCullough never stated he was employed by the health system and that it was third parties who referenced the relationship. “The lawsuit, in a sense, represented a form of intimidation and professional reprisal, and I feel vindicated by the dismissal,” McCullough said.

Read more …

Arrived at by deduction: “..Health Canada no longer provides data on death by vaccination status.”

100% of COVID Deaths in Canada Now Due to mRNA Vaccine (NP)

New data shows that 100% of COVID deaths in Canada are being caused by the mRNA vaccines that were forced on the population by the Trudeau regime and Big Pharma. Covid deaths in Canada doubled in 2022 with a 85% vaccinated population. Health Canada reports Covid deaths week-by-week, starting from the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. In 2020, the total Covid deaths reported to the Public Health Agency Canada by provinces and territories was 9,225. In 2021, as vaccines became accessible to Canadians between January and July, Covid deaths didn’t decrease over the year. Instead, the figure slightly increased to 9,934. And, in 2022, with an approximately 85% vaccinated population in January and a less deadly Covid variant dominant, Covid deaths increased again.

Over 2022, Health Canada data shows 15,844 deaths occurred due to Covid – almost double the number of deaths in 2020 when citizens were “unprotected.” Over half of these reported deaths between 2020 and 2022 were among Canadians aged 80 years and older. Health Canada no longer provides data on death by vaccination status. As such, there’s no way to decipher which deaths in 2022 were among vaccinated populations and which were among unvaccinated. The health agency does show overall death percentages by vaccine status from the start of the vaccine rollout in December 2020. This data reveals that just over half of all Covid deaths took place among those who received at least one Covid vaccine. Legacy media created hysteria around the Delta variant in 2021, as the just-vaccinated population was learning they were not immune from getting infected with – or dying from – Covid.


Data suggested that the Delta variant was more contagious than the previously dominant Alpha, but less deadly. Furthermore, research indicates the Omicron variant – which became dominant in 2022 – is even less lethal than the Delta. As previously reported by The Counter Signal, Canada’s 2022 excess deaths trajectory is on pace to shatter the total from 2021 – and obliterate that from 2020. Excess deaths is the term that indicates whether a region had more or fewer deaths than expected, given demographics and historical trends. The figure helps calculate the true impact of a health crisis. Health Canada data indicates 13,940 excess deaths took place in 2022 up to August 27. By this same period in 2021, the total excess deaths was 10,406. In 2020, the total was 8,057. In other words, as the percentage of Canadians “vaccinated” against Covid increased, so too did the excess death total and the Covid deaths.

Read more …

 

 

 


People who died in the first 14 days after getting vaccinated were counted as unvaccinated.

 

 

 

 


The Natural History Museum in London is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items. Being a striking examples of Romanesque architecture, it is sometimes dubbed a cathedral of nature: this is its central hall

 

 

Hummingbird shower

 

 

Bumblebee tongue
https://twitter.com/i/status/1621227736059592707

 

 

Baby tiger
https://twitter.com/i/status/1621096344835469312

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 272023
 
 January 27, 2023  Posted by at 9:22 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  146 Responses »


Edward Hopper Office in a Small City 1953

 

Blinken Concedes War Is Lost – Offers Ukrainian Demilitarization (Helmer)
Blinken Ponders The Post-Ukraine-War Order (Ignatius)
American Abrams Tanks Vulnerable Even To Soviet-era Weapons (TASS)
Nobody Told Me We’re At War – Kroatian President (RT)
Involvement Of US, Collective West In Ukraine Conflict Grows – Kremlin (TASS)
France Denies The West Is At War With Russia (RT)
West Discussing Handover Of Fighter Jets To Kiev – Politico (TASS)
Kremlin Rules Out Any Talks Between Zelensky, Putin (TASS)
The Sect (Dionísio)
What Spurred Wave Of Resignations Among Senior Ukraine Officials? (Lavrenin)
Joining Russia Sanctions Would Be ‘Inappropriate’ – Serbia (RT)
Can You Smell What the Year of the Rabbit Is Cooking? (Escobar)
Russia’s Intentions Are Clarifying (Alasdair Macleod)
Pfizer Director Physically Assaults James O’Keefe and Veritas Staff (GP)
Marco Rubio Letter To Albert Bourla (rubio.senate.gov)

 

 

 

 

Trump Russia
https://twitter.com/i/status/1618620533675028487

 

 

 

 

Tucker Barr Epstein

 

 

Hunter email
https://twitter.com/i/status/1618272150007472129

 

 

Macgregor/Judge Nap

Macgregor A Huge Offensive

 

 

 

 

A take we haven’t seen before. But it’s Helmer…

“John Helmer is an Australian-born journalist and foreign correspondent based in Moscow, Russia since 1989. He has served as an adviser to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia, and has also worked as professor of political science, sociology, and journalism.”

“US is ready to ease sanctions against Russia for the sake of “serious negotiations on Ukraine and the withdrawal of troops from there.”- Victoria Nuland

Blinken Concedes War Is Lost – Offers Ukrainian Demilitarization (Helmer)

David Ignatius has been a career-long mouthpiece for the US State Department. He has just been called in by the current Secretary of State Antony Blinken to convey an urgent new message to President Vladimir Putin, the Security Council, and the General Staff in Moscow. For the first time since the special military operation began last year, the war party in Washington is offering terms of concession to Russia’s security objectives explicitly and directly, without the Ukrainians in the way. The terms Blinken has told Ignatius to print appeared in the January 25 edition of the Washington Post. The paywall can be avoided by reading on. The territorial concessions Blinken is tabling include Crimea, the Donbass, and the Zaporozhe, Kherson “land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia”.

West of the Dnieper River, north around Kharkov, and south around Odessa and Nikolaev, Blinken has tabled for the first time US acceptance of “a demilitarized status” for the Ukraine. Also, US agreement to restrict the deployment of HIMARS, US and NATO infantry fighting vehicles, and the Abrams and Leopard tanks to a point in western Ukraine from which they can “manoeuvre…as a deterrent against future Russian attacks.” This is an offer for a tradeoff – partition through a demilitarized zone (DMZ) in the east of the Ukraine in exchange for a halt to the planned Russian offensive destroying the fortifications, rail hubs, troop cantonments, and airfields in the west, between the Polish and Romanian borders, Kiev and Lvov, and an outcome Blinken proposes for both sides to call “a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity”.

Also in the proposed Blinken deal there is the offer of a direct US-Russian agreement on “an eventual postwar military balance”; “no World War III”; and no Ukrainian membership of NATO with “security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5.” Blinken has also told the Washington Post to announce the US will respect “Putin’s tripwire for nuclear escalation”, and accept the Russian “reserve force includ[ing] strategic bombers, certain precision-guided weapons and, of course, tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.” President Putin has offered a hint of the Russian reply he discussed with the Stavka and the Security Council last week.

Putin told a meeting with university students on Wednesday, hours after Blinken’s publication. “I think that people like you,” the president said, “most clearly and most accurately understand the need for what Russia is now doing to support our citizens in these territories, including Lugansk, Donetsk, the Donbass area as a whole, and Kherson and Zaporozhye. The goal, as I have explained many times, is primarily to protect the people and Russia from the threats that they are trying to create for us in our own historical territories that are adjacent to us. We cannot allow this. So, it is extremely important when young people like you defend the interests of their small and large Motherland with arms in their hands and do so consciously.”

Read on, very carefully, understanding that nothing a US official says, least of all through the mouths of Blinken, Ignatius, and the Washington Post is trusted by the Russians; and understanding that what Putin and the Stavka say they mean by Russia’s “adjacent historical territories” and the “small and large Motherland” has been quite clear. Follow what Blinken told Ignatius to print, before Putin issued his reply. The propaganda terms have been highlighted in bold to mean the opposite — the public positions from which Blinken is trying to retreat and keep face.

Read more …

The Ignatius article Helmer was talking about.

Blinken Ponders The Post-Ukraine-War Order (Ignatius)

The Biden administration, convinced that Vladimir Putin has failed in his attempt to erase Ukraine, has begun planning for an eventual postwar military balance that will help Kyiv deter any repetition of Russia’s brutal invasion. Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined his strategy for the Ukrainian endgame and postwar deterrence during an interview on Monday at the State Department. The conversation offered an unusual exploration of some of the trickiest issues surrounding resolution of a Ukraine conflict that has threatened the global order. Blinken explicitly commended Germany’s military backing for Ukraine at a time when Berlin is getting hammered by some other NATO allies for not providing Leopard tanks quickly to Kyiv.

“Nobody would have predicted the extent of Germany’s military support” when the war began, Blinken said. “This is a sea change we should recognize.” He also underlined President Biden’s determination to avoid direct military conflict with Russia, even as U.S. weapons help pulverize Putin’s invasion force. “Biden has always been emphatic that one of his requirements in Ukraine is that there be no World War III,” Blinken said. Russia’s colossal failure to achieve its military goals, Blinken believes, should now spur the United States and its allies to begin thinking about the shape of postwar Ukraine — and how to create a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity and allows it to deter and, if necessary, defend against any future aggression. In other words, Russia should not be able to rest, regroup and reattack.

Blinken’s deterrence framework is somewhat different from last year’s discussions with Kyiv about security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5. Rather than such a formal treaty pledge, some U.S. officials increasingly believe the key is to give Ukraine the tools it needs to defend itself. Security will be ensured by potent weapons systems — especially armor and air defense — along with a strong, noncorrupt economy and membership in the European Union. The Pentagon’s current stress on providing Kyiv with weapons and training for maneuver warfare reflects this long-term goal of deterrence. “The importance of maneuver weapons isn’t just to give Ukraine strength now to regain territory but as a deterrent against future Russian attacks,” explained a State Department official familiar with Blinken’s thinking. “Maneuver is the future.”

The conversation with Blinken offered some hints about the intense discussions that have gone on for months within the administration about how the war in Ukraine can be ended and future peace maintained. The administration’s standard formula is that all decisions must ultimately be made by Ukraine, and Blinken reiterated that line. He also backs Ukraine’s desire for significant battlefield gains this year. But the State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council are also thinking ahead. Crimea is a particular point of discussion. There is a widespread view in Washington and Kyiv that regaining Crimea by military force may be impossible. Any Ukrainian military advances this year in Zaporizhzhia oblast, the land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia, could threaten Russian control. But an all-out Ukrainian campaign to seize the Crimean Peninsula is unrealistic, many U.S. and Ukrainian officials believe. That’s partly because Putin has indicated that an assault on Crimea would be a tripwire for nuclear escalation.

Read more …

I know, a Russian source, but I get the feeling that the Abrams tanks are not as great as the US makes them out to be.

American Abrams Tanks Vulnerable Even To Soviet-era Weapons (TASS)

American M1 Abrams tanks that Washington has decided to hand over to Kiev as military aid have weaknesses that allowed wiping them out with Soviet weapons, including T-55 tanks, during the conflict in Iraq, armor expert, Candidate of Military Sciences, retired Colonel Sergey Suvorov told TASS on Thursday. M1 Abrams tanks can also be hardly repaired in field conditions and are weakly suited for operation on dusty terrain like in Ukraine, the expert added. US President Joe Biden announced on January 25 that Washington would hand over 31 M1 Abrams tanks to the Kiev regime. Earlier, Germany and Poland made the decisions to supply German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. It was also reported that the United Kingdom would transfer Challenger 2 tanks to Kiev.

Abrams tanks repeatedly demonstrated their vulnerability during the hostilities in Iraq, the expert pointed out. “As the Iraq combat experience shows, they went up in flames. The tank turret was pierced by a 100mm armor-piercing blunt nose projectile fired by a T-55 tank. There were instances when Abrams vehicles were struck by automatic guns of both Bradley and our BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles,” he said. Instances are also known when the American tank was destroyed by the first Soviet modifications of T-72 tanks firing old shells “that were withdrawn from operational use even before the Abrams concept was devised,” Suvorov said. The expert also pointed to the instances when Abrams tanks were wiped out by RPG-7 anti-tank grenade launchers. An extra powerplant installed in the rear part of the turret to power modern electronic systems is another weak point of later American tank modifications, the expert said.

“It was covered with the armor that can withstand assault rifle bullets but is vulnerable to a 12.7 mm DShK machine gun. It was hit by a DShK and its motor was smashed, oil and fuel went ablaze and spilled down to the main engine located below. The main engine went ablaze and then the tank itself went up in flames and burnt out,” he said. The American tank almost has no chances, if it engages in a duel with Russian tanks, the expert said. “If an Abrams emerges at a long distance, a T-72 or a T-90 crew will fire an anti-tank missile and we can say that the Abrams will even have no chance to fire a shot as its range of fire won’t allow it to do that,” he explained. sHowever, the US tank’s final efficiency depends on the commander’s skills to operate it and trained crews, the expert said.

Apart from the need to fill Abrams tanks with clean jet fuel, they also have more serious operational flaws. In particular, they cannot be repaired in field conditions, the expert said. “Repairs are a major problem. If something breaks down in the powerplant, it has to be pulled out of the tank, taken to a special repair workshop with skilled personnel, disconnected from the gear box and only then repaired,” Suvorov said. The air intake system of US-made Abrams tanks is yet another vulnerability, the expert pointed out. “They feature an air filter that operates similar to the equipment installed in motor vehicles: if it becomes clogged, it has to be taken out and cleaned. Meanwhile, all of our tanks are equipped with cyclone dust collectors that are quite smart devices,” the expert said, adding that an Abrams filter sufficed for just 15 minutes of the tank’s movement along dusty terrain during the Iraq campaign.

Civilian contractors

Read more …

A smart voice.

Nobody Told Me We’re At War – Kroatian President (RT)

Commenting on the German foreign minister’s declaration that Europe was “fighting a war against Russia,” Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Thursday that this was news to him, and wished Berlin better luck than in WWII. Croatia “should in no way help” Ukraine militarily, Milanovic said while visiting the port city of Split. “Do you want us to enter the war?” Framing the Ukraine conflict as one between Washington and Moscow, he reminded reporters that he was criticized for merely echoing the words of Kiev’s defense minister, about the current conflict being a “proxy war” between NATO and Russia. “Now the German foreign minister says we must be united, because I quote, we are at war with Russia. I didn’t know that,” Milanovic said.

“Maybe Germany is at war with Russia, but then, good luck, maybe this time it turns out better than 70-odd years ago.” The Croatian president was baffled to hear such a claim from the leader of the German Greens, which he said used to be a pacifist party equally against the US and the USSR, and not from Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “If we are at war with Russia, then let’s see what we need to do. But we won’t ask Germany for its opinion,” Milanovic added. “Let them figure out who is the actual chancellor over there. I’ve been in politics for a long time, and our country has been through a lot, but I’ve never seen this kind of madness before.”

When it comes to tanks, “Russian or American, they burn just the same,” Milanovic said, noting that deliveries of armor to Ukraine – announced by the US and Germany this week – will only prolong the fighting, “Those tanks may burn, or they may reach Crimea, but Croatia will have nothing to do with it,” he insisted. The social-democrat president has frequently clashed with the nationalist parliamentary majority over Croatia’s Ukraine policy. Just last month, Milanovic opposed Zagreb’s participation in the EU program to train Ukrainian troops, saying it clashed with Croatia’s constitution. Unless the US and Russia are holding some kind of talks, the world is “slowly sliding into World War Three,” Milanovic added. “Some people think it has already begun, but I have my reservations.”

Read more …

“Moscow perceives everything that both the alliance and the capitals I mentioned have been doing as direct involvement in the conflict..”

Involvement Of US, Collective West In Ukraine Conflict Grows – Kremlin (TASS)

The Kremlin sees that the involvement of the United States and the countries of the collective West in the conflict in Ukraine has been growing, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Thursday. “There have been repeated statements from the European capitals and from Washington that the sending of various weapons systems, including tanks, to Ukraine by no means signifies the involvement of these countries or the [North Atlantic] Alliance in the hostilities in Ukraine. We strongly disagree with this. Moscow perceives everything that both the alliance and the capitals I mentioned have been doing as direct involvement in the conflict. We see that it is growing,” Peskov said.


Earlier, US President Joe Biden claimed that Washington’s decision to supply tanks to Ukraine was not about a fight against Russia, but a fight for “freedom.” In addition, Biden alleged that the supply of tanks did not imply a threat to Russia. In response to an elaborative question whether the Kremlin believed in the sincerity of these words, Peskov replied: “Please, use what I’ve just said as a benchmark.” Earlier, it was reported that Germany and the United States decided to provide Ukraine with Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks. According to various media resources, some European countries also intend to join these deliveries.

Baerbock
https://twitter.com/i/status/1618380112214519814

Read more …

This is pure semantics. Message to the home front. Don’t worry, we’re all innocent and in the clear…

France Denies The West Is At War With Russia (RT)

Just because the US, Germany and several other countries announced they would be supplying Ukraine with main battle tanks doesn’t mean NATO is at war with Moscow, the French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. The comments from Quai d’Orsay come after the controversial speech by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in the European Parliament earlier this week. “We are not at war with Russia and none of our partners are,” ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said on Thursday, according to AFP. “The delivery of military equipment… does not constitute co-belligerence.” The day before, Washington announced it would send more than 30 of its M1 Abrams tanks to Kiev, while Berlin said it would contribute over a dozen Leopard II panzers and not stand in the way of Poland and other EU and NATO members who wish to hand theirs over to Ukraine as well.

Seeking to drum up support for tank deliveries on Tuesday, Baerbock told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that the EU must move in lockstep “because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.” Asked to clarify her comments, the German Foreign Ministry said that Russia had launched a “war of aggression” against Ukraine and that international law was “clear” that Berlin’s support for Kiev’s “individual right of self-defense, guaranteed by the UN Charter, does not make Germany a party to the conflict.”

On Wednesday, French PM Elisabeth Borne told the parliament in Paris that her government was “continuing our analysis” of the proposal to send Leclerc tanks to Ukraine. France has already promised Kiev a number of AMX-10 “light tanks,” earlier this month. Meanwhile, French FM Catherine Colonna visited Ukraine on Thursday, meeting with her counterpart Dmitry Kuleba in Odessa to “show France’s long-term support” and “assess Ukraine’s urgent needs in the humanitarian and military sectors in order to provide concrete responses,” according to a press release from Quai d’Orsay.

Read more …

Impossible until recently. What this tells you is that Ukraine is losing. Bigly.

West Discussing Handover Of Fighter Jets To Kiev – Politico (TASS)

The Western countries are in internal discussions about the possibility of supplying fighter jets to Ukraine, but many fear that such a decision could lead to an escalation of the conflict. As the newspaper Politico said on Thursday, according to a number of Western diplomats and representatives of military circles, Ukraine and the Baltic countries are in favor of this idea. “The next natural step would be fighters,” a diplomat from a northern European country said. For its part Washington has told Kiev that supplying aircraft is a “no-go, for the moment,” the diplomat quoted above said, but added: “There’s a red line there – but last summer we had a red line on the HIMARS [multiple rocket launchers], and that moved. Then it was battle tanks, and that’s moving.” A second diplomatic source from a European power told Politico that “fighters are completely unconceivable today,” but there might be a discussion “in two or three weeks.”


The newspaper says the debate will likely prove even more contentious than the row over supplying tanks. At the same time, in Europe, multiple officials and diplomats said their governments no longer consider the idea a non-starter, but “fears of escalation remain high.” Some officials believe that next month’s discussion at Ramstein will be more focused on thrashing out “a contingency plan, in case jet fighters are urgently needed at some future point, rather than on striking a deal on near-term deliveries.” European diplomats agree that the West will first want to exhaust all other options for air support, including more attack drones and possibly long-range missiles, Politico says. Besides, sending aircraft would be a serious logistical undertaking for Ukraine’s allies, the newspaper notes.

Read more …

“..he never solved the Donbass problem, he reneged on the Minsk Agreements, moreover, it turned out that he never planned to implement them, as he had been preparing for war,”

Kremlin Rules Out Any Talks Between Zelensky, Putin (TASS)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky stopped being a possible interlocutor for Russian President Vladimir Putin long ago, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday as he commented on a remark by the Ukrainian leader which said he was `not interested’ in meeting Putin for peace talks. “We know what promises Zelensky made during his presidential campaign, and it is not difficult to remember them or refresh the memory of those voters who elected him in Ukraine: he never solved the Donbass problem, he reneged on the Minsk Agreements, moreover, it turned out that he never planned to implement them, as he had been preparing for war,” Peskov said.


“This is why, let’s put it this way, he himself has long ceased to be a potential interlocutor for President Putin,” he added. Earlier on Thursday, Zelensky told Great Britain’s Sky News TV channel that he was “not interested” in peace talks with Putin, saying Putin became “nobody” to him after he launched the special military operation. Zelensky previously decreed to ban negotiations with Russia. Peskov said later that no talks between Moscow and Kiev were currently possible, given there are no conditions for them, whether de facto or de jure.

Read more …

To join the sect you must give up your freedom.

The Sect (Dionísio)

As in all sects, there is their own jargon and a tendency toward self-absorption, caused by the closing of the circuit in which they operate. The greater the inability to establish bridges and lines of contact with other existences, the greater the radicalism and sectarianism of their positions, which is embodied precisely in a contradiction they cannot escape: the more they want to drag others along, the more others run away from them. If the reaction of most countries to the conflict in Eastern Europe demonstrates the disconnection between the official narrative propagated in the collective West and the understanding that most nations and the world population have of it, the identification of nations like the RPC, Russian Federation or Iran as aggressor and oppressor entities is something that only fits into the most sectarian minds of the sect, or its followers.

Take, for example, the meeting promoted by the White House for Africa (US-Africa Leaders Summit). At first glance, we could see it as a success; after all, more than 40 African nations attended. There was no shortage of funds either: $55 billion were promised upfront to “help” Africa development, to fight climate change, and to counter terrorism. However, there was a catch: to receive the “investment” one has to “decouple” from the PRC and FR. The usual jargon of “democracy” and “human rights” was well identified, mainly as a way to ensure the maintenance of dollarization through membership in the institutions that impose it (IMF and World Bank). The entire white house was optimistic. However, once again, the bulk of the African envoys cannot have failed to think, “but who does, this sect of Anglo-Saxon white people, think we are? Fools?” International articles rained down saying what we knew right away: “to convince Africa, talk is not enough!”

If ideologies with a connection to reality, it is reality itself that validates the respective theoretical assumptions (easier said than done), sects tend to work the other way around, opting for a more idealistic approach, in the sense that it is reality that has to mold itself to their ideas. The US has not listened to Africa, as it has not listened to others. The US has tried to drag Africa into its presumptuous ideas. When reality – this stubborn inexorable one – insists on not validating the theoretical assumptions that justify the existence of the sect, the sect chooses to wage war against it, identifying the main agents of its transformation and electing them as its enemies. In essence, the whole strategy of “containing China” is a fight against a reality embodied in 5000 years of history. Hence, as the sect that they are, the result is also predictable: either you are with me, or you are against me! The sectarianism of the sect leaves no room for compromise, cooperation or any kind of mutual understanding.

Read more …

NABU=National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. Lots of unrest.

What Spurred Wave Of Resignations Among Senior Ukraine Officials? (Lavrenin)

Against the background of Ukraine’s high-profile political scandals, staff changes in the government are being actively discussed. Among the officials considered next in line for dismissal are Minister of Energy German Galushchenko, Minister of Youth and Sports Vadim Gutzeit (who recently headed the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine), as well as Minister of Strategic Industries Pavel Ryabikin. However, none of these officials have been involved in corruption scandals, so these resignations, should they happen, would likely be for different reasons. All of this leads some journalists to ponder possible large-scale shifts in the government. Lozinsky and Shmigal worked together in the Department of Economic Development in the Lviv Regional State Administration. After Shmigal was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in February 2020, he appointed Lozinsky as his first deputy.

The Prime Minister’s resignation, which would entail the resignation of the entire government, would indeed look like a powerful Zelensky response to corruption scandals. However, this course of events carries serious risks for the authorities, and their are enough to ruin such an intention. For one, the resignation of the government amid corruption scandals creates risks of a political split in the Verkhovna Rada. Furthermore, if the government were to resign, Western countries could set strict conditions on coordinating candidates for the new government. This happened in 2014, when US citizen Natalia Yaresko was appointed Finance Minister to Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s government, and Lithuanian Aivaras Abromavicius was made Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

All this can shake up the system of power and lead to the President’s administration having much less influence over political processes. The current political system is clearly biased towards a single structure: the Office of the President of Ukraine. Following the early parliamentary elections in 2019 and the formation of a majority in the Verkhovna Rada, the entire vertical alignment of power was structured around Zelensky and Yermak, the influence of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine was eliminated, and the information space cleared. The combat operations in Ukraine merely accelerated these processes. In fact, only three powers can now speak out against the Zelensky-Yermak team— Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko and his cabinet, the army led by Valery Zaluzhny, and US-controlled structures such as NABU and media affiliated with them. At the same time, decisions regarding resignations are made exclusively by Zelensky and Yermak, who by all means wish to hush up the scandals.

Changes are imminent. The Ukrainian President is being pushed towards structural reform from several sides, including his own officials, the government, the power structures, and particularly, foreign benefactors. Major corruption scandals may lead to fall in the Western public’s support of Kiev. After all, Ukraine is a very expensive project, regardless of its geopolitical value. In addition to risky investments and painful costs, its financiers need clarity in terms of internal management control. The US government regularly says that it will finance Ukraine until its victory, but it also has to account for the money it’s splurging. Of course, the quality of work is evaluated by the employer, not the employee, and this case the Americans are the undoubted bosses.

Read more …

“Serbia’s position on Kosovo has received support from Russia, China and many other countries – including Ukraine..”

Joining Russia Sanctions Would Be ‘Inappropriate’ – Serbia (RT)

Serbia has not joined the US-EU sanctions against Russia for several reasons that remain valid, Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Thursday, speaking in Ankara after meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.The European Parliament last week demanded from Belgrade “full alignment” with the bloc’s foreign and security policy – including the embargo against Moscow. Dacic noted that his government has not joined the anti-Russian embargo out of “national and state interests, economic cooperation, as well as problems Serbia has with Kosovo,” referring to the NATO-backed breakaway province. “It would be inappropriate for Serbia to sanction Russia now, and it would be harmful to our interests,” Dacic said.

“That doesn’t mean we won’t do everything to clearly say we don’t support the infringement of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and help as much as we can.” Dacic has sought the support of Türkiye in helping Serbia deal with US and EU pressure over Kosovo. He also indirectly reminded reporters that Ankara has not joined the sanctions against Russia either. “I think Serbia and Türkiye want to be constructive factors of peace and stability,” the Serbian FM said. “Our interest is not to be on anybody’s side in some conflict, we advocate the respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty of every UN member state.” While insisting that Serbia must sanction Russia because of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the EU and the US also demand Belgrade recognize Kosovo, or face economic and political “consequences.”

Belgrade insists on the principle of territorial integrity because the US and the EU have been pressuring it to recognize Kosovo as an independent state since 2008. NATO troops took control of the province in 1999, after months of bombing Serbia on behalf of ethnic Albanian insurgents. Serbia’s position on Kosovo has received support from Russia, China and many other countries – including Ukraine – on grounds of international law. This is one of the reasons Serbia officially does not recognize Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, or even Crimea, as parts of Russia.

Read more …

Cooking BRICS+.

Can You Smell What the Year of the Rabbit Is Cooking? (Escobar)

Liu He studied economics at Renmin University in China and got a Master’s from Harvard. Since 2018, he’s one of China’s Vice Premiers – along with Han Zheng, Sun Chunlan, and Hu Chunhua. He’s a Director of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission and heads the China Financial Stability and Development Committee. Anyone around the world who wants to know what will drive China’s economy in the Year of the Rabbit must pay attention to Liu He. Davos 2023 has come and gone: an extended exercise in Demented Dystopia with peaks of paroxysm. At least a measure of reality was offered by Liu He’s address. A limited but competent analysis of what he said is infinitely more useful than torrents of barely disguised Sinophobic “research” vomited by U.S. Think Tankland.

Liu He pointed to some key numbers for the Chinese economy in 2022. Overall 3% growth may not be groundbreaking; but what matters is value-added for high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing going up by 7.4% and 5.6% respectively. What this means is that Chinese industrial capacity continues to move up the value chain. Trade, predictably, reigns supreme: the total value of imports and exports reached the equivalent of $6,215 trillion in 2022; that’s an increase of 7.7% over 2021. Liu He also made it clear that improving the wealth of Chinese citizens remains a key priority, as enounced in the 2022 Party Congress: the number of middle class Chinese, by 2035, should jump from the current 400 million to an astonishing 900 million.

Liu He pointedly explained that everything about Chinese reforms revolves around the notion of establishing “a socialist market economy”. This translates as “let the market play a decisive role in resources allocation, let the government play a better role.” That has absolutely nothing to do with Beijing privileging a planned economy. As Liu He detailed, “we will deepen SOE [State-Owned Enterprises] reform, support the private sector, and promote fair competition, anti-monopoly and entrepreneurship.” China is reaching the next level, economically: that translates as building, as fast as possible, an innovation-driven commercial base. Specific targets include finance, tech, and greater productivity in industry, as in applying more robotics.

Read more …

“.. drop earlier plans to design a new commodity-linked trade currency because it has been superseded..”

Russia’s Intentions Are Clarifying (Alasdair Macleod)

We have confirmation from the highest sources that Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) are considering using gold for pan-Asian trade settlements, fully replacing dollars and euros. In an article written for Vedomosti, a Moscow-based Russian newspaper published on 27 December, Sergey Glazyev, a prominent economic adviser to Vladimir Putin who is heading up the Eurasian Economic Union committee charged with devising a replacement for dollars in trade settlements sent a very clear signal to that effect. It appears he will drop earlier plans to design a new commodity-linked trade currency because it has been superseded. Furthermore, increasing numbers of nations have joined or have applied to join the SCO as dialog members, including Saudi Arabia and other important Gulf Cooperation Organisation members.


The economic benefits of discounted energy, China’s investment capital, and sound money are the ingredients for a new, Asia-wide industrial revolution, while the economies of the western alliance sink under rising prices, rising interest rates, collapsing financial markets, and collapsing currencies. While it will mark the end of the road for the western alliance and its fiat currencies, Putin must be careful not to take the blame. Now that the alliance is racking up tanks and other equipment for the Ukrainians, they are actively promoting a new battle, with NATO getting almost directly involved. It is that action which will drive up commodity prices, undermine western financial markets, undermine government finances, and ultimately collapse their currencies. Putin is likely to use NATO’s impetuous action in defence of Ukraine as cover for securing Russia’s future as an Asian superstate, which will be the west’s undoing.

Read more …

James O’Keeffe: In this video:
-I was locked in a restaurant (possible Unlawful imprisonment)
-I was Assaulted
-Had our IPad destroyed
-Pfizer director said “I’m literally a liar”
-He confirmed hes Boston Consulting and Pfizer
-He said he’s trying to “help the public”

Pfizer Director Physically Assaults James O’Keefe and Veritas Staff (GP)

Jordon Trishton Walker, Pfizer Director of Research and Development, physically assaulted James O’Keefe and Veritas staffers on Thursday. James O’Keefe confronted Walker at a restaurant and showed him the undercover recordings about Pfizer’s plans to potentially mutate the Covid virus. “You f*cked up!” Walker shouted before destroying the iPad showing the PV undercover recordings about the “mutating” Covid virus. Project Veritas on Wednesday night released explosive video of Jordon Trishton Walker, Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations, admitting the pharma giant is exploring ‘mutating’ Covid-19 via ‘directed evolution’ so the company can continue to profit off of vaccines.


“One of the things we’re exploring is like, why don’t we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create — preemptively develop new vaccines, right? So, we have to do that. If we’re gonna do that though, there’s a risk of like, as you could imagine — no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating f**king viruses,” Walker told the undercover Project Veritas journalist. “Don’t tell anyone. Promise you won’t tell anyone. The way it [the experiment] would work is that we put the virus in monkeys, and we successively cause them to keep infecting each other, and we collect serial samples from them,” he said in the undercover recordings. “I’m just someone who’s working in a company that’s trying to literally help the public,” Walker said during the confrontation. Walker insisted he was just ‘trying to impress his date.’ The NYPD responded to the assault.

Read more …

George Webb doesn’t buy the video’s. And he’s also still after Robert Malone…

 

 

And Marco Rubio asks questions about the video’s.

Marco Rubio Letter To Albert Bourla (rubio.senate.gov)

Dear Dr. Bourla: I write in response to troubling reports on Pfizer’s intention to mutate the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) virus through gain-of-function, or “directed evolution,” as detailed by Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Jordan Walker.i As has been proven time and time again, attempts to mutate a virus, particularly one as potent as COVID, are dangerous. If the claims detailed in the video are true, Pfizer has put its desire for profit over the concern of national and global health and must hold itself accountable. In a video released by Project Veritas on January 25, 2023, Mr. Walker laid out Pfizer’s plans to develop new vaccines for future variants of COVID by mutating the virus through directed evolution, a process that uses protein engineering to impose natural selection on a living organism or other biological materials, including viruses. Though he claimed the research is currently “exploratory,” he detailed how the research would proceed, such as how scientists would inject the mutated viruses into monkeys and collect serial samples from other monkeys who are infected.

Whether it’s gain of function research, or selected structure mutations through directed evolution, as Mr. Walker claimed would occur, any effort to make a virus more transmittable and deadlier is careless and dangerous. Further, Mr. Walker stated that Pfizer is willing to engage in this dangerous research because COVID and its variants are “a cash cow” for the company and regulators will go easy on their efforts because a significant percentage of government officials aim to work for Pfizer and other biopharmaceutical companies and do not want to compromise their future job prospects. As a company that claims to “innovate every day to make the world a healthier place,” these claims from your leadership charged with research and development are alarming. As the American people deserve to know, I request that you provide the following information:

1. What efforts is Pfizer currently, or planning to, engage in to mutate the SARS-CoV-2 virus?
2. Does Pfizer intend to continue mutating the SARS-CoV-2 virus through gain-offunction, or directed evolution research, with the purpose of creating new vaccines before the variant is present in the greater population?
3. Has Pfizer engaged with federal officials engaged regarding their plans to oversee this research? Please provide the names and agencies for these individuals.
4. What steps has Pfizer taken to ensure the mutated virus does not leak from the laboratory and infect the greater population?
5. Has Pfizer engaged with other biopharmaceutical companies to collaborate on this research effort? Please list the entities that you have been in contact with.
6. Will you commit to halting any future research that mutates the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine as substantial evidence has indicated that similar dangerous research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology very likely led to the initial emergence and global spread of the virus?

As a leader in global public health and development of the COVID vaccine, with American taxpayer dollars, it is critical that Pfizer is accountable for their actions and be transparent with the public on the substance and intent of their research. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to your prompt response.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Chicken conspiracy

 

 

SM-102

 

 

Yeadon

 

 

 

 


The Kailasa temple in the Ellora Caves, Maharashtra, India is a megalith carved out of one single rock and it is considered one of the most remarkable cave temples in India because of its size, architecture and sculptural treatment

 

 


David Edgar took this photo of an adolescent humpback whale in the South Pacific, several miles off the coast of Tongatapu, Tonga, capturing it as a split-shot with half the dome port submerged, and the other above the surface

 

 


The golden pheasant is possibily the most impressively colored bird of the family Phasianidae

 

 

Earth family

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 262022
 
 December 26, 2022  Posted by at 10:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


Saul Leiter Man in straw hat 1955

 

Ukraine War Tolls Death Knell for NATO (Bhadrakuma)r
Putin Says He’s Ready To Negotiate ‘With Everyone Involved’ Over Ukraine (Hill)
Putin “Ready” To Negotiate, But West Wants To “Tear Apart” Russia (ZH)
Only One Nation Benefits From Sanctions On Russia – Minister (RT)
Erdogan Accuses West Of ‘Provocations’ Over Ukraine (RT)
West Issues Ultimatum To Serbia – Media (RT)
Ukraine Hits Airbase 300 Miles Deep into Russia (GR)
GOP Senators Blast McConnell For ‘Arrogance,’ Voter Betrayal (JTN)
Rand Paul Savages DC Elites With Epic “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” (DCE)
Rep. James Comer Calls For Defunding the FBI (DCE)
The Democrats are Now the War Party (Chris Hedges)
Soros Behind Twitter Operation to Shut Down Hunter Biden Laptop Story (BN)
In Post-Soviet Russia, New Years Remains A Bigger Holiday Than Christmas (RT)

 

 

What happened to us?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1607157558690676736

 

 

 

 

Musk

 

 

 

 

Stop now

 

 

Never leaves the human body

 

 

Control group

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..the nuclear triad. It is the main guarantee that our sovereignty and territorial integrity, strategic parity and the general balance of forces in the world are preserved..”

Ukraine War Tolls Death Knell for NATO (Bhadrakuma)r

The defining moment in US President Joe Biden’s press conference at the White House last Wednesday, during President Zelensky’s visit, was his virtual admission that he is constrained in the proxy war in Ukraine, as European allies don’t want a war with Russia. To quote Biden, “Now, you say, ‘Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give?’ Well, for two reasons. One, there’s an entire Alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine. And the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and breaking up the European Union and the rest of the world… I’ve spent several hundred hours face-to-face with our European allies and the heads of state of those countries, and making the case as to why it was overwhelmingly in their interest that they continue to support Ukraine… They understand it fully, but they’re not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third World War.”

Biden realised at that point that “I probably already said too much” and abruptly ended the press conference. He probably forgot that he was dwelling on the fragility of Western unity. The whole point is that the western commentariat largely forgets that Russia’s core agenda is not about territorial conquest — much as Ukraine is vital to Russian interests — but about NATO expansion. And that has not changed. Every now and then President Putin revisits the fundamental theme that the US consistently aimed to weaken and dismember Russia. As recently as last Wednesday, Putin invoked the Chechen war in the 1990s — “the use of international terrorists in the Caucasus, to finish off Russia and to split the Russian Federation… They [US] claimed to condemn al-Qaeda and other criminals, yet they considered using them on the territory of Russia as acceptable and provided all kinds of assistance to them, including material, information, political and any other support, notably military support, to encourage them to continue fighting against Russia.”

Putin has a phenomenal memory and would have been alluding to Biden’s careful choice of William Burns as his CIA chief. Burns was Moscow Embassy’s point person for Chechnya in the 1990s! Putin has now ordered a nation-wide campaign to root out the vast tentacles that the US intelligence planted on Russian soil for internal subversion. Carnegie, once headed by Burns, has since shut down its Moscow office, and the Russian staff fled to the West! The leitmotif of the expanded meeting of the Board of the Defence Ministry in Moscow on Wednesday, which Putin addressed, was the profound reality that Russia’s confrontation with the US is not going to end with Ukraine war. Putin exhorted the Russian top brass to “carefully analyse” the lessons of Ukraine and Syrian conflicts. Importantly, Putin said, “We will continue maintaining and improving the combat readiness of the nuclear triad. It is the main guarantee that our sovereignty and territorial integrity, strategic parity and the general balance of forces in the world are preserved. This year, the level of modern armaments in the strategic nuclear forces has already exceeded 91 percent. We continue rearming the regiments of our strategic missile forces with modern missile systems with Avangard hypersonic warheads.”

Read more …

“..Zelensky has laid out a series of 10 conditions that must be met for peace to be achieved..”

That’s what you do when you’re losing.. You come with conditions.

Putin Says He’s Ready To Negotiate ‘With Everyone Involved’ Over Ukraine (Hill)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he’s ready to negotiate “with everyone involved” in the war with Ukraine. Putin told a Russian news reporter in an interview that aired on Russian media on Sunday that the Kremlin is ready to negotiate but their enemy are the ones refusing to talk. The comments from the Russian leader follow intense Russian shelling on the Ukrainian city of Kherson on Christmas Eve that killed at least 10 people and injured more than 50 others. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russia as “absolute evil” on Saturday following the deadly strikes, which he said were for “the sake of intimidation and pleasure.” Zelensky and President Biden discussed what a “just peace” would look like when Zelensky visited the United States on Wednesday for his first international trip since the war started in February.


Zelensky has laid out a series of 10 conditions that must be met for peace to be achieved, including total Russian withdrawal from Ukrainian territory. This would also include a Russian withdrawal from the Crimean Peninsula under the Ukrainian demands. [..] Putin has previously called on Ukraine and the international community to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, which they have been unwilling to do. Putin said in the interview that Russia is defending its national interests and its citizens in the 10-month conflict, The Associated Press reported. But he said Russia is prepared to negotiate “some acceptable outcomes” with all participants in the conflict. Putin called the conflict a war for the first time in a televised news conference on Thursday, saying it is Russia’s goal to end it. He previously only referred to it as a “special military operation.”

Putin direct

Read more …

“..we are defending our national interests, the interests of our citizens, our people..”

Putin “Ready” To Negotiate, But West Wants To “Tear Apart” Russia (ZH)

In a Sunday interview with Rossiya 1 state television, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country is now ready to negotiate an end to the conflict in Ukraine. However, he once again pointed the finger at the West for making any dialogue toward an acceptable end to the fighting all but impossible. “We are ready to negotiate with everyone involved about acceptable solutions, but that is up to them – we are not the ones refusing to negotiate, they are,” Putin said. “I believe that we are acting in the right direction, we are defending our national interests, the interests of our citizens, our people. And we have no other choice but to protect our citizens,” he added. From Moscow’s point of view, a signal of Ukraine’s ‘seriousness’ about talks would likely hinge on Kiev’s willingness to compromise on territorial concessions, especially regarding the Donbas in the east.


Additionally the Ukrainians would likely have to acknowledge Russian control over the Crimea. However, President Zelensky on Wednesday in his speech before Congress pledged “absolute victory” and has of late been vehement in rejecting any talk of letting go of territory as a non-starter, especially as the months-long Ukrainian counteroffensive has met with some significant successes.Also in the interview Putin continued his theme of the US and NATO waging a proxy war using Ukraine as a pawn. He said in the Sunday comments that the West is attempting to “tear apart” Russia. “At the core of it all is the policy of our geopolitical opponents, aiming to tear apart Russia, the historical Russia,” Putin said. “They have always tried to ‘divide and conquer’… Our goal is something else – to unite the Russian people.”

Read more …

“..were orchestrated to provide Europe with more expensive liquefied [natural] gas from America.”

Only One Nation Benefits From Sanctions On Russia – Minister (RT)

The sanctions the West has slapped on Russia over the Ukraine conflict are taking a heavy toll on the European economy, while the United States is the only actor profiting from the restrictions, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Saturday. Speaking to Asharq News daily, the minister claimed that Western sanctions had helped the Americans to achieve what they wanted, saying “their supplies of oil and gas to the European market have increased.” Energy shipments from the US, however, have proved costly for Europeans, resulting in skyrocketing inflation and decreased competitive power for European businesses, Siluanov said. According to the minister, both Western sanctions and the blasts that ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in late September “were orchestrated to provide Europe with more expensive liquefied [natural] gas from America.”

“America benefits, Europe loses,” he explained. Moscow has called the sabotage a terrorist attack, claiming that the US stood to benefit the most from the explosions. While Washington has denied any involvement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the incident as a “tremendous opportunity” for Europe to wean itself off of Russian energy. Siluanov went on to admit that sanctions have affected the Russian economy. “But they inflicted on the West no less, and perhaps even more pain,” he said, adding that the sanctions rhetoric has now become routine. The minister noted that the EU price cap on Russian oil “will certainly lead to price and market distortions,” reiterating Moscow’s position that it would not provide crude under contracts conforming to Western-mandated restrictions.

Russian oil companies are rerouting their oil shipments from the West in other directions, the minister said. “We will be looking for new markets, looking for new logistics. It is possible that this would be more expensive,” he stated. Earlier this month, the EU, the G7 countries and Australia introduced a price limit on Russian seaborne oil, set at $60 per barrel. The measure also prohibits Western companies from providing insurance and other services to shipments of Russian crude, unless the cargo is purchased at or below the indicated price. Following the move, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov warned that the restrictions would wreak havoc on global oil markets, while Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow was not planning to sell oil to nations supporting the price cap.

Read more …

Erdogan plays his cards.

Erdogan Accuses West Of ‘Provocations’ Over Ukraine (RT)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has praised Türkiye’s role in securing a grain deal between Russia and Ukraine, claiming in a speech on Sunday that unlike Ankara, Western nations did not make any tangible diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict. “Unfortunately, the West has only made provocations and failed to make efforts to be a mediator in the Ukraine-Russia war,” Erdogan said at a youth event in Türkiye’s eastern Erzurum province on Sunday. Türkiye has thus “assumed this mediator role in 2022” and is set to continue its diplomatic efforts next year, building up on the success of the Black Sea corridor created as part of an Istanbul grain deal in July, Erdogan said.

The grain corridor was touted as a way to secure food supplies to the neediest nations as a matter of priority, but Erdogan confirmed Russia’s long-standing concerns, saying on Sunday that some 44 percent of the grain exported from Ukraine went to Europe instead. In the meantime Moscow voiced its readiness to supply African nations with “large volumes” of grain and fertilizers out of its own stocks for free. Ankara adopted a neutral position early in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, refusing to take part in the Western sanctions on Moscow, while continuing its military cooperation with Kiev – including selling a number of Bayraktar attack drones. A preliminary peace agreement was reportedly reached in Istanbul as early as March, but was later rejected by Ukraine under alleged pressure from the West.

The grain deal, touted as a rare victory for diplomacy, was signed in July by representatives of Russia, Ukraine, Türkiye and the UN, with a Joint Coordination Center set up in Istanbul to oversee the shipments. In late October, Russia briefly suspended its participation in the agreement, after accusing Kiev of launching a terrorist attack on the Crimea bridge, and drone strikes on ships involved in securing safe passage for agricultural cargo. Moscow ultimately returned to the accord after receiving unspecified “written security guarantees” from Kiev. Last month, Moscow allowed “a technical prolongation” of the deal, but Russian officials have repeatedly voiced concerns that the deal is not meeting its stated goals, and have also insisted that the provisions on lifting the restrictions on Russian agricultural exports were not being fulfilled. The Turkish president expressed hope that the issue of fertilizer exports and Moscow’s other concerns would be resolved through “more intense” negotiations next year.

Read more …

Keep on poking…

West Issues Ultimatum To Serbia – Media (RT)

Several Western countries have “sent an ultimatum” to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, demanding that Serbs in the northern part of breakaway Kosovo end their stand-off with local authorities, news website Pink.rs reported on Sunday. The outlet claims that ambassadors of the Quint group, comprising the US, the UK, France, Germany and Italy, are calling for barricades in the region be removed within 24 hours. If Belgrade fails to ensure this, the Western powers will reportedly let Albin Kurti, Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian prime minister, attack local Serbs. Earlier, Kurti warned that the “removal of these barricades cannot exclude casualties.”

Tensions between Belgrade and Pristina flared up earlier this month when Serbs, who make up the majority in the northern part of province, put up barriers to protest against the arrest of a former police officer, accused of attacking a Kosovo law enforcement patrol. After this, Vucic asked NATO’s KFOR peacekeepers for permission to deploy up to 1,000 Serbian troops and police officers in Kosovo, as it is entitled to do under UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which put an end to the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1999. However, these plans were resisted by the US, with Gabriel Escobar, the State Department’s special envoy for the region, saying Washington had given Kosovo “very firm security guarantees.”

On Sunday, KFOR said that shots had been fired near a NATO patrol in northern part of Kosovo, close to the roadblocks, adding that there were no casualties. It stopped short of assigning blame. However, Serbian media, citing eyewitnesses, claimed that the incident took place when Kosovo’s special forces attempted to clear barricades near a town of Zubin Potok. With no sign of tensions abating, Milan Mojsilovic, Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, told local media on Sunday that the situation is complex, and requires the presence of the Serbian military along the administrative line which divides Kosovo from the rest of Serbia. NATO took control of Kosovo in 1999, after bombing Serbia on behalf of ethnic Albanian separatists. The province’s provisional government declared independence in 2008, which Belgrade has refused to recognize.

Read more …

They’re shot down but still kill.

Ukraine Hits Airbase 300 Miles Deep into Russia (GR)

Ukraine attacked with a drone an airbase in Russia’s Saratov region which lies about 500km (310 miles) northeast of the border with Ukraine. Three Russian military personnel were killed at Engels bomber base Russian news agencies reported, citing the defense ministry. Russian state media agency Tass quotes the defense ministry as saying: “On December 26, at around 01:35 Moscow time (2235 GMT), a Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down at low altitude while approaching the Engels military airfield in the Saratov region. “As a result of the fall of the wreckage of the drone, three Russian technical servicemen who were at the airfield were fatally injured.”


Russia accuses Ukraine of carrying out a similar attack on the airfield, home to strategic bombers, on 5 December. In that attack three servicemen were also killed by debris from a downed Ukrainian drone, Moscow said at the time. Two aircraft were lightly damaged. According to Reuters, the twin strikes dealt Russia a major reputational blow and raised questions about why its defenses failed, analysts said, as attention turned to the use of drones in the war between neighbors. Ukraine has never publicly claimed responsibility for attacks in Russia, but has said, however, that such incidents are “karma” for Russia’s invasion. As CNN reported recently Ukraine’s state-owned weapons manufacturer Ukroboronprom has indicated several times in the last few weeks that it is close to finishing work on a new long-range drone.

Read more …

“..Unfortunately, our supporters aren’t going to buy it either.”

GOP Senators Blast McConnell For ‘Arrogance,’ Voter Betrayal (JTN)

Conservative GOP senators blasted Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday for shepherding with Democrats a $1.7 trillion year-end spending bill into law over the objections of House Republicans, saying it was an act of “arrogance” that betrayed promises to voters. “Our party leadership turned on Republican voters, turned on the Republican base, turned on most Republican senators,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told “The Cats Roundtable” and host John Catsimitidas on WABC radio in New York. “It has happened before, but this is one too many times. For me, this is the final straw.” Lee called the omnibus spending bill signed into law Friday “the ugliest spending bill on record” and one that signaled “that voters don’t see much of a defining difference with Democrats.”

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., mocked those of his GOP colleagues who voted for the bill and celebrated its passage. “To declare that a victory, to say that’s a win, that’s like a football team that just lost the game 60 to 0, and they kick a field goal in the waning seconds and say the field goal is a big win,” Johnson told Catsimitidas. “No, we just got our you-know-whats handed to us.” Johnson said that McConnell’s maneuver not only betrayed conservative voters but also undercut House Republicans about to take over in January who had asked for a short-term spending plan. “Unfortunately, the arrogance of our leadership who said, ‘We know better than House members. We’re going to pass this.’ … I’m not buying it,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, our supporters aren’t going to buy it either.”

Other senators took to Twitter to express their disdain for the spending law, warning it will worsen inflation next year. “I voted AGAINST the $1.7 TRILLION spending bill because I promised Florida families I’d fight every day to make Washington work for them,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., tweeted. “This reckless inflation bomb is a disaster for our economy and a slap in the face to Floridians struggling to make ends meet.”

Read more …

“The Senators were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of pork danced in their heads. No budget was found, just mischief and debt.”

Rand Paul Savages DC Elites With Epic “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” (DCE)

This Wednesday, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) posted a parody of the classic Christmas poem “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” to this social media, this time directed at the Democrat’s omnibus spending bill — which costs America a whopping $1.7 trillion dollars. “Twas the week before Christmas, and through the Senate and House, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The earmarks were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there,” Paul begins.= “The Senators were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of pork danced in their heads. No budget was found, just mischief and debt. While the taxpayers hung their poor heads and wept. When out on the lawn arose such a clatter — Senators sprang from their oxygen. What was the matter?” Paul added. “Away to the window, they flew like a flash, tore open the shutter when they heard the word cash.”

Then Senator Paul decided to name names — and he was genuinely bipartisan here, scorching high spenders on both sides of the aisle! Note: This article may contain commentary reflecting the author’s opinion. This Wednesday, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) posted a parody of the classic Christmas poem “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” to this social media, this time directed at the Democrat’s omnibus spending bill — which costs America a whopping $1.7 trillion dollars. “Twas the week before Christmas, and through the Senate and House, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The earmarks were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there,” Paul begins. “The Senators were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of pork danced in their heads. No budget was found, just mischief and debt.

“While the taxpayers hung their poor heads and wept. When out on the lawn arose such a clatter — Senators sprang from their oxygen. What was the matter?” Paul added. “Away to the window, they flew like a flash, tore open the shutter when they heard the word cash.” Then Senator Paul decided to name names — and he was genuinely bipartisan here, scorching high spenders on both sides of the aisle! “With a little old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be Saint Nick. More rapid than eagles. His coursers they came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name: Now, McConnell! Now, Schumer! Now, Pelosi and Vixen! On Biden! On Stupid! On Dumber and Blitzen! To debt! To bankruptcy! To free money for all”

Read more …

“We need to halt everything with the FBI, all funding, until they come forward and explain to Congress exactly what they were doing..”

Rep. James Comer Calls For Defunding the FBI (DCE)

On Tuesday, Rep. James Comer, who is expected to be the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, spoke to Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo about the recent revelations from the “Twitter Files” about the FBI’s influence in the silencing of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020. When asked about the latest releases of the Twitter files, which outlined the FBI’s cooperation with Twitter to counter “misinformation” and “disinformation” on the social media site, Comer emphasized that the initial discovery proves wrongdoing, but additional investigations will have to be conducted.“Well, it means a lot more evidence of wrongdoing,” he told Bartiromo. “You know, in the beginning, I thought that there were probably two or three rogue employees who were orchestrating this cover-up of the Hunter Biden laptop story. But now we know the FBI had a division of at least 80 agents.”

“We also know that the FBI paid Twitter over $3 million for their time, all the time they took over the past couple of years in telling them who to suppress, who to ban,” the congressman explained. “You know, it’s just things that the government has no role in. The FBI was never granted the authority to create any type of disinformation task force that policed the social media sites.” “Now, this we know with Twitter, we’ve heard similar stories from Zuckerberg,” the Kentuckian explained referencing Zuckerberg’s admittance that Facebook deemphasized stories at the request of the FBI. “Who knows what went on at YouTube and Google? This is an agency that’s out of control.”

“And the most frustrating thing for me right now, Maria, is the fact that in this omnibus bill, there’s increased funding for the FBI, plus a $1.75 billion headquarters facility for the FBI,” he explained in reference to the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill currently being considered in the Senate. “We need to halt everything with the FBI, all funding, until they come forward and explain to Congress exactly what they were doing, why they were doing it, and who gave them the authority to do it.”

Read more …

“..No weapons system is too costly. No war, no matter how disastrous, goes unfunded. No military budget is too big..”

The Democrats are Now the War Party (Chris Hedges)

The Democrats position themselves as the party of virtue, cloaking their support for the war industry in moral language stretching back to Korea and Vietnam, when President Ngo Dinh Diem was as lionized as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. All the wars they support and fund are “good” wars. All the enemies they fight, the latest being Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, are incarnations of evil. The photo of a beaming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris holding up a signed Ukrainian battle flag behind Zelensky as he addressed Congress was another example of the Democratic Party’s abject subservience to the war machine.

The Democrats, especially with the presidency of Bill Clinton, became shills not only for corporate America but for the weapons manufacturers and the Pentagon. No weapons system is too costly. No war, no matter how disastrous, goes unfunded. No military budget is too big, including the $858 billion in military spending allocated for the current fiscal year, an increase of $45 billion above what the Biden administration requested. The historian Arnold Toynbee cited unchecked militarism as the fatal disease of empires, arguing that they ultimatley commit suicide.

There once was a wing of the Democratic Party that questioned and stood up to the war industry: Senators J. William Fulbright, George McGovern, Gene McCarthy, Mike Gravel, William Proxmire and House member Dennis Kucinich. But that opposition evaporated along with the antiwar movement. When 30 members of the party’s progressive caucus recently issued a call for Biden to negotiate with Putin, they were forced by the party leadership and a warmongering media to back down and rescind their letter. Not that any of them, with the exception of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have voted against the billions of dollars in weaponry sent to Ukraine or the bloated military budget. Rashida Tlaib voted present.

The opposition to the perpetual funding of the war in Ukraine has come primarily from Republicans, 11 in the Senate and 57 in the House, several, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, unhinged conspiracy theorists. Only nine Republicans in the House joined the Democrats in supporting the $1.7 trillion spending bill needed to prevent the government from shutting down, which included approval of $847 billion for the military — the total is boosted to $858 billion when factoring in accounts that don’t fall under the Armed Services committees’ jurisdiction. In the Senate, 29 Republicans opposed the spending bill. The Democrats, including nearly all 100 members of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus, lined up dutifully for endless war.

Read more …

DNC, FBI, FTX, Twitter, Soros. Nice.

Soros Behind Twitter Operation to Shut Down Hunter Biden Laptop Story (BN)

First Draft News, a now-defunct nonprofit that left-wing billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations funded, played a key role in Twitter’s preparation to shut down the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, according to internal documents published by author Michael Shellenberger as part of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files.” The Aspen Institute hosted a September 2020 training exercise for members of the media and social media leaders regarding the handling of hypothetical data leaks which were similar to the Hunter Biden laptop report that broke in October, according to Shellenberger. Claire Wardle, former executive director and co-founder of First Draft News, appeared to be an attendee of the exercise, according to an email published by Shellenberger.

The address that apparently belonged to Wardle was one of multiple recipients in an email to top national security reporters, Facebook’s head of security policy and others, according to Shellenberger. The Open Society Foundations, which left-wing megadonor Soros chairs, once funded First Draft News. The organization shut down in June. “Today we are announcing that First Draft is closing its doors to make way for the next chapter — its mission will continue at the newly launched Information Futures Lab, an initiative from Brown’s School of Public Health,” an announcement from Wardle reads.

The Aspen Institute training exercise, titled “The Burisma Leak,” involved a series of hypothetical leaks during October 2020 showing that Hunter Biden had made more money in his role at Burisma than previously disclosed and had communicated with his father about his work there, Shellenberger reported. The exercise was meant to shape how the media covered the eventual leak of the Hunter Biden laptop story and the way social media platforms carried it. The Aspen Institute, a left-leaning think tank funded by massive philanthropic organizations including the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation, runs the Commission on Information Disorder, an anti-disinformation project that’s drawn ire from conservatives for its alleged far-left partisanship. The commission has urged social media platforms to censor accounts it considers misinformation “superspreaders” through demonetization, the removal of what it considers inaccurate posts and penalties for offending users.

Read more …

Pretty brilliant history lesson.

In Post-Soviet Russia, New Years Remains A Bigger Holiday Than Christmas (RT)

Present-day Russia is almost the only major Christian country in the world where New Year festivities are more prominent than those of Christmas. While Westerners are unpacking gifts on December 24th, Russians are still immersed in an atmosphere of their upcoming holiday, which, when it comes around, is filled with age-old traditions and lasts almost two weeks. To understand why the New Year has become a special celebration in Russia and what sets it apart from other countries, we must first dive into the history of the holiday. It was only in 1700 that Russia joined the pan-European tradition of celebrating the New Year on January 1, following a decree by Emperor Peter the Great. Before that, Russians had celebrated New Year’s on March 1, when it was time to prepare for the new season of agricultural work.

However, despite the will of the emperor, Russia did not fully synchronize with the rest of Europe – the country at the time functioned according to the old Julian calendar, while most European countries had already switched to the Gregorian one. Therefore, the new year in Russia began 13 days later. This became a key aspect that influenced the modern traditions of New Year celebrations. Thanks to Peter the Great, the New Year moved closer to the main Christian holiday, Christmas. For the next two hundred years, New Year and Christmas celebrations in Russia were a lot like those in Western Europe. The difference was only in the religious form – Russia followed Christian Orthodox canons, while the likes of France and Germany followed Catholic and Protestant ones.

Everything changed with the October Revolution, the overthrow of the emperor, and the creation of the new state – the USSR. The Bolsheviks carried out several reforms in the first years after the revolution that directly affected how Russia celebrates the New Year today, in the 21st century. On January 26, 1918, the Council of People’s Commissars of Russia issued a decree on the transition to the Gregorian calendar. As a result, the country celebrated the start of the year 1919 simultaneously with Western Europe. In 1929, the celebration of Christmas was officially ‘canceled.’ Although by this time the New Year had become a completely independent secular holiday, Christmas was privately celebrated in many homes.

Even in 1924, shortly before Lenin’s death, a Christmas Tree celebration was held for children. But, after 1929, the most important Christian date was erased from the calendar and remained exclusively in the homes of religious people. At the same time, the Orthodox Church did not switch to the Gregorian calendar, and therefore Orthodox Christmas is still celebrated on January 7, not December 25.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Ferns

 

 

Peter Sellers

 

 

 

 

Croc

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 142022
 
 December 14, 2022  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Portrait of Dora Maar 1943

 

Twitter Is Actually an Intelligence Gathering and Propaganda Tool (CTH)
Twitter Disbands Trust and Safety Council Amid Child Abuse Criticism (ET)
Jack Dorsey Responds To Twitter Files (RT)
Zelensky Aide Accused Musk Of Hiding ‘War’ From Twitter Trends (RT)
White House Defends Fauci From Musk (RT)
Zelensky: Russia Must Withdraw All Forces By Christmas (ZH)
NATO Chief Says Full-Blown War With Russia Is a ‘Real Possibility’ (Antiwar)
US Patriot Missiles to Ukraine: Peace Continues to be Banned in DC (Celente)
Peace Advocates Seen As ‘Traitors’ In EU – Former Austrian Vice-chancellor (RT)
Biden Operatives Plan “Swat Force” on Hunter Biden Scandal (Turley)
After the Ukraine Is Over, Many a European Heart is Aching (Batiushka)
NATO Is Trying To Find A Pretext To Attack Serbia -Again- (Saker)
EU Fails To Agree On Gas Price Cap (RT)
DOJ Faces Questions After Preventing SBF from Testifying in Congress (Turley)
The Seth Rich Case Gets Richer (Billingsley)

 

 

 

 

Laura Roth

 

 

 

 

DeSantis vaccine panel

 

 

 

 

Lapado

 

 

 

 

 

 

More from sundance.

“DHS doesn’t operate on the backbone of Twitter, Twitter operates on the backbone of DHS.”

Twitter Is Actually an Intelligence Gathering and Propaganda Tool (CTH)

Tucker Carlson hits the bullseye in a late show segment discussing the framework of the Twitter social media company. Stunningly, Carlson is the first person to ask the question that we have outlined for years, it is the essence of how Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop evolved. “It’s all pretty weird. Could it be that while the rest of us imagined that Twitter was a social media site … could it be that Twitter was actually, maybe primarily, a propaganda tool and intelligence gathering apparatus for a variety of intel agencies?” ~ Tucker Carlson. Yes. Exactly this. Yes. It’s not that DHS had a portal into Twitter, it’s that DHS took over the operation of Twitter and controlled every element of it. That’s also why profits and losses were never part of the viability equation. DHS controls Twitter operations, that’s the essential baseline for Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop. Well done Tucker Carlson.

Once you change your reference point and review the data from a different perspective, things make sense. DHS doesn’t operate on the backbone of Twitter, Twitter operates on the backbone of DHS. The information and content on Twitter exist, or not, by the permission and authority of the national security state, DHS. Narratives can be enhanced or throttled. Public perceptions can be uplifted or deemphasized. Candidates can be boosted or dismissed. Control over the public conversation is not simply in the hands of Twitter executives, the platform content is shaped by the guiding hand of the controlling interest – the government. So why did they permit it to be sold? Again, control.

Every non-Twitter, non-DHS controlled, information and discussion site is a watering down of the influence of Twitter. The inability to influence a platform like Truth Social would be particularly troublesome. So, launder the handling of the DHS platform to Elon Musk and create the illusion of a refresh. Twitter 2.0 now rebrands with a renewed ability to influence. Not accidentally, a pro DeSantis shaping is part of the objective. In the eyes of the control state Rumble and Truth Social represent the threat that is Donald Trump, while Twitter and YouTube representing the controlled alternative, Ron DeSantis. There are trillions at stake.

Read more …

“As Twitter moves into a new phase, we are reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy development work…”

Twitter Disbands Trust and Safety Council Amid Child Abuse Criticism (ET)

Twitter has disbanded its Trust and Safety Council, according to an email, after new owner Elon Musk criticized members over a lack of action to rid the platform of child sexual abuse material. In an email to the council’s members, Twitter said the Trust and Safety Council was no longer deemed the best way for the social media platform to “bring external insights into our product and policy development work.” “As Twitter moves into a new phase, we are reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy development work. As part of this process, we have decided that the Trust and Safety Council is not the best structure to do this,” the email stated.

“Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” the email continued. “We will also continue to explore opportunities to provide focused and timely input into our work, whether through bilateral or small group meetings.” The council was informed of the change before it was scheduled to meet with Twitter representatives on Monday night, according to The Associated Press. The webpage for the Trust and Safety Council is now blank. The group was previously made up of around 100 stakeholders, including independent civil, human rights, and other organizations.

The Trust and Safety Council has been criticized by Musk for not taking action to remove child sexual abuse material from Twitter. The council was established in 2016 to address problems such as hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm, and other issues on the platform. After three members of the council resigned in protest over allegations of increased hate speech on the platform on Dec. 8, Musk declared on Dec. 10 that it was “a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!” Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey replied to Musk, saying: “This is false.” “No, it is not,” Musk replied, adding: “When Ella Irwin, who now runs Trust & Safety, joined Twitter earlier this year, almost no one was working on child safety.”

Read more …

“..the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society.”

Jack Dorsey Responds To Twitter Files (RT)

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has issued a response to the recently leaked ‘Twitter Files,’ admitting to a host of major mistakes during his time as chief executive while warning of “centralized control” of the internet by governments and corporations. The tech entrepreneur addressed the leaked internal documents in a Tuesday blog post, acknowledging that Twitter failed to uphold its guiding principles near the end of his tenure, and that he “completely gave up” on his own vision for the site after “activist” investors bought into the company sometime in 2020. Though he did not elaborate on the new investors or how they might have swayed the platform, Dorsey said Twitter’s focus on controlling public dialogue was ultimately one of its greatest errors.

He cited the decision to permanently suspend President Donald Trump in the wake of the riot at the US Capitol in January 2021, saying it was “the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society.” “The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves,” he said. “This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets). I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account.”

Dorsey was reportedly on vacation at the time of the Trump ban and had delegated decision-making to executives Yoel Roth and Vijaya Gadde – as revealed in the Twitter Files – but nonetheless said he bears sole blame for the errors in judgment. “The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and [don’t] solve anything. If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof,” he continued, also insisting “there was no ill intent or hidden agendas” behind Twitter’s more contentious decisions and that the company “acted according to the best information we had at the time.” Tuesday’s blog post also included a lengthy section warning of “centralized” power over the internet, stating that social media platforms should remain “resilient to corporate and government control” while suggesting Twitter had failed to do so under his watch.

The former CEO, who stepped down from the role in November 2021, went on to say that he welcomes the “fresh reset” brought by Twitter’s new owner, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, expressing hopes that the site will become “uncomfortably transparent.” However, he argued that the Twitter Files should have been released “Wikileaks-style,” or in full, rather than being leaked to select journalists by the site’s new management. Spearheaded by reporters Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, the documents have been published on a rolling basis with Musk’s blessing, shedding light on a number of controversial decisions made by the company. Five installments have gone public so far, including material surrounding Trump’s suspension, Twitter’s close cooperation with US intelligence agencies, the practice of ‘shadowbanning,’ as well as a site-wide ban on a New York Post report about the foreign business dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.

Read more …

“..the biggest bot attack I’ve ever seen.”

Zelensky Aide Accused Musk Of Hiding ‘War’ From Twitter Trends (RT)

Mikhail Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, has accused Twitter of hiding trends related to the ongoing conflict in the country. The official took to the social media platform on Tuesday, blasting the platform’s CEO, billionaire Elon Musk, directly. ‘War in Ukraine’ disappearance from Twitter trends. Radical curtailment of tweets mentioning ru-aggression coverage. Users aren’t allowed to register or log into accounts with Ukrainian phone number,” Podolyak wrote. According to Twitter, its trends are “determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored for you based on who you follow, your interests, and your location.” The algorithm “identifies topics that are popular now, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis.”

The presidential aide was apparently referring to Ukrainian media reports that users with Ukrainian phone numbers were no longer able to log in or register on the platform. While the social media giant has not produced any statements on the issue yet, Musk cryptically warned Twitter “bots” were “in for a surprise tomorrow” on Sunday. Podolyak was also critical of the recent release of ‘Twitter files’, which disclosed censorship practices on the platform amid the 2020 US presidential campaign. The official apparently hinted that Twitter’s new leadership was now censoring coverage of the Ukraine crisis. “Elon Musk, I wonder if we will ever see ‘Twitter Files’ about Fall/Winter 2022?” Podolyak wrote. In recent weeks, Musk has repeatedly engaged in a bitter back-and-forth with the pro-Ukrainian crowd on the social media platform, including the country’s top officials.

The spat began with a peace plan, floated by the billionaire, who suggested Ukraine should commit to neutrality and relinquish its claim to Crimea, while Russia “redo” referendums in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as in Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions “under UN supervision.” The remarks angered Kiev officials, who raided Musk’s feed in order to vent. The poll on the peace plan itself was subjected to what the billionaire called the “biggest bot attack I’ve ever seen.” The spat has been aggravated by Musk, who threatened to stop payrolling Starlink’s services, which are actively used by the Ukrainian military. In early November, Twitter also began labeling tweets from Ukrainian state-run media – in the same way it does with a number of Russian government-owned outlets – causing a new meltdown among Kiev’s backers.

Read more …

“..Fauci told Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky in May 2021 that NIAID and the National Institutes of Health “categorically” never funded such research..”

White House Defends Fauci From Musk (RT)

The US government has come to the defense of President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 czar, saying that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a paragon of public service and that Elon Musk’s suggestions that the octogenarian bureaucrat should be prosecuted are dangerous “personal attacks” divorced from reality. The Tesla and SpaceX magnate took over Twitter in October and has been sharing details of the platform’s operations under the previous management. Teasing revelations about the pandemic-related censorship, Musk tweeted on Saturday that his pronouns are “Prosecute/Fauci.” The post went beyond viral, garnering more than 1.2 million likes so far – and attracting the attention of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

“These attacks, these personal attacks that we have been seeing, are dangerous – on Dr. Fauci and other public health professionals as well. They are disgusting, and they are divorced from reality,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday. Fauci has “given his almost entire career to civil service, public service, as a public servant. His work on infectious disease, from HIV/AIDS to Covid, has saved countless lives,” said Jean-Pierre, and America is fortunate he has devoted “his exceptional talent” to public health. “And that’s what should be discussed right now,” she concluded. Now 81, Fauci has been running the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. He will retire from his government job at the end of the year, just before Republicans – who promised to hold hearings about his handling of the pandemic – take over the House of Representatives.

Fauci became an idol of Democrats in 2020, advocating for longer and tougher lockdowns when President Donald Trump wanted to see them lifted. When Biden became president, he named Fauci his chief medical adviser and followed his strategy of “shutting down the virus” through mask and vaccine mandates. Several prominent Republicans have clashed with Fauci in congressional hearings, accusing him of funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, where the pandemic supposedly originated. Fauci told Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky in May 2021 that NIAID and the National Institutes of Health “categorically” never funded such research. Documents published in September showed NIH and NIAID giving money to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, which funded experiments with bat coronaviruses in Wuhan. NIH has continued to fund EcoHealth, however.

Read more …

N’importe quoi..

Zelensky: Russia Must Withdraw All Forces By Christmas (ZH)

Ukraine now says that it has lost half of its energy system amid recent stepped-up Russian aerial attacks, which have continued to include suicide drones, some of which are believed supplied by Iran. President Volodymyr Zelensky communicated this in a Monday phone call with President Joe Biden, briefing the US leader on “the consequences of the Russian missile terror, as a result of which about 50% of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure was destroyed.” In the mid-afternoon on Tuesday (local time), air raid alerts have reportedly been issued all across Ukraine, with sirens blaring in the capital after Zelensky warned that the next major wave of Russian airstrikes are imminent.

Starting Friday Kyiv authorities began revising their estimate upward from the 40% they had been estimating in statements as of weeks ago. Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal recently described, “Unfortunately, Russia continues missile strikes on Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure, fighting against the civilian population and depriving them of light, water, heat and communications during the winter… Nearly half of our energy system is disabled.” The past month has witnessed some of the largest missile barrages targeting energy infrastructure to date, which has left whole cities, including Odesa and a number of cities in the south without power amid frigid temperatures.

Also on Monday Zelensky gave a virtual address before G7 leaders, wherein he urged more arms including “modern tanks” and “rocket artillery and more long-range missiles” while acknowledging his military is running low in the face of the more superior-armed Russian forces. He asked G7 nations for “about 2 billion cubic meters” of additional gas to help the population get through winter. Among the more interesting things he said was that Moscow must withdraw all forces by Christmas. “The occupier must leave. It will certainly happen. I see no reason why Russia should not do it now – at Christmas.” Vowing the counteroffensive will not stop even as the ground freezes, he appealed for Russia to avoid “further confrontation with the world.”

“Very soon we’ll have holidays celebrated by billions of people. Christmas – according to the Gregorian calendar or the New Year and Christmas – according to the Julian calendar. This is the time for normal people to think about peace, not aggression. I suggest Russia to at least try to prove that it is capable of abandoning the aggression. It would be right to start the withdrawal of Russian troops from the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine this Christmas. If Russia withdraws its troops from Ukraine, it will ensure a lasting cessation of hostilities,” the President said, speaking at the G7 Summit.

Read more …

“..the continent’s “peace and freedom” would be threatened if Putin wins in Ukraine.”

NATO Chief Says Full-Blown War With Russia Is a ‘Real Possibility’ (Antiwar)

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Friday that he fears a full-blown war between Russia and NATO is a “real possibility” in a rare acknowledgment of the dangers of backing Ukraine. “I fear that the war in Ukraine will get out of control, and spread into a major war between NATO and Russia,” he said, according to The Telegraph. “If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong.” Russian officials have made clear that they believe they are fighting against NATO in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said recently that both the US and NATO are “directly participating” in the war in Ukraine, meaning Russia has the pretext for strikes on NATO bases in Europe if they choose to take that step. Despite the risk, Stoltenberg stressed that NATO countries should continue arming Ukraine and that the best way to deter Russia is to strengthen the alliance’s positions in Eastern Europe.


Stoltenberg said Russian President Vladimir Putin “knows it’s one for all, and all for one,” referring to NATO’s mutual defense commitments as outlined by Article 5. The risk of escalation rose last week after Ukrainian drones struck air bases hundreds of miles inside Russian territory, killing three Russian soldiers and damaging two Russian bombers. Citing unnamed US military sources, The Times reported Friday that the Pentagon has given Ukraine its tacit endorsement to launch such attacks. Stoltenberg said that he understands why some people in Europe are getting tired of supporting Ukraine as they face rising energy and food prices. But the NATO chief claimed that the continent’s “peace and freedom” would be threatened if Putin wins in Ukraine.

Read more …

“..It now seems apparent why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was so giddy after a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday.”

US Patriot Missiles to Ukraine: Peace Continues to be Banned in DC (Celente)

The U.S. is about to approve a Patriot missile battery to counter Russia’s recent missile bombardments despite Moscow’s previous threat that these systems would be “legitimate targets” for its forces. CNN first reported on the Biden administration’s plan that could be announced later this week. The Pentagon and State Department did not immediately respond to emails from The Trends Journal. Washington has already provided Ukraine with short-range NASAMS anti-air systems. Ukraine has been asking the U.S. for these systems for months, but Washington knows that it would be a major escalation and risk a confrontation with Russia. Germany understands the significance of providing these systems.

Berlin refused Poland’s push to put Patriot missiles in Ukraine instead of Warsaw after the Ukrainian missile killed two in the country a few weeks ago. Germany offered Poland the Patriot missile system, and Warsaw insisted that these missiles be sent to Ukraine instead. Germany ended up refusing the idea. Germany presented Poland with these systems on Monday. Michal Baranowski, the regional managing director of the German Marshall Fund in Warsaw, told The New York Times that the brief tussle between Berlin and Warsaw was “like an X-ray of miserable Polish-German relations.” “It’s worse than I thought, and I’ve watched it a long time,” Baranowski said. CNN noted that these missile systems, one of the most advanced from the U.S., are effective in nailing distant targets but it requires about a dozen troops to operate and months of training. Ukraine does not have anyone trained to used the system.

The system is widely considered one of the most capable long-range weapons to defend airspace against incoming ballistic and cruise missiles as well as some aircraft. Because of its long-range and high-altitude capability, it can potentially shoot down Russian missiles and aircraft far from their intended targets inside Ukraine. It now seems apparent why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was so giddy after a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday. He thanked Biden for the “unprecedented” support from the U.S. “I had a phone call with U.S. President Joseph Biden and thanked for the unprecedented defense and financial assistance that the U.S. provides to Ukraine,” Zelensky said. NATO has been trepidatious to provide these systems because of the risk that Kyiv uses them to fire deeper inside Russia. Ukraine has been blamed for several attacks on Russian territory.

Read more …

“..a “global war” between Russia and NATO, into which European leaders have been “drawn.”

Peace Advocates Seen As ‘Traitors’ In EU – Former Austrian Vice-chancellor (RT)

Former Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache has told RT that the EU’s sanctions policy has brought Ukraine no closer to peace, and those who complain are “branded and defamed” as traitors. Strache is a vocal critic of the EU’s sanctions on Russia, which he has repeatedly blamed for destroying the bloc’s economy, triggering rising inflation and unemployment, and potentially bringing a wave of “mass insolvencies and bankruptcies” in the new year. Speaking to RT on Tuesday after addressing a pro-neutrality rally in Vienna last weekend, Strache described the conflict in Ukraine as part of a “global war” between Russia and NATO, into which European leaders have been “drawn.”

“Unfortunately, I do not see any European political leaders who want to approach the negotiating table and call for a negotiated ceasefire agreement and a peaceful solution,” he lamented. “We Austrians in particular should adhere to our neutrality and our neutrality status could also play a decisive mediating role here. So far, this has not been practiced.” “Of course, the media in the European Union are silent about all this,” he continued. “And if you express criticism here today, you are often branded and defamed as a Putin and Russia sympathizer and also as a traitor to Europe.” While Strache condemned the lack of a “strong European peace movement,” he predicted that worsening economic conditions will eventually force citizens to demand an end to the Ukraine conflict.

“People are confronted with the catchphrase that they have to freeze for peace, and then you come to the conclusion: well, freezing doesn’t help, because unfortunately there is no peace…and then you become unemployed and unemployment has not brought peace because there are no negotiation initiatives – people naturally find [this] very, very repulsive and very questionable,” he stated. European leaders have presented the rising price of energy as a necessary cost of supporting Ukraine, with European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager famously telling people earlier this year to say “take that, Putin” as they turn off their hot water. Ultimately, Strache argued that the EU is bearing all the costs of the conflict while the US is “profiteering,” an assessment shared by European Council President Charles Michel and other senior Brussels officials. “More and more people are becoming aware of this,” Strache continued, adding that “Europe urgently needs to implement concrete peace initiatives.”

Read more …

“Generally, political operatives lay out scorched-earth campaigns in secret. But someone wanted this campaign to be public before the House can call any witnesses.”

Biden Operatives Plan “Swat Force” on Hunter Biden Scandal (Turley)

Just when you thought our politics could not get more poisonous, a recent meeting in California suggests the past is mere prelude. The Washington Post, which revealed the powwow, described it as Biden family “allies” planning an offensive to blunt any investigation into the Bidens’ alleged multimillion-dollar influence-peddling schemes. Republicans will see it more like the gathering of the Legion of (Democratic) Doom. Some of the most controversial political operatives are involved in the all-hands-on-deck effort to protect the Bidens. The California meeting’s host was none other than Hunter Biden’s friend, agent and lawyer Kevin Morris. After Hunter was placed under investigation for, among other possible charges, tax evasion, Morris reportedly paid off as much as $2.8 million in back taxes for Hunter.

Morris, per The Washington Post, called for a “more aggressive” response to those seeking to investigate the alleged influence peddling. That plan includes hitting critics, such as Fox News, with possible defamation lawsuits. (For full disclosure, I appear as a legal analyst on Fox News.) The paper also reported Morris “outlined extensive research on two potential witnesses against Hunter Biden — a spurned business partner named Tony Bobulinski and a computer repairman named John Paul Mac Isaac.” “Spurned” is hardly the sole or most relevant description of Bobulinski: The businessman was recruited by the Biden family to manage foreign deals and later directly contradicted President Joe Biden’s claims he knew nothing of those dealings. His testimony could present a serious threat in the coming House investigation in establishing not only the president’s knowledge but his possible receipt of proceeds from the deals.

Morris’ plan could easily be taken as a declaration of all-out war on potential witnesses against Hunter Biden. What’s most interesting about the piece is why The Washington Post was given such access and such a detailed account. Generally, political operatives lay out scorched-earth campaigns in secret. But someone wanted this campaign to be public before the House can call any witnesses. For key witnesses like Bobulinski, the message is about as subtle as a two-by-four to the head. The Washington Post is viewed as one of the most pro-Biden newspapers in the country and only recently admitted the Hunter Biden laptop was authentic after pushing the false Russian-disinformation claim. Now the paper is detailing a plan that could create an open season on those who might try to substantiate the Biden family’s influence peddling.

Notably, the article stresses this effort is “operating separately from the White House. [David] Brock said his organization also remains independent of Hunter Biden and his team and is following its own strategy.” The separation is important to deflect any allegations of witness intimidation. Media and political figures leveled such claims against the Trump White House when impeachment witnesses were attacked in the press. Congressional Democrats denounced criticism of the witnesses as an effort to silence or deter witnesses from coming forward. (For the record, I also criticized the targeting of witnesses against Trump even if it did not constitute chargeable witness intimidation).

Read more …

“US-exploited Kiev regime territory, 40% of the whole, will be taken back without compensation.”

After the Ukraine Is Over, Many a European Heart is Aching (Batiushka)

Northern Europe, as far south as northern Italy, is now in the grip of a wave of icy cold (no doubt, the result of global warming). As a result, observers are expecting the Russian winter offensive in the Ukraine to start all the sooner, though nobody knows when. This month or next? Maybe a dramatic entry from Belarus, cutting off NATO supplies? Nobody knows. For the moment, Allied forces are content to grind down the undersupplied and freezing Kiev regime conscripts and mercenaries in situ, hoping that perhaps they will simply surrender en masse, despite the regime’s guns poking in their backs. Conditions are such that this could happen with very few Russian losses. There is no hurry. Over 500,000 Allied soldiers and 500 winter camouflage tanks are waiting for their moment to move in and denazify the Ukraine. They will wait for the right moment.s

Russia could no longer allow a hostile, US-controlled, NATO-armed and soon-to-be-nuclear Ukraine to exist. Therefore, it is being liberated. It should have happened long before, but Russia was much too weak to do so before. When the Zelensky regime falls, billions of dollars of Western arms and supplies will fall into Russian hands. The Kiev regime’s Western-incurred indebtedness to the West for arms and supplies over the last nearly nine years will be cancelled. US-exploited Kiev regime territory, 40% of the whole, will be taken back without compensation. This will be a small measure of compensation for the destruction that the US and its European vassals, including the Minsk I and Minsk II liars of Germany and France, have caused in the Ukraine, especially in the much-tried Donbass.

Apart from completing the liberation of the four provinces that it has taken back so far, Russia may also take back four more Russian-speaking provinces, those of Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Nikolaev and Odessa, so joining up with Russian Transdnestria. A coup in Kiev could take place, as the remnants of the Kiev Army collapse and the new Ukraine could then even become a Russian ally, like Belarus, part of the Union State. Whether the five far western provinces of the present Ukraine remain with the new Ukraine, or three of them return to Poland, and one each to Hungary and Romania, remains to be seen. It will all depend on what Russia allows. After this, the whole fragile Western European domino set, hastily stood up by the US-run NATO and its political wing the EU, could begin to tumble.

Read more …

“Pavelic, like Bandera, Franco or Petain, was a pure product of the Papacy, unlike Hitler and Mussolini who were, respectively, a pagan and an atheist..”

NATO Is Trying To Find A Pretext To Attack Serbia -Again- (Saker)

Once the NATO defeat in the Ukraine becomes undeniable, the organization will quickly become irrelevant and unable to agree on yet another military operation. As for the USA, having lost the “fig leaf” provided by NATO, they are unlikely to have what it takes to attack Serbia, not after having being comprehensively defeated in the Ukraine (the collapse of NATO will also trigger a major crisis inside the USA). The problem for Serbia is that it will take time (many months, probably a few years) to fully defang NATO while not triggering a fullscale continental war in Europe. And, let’s be honest here, if the Russians can now take their sweet time “demilitarizing” Banderastan, the Serbian minority in Kosovo cannot.

So what can the Serbs do in this situation? Do nothing would only empower the KLA terrorist and their western bosses and leave the long-suffering Serbian minority in Kosovo defenseless. Move in forces, even if fully allowed by the UNSC Resolution, would risk triggering a major economic and military US/NATO/EU attack on Serbia. Evacuate Serbian civilians from Kosovo? In theory that would be an option, but we have to understand that for the Serbian people Kosovo is truly sacred ground and that many would refuse to leave. Also, emptying Kosovo from its Serbian minority would only embolden the KLA and their patrons. Finally, when the Russians evacuated their civilians from Kherson it was at least credible that this was a temporary move and that the Russian military would be back, sooner rather than later. But in the case of Kosovo, Serbia is the weaker party and will remain so until:

1/ Serbia regains her sovereignty (right now Serbia is basically administered by the West, hence the threats from EU politicians like Baerbock) 2/Reunites with historically Serbian lands in Montenegro, Bosnia and Kosovo 3/ The US/NATO/EU are demilitarized and denazified, at least in Europe. This will all happen, the problem is *when*. I sure don’t know. What I do know is that the Serbian nation has survived absolutely horrific and even overtly demonic persecutions by both the Ottomans, the Anglos and the Latins (Pavelic, like Bandera, Franco or Petain, was a pure product of the Papacy, unlike Hitler and Mussolini who were, respectively, a pagan and an atheist).

Read more …

“..any price cap must aim to “ensure the stability of the financial markets.”

EU Fails To Agree On Gas Price Cap (RT)

EU nations have failed once again to finalize a bloc-wide gas price cap at a Council of Energy Ministers meeting, Hungarian FM Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday. Some states want to lower the ceiling, while others say the measure could wreak havoc on the energy markets. “There was a lengthy debate at the Energy Council meeting. No agreement was reached at the plenary, so discussions will continue on a bilateral basis,” Szijjarto wrote on Facebook. Opinions regarding the measure proposed weeks ago differ greatly among the 27 EU member states, with some doubting its effectiveness in fighting the energy crisis, and others calling for the lowest cap possible.

Under the original plan put forward by the European Commission, the gas price cap should be triggered when prices on the TTF exchange, Europe’s gas benchmark, reach €275 ($292) per megawatt hour and are €58 higher than the LNG reference price for two weeks. The plan was met with criticism, with some member states worried it would only worsen market volatility, while others argued that the level was too high to be effective.

Last week, the EU Council proposed reducing the level of the cap to €220 and slashing the timeframe to five days, while also lowering the gap with global LNG prices to €35, according to a draft document seen by Reuters. However, 12 countries reportedly said this cap would still be too high, demanding it be lowered to €160 with a €20 spread. Earlier on Tuesday, France’s minister for energy transition, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, said that an agreement over the cap could be reached sooner rather than later. “I believe we have started to bring our positions closer,” she told the press ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, adding that any price cap must aim to “ensure the stability of the financial markets.”

Read more …

They’ve shut him down:

“Sam Bankman-Fried was denied bail. He will be held in this prison until February 8th, 2023 if he isn’t extradited to the US.”

DOJ Faces Questions After Preventing SBF from Testifying in Congress (Turley)

The arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried yesterday was sudden and unexpected in light of Bankman-Fried’s plan to testify before Congress. As a criminal defense attorney, my reaction to the arrest last night remains unchanged: this is the first time that I can recall where prosecutors moved aggressively to stop a defendant from making self-incriminating statements. His testimony would have been entirely admissible and likely devastating at trial. I previously wrote how Bankman-Fried was doing harm to his case by speaking in the media and to Congress. So why would the Justice Department move to stop the self-inflicted damage? You have a major target who was about to voluntarily testify for hours.

That is ordinarily a dream for prosecutors, but the Justice Department moved quickly to prevent that from happening. At that stage, Bankman-Fried was not charged or in custody. He was not protected by Miranda or other constitutional rules from self-incriminating statements. Indeed, some of us had already warned that he was causing himself considerable damage in making such statements. This was a defendant with a large legal team facing possible criminal charges who seemed eager to speak about his actions and motivations. Most prosecutors would sit back, make popcorn, and watch this unfold. The curious move led many to question whether the Biden Administration was eager to prevent questions on Bankman-Fried’s political contributions and associations.

He was the second highest donor to Democratic causes in the last election cycle. His mother, a law professor at Stanford also heads a major Democratic campaign fund. It is also possible that the Justice Department simply wanted to show the public that it was moving aggressively despite his close Democratic ties. It may have secured sufficient evidence (including possible cooperating witnesses) to satisfy the basis for charges and an extradition request. Moreover, the charges are likely to make some Democratic figures uncomfortable as this matter enters the criminal process. Yet, that still does not explain why the Justice Department would not want to hear a full account from Bankman-Fried before effectively shutting him down as a criminal defendant. This is the first time that I can recall where the prosecutors, rather than defense counsel, moved effectively to muzzle a defendant.

Read more …

“..the body of Philip Haney, author of See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad, was “found deceased” in Amador County, California..”

The Seth Rich Case Gets Richer (Billingsley)

The FBI not only has possession of a laptop computer owned by slain Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich,” the Epoch Times reports, “but a report detailing forensic imaging of what’s being described as Rich’s work computer.” The revelation came in a three-page forensic report about an “outside entity” working on imaging Rich’s work computer, also a laptop. According to the Epoch Times, that report “was among four documents that had never been disclosed by the FBI in relation to Rich’s case.” Seth Rich was the DNC’s voter expansion data director. On July 10, 2016, the 27-year-old was gunned down in Washington, D.C. Police called it a street robbery gone wrong, but the shooters did not take Rich’s wallet, watch, or phone.

Weeks after the murder, as the BBC reported, “Wikileaks published 20,000 emails obtained from Democratic National Committee computers via an anonymous source.” According to prominent Democrats, that was all part of Donald Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia. With that ploy exposed as a hoax, the people have cause to wonder. With Rich’s personal laptop, the FBI wants 66 years—a proxy for “never”—to produce data the bureau previously denied it even possessed. With Rich’s work laptop, the bureau is taking obstructionism to a new level. FBI records boss Michael Seidel is claiming that the computer is only a physical object, not an “actual record,” and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act request from Texas resident Brian Huddleston.

His attorneys want the Obama-appointed Judge Amos Mazzant to order the release of the information from the personal and work computers of murder victim Rich. As it happens, those are not the only devices the FBI is harboring. On February 21, 2020, the body of Philip Haney, author of See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad, was “found deceased” in Amador County, California. He was killed by a gunshot to the chest. The Amador sheriff “reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to assist in analyzing documents, phone records, numerous thumb drives and a laptop that were recovered from the scene and Mr. Haney’s RV.

Those items and numerous other pieces of evidence were turned over to the FBI. The FBI has performed a forensic examination of these items. We expect to receive these reports within the next few weeks.” Two years later, the Amador sheriff reported no new information on the case, and the FBI has yet to reveal what was on Haney’s laptop, thumb drives, and such. As with Seth Rich, the material could be of great interest to the public. In early 2020, according to Kerry Picket of the Washington Examiner, Haney was “recently in contact with top officials about returning to work for the DHS.” So maybe he had new information on terrorists. The erudite Haney was good at finding such information, but it wasn’t always welcome at the Department of Homeland Security.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mountain goats

 

 


Panulirus ornatus is a large spiny lobster with 11 larval stages. It migrates annually from the Torres Strait to Yule Island in the Gulf of Papua in order to breed

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Dec 122022
 


Paul Gauguin Landscape with black pigs and a crouching Tahitian 1891

 

Musk Says Fauci Lied, People Died (RT)
Zelensky Was Ready For Neutrality In March – Col. Macgregor (RT)
How the Mainstream Media Misses the Money Quote (Antiwar)
Twitter Files: Corporate Media Ignores The Biggest Story Of The Decade (ZH)
Dupe or Designated Defendant? The Criminal Case Against Jack Dorsey (Turley)
Jack Dorsey Defiantly States He Has Never Heard Of Twitter (BBee)
4 Minutes of Undiluted Truth on Mainstream TV (Mike Whitney)
Merkel’s Ukraine Remarks Show Breach Of Trust – Serbia (RT)
China Wants To Drop Dollar In Oil Trade – Reuters (RT)
Western Price Cap Disrupting Global Oil Markets – Economist (RT)
Sanctions On Russia Are Backfiring – Former Austrian Vice-chancellor (RT)
FBI Reveals It Has More Information on Deceased DNC Staffer Seth Rich (ET)
Are We Finally Reaching Peak Climate Hysteria? (Spiked)
Dutch Gov’t Attempts To Forcibly Close 3,000 Farms For ‘Green’ Agenda (ZH)
Viagra Lowers the Risk of Alzheimer’s By Almost 70% (GR)

 

 

 

 

Back to the future?!

 

 

Douglas Macgregor: Zelensky Has Made A Terrible Mistake By Trying To Pin Missile Strikes On Russia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twitter files on censorship of doctors, and promoting Fauci, should be explosive. If they still exist. Musk has promised them.

Musk Says Fauci Lied, People Died (RT)

The billionaire Tesla and Twitter boss, Elon Musk, has triggered a social media firestorm on Sunday after suggesting that US Covid-19 czar, Dr. Anthony Fauci, should be investigated and prosecuted for allegedly lying under oath about the funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab in China. In what initially appeared to be an ironic dig, poised to trigger an avalanche of criticism from the left, Musk also posted a meme showing the retiring White House chief medical adviser whispering “Just one more lockdown my king” in President Biden’s ear. But after Fauci’s name was propelled to the top of Twitter trends with over 600,000 mentions, Musk apparently felt forced to elaborate why he thought the controversial face of America’s response to the pandemic should be investigated.

“As for Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain-of-function research that killed millions of people,” Musk said in response to one critic, adding “not awesome imo.” The 81-year-old Fauci, who plans to retire by the of the month, led a disjointed US Covid-19 response marked by his flip-flopping on issues such as the efficacy of masks and herd immunity targets. Shortly after Fauci announced that he would step down as Biden’s chief medical adviser and as director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) – Senator Rand Paul demanded that the US administration preserve documents and messages that could become evidence in the potential probe.

“Fauci’s resignation should not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He must be required to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the Wuhan lab leak. His policies destroyed lives,” tweeted Paul. The senator previously accused Fauci of directing public funding to gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab and lying about it under oath in congressional testimony, as the two sparred repeatedly in Senate hearings. Gain-of-function is the modification of pathogens to enhance them in various potential ways, including transmissibility. The rationale is that scientists can study new strains and find ways to stop them before similar adaptations emerge naturally.

The ‘lab leak’ theory – that the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab – was popularized by former US President Donald Trump, who made the allegation amid a trade war with China. Major US media organizations and tech platforms initially labeled it as ‘disinformation’ and tried to suppress the theory from public discourse. However, after Musk took over Twitter, the company stopped enforcing its Covid-19 “misleading information policy.”

Read more …

“Fiona Hill [..] wrote in September that an “interim settlement” had been agreed in Istanbul. In May, Ukrainian media linked the collapse of these talks to pressure imposed on Kiev by Johnson.”

Zelensky Was Ready For Neutrality In March – Col. Macgregor (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was ready in March to meet some of Moscow’s conditions for peace, retired US Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor has claimed in a recent interview. He blamed former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for preventing a settlement. As Ukrainian and Russian delegations sat down in Istanbul in March, news surfaced of a potential deal that would have seen Kiev renounce its ambition to join NATO and agree to neutrality, in exchange for Russia’s withdrawal to pre-February battle lines. Days later, Zelensky said he had discovered evidence of war crimes in territory evacuated by Russian forces, and negotiations were called off. In an interview with military historian Michael Vlahos, published on Saturday, MacGregor claimed that the UK was responsible for the abrupt end of the peace talks.

“We have evidence that towards the end of March, Mr. Zelensky said ‘well, we could live with neutrality,’ and when that word reached Washington and London, people became incensed,” he said. “Boris Johnson represented Washington’s interests and said ‘absolutely not, we will support you to the bitter end. You must stand your ground and fight for every inch of Ukraine’.” MacGregor is not the first US official to suggest that Zelensky was ready for peace in March. Fiona Hill, a veteran US diplomat who served as the US National Security Council’s senior director for Europe and Russia in the Trump administration, wrote in September that an “interim settlement” had been agreed in Istanbul. In May, Ukrainian media linked the collapse of these talks to pressure imposed on Kiev by Johnson.

The prime minister visited Kiev on April 9, reportedly without warning, and according to the Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper, told officials that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they [the West] are not.” Now, almost ten months into the conflict, Zelensky has forbidden negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and has promised to retake all of the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye – which voted to join the Russian Federation in September. The Ukrainian leader has also vowed to capture Crimea, which has been a part of Russia since a 2014 referendum. Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov has said Russia remains open to talks, but cautioned in October that Western powers must be involved, as an agreement with Ukraine alone could be “instantly canceled upon orders” from the West.

Read more …

“..there was a canyon between the leader of the US and the leader of the loyal European opposition. The canyon was so wide that it included disagreement over the causes and solutions of the war.”

How the Mainstream Media Misses the Money Quote (Antiwar)

On December 1, French President Emmanuel Macron went to Washington for the first state visit of the Biden administration. After the pageantry, presents, hand holding and flattering words of fraternity and solidarity, Macron faced the gathered press. “We will never urge Ukrainians to make a compromise that will not be acceptable for them.” “That,” said Helene Cooper of The New York Times, “is the money quote.” But it wasn’t the money quote by several euros. The money quote came days later when Macron was not standing shoulder to shoulder with Biden in front of an American audience, but standing on his own addressing a French audience.

Macron told the French television network TF1, in an interview filmed during his visit to Washington but aired as he left, that “We need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.” Then Macron made his full meaning clear: “One of the essential points we must address – as President Putin has always said – is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia.” The money quote was that, despite the display of solidarity, there was a canyon between the leader of the US and the leader of the loyal European opposition. The canyon was so wide that it included disagreement over the causes and solutions of the war.

Biden and Macron both “strongly condemn Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.” But for Biden, in the beginning, that war was wholly unprovoked, and, in the end, the settlement must reflect that and protect core US values. For Macron, though the war was illegal, Russia had legitimate security concerns that NATO had been pushing, and the settlement must reflect that too. Macron hinted at that crucial separation at the press conference with Biden. Even then, Macron said “We want to build peace and a sustainable peace means full respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” But then, hinting at Russia’s demand to be included in a new European security structure that takes its concerns seriously, he added, “but at the same time [it means] a new architecture to make sure we have a sustainable peace in the long run.” But that didn’t make it into the money quote.

Read more …

“Twitter was participating in a form of treason, along with the agencies that they cooperated with. It’s a huge story, and one that should lead to punishment for those involved.”

Twitter Files: Corporate Media Ignores The Biggest Story Of The Decade (ZH)

Twitter has long denied that they “shadow ban” users, but this was a lie. The data shows that small groups within Twitter called “strategic response teams” suppressed up to 200 accounts per day. Usually these were accounts of larger and more influential conservative politicians and celebrities. And, these teams operated in coordination with Democrat officials and agencies like the FBI. In some cases the goal was to mute a particular individual. In other cases the goal was to steer national elections. Internal Twitter communications show that SRT groups spent most of their time fabricating reasons why certain information was subject to TOS. In other words, if Twitter’s rules were not being violated, they made up new rules.

The exposure of Twitter is the biggest story of the decade because it provides proof of a hidden cabal. It shows the ugly mechanics behind the scenes and exposes a network of elites and their errand boys who were involved in direct operations to destroy the 1st Amendment for the sake of ideological supremacy. It’s the classic definition of fascism, a definition that Benito Mussolini reiterated when he argued: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” And, if this brand of Fascism was happening within the halls of Twitter, then there is little doubt it is also happening at companies like Google/YouTube, Apple, Facebook, etc. Before we had evidence, now we have confirmation.

The corporate media argues over relevance instead of morality because they benefited from the censorship. It’s important to remember that one of the first measures Big Tech companies applied after suppressing the alternative media during the pandemic was to then amplify the corporate media. These companies are floundering with dismal audience numbers and dwindling profits. No one listens to them anymore. Yet, as long as they promote the establishment narrative their opinions and disinformation are given priority on nearly every search engine and social media platform. Of course they aren’t interested in the Twitter Files, liars are often “bored” by honest commentary and factual information.

Also, their continued existence relies on the censorship of their competition in the alternative media. The bottom line is this: According to the Bill of Rights, it is illegal for agents of the US government to obstruct the free speech of law abiding American citizens. It does not matter if the action is done by using “private businesses” as middlemen. And, if a private business is colluding with government to implement political policy then it is no longer a private business. Twitter was participating in a form of treason, along with the agencies that they cooperated with. It’s a huge story, and one that should lead to punishment for those involved.

Read more …

“..lying in public is generally not a crime. However, when you repeat a lie to federal investigators or Congress or the courts, it becomes a federal offense.”

Dupe or Designated Defendant? The Criminal Case Against Jack Dorsey (Turley)

The latest Twitter disclosures have raised potential legal liability for Twitter and its executives. No one appears more at risk than Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey It is an ironic turn of events since Dorsey supported the takeover by Elon Musk and has called for all files to be released without filtering. Dorsey has the feel of a “designated defendant,” someone who was pushed forward by others to take any legal hit. On its face, Dorsey has vulnerability after the latest release. He was repeatedly asked by members of Congress about censoring and shadow-banning, which has now been confirmed in these files. In September 2018, Dorsey testified under oath and denied what these files appear to now confirm. Rep. Mike Doyle, D., Pa., asked, “Social media is being rigged to censor conservatives. Is that true of Twitter?”

Dorsey responded, “No.” Doyle then asked “Are you censoring people?” “No,” Dorsey said. “Twitter’s shadow-banning prominent Republicans… is that true?” Doyle asked. Dorsey again said no. Dorsey was also asked about my prior testimony on private censorship in circumventing the First Amendment as a type of censorship by surrogate. Dorsey and the other CEOs were asked about my warning of a “‘little brother’ problem, a problem which private entities do for the government that which it cannot legally do for itself.” In response, Dorsey insisted that “we don’t have a censoring department.” It now appears that the entire company was operating as a censoring department. However, there were in fact super-censors.

Dorsey did not mention the Strategic Response Team-Global Escalation Team (SRT-GET), which operated above what journalist Bari Weiss described as “a level beyond official ticketing, beyond the rank-and-file moderators following the company’s policy on paper.” That group reportedly included Vijaya Gadde, head of Legal, Policy and Trust; Yoel Roth, the global head of Trust and Safety; CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal, and others. Notably, others at the company made similar denials as Dorsey but may not have done so under oath. In 2018, Gadde and head of product Kayvon Beykpour expressly declared, “We do not shadow-ban. And we certainly don’t shadow-ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.”

Even if untrue, lying in public is generally not a crime. However, when you repeat a lie to federal investigators or Congress or the courts, it becomes a federal offense. The question is whether Dorsey was left in the dark on these decisions. He was reportedly a member of SRT-GET. However, some of the files indicate that these decisions may have been made without his knowledge. That includes the decision on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, which Dorsey called a “total mistake.”

Read more …

“I’m not here talking to you right now. My name is not Jack Dorsey. I vehemently deny my own existence at this time.”

Jack Dorsey Defiantly States He Has Never Heard Of Twitter (BBee)

In the aftermath of the second wave of what have come to be known as the “Twitter Files” — in which documented evidence is presented that Twitter engaged in systematic practices to suppress and “shadowban” conservative or otherwise dissenting accounts, despite previous claims to not do so — co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey has issued a defiant statement that he has, in fact, never heard of Twitter. “I have no comment on, and indeed, no knowledge regarding anything known as a ‘Twitter,'” Dorsey said. “Any claims to the contrary are untrue and a wholesale misrepresentation. The previous statements attributed to me regarding ‘shadowbanning,’ while made by me, were simply not made by me.”


Furor continues to grow in the wake of new Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk authorizing the release of large amounts of internal communications and descriptions of practices under the company’s previous regime. “Twitter and its former brain trust have very serious questions to answer,” said Senator Ted Cruz in comments to the media. “Mr. Dorsey testified before Congress and denied that Twitter had engaged in such practices. The American people demand the truth.” “I never appeared before Congress,” Dorsey said in response. “I’m not here talking to you right now. My name is not Jack Dorsey. I vehemently deny my own existence at this time.” At publishing time, investigations into Dorsey’s knowledge of secret Twitter practices were ongoing, as further questions sent to Dorsey remained unanswered as he denied ever providing his previous answers to the first questions.

Read more …

“..the best ‘easy-to-understand’ summary of the Ukraine War you’ll hear anywhere..”

4 Minutes of Undiluted Truth on Mainstream TV (Mike Whitney)

The last thing you’d ever expect to hear on a mainstream news channel, is the truth. But—strange as it might seem—that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday night on the Tucker Carlson Show. Carlson interviewed veteran journalist Glenn Greenwald in a 4-minute segment that provided the best ‘easy-to-understand’ summary of the Ukraine War you’ll hear anywhere. And what was so shocking about the interview, was how casually both men veered onto topics that are essential to grasping “How we got to where we are today” but which are entirely banned on all the other cable news channels. You are not allowed to know, for example, that Russia was “lured into the conflict in Ukraine”.


That does not fit the script that has been passed-along from the Biden State Department to their lapdogs at the cable news stations. You’re also not allowed to know that the US does not fight wars “to spread democracy” or that “the US has no vital interests in Ukraine” or that “Russia is not really our enemy”. All of those topics are verboten. You’re not even allowed to think about these things, which is why– for the most part– they have been completely scrubbed from any-and-all discussion of foreign policy in the corporate media.

Read more …

The EU also faces another problem with Serbia, which wants troops in Kosovo. Germany says no way. But there is a UN resolution.

Merkel’s Ukraine Remarks Show Breach Of Trust – Serbia (RT)

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent comments on the 2014-15 Minsk agreements have cast the Ukraine conflict in a new light, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday. Merkel stated that Kiev used the ceasefire to rearm its troops. The peace deals brokered by Germany and France eight years ago laid out a path for the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics’ (DPR and LPR) peaceful reintegration into Ukraine. However, they were never implemented because the government of Ukraine argued over the interpretation of the agreements. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko eventually admitted that Kiev mainly intended to use the ceasefire to rebuild its military and the economy. Merkel seemed to confirm this in an interview with German newspaper Die Zeit on Wednesday, saying that by signing the agreements, Ukraine won “valuable time” to muster a stronger army.

“We have witnessed a historically important statement by Angela Merkel. I am surprised and still checking whether it is possible that she has said such a thing,” Vucic told local media. “She is a woman whom I appreciate greatly, but for me this statement is almost unbelievable.” The former chancellor’s words “shed a completely new light” on the history of the conflict, Vucic said. “It cannot change the fact of who attacked whom, but changes a lot in terms of facts and relations inside what has been going on since 2014 … it is a clear sign for me that [they] cannot be trusted.” “It’s a lesson for us,” Vucic added, as his country now faces heightened tensions in Kosovo, Serbia’s breakaway region that the majority of EU and NATO members recognize as an independent state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that he was disappointed by Merkel’s remarks that “nobody intended to fulfill any part of the Minsk agreements.”Earlier, Putin cited Kiev’s inability to stick to the Minsk agreements as one of the reasons Moscow recognized the independence of the two Donbass republics on February 21, three days before launching its military operation in Ukraine. The DPR and LPR, along with two other former Ukrainian territories, became parts of Russia after referendums in late September.

Read more …

Oil markets are global. The yuan is not a global currency. And China won’t make it one.

China Wants To Drop Dollar In Oil Trade – Reuters (RT)

Beijing will work to make energy purchases in yuan instead of US dollar signalling another step towards shifting further away from the greenback, China’s President Xi Jinping told Gulf Arab leaders as cited by Reuters. China’s leader highlighted the necessity of the move while speaking at a Chinese-Arab summit that was hosted by Saudi Arabia earlier this week. Xi had held separate talks with the heads of the Persian Gulf states at the summit that reportedly brought together 30 leaders from across the region. The world’s biggest crude importer, China in November ramped up purchases of oil by 12% year-on-year, marking the 10-month high despite the severe pandemic-related restrictions. Chinese state refiners stepped up purchases of US crude oil, while maintaining high imports of Russian oil prior to the December 5 European embargo and imposition of an oil price cap.


China’s independent refiners also moved a record amount of deeply discounted Iranian crude passed off as oil sourced from Malaysia, which is commonly used as a transfer point for oil originating from the sanction-hit Venezuela and Iran. Saudi Arabia was China’s number one oil supplier in the first ten months of 2022, making up 18% of China’s total crude oil purchases, with imports totaling 73.54 million tons, or 1.77 million barrels per day, Chinese customs data showed. Keen interest in the yuan and other currencies from major oil importers have arisen in the wake of unprecedented sanctions introduced by Washington and the allies against Russia, one of the world’s biggest oil producers and exporters over Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

Read more …

“43% of EU inflation is related to energy prices, while only 17% of US inflation is due to energy prices..”

Western Price Cap Disrupting Global Oil Markets – Economist (RT)

The latest EU sanctions on Russian oil exports will fail to strip the country of its revenues, but are already causing global oil supply disruptions, a senior energy economist at CER-Centro Europa Ricerche told Sputnik news agency on Wednesday. The EU embargo took effect on Monday and was accompanied by a $60 price cap on Russian crude, supported by G7 countries and Australia. Any transactions over this limit are now barred from receiving brokerage, shipping, or insurance services. Demostenes Floros said that although the price cap has not sparked an immediate surge in oil prices, severe consequences lie ahead. The economist predicts rising demand in China, which will inevitably affect the cost of crude. He added that higher energy prices will deal a blow to the EU at a time of spiraling inflation and an unfolding recession.

Floros explained that “43% of EU inflation is related to energy prices, while only 17% of US inflation is due to energy prices and this is a very big difference between the European Union and the United States,” adding that the price cap will deepen the split within the bloc. The sanctions may also result in serious problems with contracting necessary volumes of diesel in the EU once the ban on Russian refined oil products comes into force on February 5, he warned. “I think that prices will increase, especially if other OPEC+ producers will not compensate Russian output,” the economist said, cautioning that the “politicization” of energy supplies could further destabilize a market which has not yet recovered from the Covid crisis.

EU oil sanctions on Russia are already causing setbacks. Dozens of tankers carrying 23 million barrels of crude are currently stuck in the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, unable to pass, as Turkish authorities demand proper insurance guarantees. Most of the Black Sea crude stuck in the straits was from Kazakhstan, which is not targeted by sanctions, according to EU officials. At the same time, Russian insurance companies have already provided letters of confirmation to Turkish authorities in order to secure passage.

Read more …

“If it goes on like this, next year in March and April we will face mass insolvencies and bankruptcies..”

Sanctions On Russia Are Backfiring – Former Austrian Vice-Chancellor (RT)

Western sanctions imposed on Moscow have failed to make a dent in Russia’s economy and ultimately only hurt Europeans, former Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said on Saturday. He also accused European policymakers of turning a blind eye to the deadly fighting in Donbass, which he said served as a prelude to the current conflict for many years. Speaking at a pro-neutrality rally in Vienna, which was also a protest against sanctions on Russia, Strache claimed that Austria’s decision to join the restrictions had turned out to be a self-inflicted wound. “Austria has shown Europe how the sanctions are damaging itself,” he said, telling his audience that the measures have caused soaring electricity and gas prices, with more and more people feeling the impact.

“If it goes on like this, next year in March and April we will face mass insolvencies and bankruptcies,” he warned, calling the possibility “damn dangerous.” If the crisis is exacerbated and more people get desperate, “this could bring a dangerous development in the form of social tensions that we all do not want,” the former vice-chancellor added. At the same time, Strache continued, the restrictions have failed to undermine the Russian economy. According to him, “this year, the Russians have doubled [their] business,” raking in $220 billion in revenue. Strache also stated that Europe had found itself in the current situation because it had been “looking the other way” for many years when it comes to hostilities in Donbass, which started in 2014 after violent riots in Kiev overthrew the democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovich.

After Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February, Western nations imposed new severe sanctions on Moscow, freezing half its gold and foreign currency reserves and targeting its energy exports. The restrictions, however, caused energy prices and living costs to surge, prompting numerous protest rallies across Europe. Earlier this month, hundreds of Italian activists gathered in the center of Milan to protest sending weapons to Ukraine and expanding the sanctions. In late November, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova insisted that EU policymakers have only themselves to blame for their ongoing energy crunch.

Read more …

”The agent claimed that disclosure of the records would harm an FBI investigation into the allegations that Russians had hacked into U.S. systems.”

FBI Reveals It Has More Information on Deceased DNC Staffer Seth Rich (ET)

The FBI not only has possession of a laptop computer owned by slain Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich, but a report detailing forensic imaging of what’s being described as Rich’s work computer, the bureau revealed in a new filing. The FBI’s records office located the report while searching for the work computer, Michael Seidel, chief of the office, said in a sworn declaration filed with a federal court in Texas on Dec. 9. He described the document as “a three (3) page forensic report detailing the actions performed by an outside entity to image the work laptop.” The report was among four documents that had never been disclosed by the FBI in relation to Rich’s case.

Journalist Sy Hersh said in or around 2017 that he was told by a source about an FBI report on Seth Rich. He said, according to the source, that Seth Rich’s computer showed the DNC staffer had relayed DNC documents to WikiLeaks, a pro-transparency group. Hersh talked about the source’s claims during a phone call with Ed Butowsky, an investor who later retracted claims about Rich being a WikiLeaks source, and discussed the call during a deposition. Rich was gunned down in the early morning hours on July 16, 2016, near his home in Washington. The killing of Rich, the DNC’s voter expansion data director, remains unsolved. Authorities have claimed that the killing was a robbery gone wrong. Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, has suggested that Rich passed DNC files to the group, which released the DNC files in 2016. U.S. authorities have alleged that Russians hacked into the DNC systems, but those allegations were made before the FBI received images from the DNC’s server to determine their validity.

The Metropolitan Police Department has said it is the lead investigating agency into the death. It has declined to say whether the FBI was helping with the probe into Rich’s death. The new records were found after the records office contacted an unnamed FBI special agent during its search for Rich’s work computer, according to FBI Records Chief Seidel. The other records are a letter from a third-party that accompanied the work computer and two FBI chain of custody forms. None of the records were indexed to Rich inside of the bureau’s central records system and neither the forensic report nor the custody forms mention Rich’s name, according to the FBI. They were also not included in an electronic file created for Rich’s case. The agent claimed that disclosure of the records would harm an FBI investigation into the allegations that Russians had hacked into U.S. systems.

The FBI now wants the court to agree to keep the new records shielded from Brian Huddleston, a Texas resident who filed a lawsuit against the bureau over its ignoring a Freedom of Information request for records on Rich. Bureau officials initially claimed in sworn statements that the FBI had searched for records on Rich but did not locate any. In 2020, for the first time, the FBI admitted it had files from a computer belonging to Rich. Some of those files were then released to Huddleston and made public, including documents that appear to suggest that someone could have paid for his death. The FBI has said it has images from a second computer owned by Rich, which the bureau described as Rich’s personal laptop. A federal judge in September ordered the bureau to hand the images over to Huddleston, finding that the bureau improperly withheld them.

Read more …

No way.

Are We Finally Reaching Peak Climate Hysteria? (Spiked)

The madness of the greens is peaking. This week a leading eco-politician in the UK, Caroline Lucas of the Green Party, referred to the building of a new coalmine as a ‘crime against humanity’. Take that in. Once upon a time it was mass murder, extermination, enslavement and the forced deportation of a people that were considered crimes against humanity. Now the building of a mine in Cumbria in north-west England that will create 500 new jobs and produce 2.8million tonnes of coal a year is referred to in such terms. Perhaps the coalmine bosses should be packed off to The Hague. Maybe the men who’ll dig the coal should be forced alongside the likes of ISIS to account for their genocidal behaviour.

We cannot let Ms Lucas’s crazed comments just slide by. We need to reflect on how we arrived at a situation where a mainstream politician, one feted by the media establishment, can liken digging for coal to crimes of extermination. It was in the Guardian – where else? – that Ms Lucas made her feverish claims. On Wednesday, when the government gave the go-ahead to the Cumbria mine, the first new coalmine in Britain for 30 years, Lucas wrote that the whole thing is ‘truly terrible’. This ‘climate-busting, backward-looking coalmine’ is nothing short of a ‘climate crime against humanity’, she said.

It isn’t though, is it? Sorry to be pedantic but it is not a crime to extract coal from the earth. If it were, the leaders of China – where they produce 13million tonnes of coal a day , rather putting into perspective the Cumbria mine’s 2.8million tonnes a year – would be languishing in the clink. I look forward to Ms Lucas performing a citizen’s arrest on Xi Jinping. It certainly is not a crime against humanity. That term entered popular usage during the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis. It refers to an act of evil of such enormity that it can be seen as an assault on all of humankind. Earth to Ms Lucas: extracting coal to make steel – what the Cumbria coal will mostly be used for – is not an affront to humankind. I’ll tell you what is an affront, though: speaking about the burning of coal in the same language that is used to refer to the burning of human beings. That, Caroline, is despicable.

Read more …

I still don’t know where the focus on nitrogen came from. Wasn’t it always CO2?

Dutch Gov’t Attempts To Forcibly Close 3,000 Farms For ‘Green’ Agenda (ZH)

Dutch farmers protesting for months over the government’s radical ‘green’ plan to slash nitrogen emissions by 50% – 95% could soon face forced buyouts of their land. “For agricultural entrepreneurs, there will be a stopping scheme that will be as attractive as possible,” Christianne van der Wal, nitrogen minister, recently said in the Dutch parliament. The Dutch government plans to purchase 3,000 “peak polluter” farms via a €24.3 billion ($25.6 billion) fund. Van der Wal said farmers would be offered 100% value for their land, but if voluntary efforts fail, farmers will face forced buyouts. The country is attempting to reduce nitrogen pollution and will make farm purchases if not enough landowners accept buyouts. She added: “There is no better offer coming.”

So, how did this happen? As we explained over the summer, farmers were livid with the Dutch government for following through with their green agenda to reduce nitrogen emissions on farms. Many of these folks took to the streets with their tractors and pitchforks and demanded the government reverse course on crushing the country’s agriculture industry. The Dutch government began implementing new rules on nitrogen activity on farmers and farm buildings as early as 2019. That halted the expansion of dairy, pig, and poultry operations for the last several years, which are significant sources of nitrogen pollution. One Dutch farmer spoke with ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ to discuss the pressure from the government and their move to close down thousands of farms.

“I don’t know what we can expect. For my own family, I hope that one of my sons can continue farming if he wants,” Dutch Farmer Geertjan Kloosterboer said. The Netherlands is trying to reduce emissions and follow through with a green agenda, but it could jeopardize the nation’s food supply and put the world’s supply at risk. Recent data shows the country, which is the size of Maryland, is the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural products by value behind the US. Their centrality in the global food supply is indisputable, and so-called green politicians want to destroy the industry in the name of climate change. It seems like the protests aren’t going away anytime soon.

Read more …

Brain health.

Viagra Lowers the Risk of Alzheimer’s By Almost 70% (GR)

New research published recently suggests that Pfizer’s erectile dysfunction drug Viagra can decrease the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by up to 69%. The research, which was published in Nature, found that the medication has a direct effect on brain health and significantly reduces the toxic proteins that can cause dementia. The study’s findings are so promising that the drug may someday be used to counter dementia. A new team of experts is preparing to conduct another study that builds on this data but tests the generic version of Viagra — sildenafil — in patients suffering from early Alzheimer’s.

The team of researchers arrived at Viagra’s viability as a treatment for dementia after analyzing 1,600 approved drugs hoping to find one that could be repurposed to fight the root causes of dementia. “Sildenafil, which has been shown to significantly improve cognition and memory in preclinical models, presented as the best drug candidate. Sildenafil may have neuroprotective effects and reduce levels of toxic tau proteins,” said Dr. Feixiong Cheng, the lead researcher on the study, which was conducted by the Cleveland Clinic. Despite the excitement surrounding the study’s promising results, some experts are advising people to not get their hopes up quite yet, as clinical trials are still necessary.

Another recent study uncovered another unlikely weapon in the fight against dementia: coffee. Research suggests that coffee consumption may significantly decrease your chances of developing the disease. The study sheds light on the mysterious disease, for which there is no cure as of now. While coffee does not mitigate or fight Alzheimer’s like some medications do, the study found that people with no memory loss who also drank larger than average amounts of coffee were at less of a risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, which is considered a pre-stage of Alzheimer’s disease.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Bout

 

 

 

 

Weaver

 

 

Blue-footed booby

 

 


Blue-footed booby (Sula nebouxii)

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 302022
 
 November 30, 2022  Posted by at 9:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  35 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Coffee maker 1943

 

Twitter Stops Enforcing COVID-19 Misinformation Policy (ZH)
‘Negative Efficacy’ Should Have Stopped COVID Vaccine Recommendations (ET)
12 Ways To Hold Big Pharma Accountable For Covid Evils (Fed.)
A Look from Inside – The Fauci Deposition
Elon Musk’s Twitter Is A Monster Of The Left’s Own Making (QTR)
Musk Says Exposé of Twitter’s ‘Free Speech Suppression’ Coming ‘Soon’ (ET)
Kremlin Outlines Conditions For Ukraine Talks (RT)
NATO Says ‘Door is Open’ for Ukraine Membership….But (Celente)
EU Fails To Agree On Russian Oil Price Cap As Full Ban Looms (ZH)
Rand Paul Calls Out Complete Lack Of Oversight On Ukraine Aid (SN)
The Four Fuckeries (Jim Kunstler)
Will The US Try To Pull Off A “Grenada” In Serbia? (Saker)
US Paralyzed By Islamic Republic Of Iran’s Strategic Swing (Escobar)
Apple Turns Off China Protest Communication Tool (SN)
SBF Doesn’t Know What Happened To His Twitter Stake (Axios)

 

 

 

 

Actual scientists are speaking out. Watch. “Most of them fall asleep crying.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1597663704044408832

 

 

 

 

Finland PM Marin Sanna visits New Zealand.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1597825029324296192

 

 

 

 

A good step, but only step no. 1. You will have to address the lives lost due to censorship of for instance doctors, on top of the whole Pfizer/Fauci/White House/EU terror. Twitter is complicit in this.

Twitter Stops Enforcing COVID-19 Misinformation Policy (ZH)

Twitter will no longer enforce its Covid-19 misinformation policy, under which users who deviated from prevailing establishment narratives frequently had their accounts locked or suspended. The longstanding policy did not apply to misinformation from government officials, who regularly lied about things such as transmission, masks, vaccine efficacy, side effects, or any of the other ‘science’ which turned out to be patently false. Twitter did not officially announce the change, rather, the company added a note to a page on its website outlining its Covid-19 policy. “Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy,” reads the note, which follows a line that still reads: “As the global community faces the COVID-19 pandemic together, Twitter is helping people find reliable information, connect with others, and follow what’s happening in real time.”

What’s more, Sky News reports that the company’s Covid-19 ‘misleading information’ policy was nuked, which showed that the company operated on a strike system in which those who had a label added to their tweets were given one strike, while those with deleted tweets were given two strikes. Users with two to three strikes would have a 12-hour lockout, while those with four strikes were permanently suspended. “The platform suspended more than 11,000 accounts and removed nearly 98,000 pieces of content for violating its COVID misinformation policy between January 2022 and September 2022, according to information published by Twitter. The site also reduced the visibility of tweets or accounts believed to be in violation of the policy by stopping tweets or retweets from those accounts appearing in certain parts of Twitter, displaying their replies in lower positions in conversations and excluding their tweets or account from recommendations on the site.” -Sky News

Of note, half of Twitter’s content moderation, human rights and communications teams were laid off when new owner Elon Musk took over. Hundreds more left after Musk issued an ultimatum to staff requiring them to sign up for “long hours at high intensity” or leave.


Twitter reports that since January of 2020, 11.72M accounts were “challenged,” 11,230 accounts were suspended, and 97,674 pieces of content were “removed.”

Read more …

Talk about sliding scales. Not even when we knew the mRNA was endangering and killing people, did we stop.

‘Negative Efficacy’ Should Have Stopped COVID Vaccine Recommendations (ET)

It is a well known fact that COVID vaccine effectiveness wanes quickly as time goes on; this is confirmed by countless studies. Although the official narrative for COVID-19 vaccines nowadays only emphasizes its efficacy on protection against ICU admission and death rates, it actually implies the indisputable fact that vaccines don’t protect, contrary to their design, against infection or even symptomatic infection, especially after the emergence of various Omicron variants. Even the protection two shots offers against hospitalization drops to about 40 percent after less than a year. It’s actually looking worse for protection against severe symptoms, as efficacy rates seem to drop into the negatives about five months into full vaccination.


When a vaccine’s efficacy drops into the negatives, it means that vaccination actually elevates the risks of hospitalization and severe diseases rather than reducing the risks. In simple terms, it does more harm than good when the efficacy is negative. During the time prior to the pandemic, any vaccine with an efficacy less than 50 percent would be regarded as a poor product. When a product shows negative efficacy, it should be banned. It seems that the pandemic isn’t only bad for our health, but also is tugging at our common sense.

Read more …

No room for all twelve here.

12 Ways To Hold Big Pharma Accountable For Covid Evils (Fed.)

What is the common denominator between the pharmaceutical companies, the public health bureaucracy, medical associations, the corporate media, and Big Tech companies when it comes to censorship and medical misinformation? Money, of course. According to Statista, the pharmaceutical and medical industry spent $5.6 billion on U.S. television advertising in 2021, second only behind the life and entertainment industry at $10.1 billion. For reference, total U.S. TV ad spending is expected to exceed $68 billion in 2022. According to eMarketer, pharmaceutical and health care companies combined spent an estimated $9.5 billion on digital media in 2020, with 56 percent going toward search advertising, dominated by Google and Facebook, which have aggressively censored medical information that deviated from the official public health narrative.

This accounted for about 7.1 percent of all U.S. digital ad spending. The pharma industry pays, in the form of user fees, for 75 percent of the FDA’s drug review budget, according to Forbes, and 45 percent of its overall budget. One investigation showed that 40 of 107 physician advisers on the FDA committees examined “received more than $10,000 in post hoc earnings or research support from the makers of drugs that the panels voted to approve, or from competing firms.” According to an analysis by the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has numerous conflicts of interest, including openly accepting private gifts through the CDC Foundation, accepting supposedly “prohibited” donations, and “automatic” conflict of interest waivers for advisory committee members.

In 2010, the CDC inspector general noted a “systemic lack of oversight” of its ethics program. The CDC uses taxpayer money to develop patents and then receives money from pharma companies in the form of licenses and royalties. The NIAID, headed by Fauci, also accepts donations, such as a $100 million pledge by Bill Gates for work on gene therapies. Individual public health officials and scientists, including Fauci and former NIH Director Francis Collins, receive royalties on patents used by the industry, teaching hospitals accept industry donations, and doctors accept “consulting fees,” and other travel and meals payments from pharma companies when they promote their products.

Read more …

Strange story: a 7-hour Fauci deposition, and absolute crickets from the media.

Jim Hoft and attorney John Burns were present at the deposition. Excellent read.

A Look from Inside – The Fauci Deposition

Here are some observations and highlights from the Fauci deposition: ** Fauci is a skillful liar. As we have seen now for months in his public comments, he lies when he feels he can get away with it or when he feels there will be no meaningful consequences. ** Fauci frequently lied unless and until he was confronted with alternate facts. For example, he claimed he really wasn’t familiar with Ralph Baric (creator of the COVID virus) or Peter Daszak (who brokered Fauci’s NIAID grant money to the Chinese biolab in Wuhan), until he was confronted with evidence that his own chief of staff emailed him describing Daszak and Baric as being part of Fauci’s team! ** Fauci claimed that he had no knowledge that his communications team did not coordinate with social media companies to stop “misinformation and disinformation” until he was forced to admit that he actually did know of certain instances of coordination.

** Fauci continued to push the now-debunked assertion that COVID-19 was a naturally occurring virus. ** Fauci said disinformation and misinformation (information he disagrees with) puts lives at risk. ** Fauci refused to define “gain of function” research saying it was too broad of a term to define. ** FUN FACT: until VERY recently, Fauci’s daughter worked for Twitter. ** FUN FACT: Fauci is a hypochondriac. In a bizarre and stunning segment during the deposition, Fauci blew off some of his frustration on the poor court reporter. The court reporter transcribing the deposition sneezed, and Fauci stopped the deposition and scolded the court reporter: “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU??? Do you have some sort of respiratory illness, because in the era of COVID, I’m concerned about being near you.” Court Reporter: “I’m not sick, I just have allergies. I can wear a mask though.” Fauci: “Ok. Thank you, because the last thing I want is to get COVID. [notably, (1) Fauci himself did not wear a mask at any point during the deposition, and (2) he appeared to be several feet away from the court reporter].

** FUN FACT: in another Fauci hypochondria spasm, Fauci conspicuously mean-mugged Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry after Landry sneezed into his suit coat jacket. ** Gamesmanship. Whenever introduced to a difficult topic, he dishonestly refused to define key terms so he could avoid being pinned down and held accountable. For example, when discussing the topic of “gain of function” research, he refused to acknowledge what the term meant, objecting that it was a term so broad it could not be defined. ** Fauci repeatedly claimed that he “couldn’t recall” or “couldn’t remember,” and attempted to bolster these incredible statements by appealing to the volume of emails he would receive or issues or studies that would come across his desk. This is simply not credible for nearly all of such statements, because the incidents in question were either recent or within the past three years, and they were all highly politically charged.

[..] ** Other Fauci deceit tactics: throwing subordinates under the bus. Fauci is a famous survivor among bureaucrats. One way he has survived this long is by only taking credit for wins and pawning off losses on hapless subordinates. This trend continued in his deposition, in which he brazenly argued that, while he is the head of the NIAID and its $6 billion dollar budget, he repeatedly didn’t have any knowledge about what his immediate direct reports were doing right under his nose. Fauci supports accountability, so long as he has a subordinate to sacrifice.

Read more …

“The social media platform had been the topic of political discussions about censorship, but no one had really done anything about it.”

Elon Musk’s Twitter Is A Monster Of The Left’s Own Making (QTR)

I don’t believe Musk about everything, as my long-time followers know, but I do believe him when he says the platform has become more popular since he took it over. Not only is it more entertaining than its ever been, it’s simply a nice feeling not to have to run my Tweets over in my head before publishing them, thinking: “What would some hyper left-wing hipster in a beret in an office in San Francisco working a 4 hour work week as a content moderator think of what I’m about to post?” But this article isn’t just for those who are enjoying Twitter’s re-birth. More importantly, it’s for those who are having emotional meltdowns over it. What these users, former users, advertisers and general fragile individuals need to understand is that Elon Musk buying Twitter never even happens without an environment that creates the impetus for it to take place.

Putting Musk’s actual motives aside (I have often wondered if he actually wanted to buy Twitter when it came down to brass tacks), he projected publicly that his interest in taking a stake in the company was because they were actively suppressing free speech. Soon, a public discussion about Twitter’s censorship – which had kicked off years prior when Tim Pool publicly skewered head Twitter censor Vijaya Gadde on Joe Rogan’s podcast – was on the table. The social media platform had been the topic of political discussions about censorship, but no one had really done anything about it. Nobody made drastic moves to affect change. And love him or hate him, that’s exactly what Elon Musk did. The impetus for Musk to throw his hat in the ring on the discussion wasn’t just run-of-the-mill moderation issues, either. It was, instead, an incessant and burning need to eliminate content that Twitter didn’t view as favorable to its political leanings.

No matter what side of the aisle you’re on politically, it’s tough to push back against the idea that conservatives were targeted for suspension disproportionately on the platform. Furthermore, legitimate news stories that otherwise would have been worthy of Pulitzer Prizes – like the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story – were actively blackballed from the platform and users who discussed them risked being suspended or banned. These are nearly the very same actions that Beijing takes on Chinese social media when a story or narrative gets out that isn’t stamped with the government’s approval. Now, it looks as though we’re going to find out exactly what was going on behind the scenes at Twitter when the decision to actively censor a major story that could have had an impact on the 2020 election was made. And I don’t care who is running the platform, that type of transparency is sorely needed.

Read more …

This goes back to the lives lost to mRNA. Let’s see you do it.

Musk Says Exposé of Twitter’s ‘Free Speech Suppression’ Coming ‘Soon’ (ET)

Elon Musk said Monday that Twitter’s internal files on the company’s “free speech suppression” will be revealed “soon,” raising expectations that light will be shed on the circumstances around Twitter’s censorship of the New York Post’s explosive story that exposed information on a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden. “The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened …” Musk said in a post late Monday. Critics have long held that Twitter has used vague standards to censor or suspend accounts and that the ones targeted are predominantly those expressing conservative views. Twitter has denied any bias in its actions, repeatedly insisting it is simply following its content moderation policies.

Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post published an article that allegedly detailed meetings President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, had with a Ukrainian energy firm before then-Vice President Biden pressured Ukrainian government officials to fire a prosecutor probing the company. The story was seen by Biden’s political opponents as evidence of corruption and the news quickly spread across Twitter, prompting the social media firm to start removing links to the article and, for a period of time, suspending the New York Post’s Twitter account. Conservatives saw Twitter’s actions in this regard as evidence of the company’s pro-Biden, anti-Trump bias. Twitter said at the time that it was simply enforcing its rules on hacked materials, which prohibit distribution of information that is obtained through hacking.

Musk in April spoke out in opposition to Twitter’s decision to temporarily suspend New York Post’s Twitter account. “Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” Musk said in April, responding to a post about the Hunter Biden laptop story. Musk, who took over Twitter in late October, has vowed to make the platform into a politically unbiased bastion of free speech. He said in an open letter following his acquisition of Twitter that he bought it because “it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.” “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society,” Musk added.

Read more …

“Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky emphasized that “there will be no Minsk-3 [agreement], which Russia would violate right after sealing it.”

Of course Zelensky knows full well Russia didn’t violate Minsk 1 and 2. Ukraine did. And US.

Kremlin Outlines Conditions For Ukraine Talks (RT)

Peace negotiations could start between Russia and Ukraine if Moscow sees genuine “political will” on the part of Kiev to engage in dialogue, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said. Earlier this month, he noted that the Ukrainian leadership seemed reluctant to sit down for talks at present. When asked by Russian journalists on Tuesday whether there are any preconditions for any potential dialogue to begin between Moscow and Kiev, Peskov said: “It has to be political will, readiness to discuss those Russian demands which have been known for long.” Speaking via video-link during the G20 summit in Indonesia’s Bali in mid-November, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky emphasized that “there will be no Minsk-3 [agreement], which Russia would violate right after sealing it.”

The Ukrainian head of state was referring to the Minsk-1 and Minsk-2 agreements brokered by Germany and France back in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The accords, among other things, envisaged special status for Donetsk and Lugansk regions within the Ukrainian state. Russian President Vladimir Putin cited Kiev’s failure to implement the agreements as one of the reasons for the start of Moscow’s military campaign against its neighbor in late February 2022. Commenting on Zelensky’s remarks at the G20 summit, Peskov argued at the time that they “absolutely confirm” Kiev’s unwillingness to engage in talks. Addressing leaders in Bali, the Ukrainian head of state proposed ten steps that, in his view, would lead to peace. Among the key points of his plan is the complete withdrawal of Russian forces from all Ukrainian territories and respect for the country’s borders drawn up in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, Moscow claims some of those regions, most notably Crimea, as its own, following referendums it had held there. It came shortly after The Washington Post reported in early November that the Biden administration had privately asked Zelensky to signal willingness to hold talks with Russia, if only just for show. Washington was reportedly concerned that Kiev’s irreconcilable position could see support from some of its Western allies dwindle amid what anonymous White House officials described as a growing “Ukraine fatigue.” The article claimed that Washington was not serious about getting Kiev to negotiate, and only sought to ensure that weapons and other aid kept flowing from as many nations as possible.

Read more …

Escalation tactics. Anytime it’s clear Russia is winning, they bring in heavier weaponry. Forcing Russia to follow suit. Same with dangling NATO membership in front of Zelensky. The war must go on.

NATO Says ‘Door is Open’ for Ukraine Membership….But (Celente)

Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, dangled the possibility that Ukraine may someday, in the future, join the Alliance and benefit from the protection of Article 5 that, when distilled, says: an attack on one, is an attack on all. He made the comment during a two-day summit in Bucharest where Ukraine’s electric grid and Russia’s relentless air campaign took center stage. The Russian strikes have left millions in the dark as temperatures hit 19 degrees in Kyiv. “NATO’s door is open,” he said, according to The New York Times. But he noted that the calvary is not coming during this conflict. “NATO will continue to stand for Ukraine as long as it takes. We will not back down.” In September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, announced that Kyiv filed a new, expedited application to join NATO in light of Russian President Vladimir Putin annexing four occupied regions in the country.

Zelensky, correctly said in a statement that Finland and Sweden benefited from an accelerated accession into the Alliance. (But neither of those countries are members.) “De facto, we have already proven interoperability with the Alliance’s standards, they are real for Ukraine — real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction,” Zelensky said. “Today, Ukraine is applying to make it de jure. Under a procedure consistent with our significance for the protection of our entire community. Under an accelerated procedure,” the statement continued. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, killed the idea and said, the issue should be taken up “at a different time.”

NATO’s refusal to accept Ukraine into the fold is understandable because it would assure the beginning of WWIII. But it has still been a sensitive subject in Kyiv. Last summer, Ihor Zhovkva, the deputy chief of staff for Zelensky, said in an interview that Kyiv was told by NATO that it is “not a member because we do not want you.” “NATO is telling us we are not giving you anything,” he said in an interview with a local news outlet in Kyiv, according to Bloomberg. Some could argue that Ukraine was the victim misleading public statements from the U.S. and NATO prior to the invasion. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Stoltenberg said Moscow would be met with a“forceful” response if there was an invasion. Blinken went further and said the U.S. has a “sacred obligation” to defend its allies.

Under Article 10 of the 1949 Washington Treaty, NATO has the right to invite any willing European country into the fold. But Stoltenberg made it clear, before the invasion, that there is a distinction between a NATO partner and ally. Kyiv is a partner. NATO is compelled to only defend allies. NATO countries never embraced Ukraine as an ally because it meant certain war with Russia.

Read more …

“(see, it was all theater, everything – from day one – and politicians knew it as soon as they did the math)”

EU Fails To Agree On Russian Oil Price Cap As Full Ban Looms (ZH)

In its relentless pursuit of virtue-signaling hills that it is willing to die on within minutes, several months ago the EU had a brilliant idea: let’s implement a toothless oil price cap on Russian oil exports, one which actually has zero impact on deeply discounted Russian oil and thus doesn’t lead to any more European energy shocks, but because of the optics and the much “lower” permitted transaction price, it will make for great headlines and show the world just how powerful the EU is. Well, the plan almost worked… until Poland and the Baltics forgot to read the fine print, thought that Europe actually does mean business, and blew up the deal. Recall on Friday, negotiations on the Russian oil price cap were suspended – despite a willingness by most European nations to just cross the checkmark and move on – as Poland and the Baltic states objected to a proposed ceiling of $65.

There was some hope that this opposition was just for show, and that come Monday the Poles would relent after some “closed door” negotiations, Europe would slap a $65 price cap, Russia would continue to sell its oil to China and India, and – quietly – to Europe, and gradually renormalize a fractured oil market where India and China pay a 25% discount for oil while the rest of the world has to pay a premium as an offset. However, it was not meant to be, and on Monday European Union governments again failed to agree on a price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil, as Poland again insisted that the cap had to be set lower than proposed by the G7 to cut Moscow’s ability to finance its invasion of Ukraine, diplomats told Reuters. “There is no deal. The legal texts have now been agreed, but Poland still can’t agree to the price,” one diplomat said.

No new date for talks has been set yet, diplomats said, even though a far worse outcome may await Europe in just one week: as a reminder, the price cap mechanism is to enter into force on Dec. 5. And if there is no agreement on the G7 price cap idea by next Monday, the EU would implement harsher measures agreed at the end of May – a ban on all Russian crude oil imports from Dec. 5 and on petroleum products from Feb. 5, Polish diplomats said. That would be a truly catastrophic scenario, and one which could promptly send the price of oil into the stratosphere as JPMorgan explained not too long ago. To be sure, it’s not too late for Poland to fall in line: Hungary and two other landlocked central European states secured exemptions from that ban for the pipeline imports they rely on.

Meanwhile, even the G-7 group of nations has proposed a softer version of the EU ban to keep oil supply to the global economy steady, because Russia supplies 10% of the world’s oil (see, it was all theater, everything – from day one – and politicians knew it as soon as they did the math). It proposed that the EU and other global customers keep buying Russian crude, but only if its price is at or below a G7 agreed level. That would cut the Kremlin’s revenues. The G7 has proposed a cap of $65-70 per barrel, but Poland and some others argue this will not hurt Moscow because Russian crude is already trading below that range at $63.50, and after today’s oil price rollercoaster, the “Russian” price briefly dipped below $60. With Russian production costs estimated at around $20, Moscow has a very large profit from its oil exports. Poland, Lithuania and Estonia have been pushing for a price cap of $30 per barrel.

And yet, despite consensus that Polish opposition would be overturned, the country’s resolve has only hardened: “The Poles are completely uncompromising on the price, without suggesting an acceptable alternative,” the EU diplomat said. “Clearly there is growing annoyance with the Polish position.” Which is hilarious because only Poland is adhering to the principle of what the price cap was supposed to achieve – namely choke off Russian oil profits; and yet for all the pompous rhetoric by G-7 nations, everyone is happy to keep the spectacle going knowing full well that this is just one giant virtue-signaling scheme. Everyone, except Poland that is… and as a result the “annoyance” is not with Putin but with the “Polish position” which is keeping fat European technocrats away from their well-deserved 3-star meals for a fake job well done.

Read more …

“..the Biden administration inspected only 10% of 22,000 weapons the U.S. has provided to Ukraine..”

Rand Paul Calls Out Complete Lack Of Oversight On Ukraine Aid (SN)

Senator Rand Paul reacted Monday to news that the Biden administration is struggling to account for some $20 billion in aid that was sent to Ukraine, noting that both political parties ignored his call for an inspector general to overlook it. A report from Fox News, linked in a tweet by Paul, notes that according to the Washington Post, the Biden administration inspected only 10% of 22,000 weapons the U.S. has provided to Ukraine between February and November. It also outlines how Republicans could push for audits to determine where all the military aid is going and how much of it is ending up in the wrong hand.


“Didn’t someone try to legislatively mandate a special inspector general to scrutinize Ukrainian spending?” Paul urged, adding “Oh, that’s right, it was my amendment and most Democrats AND Republicans opposed any semblance of oversight.” Just a fortnight ago, following the throughly debunked “Russian missile attack” on a Polish border town, which turned out to be a Ukrainian missile that had stayed off course, Biden asked Congress to provide another $37.7 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine. The United States has already pledged more than 52 billion euros in military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the war began in February 2022 and October 3, way more than any other nation or nations combined.

Read more …

“..and also stranded the media in an endless loop of ass-covering they are still locked into..”

The Four Fuckeries (Jim Kunstler)

“We want to save the planet, and the life upon it, but we’re not willing to pay the price and bear the consequences. So we make up a narrative that feels good and run with it.” — Raul Ilargi Meijer.” I doubt there is another era in the history of Western Civ when the forces in-motion acting on society were so mystifying to those acted upon. And isn’t it especially galling that this is so in an age after rational scientific practice had decoded so many of nature’s secrets? Did that project somehow fail in the end? Has the Enlightenment been defeated? How have we become trapped like frogs being boiled haplessly in our own pond-water? I have reduced these forces to four obvious streams of the sheerest seemingly evil fuckery, which is to say nefariously managed events meant to harm us. They are surely all related in some way. Let’s try to de-mystify them to understand what we’re up against.

First: Covid-19. How is it that we don’t know for sure how this organism came into the world, or understand what ensued after it did? Answer: the people who caused it to happen in the Wuhan lab have been busy covering their asses for three years, and successfully so. Yet we know exactly what Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins, Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric and others did. The paper trail in correspondence and patents alone is clear. We just can’t seem to do anything about it. We don’t know why they did it yet, too, but there are plausible guesses. Maybe Dr. Fauci wanted to cap his long, checkered career with a final heroic triumph: the introduction of world-saving mRNA vaccines — incidentally, a great financial boon to himself and the pharma industry he secretly served. Like everything else Fauci worked on for forty years, this experiment ended in disaster: a Frankenstein disease that persists in the population and vaccines that maim and kill people. How did Fauci and company get away with it? Here’s how:

Two: Government’s war on its own citizens. I’d date this for the sake of simplicity to the DOJ’s and FBI’s campaign to defenestrate Donald Trump starting in 2016 for the crime of winning an election. What began as the Russia collusion prank morphed into RussiaGate, another ass-covering extravaganza in which public officialdom gave itself blanket permission to lie about everything it was doing. The likes of James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Barack Obama’s girl squad in the White House — to name just a few of many participants — also managed to hook in the mainstream news media under the supposition that they were the good guys fighting a disgusting, pussy-grabbing supervillain, which disposed the news media to go along with all the FBI and DOJ lies, and also stranded the media in an endless loop of ass-covering they are still locked into.

Read more …

“..it was simply impossible to fail no matter how inept and incompetent the entire invasion was..”

Will The US Try To Pull Off A “Grenada” In Serbia? (Saker)

Remember the 1983 US invasion of Grenada aka “Operation Urgent Fury”? It all began on October 23, 1983 when two truck bombs blew up the buildings housing the US and French “Multinational Force in Lebanon”. This attack resulted in 307 people killed including 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel. Following the bombings, US diplomats engaged in their usual frantic flag-waving and promises to never ever give in to terrorism. The biggest problem for the US was that it had no way to retaliate in a way which would satisfy the flag-waver’s desire for blood. Just blowing up random buildings in Lebanon made very little impact, as for the promises to stay for as long as needed, it was obvious PR – it was clear to everybody that the time to pack and leave had come.

Of course, this was very humiliating for the wannabe “indispensable nation” cum “city upon a Hill”,,, So Reagan, with his undeniable genius for PR and optics, ordered the invasion of Grenada just two days after the bombings in Beirut. Why Grenada? Well, for one thing it was barely defended (mostly by Cuban engineers and locals with small arms) and truly tiny (so tiny, in fact, that the overwhelming majority of US Americans had no idea where it was or why there was suddenly an urgent need to invade. Second, it was very close to the USA, so everybody could get a slice of the cake, including the 1st and 2nd battalions of the US Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, the 82nd Airborne and the Army’s rapid deployment force, U.S. Marines, Army Delta Force, Navy SEALs, and ancillary forces totaling 7,600 troops.

In terms of hardware, the US brought in 7,300 troops, 4 tanks, 1 LHA (USS Saipan LHA-2), 1 aircraft carrier, 3 destroyers, 2 frigates, 1 ammunition ship and even 27 F-14A Tomcats. All that against a few hundred construction workers armed only with small arms! I won’t go into all the details here, but let’s just say that this invasion was one of the worst and most poorly executed operation in the history of warfare: a truly HUGE US force was brought in to strike at a basically defenseless tiny island nation with the sole purpose of changing the optics of the disaster in Lebanon.

But, no to worry, the Pentagon handed our more medals than the number of participants, while some US special forces who wanted to press charges against helicopter pilots for cowardice (who abandoned the SOF on a runway because of small arms fire) were “counseled” against the idea. Bottom line is this: after the epic disaster in Beirut, the US wanted a quick and easy war to restore the “prestige” of the US armed forces, only to end up with yet another epic disaster, but at least in the case of Grenada, it was simply impossible to fail no matter how inept and incompetent the entire invasion was.

Read more …

Iran=BRI, SCO, INSTC, BRICS+.

US Paralyzed By Islamic Republic Of Iran’s Strategic Swing (Escobar)

Iran’s parliament has just approved the accession of the Islamic Republic to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), previously enshrined at the Samarkand summit last September, marking the culmination of a process that lasted no less than 15 years. Iran has already applied to become a member of the expanding BRICS+, which before 2025 will be inevitably configured as the alternative Global South G20 that really matters. Iran is already part of the Quad that really matters – alongside BRICS members Russia, China and India. Iran is deepening its strategic partnership with both China and Russia and increasing bilateral cooperation with India.

Iran is a key Chinese partner in the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It is set to clinch a free trade agreement with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and is a key node of the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), alongside Russia and India. All of the above configures the lightning-fast emergence of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a West Asia and Eurasia big power, with vast reach across the Global South. That has left the whole set of imperial “policies” towards Tehran lying in the dust. So it’s no wonder that previously accumulated strands of Iranophobia – fed by the Empire over four decades — have recently metastasized into yet another color revolution offensive, fully supported and disseminated by Anglo-American media.

The playbook is always the same. Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei actually came up with a concise definition. The problem is not bands of oblivious rioters and/or mercenaries: “the main confrontation”, he said, is with “global hegemony.” Ayatollah Khamenei was somewhat echoed by American intellectual and author Noam Chomsky, who has remarked how an array of US sanctions over four decades have severely harmed the Iranian economy and “caused enormous suffering.”

Read more …

Apple is not looking good lately.

Apple Turns Off China Protest Communication Tool (SN)

As it mulls kicking Elon Musk’s Twitter off the app store, it has now been revealed that Apple restricted the use of AirDrop in China, a move that harmed the organizational efforts of demonstrators protesting against the CCP’s lockdowns. Over the past week, multiple major cities across China have seen massive protests against lockdowns, with the normally compliant Chinese exploding into rage in response to their government’s ‘zero COVID’ policy. Much of the unrest blew up in response to an incident in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, where at least 10 people, some say up to 40, were killed during an apartment fire because lockdown rules stopped residents from fleeing the burning building.

Most of the city’s residents have been prevented from leaving their homes for over 100 days as a result of the draconian rules, which are still in place nearly three years after the pandemic began. With Beijing now trying to contain what some are calling the most serious mass uprising since Tiananmen Square, Apple is apparently helping them to crush dissent. Earlier this month, Apple restricted the use of AirDrop in China, which protesters had been using to evade censorship. AirDrop allows local connections between devices, meaning it cannot be monitored or censored by local authorities. However, Apple launched an update to the app in China that restricted usage to just 10 minutes, making it harder for protesters to communicate with other activists, as well as send messages nearby bystanders and tourists.

AirDrop was also being used by protesters in Hong Kong, who were brutally suppressed by the CCP during months of unrest in 2019. The smartphone company chose to roll out the new “feature” in China only right as the country experienced its biggest demonstrations in decades, which some would suggest is more than just a coincidence. “Apple has helped Beijing to suppress public dissent multiple times, mostly by complying with its requests to remove apps used by protestors for information and communication,” reports Reclaim the Net. “Apple also helps the Chinese Communist Party prevent users from remaining private by banning VPNs in the region.”

Read more …

“..Bankman-Fried, as of Nov. 10, either believed that Alameda owned a stake in Musk’s Twitter, or that he was uncertain, and therefore misleading potential investors.”

SBF Doesn’t Know What Happened To His Twitter Stake (Axios)

Sam Bankman-Fried tells Axios that he always intended to roll over at least a portion of his former firm’s $100 million Twitter stake into the new, privately held entity led by Elon Musk. But the former FTX CEO said in an interview on Monday night that he’s not sure that ever happened with the Alameda Research controlled stake. It’s the first time Bankman-Fried has addressed the question around his Twitter stake since Musk said last week that neither SBF nor FTX ever held a position in the privatized Twitter, a statement that contradicted a Semafor news report. Alameda Research, the entity that Bankman-Fried said owned the Twitter stake, is the trading firm that he controlled and is the entity at the center of FTX’s implosion.

A text message seen by Axios that Bankman-Fried sent to Musk said the Twitter stake Alameda owned was worth around $100 million. “I believe that that it was intended for Alameda to rollover at least $20 million or more,” Bankman-Fried told Axios. “I don’t know for sure whether that ultimately happened.” Bankman-Fried noted that at least some of the Twitter stake may have been sold prior to Twitter going private, but he could not confirm. Bankman-Fried, through his advisers, had offered to help Musk buy out Twitter in the spring with potentially billions of dollars. But he later backed out of his offer after the two spoke by phone, Axios previously reported.

Bankman-Fried said at the time that he was interested in rolling the stake into the privatized company, with Musk acknowledging that Bankman-Fried was “welcome to roll.” The Twitter stake was listed on a Nov. 10 balance sheet shown to prospective FTX investors before the company went bankrupt, according to the Financial Times. The balance sheet, upon which Semafor also relied for its reporting, listed $43.3 million of Twitter stock as an illiquid deliverable — or sellable — asset. That suggests that Bankman-Fried, as of Nov. 10, either believed that Alameda owned a stake in Musk’s Twitter, or that he was uncertain, and therefore misleading potential investors.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big house cats. Sound on.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1597818714631852033

 

 

Backwards dog

 

 

Blob top jellyfish
https://twitter.com/i/status/1597658696481312768

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 172022
 
 October 17, 2022  Posted by at 8:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  69 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1919

 

Gazprom Outlines Consequences For Price Cap On Russian Gas (RT)
Ukraine Finance Minister To Chair IMF, World Bank Governing Boards In 2023 (R.)
Russia Responds To UN Official’s Rape Claims (RT)
EU Blackmails Serbia – Interior Minister (RT)
Kremlin Speaks On NATO’s ‘De-facto’ Role In Ukraine (RT)
China Orders Evacuation Of All Citizens Still In Ukraine (ZH)
Energy Crisis Will Breed Extremism – Bavarian President (RT)
From Decolonisation to Desperation to Hopelessness to Farce (Batiushka)
Echoes Of A Brush With ‘Armageddon’ (Tony Cox)
The Gaslighting of the Masses (CJ Hopkins)
The Non-West Coalesces (Patrick Lawrence)
EU to Demand Holidaymakers’ Fingerprints and Facial Images at Borders (DS)
Why Ron DeSantis Doesn’t Stand a Chance Against Donald Trump (CTH)
Alarming Rise In Cancer Among Young People Across Globe (CNN)
One Serious Adverse Event Per Eight-Hundred Vaccinations (Arora)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halloween

 

 

 

 

Fauci

 

 


Iran hasn’t invaded a country in 300 years, yet we, the United States, being 246 years old, have been at war for 236 years.

 

 

Tedros
https://twitter.com/i/status/1581732938957443098

 

 

The universe contains more planets than seconds that have passed since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

 

 

 

 

The consequences have been known for months: NO GAS. And also:

“..Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksander Novak said the US should set a price cap on its own liquified natural gas (LNG) going to Europe..”

I think if serious peace talks don’t start within a month, it’s too late to stop the cold, the hunger, and the resulting riots.

Gazprom Outlines Consequences For Price Cap On Russian Gas (RT)

Plans to set a price cap on Russian gas sales, which are currently being considered by Western leaders, would cause supplies to be halted, according to Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller. “We rely on the contracts that have been signed. A unilateral decision of the kind is, of course, a violation of essential terms of the agreements which would lead to a termination of supplies,” Miller said on Sunday in an interview with Russia 1 TV. Numerous sanctions have been introduced by the US, EU, and allies on Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine. EU customers have so far reduced their purchases of Russian energy, and the G7 and EU are currently trying to introduce a price cap on Russia’s oil and gas.

Miller’s comments echoed a similar warning from President Vladimir Putin, who said last month that Moscow would cut off energy supplies if price caps are imposed. Earlier this month, EU leaders reached an agreement to impose yet another package of sanctions on Russia, including banning maritime transportation for Russian oil to third-party countries unless the oil is sold below or at a certain price. The measures would take effect after December 5, 2022 for crude and February 5, 2023 for refined petroleum products.

Earlier this week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that a price cap on Russian oil exports of around $60-per-barrel would likely reduce Moscow’s energy revenues while allowing profitable production, thus keeping Russian crude on the global market. Yellen stressed that the measure is still being discussed by the US and its Western allies. On Friday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksander Novak said the US should set a price cap on its own liquified natural gas (LNG) going to Europe, as American fuel is being delivered to Europe at prices four times higher than the price for domestic consumption.

Read more …

We’ve given them so much money, might as well hand over the keys to the safe too…

Ukraine Finance Minister To Chair IMF, World Bank Governing Boards In 2023 (R.)

The shareholders of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on Friday selected Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko as the next rotating chair of the boards of governors of both institutions in 2023. The decision, which was announced during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, means that Marchenko will also chair next year’s annual meeting of the institutions, which is scheduled to be held in Morocco. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war’s massive impact on the global economy have dominated this year’s meetings, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urging international donors to provide $55 billion in additional funding next year to keep his country’s economy running and fund some initial reconstruction.

World Bank President David Malpass told shareholders of both institutions on Friday that the World Bank Group had mobilized $13 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine since the war began, including grants, guarantees, and linked parallel financing from the United States, Britain, Europe and Japan. “I remain horrified by Russia’s actions and call for Russian forces to leave Ukraine,” Malpass said in his most explicit remarks on the war to date. Marchenko said his selection was unanimously approved by all governing member countries of the two global lenders, and marked the first time that Ukraine would lead the institutions since it joined 30 years ago.

The move was unanimously approved since there was no objection during the business portion of the plenary, a source close to the discussions said. Russia is a member of the institutions and could have objected, but did not. “It is a great honor to represent Ukraine” in the international financial arena, Marchenko said in a statement released by his ministry, adding that Ukraine would be able to increase its cooperation with international financial organizations and the member countries of the World Bank and IMF.

Read more …

From the Putin (and Genghis Khan, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Saddam) Eats Babies book:

Russia Responds To UN Official’s Rape Claims (RT)

Claims made by the UN special representative on sexual violence, Pramila Patten, go “beyond the reach of reason,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Sunday. Earlier this week, Patten accused Russia of employing a “deliberate” rape “strategy”as part of its military campaign in Ukraine. “One cannot even comment on P. Patten’s … words in a serious way,”Zakharova said, adding that the UN official’s conclusions were based on data that is difficult to verify, according to Patten herself. “Once again, what we are seeing is a classic ‘highly likely’ [story], which has this time reached the level of twisted imagination,” Zakharova said.

According to her, the UN official made her conclusions based on fragmentary data provided by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine – a group created in spring 2022 on the basis of a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council. Russia has not recognized its mandate, Zakharova added. Patten’s claims resemble those made by the former Ukrainian human rights commissioner, Lyudmila Denisova, Zakharova said. Denisova was fired from her position in late May after a no-confidence vote over her failure to perform duties such as organizing humanitarian corridors and prisoner exchanges amid the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Later, Ukrainian media reported that most of Denisova’s allegations regarding “sexual atrocities”committed by Russian soldiers in the country had not been confirmed by Ukrainian prosecutors.

The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman’s reaction was sparked by an interview Patten gave to AFP this week, in which she claimed that sexual violence is a “deliberate tactic” and “military strategy”of Russia, aimed at dehumanizing its “victims.” She also claimed that Russian soldiers are “equipped with Viagra.” Zakharova pointed out that similar claims have been made by Western officials in the past. In 2011, the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, reportedly accused then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi of supplying his troops with Viagra to supposedly encourage mass rape during a conflict that broke out following a NATO-backed coup attempt which ended with the brutal murder of Gaddafi. US military and intelligence officials subsequently told NBC that there was no evidence that the Libyan military was being supplied with Viagra or engaging in systematic rape in “rebel areas.” “The West is using the same patterns in its hybrid war,” Zakharova said on Sunday, commenting on Patten’s statements.

Read more …

“Judging by the insane blackmail they are exposing us to…they don’t want us. The sooner we accept that they don’t want us and that we don’t belong there, the better off we will be.”

EU Blackmails Serbia – Interior Minister (RT)

The EU’s offers to Serbia are unacceptable, and Serbs should “accept that they don’t want us,” Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin told the Novosti news site on Saturday. He added that Belgrade should instead turn its attention to “free countries that accept us without blackmail,” such as Russia and China. “The question is not whether we want to join the EU, but whether the EU wants Serbia,” Vulin told Novosti. “Judging by the insane blackmail they are exposing us to…they don’t want us. The sooner we accept that they don’t want us and that we don’t belong there, the better off we will be.” A traditional ally of Russia, Serbia has come under intense pressure from the West to back the sanctions regime against Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine.

The European Parliament has considered freezing accession talks with Belgrade over the latter’s refusal to back its eight rounds of economic penalties, US state media reported last month, while Germany and France have offered to “accelerate” Serbia’s path to EU membership if it recognizes the independence of the province of Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated last week. For Vulin and Vucic, the answer to these offers is a clear “no.” “How much would our friends respect us if they saw us neglecting our interests in the face of enemy force?” Vulin asked. “Who would fight for us if we chose not to fight for ourselves? “Relations with Russia, China and other free countries that accept us without blackmail and conditions are the future of Serbia,” he continued.

“I believe that friendship with Russia is of the greatest importance and that without it we risk the physical disappearance of Serbia.” sAccording to a poll taken in March, some 61% of Serbs oppose any cooperation with the US-led NATO alliance, largely due to the bloc’s support for Kosovo’s independence and its 1999 bombing campaign that brought about the end of Yugoslavia. Furthermore, while Serbia applied for EU membership in 2009, accession looks to be off the table for now. The EU’s latest sanctions package targeting Russian oil exports looks set to cost Belgrade hundreds of millions of euros, Vulin said last week, describing it as the “first EU sanctions package against Serbia.” Hungary has responded to the sanctions by announcing a new pipeline to help Serbia tap into the supply of Russian crude oil.

Read more …

If you live in a NATO country, you are now in a war you can’t win.

Kremlin Speaks On NATO’s ‘De-facto’ Role In Ukraine (RT)

NATO has “de-facto become involved in the Ukraine conflict,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russia 1 TV on Sunday, adding that this will not prevent Moscow from following through with its plans and achieving its military goals in Ukraine. The Kremlin spokesman acknowledged, however, that NATO’s interference makes it “significantly harder” for Russia to conduct its operation, though it does not change the goals. “This [NATO involvements] requires… our internal mobilization in the field of economy and other spheres,” he told Russia 1, adding that there is a major difference between “the Kiev regime and… the NATO potential.” However, Russia’s own “potential allows [it] to continue the operation under such circumstances,” Peskov said.


The Kremlin spokesman provided no further details about Moscow’s plans and strategy in the military campaign, which has lasted for more than seven months. Earlier this week, Moscow denied rumors that the operation in Ukraine is being redesignated as a counter-terrorism campaign. Peskov also said at the time that there have been no decisions regarding the introduction of martial law in Russian regions which have been targeted by Ukrainian strikes in recent weeks. Moscow also denied that it has considered travel restrictions for men eligible for military service amid the continuing partial mobilization. Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that over 200,000 reservists have been called up, most of which are still undergoing training, while adding that the draft will be completed in around two weeks.

Jimmy Dore

Read more …

Because it’s now NATO vs Russia.

China Orders Evacuation Of All Citizens Still In Ukraine (ZH)

China’s foreign ministry on Saturday issued an urgent call for any Chinese nationals still in Ukraine to exit immediately, kicking off speculation over what’s behind the unspecified appeal and scramble. The notification is being widely seen as the most forceful evacuation order yet, and suggests that Beijing might be aware of Russian plans for possibly imminent bigger, sweeping airstrikes against Ukrainian cities, such as the widespread escalatory strikes conducted last Monday into Tuesday. The first big evacuation of Chinese citizens took place starting last March, in which some 6,000 Chinese nationals left the country amid the Russian invasion.

But now, as state media Global Times writes, “Some Chinese nationals still in Ukraine have signed up for evacuation from the country, with most registering for organized evacuations, while others are preparing to leave Ukraine on their own, the Global Times learned on Sunday, after the Chinese Foreign Ministry urged Chinese citizens to leave Ukraine, citing the grave security situation.” The foreign ministry and embassy warned of the “grave security situation” and ordered an immediate departure, citing the need “to enhance safety precautions and evacuate.” The statement indicated that “the embassy will assist in organizing the evacuation of people in need.” Russian state sources also on Sunday began publicizing the new alert notification.

GT is reporting that an evacuation is now in progress: “As of press time on Sunday, 161 people had registered on the form the embassy sent out for organized evacuation, and another 27 people registered on the form for self-evacuation, according to a Global Times’ count of the registration on the embassy’s WeChat account.” It additionally comes at a moment of stepped-up cross-border attacks on the Russian city of Belgorod, which lies just north of the Ukrainian border opposite Kharkiv.

Read more …

The energy crisis is the result of NATO extremism.

Energy Crisis Will Breed Extremism – Bavarian President (RT)

Skyrocketing energy costs could lead to a rise in extremist sentiment across Germany, Bavarian President Markus Soder told Bild am Sonntag on Sunday. “The mix of crises, such as energy and coronavirus, can lead to overstrain and destabilization of democracy,” he said, urging “democratic parties” to “take a clear position, argue less, and encourage citizens.” Soder pointed to the increasing electoral success of the right-wing AfD party as proof that extremism is on the rise. He argued for a cap on gas prices and financial relief for citizens, as well as aid to small and medium-sized businesses to head off growing anti-government sentiment. Some 15,000 German stores are reportedly on the brink of closure due to spiraling energy costs, according to Der Spiegel.

Economy Minister Robert Habeck and Finance Minister Christian Lindner must also quit arguing over the future of nuclear power in the country, Soder continued. He insists the government should extend the operation of the remaining nuclear plants through at least 2024, as Lindner has proposed, and has called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to broker a peace between the two officials. Germany began shutting down its nuclear reactors in 2011 following the Fukushima disaster in Japan but has recently reconsidered the move in light of record gas prices exacerbated by the sanctions on Russian supplies. While former Chancellor Angela Merkel had promised to phase out all 17 of Germany’s nuclear reactors by the end of 2022, three remain in service. Lawmakers recently agreed to keep at least two of those on standby status, should the plan to make it through the winter by burning coal prove insufficient to meet demand.

In August, Stephan Kramer, president of the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, predicted a “winter of fury” in which “violent” extremists would hijack “legitimate” protests against the energy crisis. He also expects higher unemployment and other economic issues, warning broadcaster ZDF that mounting economic pressures combined with the strsess of the pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine could shake the nation when the temperature drops. While both Soder and Kramer have argued that “the trust of the population in state institutions and authorities” is crucial to maintaining order come winter, just 38% of the population believes Chancellor Scholz is fit for the top job, according to a poll conducted last month – and that was an improvement over public sentiment in August. Habeck and Lindner rate even lower, with approval ratings of 35% and 33.6%, respectively.

Read more …

“Then it will be the turn of the EU to be kicked out of Europe and ultimately the US will be kicked out of the Americas, especially out of the US.”

From Decolonisation to Desperation to Hopelessness to Farce (Batiushka)

The Western European Empires have gone. The bankrupt Spanish Empire went first, in the century before last, the Germans lost their colonies in 1919 (at the same time as the Austro-Hungarians lost their European colonies), then the Italians lost their fantasies in Africa during the Second World War, the Germans got kicked out of their colonies in Eastern Europe in 1945, but the Portuguese much later, only getting kicked out of Africa in the 1970s. By that time the Dutch, the British, the Belgians and the French had also been kicked out of their colonies. Only the NATO Danes still hold on to Greenland, which is a lot of ice and snow and all of 56,000 people, though both Eisenhower and Trump wanted to buy it. However, since the US has its base at Thule, it effectively controls the country anyhow.

Since 1947 the UK has been kicked out of almost everywhere, infamously from the Indian Subcontinent in 1947, from Palestine in 1948 and humiliatingly, by their Americans ‘allies’, from Suez in 1956. All that remains is, for the moment, a small group of tiny enclaves and islands like Bermuda, the Caymans, Gibraltar, St Helena, the Falklands etc, about 18,000 square kilometres and fewer than 300,000 people in all, plus a lot of ice in the ‘British Antarctic Territory’. As for France, after its humiliation in South-East Asia in 1954, it has gradually been kicked out of Africa (1946-2022) (Suez in 1956, Algeria in 1962 etc) and soon, even after its decades of assassinating independentist African politicians and military interventions, it will have nothing left there, though it still has a few islands in various oceans here and there.

As for the short-lived US Empire, over the last fifty years it has largely been kicked out of several Asian countries (Vietnam (1975), Iran (1979), Iraq (2011-2021) Afghanistan (2021), now out of Russia (2022), and soon out of China, India and Saudi Arabia. True, it still hangs on in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Israel, but not for much longer. Eurasia is to be US-free. As regards the Western withdrawal from Europe, the UK left Europe in 2020. It still hangs on to Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and above all to England, but it will not last. Now it is the turn of the US to be kicked out of Europe. It is happening in the Ukraine at this very moment, but this rejection will later spread to Western Europe. Then it will be the turn of the EU to be kicked out of Europe and ultimately the US will be kicked out of the Americas, especially out of the US.

Read more …

“At the time, the long-range missiles in Soviet territory took hours to fuel up and fire, meaning a delayed response to a US first strike.”

Echoes Of A Brush With ‘Armageddon’ (Tony Cox)

In 1962, the triggering event was the secret placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba, right on America’s doorstep. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev saw the move as a way to protect Cuba against a US invasion after the failed Bay of Pigs assault in April 1961, as well as a tit-for-tat response to the Pentagon’s deployment of Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy, which positioned Washington’s nuclear warheads to hit USSR territory in as few as 10 minutes. At the time, the long-range missiles in Soviet territory took hours to fuel up and fire, meaning a delayed response to a US first strike.

“Since the Americans have already surrounded the Soviet Union with a ring of their military installations, we should pay them back in their own coin and give them a taste of their own medicine so that they find out for themselves how it feels to live as a target of nuclear arms,” Khrushchev was quoted as saying by Aleksandr Alekseev, then Moscow’s ambassador to Cuba. US President John F. Kennedy didn’t see it that way when a U-2 spy plane spotted surface-to-surface missiles in Cuba on October 16. As Ukrainian-born author Serhii Plokhy wrote in his 2021 book, ‘Nuclear Folly,’ Kennedy was initially inclined to order an attack on the missile sites, which easily could have escalated into a Soviet response and, eventually, mushroom clouds on both sides.

The American president wasn’t yet aware that the Soviets had already shipped nuclear warheads to Cuba. Nor did he know that the USSR had 43,000 troops on the island, as well as tactical nukes that could be used to destroy a US attack force. But Kennedy knew that having Soviet ballistic missiles just across the Florida Straits – Havana is only about 1,100 miles from Washington and 230 miles from Miami – was intolerable and potentially gave the USSR the ability to win a nuclear war with the US. Russia has raised similar concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion. The Western military alliance was formed to ensure collective security against the USSR, but instead of reaping a peace dividend after the Soviet collapse in 1991, the bloc expanded to 30 states, nearly doubling in size. It also placed strategic weapons in Eastern Europe, which Moscow perceived as a threat.

As if those moves weren’t provocative enough, NATO has also pledged to eventually let Ukraine and Georgia join the US-led bloc, which would expand its reach into two former Soviet republics on Russia’s borders. Tensions escalated further when a US-backed coup overthrew Ukraine’s elected government in 2014, setting off a war between Kiev and separatists in the Donbass that left an estimated 14,000 people dead even before Russia began its military offensive last February. Some observers have blamed the US and NATO for provoking the conflict. “As the one who started the Ukraine crisis and the biggest factor fueling it, the US needs to deeply reflect on its erroneous actions of exerting extreme pressure and fanning the flame on the Ukraine issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in July.

Read more …

“They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity.”

The Gaslighting of the Masses (CJ Hopkins)

For students of official propaganda, mind control, emotional coercion, and other insidious manipulation techniques, the rollout of the New Normal has been a bonanza. Never before have we been able to observe the application and effects of these powerful technologies in real-time on such a massive scale. In a little over two and a half years, our collective “reality” has been radically revised. Our societies have been radically restructured. Millions (probably billions) of people have been systematically conditioned to believe a variety of patently ridiculous assertions, assertions based on absolutely nothing, repeatedly disproved by widely available evidence, but which have nevertheless attained the status of facts. An entire fictitious history has been written based on those baseless and ridiculous assertions. It will not be unwritten easily or quickly.

I am not going to waste your time debunking those assertions. They have been repeatedly, exhaustively debunked. You know what they are and you either believe them or you don’t. Either way, reviewing and debunking them again isn’t going to change a thing. Instead, I want to focus on one particularly effective mind-control technology, one that has done a lot of heavy lifting throughout the implementation of the New Normal and is doing a lot of heavy-lifting currently. I want to do that because many people mistakenly believe that mind-control is either (a) a “conspiracy theory” or (b) something that can only be achieved with drugs, microwaves, surgery, torture, or some other invasive physical means. Of course, there is a vast and well-documented history of the use of such invasive physical technologies (see, e.g., the history of the CIA’s infamous MKULTRA program), but in many instances mind-control can be achieved through much less elaborate techniques.

One of the most basic and effective techniques that cults, totalitarian systems, and individuals with fascistic personalities use to disorient and control people’s minds is “gaslighting.” You’re probably familiar with the term. If not, here are a few definitions: “the manipulation of another person into doubting their perceptions, experiences, or understanding of events.” American Psychological Association “an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity.” Psychology Today

“a form of psychological manipulation in which the abuser attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim’s mind. Typically, gaslighters are seeking to gain power and control over the other person, by distorting reality and forcing them to question their own judgment and intuition.” Newport Institute. The main goal of gaslighting is to confuse, coerce, and emotionally manipulate your victim into abandoning their own perception of reality and accepting whatever new “reality” you impose on them. Ultimately, you want to completely destroy their ability to trust their own perception, emotions, reasoning, and memory of historical events, and render them utterly dependent on you to tell them what is real and what “really” happened, and so on, and how they should be feeling about it.

Read more …

“Every nation just named is currently subjected to U.S. sanctions.”

The Non-West Coalesces (Patrick Lawrence)

Something of epochal importance happened in Vienna, where the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, now known as OPEC–Plus with the inclusion of the Russian Federation, convened recently for its first in-person session since 2020. You would not know of this development if you rely solely on the reports carried in our corporate-owned media. The world just took a significant turn into the 21st century. Let us stay abreast of it, leaving those who refuse to see this to their own devices. [..] As reported everywhere, OPEC–Plus decided to reduce the oil production of member nations by two million barrels per day as of next month. This may amount to an actual cut of half that amount, as many OPEC–Plus members—Nigeria, for instance—have not been lifting to their quotas anyway. But oil prices are already increasing, and we will soon see this at our filling stations. As retail prices rise, it is likely to complicate the political fortunes of the Biden administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill just as the midterm elections approach. So, a pretty big deal.

But this is not the half of what transpired in Vienna two weeks ago. Saudi Arabia, long the driving wheel in OPEC, effectively declared its long history of subservience to Washington, by way of which oil production has been exchanged for security guarantees, to be on the way out. One of Washington’s bedrock allies in the Middle East, Israel being the other, just took a major step toward the coalescence of non–Western nations into a coherent bloc acting in its own interests. This is more than a pretty big deal. It brings us considerably closer to the new world order Russia and China, the two most influential non–Western nations, have been talking about for several years and notably since the Biden administration took power in January 2021.

Within months, Beijing and Moscow concluded that there is no making sense of a nation that, even as its power declines, has no intention of working with them as equals to mutual benefit. Since then, numerous other countries have had little trouble detecting which way the wind blows.The Ukraine crisis has sent a new bolt of electricity through this geopolitical trend. Nations representing more than 80 percent of the global population and a like percentage of global gross domestic product are perfectly capable of seeing the Biden administration’s pointed provocations and do not approve. Partnerships that stop just short of alliances—a term of statecraft entailing explicit obligations in the way of mutual defense—have multiplied so quickly since Joe Biden took office it is hard to keep track of them.

Russia’s “no limits” relationship with China is the premier case. Russia has recently consolidated its cooperative ties with Iran. So has China. Iran and Venezuela, China and Cuba, China and Nicaragua—the list goes on. As we speak, Moscow and Beijing are developing partnerships of various kinds in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. But these nations, it is easy to note, are by and large beyond Washington’s fence posts: The policy cliques, this is to say, have them down as enemies. Every nation just named is currently subjected to U.S. sanctions. Parenthetically, I do have to wonder what happens when most of the world other than the Anglosphere and Western Europe is condemned in this way, but that is another conversation.

Read more …

“This may be the biggest biometric data collection operation in European history. What could possibly go wrong?

EU to Demand Holidaymakers’ Fingerprints and Facial Images at Borders (DS)

As of May 2023, the EU is to start demanding holidaymakers’ biometric data at its borders, greatly increasing both the level of surveillance in the bloc and the length of delays at transport terminals. Silke Carlo sounds the warning in the Telegraph: “Brits hopping across the Channel will first have their fingerprints and photos taken. The new mass data-gathering scheme, which will go live in May, is part of the evolution of a so-called ‘Smart Border’. But there is nothing ‘smart’ about the plans. The data grab has been justified by the aim of improving detection of dangerous travellers, finding vulnerable people, and reducing fraud, but it comes at an eye-watering cost to liberty and logistics. The border plans have been rightly described by civil society groups as “disproportionate and unnecessary”, while the Port of Dover’s boss has warned of “significant and continued disruption for a very long time”.

All travellers aged over 12 will need to be biometrically logged, creating an EU datastore loaded with hundreds of millions of people’s unique personal data. The EU is demanding not only a U.S.-style set of four fingerprints, but facial images too. Holiday-makers’ personal information will be mixed in with eventually billions of pieces of data, spanning photographs, palm prints, DNA records and facial biometrics, to which controversial recognition algorithms can be applied. This may be the biggest biometric data collection operation in European history. What could possibly go wrong?

Too many of our European friends have an indifferent attitude to the emergence of a data-hungry superstate – over 1.7 billion EU Digital Covid Certificates were issued during the pandemic – but even those falling out of love with liberté must be concerned about the disastrous impact on tourism and transport. The Big Brother-style EU border checks are estimated to take seven times longer than checks today and the tailback at Dover could grow by 19 miles – roughly the distance of the Channel crossing itself.

Read more …

Just explaining this to a friend yesterday. DeSantis’ moment is 2028.

Why Ron DeSantis Doesn’t Stand a Chance Against Donald Trump (CTH)

Appearing for an interview with Dave Rubin, the founder of Locals and a major conscript of the branding and image shaping effort behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Megyn Kelly gives Mr. Rubin the bitter pill of truth. Within this excerpt, Mr. Rubin struggles through the five stages of grief following Kelly’s red pill delivery, eventually stabilizing his emotion by accepting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis can still deliver good political outcomes for the state. It’s a very interesting dynamic to watch for a few reasons. First, because Megyn Kelly has first-hand experience with the power of the MAGA attachment to the atypical America-First leader. Second, because Kelly’s truthful statements cut against the objective for why Rubin was recruited by DeSantis Inc.

Read more …

Get them vaxxed!

Alarming Rise In Cancer Among Young People Across Globe (CNN)

More young people around the globe under the age of 50 are being diagnosed each year with early-onset cancer, according to a new study. Dr. Suneel Kamath, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, said the variety of different cancers on the rise in young people really surprised him. “The number of people that are presenting with advanced and unfortunately often incurable cancers in their 20s and 30s definitely seems to be skyrocketing,” Kamath said. Early-onset cases are rising for 14 types of cancers, many of which affect the digestive system, according to a review of 44 countries’ cancer registries published in the journal Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.


“The typical risk factors we think of that would cause these different tumor types are definitely different, specific to each one,” Kamath said. The review mentions that sensitive testing happening more in young people could account for part of the upswing, but many, including Kamath, say it mostly comes down to lifestyle: obesity, diets rich in processed foods, smoking and alcohol consumption are among the factors. Kamath said one of the most important things young people can do is advocate for themselves when something doesn’t feel right. “Pay attention to, you know, what’s going on with your body,” Kamath said. “Some people are going to get some resistance from their medical team, and it does mean they need to push a little harder to get to the bottom of what’s going on.”

Read more …

Should be 1 in 1 million at most.

One Serious Adverse Event Per Eight-Hundred Vaccinations (Arora)

A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Vaccine—known for publishing the highest-quality vaccinology research—contains bombshell findings about the safety of Covid vaccines. Crucially, the authors found one serious adverse event for ever 800 mRNA vaccinated participants, orders of magnitude higher than the 1 to 2 per million reported for other vaccines. The researchers conducted a secondary analysis of original data from Pfizer and Moderna’s phase 3 clinical trials, focusing on “adverse events of special interest (AESIs)” as listed by the Brighton Collaboration—a “global authority” on vaccine safety. As the authors write, this World Health Organization-approved priority list of adverse vaccine events hasn’t been used to examine side effects in COVID-19 vaccine trial data. The stunning finding was as follows: the risk of serious adverse events from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine exceeds the benefit of reduction of COVID-19 hospitalisation.


In the analysis, Moderna caused higher adverse events than Pfizer, but both were elevated compared to the placebo arm. “Higher risk of serious AESI was observed in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine group relative to placebo in both the Pfizer and Moderna adult phase III trials, with 10.1 (Pfizer) and 15.1 (Moderna) additional events for every 10,000 individuals vaccinated,” the authors wrote. The average risk difference across both vaccines was 12.5 serious AESIs per 10,000 individuals vaccinated. As the authors write, these results “raise concerns that mRNA vaccines are associated with more harm than initially estimated at the time of emergency authorization.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seed oils

 

 

 

 

Odense geese
https://twitter.com/i/status/1581540446576250881

 

 

 

 

 

 

A handful of insects.

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 092022
 


Paul Gauguin Portrait of Ingeborg Thaulow 1877

 

Crimean Bridge Explosion Just ‘The Beginning,’ Ukraine Says (RT)
Kiev Amasses Troops On Donbass Border – Official (RT)
US Comments On Zelensky’s ‘Preemptive Strike’ Appeal (RT)
Michael Hudson: A Roadmap To Escape The West’s Stranglehold (Escobar)
US Asked Hungary To Invade Serbia – President Vucic (RT)
Putin Wants ‘Grand Bargain’ – Türkiye (RT)
NATO Should Give Ukraine ‘Everything We Have’ – Lithuania (RT)
Fanaticism Of The Apocalypse (Shellenberger)
Elon Musk, Former Exec Lead Backlash Against PayPal (DW)
Cynical Defense Of Hunter Biden: I Was Addicted To Drugs (Turley)
Lapado: Covid mRNA Vaccine- 84% Increased Risk of Death For Men Ages 18-39 (PM)
England’s Heatwaves See Highest Ever Excess Deaths Among Elderly (R.)
My Trip to Space Filled Me With ‘Overwhelming Sadness’ (William Shatner)

 

 

#TwoWords:


Dementia

 

 

 

 

Maté

 

 

 

 

Rus Prop
https://twitter.com/i/status/1578583611451748352

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both car – and train traffic has been resumed. But the provocations will continue. Until Russia reacts in a way that can be used as a excuse for a large scale attack.

Crimean Bridge Explosion Just ‘The Beginning,’ Ukraine Says (RT)

The blast that rocked the Crimean Bridge early on Saturday is just “the beginning,” Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s aide, Mikhail Podoliak, has said. The bridge was closed in the early hours of Saturday after a truck exploded, damaging the road and causing a huge fire. “Crimea, the bridge, the beginning,”Podoliak tweeted. “Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled.” Ukrainian officials have promised to attack the Crimean Bridge, which connects the Russian peninsula of Crimea to the country’s Krasnodar Region, on numerous occasions during the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.


In August, Podoliak said that Europe’s largest bridge “should be destroyed” because it’s “an illegal construction and the main gateway to supply the Russian army in Crimea.” Zelensky and other members of his team have also stated that Ukraine will use force to retake Crimea, which overwhelmingly voted to reunite with Russia in a referendum in 2014. The blast occurred at around 6am local time, causing a partial collapse of the road on the section for vehicles. A blaze also broke out on the parallel rail section, where seven fuel tanks caught fire. Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that a truck exploded as it was traveling along the 19-km-long structure. The fire has been extinguished, and the damage caused by the blast is being assessed. The Crimean authorities said a ferry service will be provided while the bridge is being repaired.

Read more …

40,000 troops on the Russian border..

Kiev Amasses Troops On Donbass Border – Official (RT)

Kiev has deployed some 40,000 troops to the border with the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), which recently became part of Russia, the LPR’s top representative in Moscow, Rodion Miroshnik, has said. “In the areas where attempts of a breakthrough are being made [by Kiev’s forces], large quantities of manpower and hardware have been concentrated on the Ukrainian side,” Miroshnik said during an appearance on the Soloviev Live program on YouTube on Friday. According to estimates by the LPR’s forces, “we’re talking about 40,000 men,” the official added.


Kiev’s troops have been gathering to the north and northwest of the LPR, as well as in the area around the town of Krasny Liman in the Donetsk People’s Republic, from where Russian forces withdrew a week ago amid a Ukrainian offensive, Miroshnik added. On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin signed into law unification treaties with the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, officially making them part of Russia. The four territories overwhelmingly supported the move during referendums in late September.

Read more …

“a monster, whose hands can destroy the planet.”

US Comments On Zelensky’s ‘Preemptive Strike’ Appeal (RT)

The US is not about to get directly involved in the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, a State Department spokesman said on Friday, after Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky had urged the West to conduct “preventive strikes” against Russia. When asked about the Ukrainian leader’s latest appeal to the West, State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said that the administration of US President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that it has no intention of taking part in the fighting. “As long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we are not going to get directly engaged in this conflict either by putting American troops to fight in Ukraine or attacking Russian forces,” he reiterated, adding that Washington’s message on this matter has been “very clear.”

On Thursday, Zelensky, speaking at an online conference at the Australian Lowy Institute, called for “preventive strikes” against Russia so that Moscow knew what to expect should it resort to nuclear weapons. Later, Zelensky’s press secretary attempted to clarify these remarks, arguing that they should not be interpreted as a request for NATO to attack Russia. The Ukrainian leader himself also stepped in, telling BBC on Friday that he had meant “preventive kicks, not attacks.” The UK outlet also clarified that Zelensky was “referring to sanctions.”

The comments made by the Ukrainian president sparked a backlash from Moscow, which accused him of attempting to spark a world war, which would lead to “unforeseeable disastrous consequences.” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went so far as to describe him as “a monster, whose hands can destroy the planet.” Russia has repeatedly stated that a nuclear war should never be fought, while Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu in August made it clear that Moscow is not considering a nuclear strike on Ukraine, given that there are no targets warranting such drastic measures.

2016

Read more …

“US policy has created a global state of dependency in which literally There is no alternative but to break away.”

Michael Hudson: A Roadmap To Escape The West’s Stranglehold (Escobar)

Are we reaching the point when the key players of the Global South – over 100 nations – finally get their act together and decide to go for broke and stop the US from keeping the artificial neoliberal global economy in a state of perpetual coma? This means the only possible option, as you have outlined, is to set up a parallel global currency bypassing the US dollar – while the usual suspects float the notion of a Bretton Woods III at best. Is the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) financial casino omnipotent enough to smash any possible competition? Do you envisage any other practical mechanisms apart from what is being discussed by BRICS/ EAEU/ SCO?

Hudson: “A year or two ago it seemed that the task of designing a full-fledged alternative world currency, monetary, credit and trading system was so complex that the details hardly could be thought through. But US sanctions have proved to be the needed catalyst to make such discussions pragmatically urgent. The confiscation of Venezuela’s gold reserves in London and its US investments, the confiscation of $300 billion of Russia’s foreign-exchange reserves held in the United States and Europe, and its threat to do the same to China and other countries resisting US foreign policy has made de-dollarization urgent. I have explained the logic in many points, from my Valdai Club article (with Radhika Desai) to my recent book on The Destiny of Civilization, the lecture series that I prepared for Hong Kong and the Global University for Sustainability.

Holding securities denominated in dollars, and even holding gold or investments in the United States and Europe, is no longer a safe option. It is clear that the world is breaking into two quite different types of economies, and that US diplomats and their European satellites are willing to tear up the existing economic order in hopes that creating a disruptive crisis will enable themselves to come out on top. It also is clear that subjugation to the IMF and its austerity plans are economic suicide, and that following World Bank and its neoliberal doctrine of international dependency is self-destructive. The result has been to create an unpayable overhead of debts denominated in US dollars. These debts cannot be paid without borrowing credit from the IMF and accepting terms of economic surrender to US privatizers and speculators.

The only alternative to imposing economic austerity on themselves is to withdraw from the dollar trap in which US-sponsored “free market” economics (markets free from government protection, and free from government ability to recover the environmental damage from US oil companies, mining companies and the associated industrial and food dependency) is to make a clean break. The break will be difficult, and US diplomacy will do everything it can to disrupt the creation of a more resilient economic order. But US policy has created a global state of dependency in which literally There is no alternative but to break away.”

Read more …

1999.

US Asked Hungary To Invade Serbia – President Vucic (RT)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic revealed on Saturday that American and British leaders, including President Bill Clinton, urged Hungary to invade Serbia by land in 1999. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who told Vucic of the request, refused. In a televised address, Vucic said that the US and UK wanted Hungarian forces to push south into Serbia in order to split the Yugoslav military between the front in Kosovo and a new front with Hungary. “Clinton and the British asked [Orban] to attack Serbia from the north so that they could extend our forces from Kosovo and Metohija to Vojvodina,” he explained. Orban, who at the time was one year into his first term in office, refused, and with the help of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, pushed back against the “pressure from the White House.”

Orban told Vucic of the request during a recent meeting and allowed him to speak about it publicly, the Serbian leader said. NATO launched a bombing campaign in 1999 against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which by that time was made up of Serbia and Montenegro. In waging the air war, NATO sided with ethnic Albanian separatists, who were fighting with the Serbs for the independence of Kosovo, a province of Serbia. Hungary had joined NATO earlier that year, but did not participate in the campaign.

According to Vucic, Orban then traveled to the UK for talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair and former PM Margaret Thatcher. Greeting him at the door of Downing Street, Thatcher told Orban “it bothers me a lot that you refused to attack Serbia, that’s why more British soldiers will die,” Vucic said. Ultimately, no British troops died during the campaign. Hostilities ceased in June 1999 with the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement, after which NATO troops moved into Kosovo, where they remain to this day. The bombing campaign marked the first time that the US-led alliance used military force without the approval of the UN Security Council, and is still regarded by much of the world as illegitimate.

Read more …

Rebalance. I think I still prefer to use the word “Turkey” when we talk Erdogan.

Putin Wants ‘Grand Bargain’ – Türkiye (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to strike “a new grand bargain” with the West to erase the humiliations of the post-Cold War period, Turkish presidential adviser Ibrahim Kalin told CNN on Saturday. In an interview with the American broadcaster, he said that the Ukraine conflict will inevitably end in a negotiated settlement, with the only question being when, “and how much damage will have been done by then?” Such a settlement will be about more than the borders of Russia and Ukraine, he continued, arguing that what Putin really aims to do is renegotiate the balance of power between Moscow and the West, after a weakened Russia accepted several rounds of NATO expansion in the aftermath of the Cold War. “Our understanding is that Mr. Putin wants to have a new grand bargain, a new deal, with the West,” Kalin said.

The Turkish official referenced agreements signed by Moscow and NATO in the early 1990s – which included the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, which stated that the alliance would continue to expand, and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia agreed not to use force against its neighbors – as decisions Putin would like to re-do. “The Russian perception is that the Russia of that day, that signed that agreement – that is, the Russia of the Gorbachevs and the Yeltsins – is over,”Kalin claimed. “There is a new Russia, there is a new world, there is a new reality, and they want to have a new bargain.” Putin declared last week that “the ongoing collapse of Western hegemony is irreversible,” and that “things will never be the same.” A multipolar world, he said, will give non-Western nations “an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty.”

According to Kalin, “This puts of course the entire global order, the liberal order, to a test.” He added: “So far the response has been war from both sides.” Western leaders have not indicated that they intend to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict in the near future. Washington’s official line is that it will continue to funnel tens of billions of dollars’ worth of arms to Kiev “for as long as it takes,” and will allow Ukraine to dictate its terms for ending the conflict. Amid the broader conflict between Russia and the West, Türkiye has positioned itself as a middleman, with Ankara hosting peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in March that ultimately broke down. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday called for both sides to return to negotiations, declaring that “even the worst peace will be better than war.”

Read more …

Lithuania has nothing.

NATO Should Give Ukraine ‘Everything We Have’ – Lithuania (RT)

NATO countries should arm Ukraine with all available weapons, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told Ukrainian media on Saturday. However, he expects the alliance’s other members to foot the bill. “Ukraine needs ‘everything we have,’” Landsbergis told Ukrinform, arguing that the Ukrainian military is already capable of working with the alliance’s arsenal now that its troops are receiving training in multiple European countries. While the US has supplied Ukraine with increasingly powerful weaponry, some of its NATO allies have balked at handing over certain arms systems. Germany, for example, refuses to send its most modern Leopard II main battle tanks for fear of causing further escalation. Even in Washington, Pentagon officials have argued that Ukrainian troops would need substantial training to operate Western tanks.

Landsbergis insisted that “these arguments no longer work,” after a series of successful offenses by Kiev’s forces, which are increasingly armed with NATO weapons. “If this is so, I see no reason why Ukraine should not be given everything we have?” the minister said. “I have already said this many times and now I will say it again.” Landsbergis has emerged as one of the most vocally anti-Russian ministers in the EU in the months since Moscow sent its forces into Ukraine. He has threatened Lithuanian entertainers with reprisals for performing in Russia, supported an EU-wide ban on all visas for Russians, and called on NATO to pursue the military defeat of Russia rather than seek a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine conflict.

However, his own military has little to give Ukraine. Landsbergis told Ukrinform that he would only provide “political arguments” for arming Kiev’s forces, as Lithuania does not have its own “significant stockpile of weapons.” While Ukraine has repeatedly called for more and heavier weapons from the West, EU stockpiles are running low, with Germany’s stocks already exhausted as of early September. Although US President Joe Biden has vowed to keep the arms pipeline open for “as long as it takes,” the US is reportedly cautious about delivering more advanced weapons systems. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Russia is now facing “the entire Western military machine” in Ukraine. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also warned that “the US, in fact, is teetering on the brink of turning into a party to the conflict” due to its lavish assistance to Kiev.

Read more …

Burn baby burn.

Fanaticism Of The Apocalypse (Shellenberger)

In Europe, they’re burning garbage to stay warm. “It’s so bad this season that you can smell trash burning every day, which is completely new,” said the 35-year-old mother of three from Jablonna, Poland, near Warsaw. “Rarely can you smell a regular fuel. It’s scary to think what happens when it really gets cold.” The Polish government suspended quality regulations on coal burning for those who can still afford it; 60% of households no longer can. Because of all the garbage burning, the government may soon hand out masks so its residents don’t inhale toxic fumes. Said one of Poland’s most powerful politicians last month, “one needs to burn almost everything, except for tires and similarly harmful things.” The government estimates that 40,000 people died annually from premature deaths from air pollution before the current crisis.

Forests are being hammered. In Estonia and Finland, forests that had been set aside to capture carbon dioxide to reduce climate change are now being so heavily logged that they are net emitters. Hungary lifted conservation regulations so old-growth forests could be logged; it then banned the export of wood pellets. “People buy wood pellets thinking they’re the sustainable choice, but in reality, they’re driving the destruction of Europe’s last wild forests,” said one conservationist. Wood pellets prices have doubled even in nuclear-heavy France which, under pressure from Germany, and in the grip of renewable energy mania, had been shutting down its nuclear plants so rapidly that it had stopped properly maintaining them. Romania has been forced to cap the price of firewood, which had skyrocketed. Burning wood releases more greenhouse gas emissions than burning coal, something most experts finally acknowledge.

And Europe is returning to coal as quickly as it can. This year it increased thermal coal imports more than any other region. Coal imports increased by 36% more during the first eight months of 2022 than of 2021. Europe’s coal imports are today 10% of the global total. Germany is importing coal from South Africa, which is ironic because, just one year ago, Germany gave South Africa $810 million in exchange for an agreement that South Africa not use coal. And at the United Nations climate change talks in Scotland less one year ago this month, the UN created a special CGI dinosaur to warn all nations, but particularly Africans, that they must not use fossil fuels, and instead do what Europe was doing and, supposedly, transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewables.

Read more …

Is the genius who came up with the idea still working there? Look, you can silence a social media account, but you cannot steal people’s money outright.

Elon Musk, Former Exec Lead Backlash Against PayPal (DW)

PayPal reversed its decision to fine users $2,500 for violating its terms of service after Elon Musk and a former executive led a furious backlash against the move on social media. In a tweet Saturday, former PayPal President David Marcus spoke out against a new policy, first reported by The Daily Wire, that would apparently allow the digital payment processor to charge users $2,500 for posting materials that “promote misinformation” or “present a risk to user safety or wellbeing.” Elon Musk, a co-founder of PayPal, said he agreed with Marcus’ criticism, joining a number of others who have spoken out against the new policy. “It’s hard for me to openly criticize a company I used to love and gave so much to,” Marcus wrote on Twitter.

“But @PayPal’s new AUP goes against everything I believe in. A private company now gets to decide to take your money if you say something they disagree with. Insanity.” “Agreed,” Musk wrote in reply to Marcus. The criticism from Marcus and Musk, who was on the board of directors and briefly CEO of PayPal during its early days, were at the front of a fury of backlash to the proposed policy. “Get your money out of [PayPal] right now,” venture capitalist David Sacks tweeted. “Seriously, close your PayPal account immediately if they don’t reverse this today,” replied Scott Adams, creator of the “Dilbert” comic strip. “Why would anyone use @PayPal ever again?” conservative commentator John Cardillo wrote. “They’ve flat out told you they’re going to steal your money if you disagree with the regime.”

“The ‘misinformation’ police are now extending their reach beyond your social media accounts and into your financial accounts,” author and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy wrote. “PayPal probably isn’t protected by Section 230, so it could face legal liability in states with political nondiscrimination statutes,” Ramaswamy added later. “It’s an easier case to make than against a social media platform.” “Orwellian. Paypal reserves the right to take your money if you post a message that Paypal decides is ‘misinformation,’” former FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said. “This is why it is so vital that state and federal legislatures pass laws that prohibit discrimination by tech companies and protect free speech.”

Read more …

“Most hopeless addicts are trying to hock property or score a few bucks for their next hit. Hunter was flying around the world, arranging meetings with his father and coordinating multiple global accounts.”

Cynical Defense Of Hunter Biden: I Was Addicted To Drugs (Turley)

For years, President Biden repeated the same mantra when asked about Hunter Biden’s influence peddling and alleged crimes: “My son did nothing wrong.” It was always implausible — as was his denial of any knowledge of these dealings despite emails and pictures to the contrary. So the president and the press have been shifting to a new defense. As the father recently insisted of his son, “He fought an addiction problem. He overcame it. He wrote about it.” The family and the media have been cultivating the angle for months as they anticipated possible criminal charges. Such charges would not only be an embarrassment for the president but also the media, which have been actively complicit in covering up the multimillion-dollar influence-peddling schemes of the Biden family, including Hunter and his uncle James.

With possible criminal conduct exposed, all that’s left is the addiction defense. Hunter Biden’s autobiographical book laid the foundations for this final line of defense. While the book did not do particularly well in sales with the public, the media offered fawning interviews about his account of addiction. The narrative was ramped up by many of the same media outlets that buried the scandal, including articles on how the family fought “to keep him alive.” Now The Post reports prosecutors are second-guessing charges in light of the addiction and how it might undermine any criminal case. While there’s no question the defense would likely use such an addiction, it’s usually more of a concern for sentencing than charging. Addiction can be cited as a mitigating factor to the court in determining the defendant’s level of culpability.

The most obvious problem for the addiction defense is that Hunter did not appear to have any chemical-based challenge in maintaining a global, multimillion-dollar influence-peddling scheme. The image of a crackhead holed up in high-end hotels with call girls is undermined by thousands of emails on international money transfers and complex deals stretching from Moscow to Kyiv to Beijing. The fact is you can be an addict or alcoholic and still be a criminal. Addiction did not appear to inhibit prosecutors in cases like the murder trial involving Lillo Brancato, the actor from “The Sopranos” series and the movie “A Bronx Tale.” Brancato was a drug addict when he participated in a burglary that ended in a shooting. He was convicted and given 10 years. Indeed, in some cases, prosecutors use addiction is as a motive for committing crimes, particularly in paying for or acquiring more crimes.

Not only is this possible prosecution not based on a drug offense, it would feature a high-functioning defendant who earned millions in influence peddling. Indeed, the now-sober Hunter has repeatedly acknowledged that while his family name may have led to some of his past positions, he is a lawyer with experience that was useful in work like serving on the board of Ukrainian energy conglomerate Burisma Holdings. It will be difficult for Hunter to switch from the privileged-but-capable defense to the hopeless-addict defense. Most hopeless addicts are trying to hock property or score a few bucks for their next hit. Hunter was flying around the world, arranging meetings with his father and coordinating multiple global accounts.

Read more …

Common sense.

Lapado: Covid mRNA Vaccine- 84% Increased Risk of Death For Men Ages 18-39 (PM)

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Friday release the state’s analysis of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, revealing an 84 percent “increased risk of cardiac-related death among men 18-39.” Florida “will not be silent on the truth,” he said. The guidance “recommends against the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines for males ages 18-39 years old.” In a statement, Ladapo said that “Studying the safety and efficacy of any medications, including vaccines, is an important component of public health. Far less attention has been paid to safety and the concerns of many individuals have been dismissed – these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians.”

The Florida Department of Health released the findings of a self-controlled case series which they used to evaluate the safety of the Covid vaccines, which “studied mortality risk following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.” It found that “there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination.” The findings also showed that “Males over the age of 60 had a 10% increased risk of cardiac-related death within 28 days of mRNA vaccination,” and that “Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks among any population. The guidance suggests that Floridians talk to their doctors and health care providers about the relative benefits and risks of vaaccination for Covid with use of mRNA vaccines, and that it should be weighed against the potential risks of Covid.

This analysis comes after the Florida Department of Health issued guidance in March that recommended against use of the Covid mRNA vaccines for “healthy children and adolescents 5 years old to 17 years old.” The state also recommends “against COVID-19 vaccination among infants and children under 5 years old, which has since been issued under Emergency Use Authorization.” When this guidance for children was issued, the Biden administration accused Ladapo of being a “politician.” Florida is not alone in their guidance. Sweden recommends against Covid mRNA vaccines for children ages 5-11. The Danish Health Authority recommends against Covid mRNA vaccines for children under 18. The UK has rolled back their offering of Covid jabs to children ages 5-11, per guidance from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

Read more …

Hoe much longer can we hide the true cause? Reuters cover its ass from its own headline: “..possibly due to complications arising from extreme heat..”

England’s Heatwaves See Highest Ever Excess Deaths Among Elderly (R.)

England saw the highest excess mortality figure from heatwaves this year since records began in 2004, health officials said on Friday, after a hot summer that saw temperatures rise to all-time highs. England recorded 2,803 excess deaths among those aged 65 and over during summer heatwaves this year, possibly due to complications arising from extreme heat, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said in a statement. The figures exclude deaths from COVID-19. “These estimates show clearly that high temperatures can lead to premature death for those who are vulnerable,” UKHSA Chief Scientific Officer Isabel Oliver said. “Prolonged periods of hot weather are a particular risk for elderly people, those with heart and lung conditions or people who are unable to keep themselves cool such as people with learning disabilities and Alzheimer’s disease.”


Britain recorded its highest ever temperature, of just above 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in eastern England on July 19. The heatwave, which caused fires across large grass areas, destroyed property and pressured transport infrastructure, had been made at least 10 times more likely because of climate change, scientists said. read more Around 1,000 excess deaths were recorded among those over 65 between July 17-20, the UKHSA said, while the Aug. 8-17 period recorded an estimated 1,458 excess deaths. Statisticians use “excess deaths” — a term that became more commonplace during the coronavirus pandemic — to describe the number of fatalities in excess of normally observed mortality numbers for a particular time of year.

Read more …

Excerpt from William Shatner’s new book, “Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder,” the “Star Trek” actor reflects on his voyage into space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space shuttle on Oct. 13, 2021. Then 90 years old, Shatner became the oldest living person to travel into space..

My Trip to Space Filled Me With ‘Overwhelming Sadness’ (William Shatner)

With all the attending noise, fire, and fury, we lifted off. I could see Earth disappearing. As we ascended, I was at once aware of pressure. Gravitational forces pulling at me. The g’s. There was an instrument that told us how many g’s we were experiencing. At two g’s, I tried to raise my arm, and could barely do so. At three g’s, I felt my face being pushed down into my seat. I don’t know how much more of this I can take, I thought. Will I pass out? Will my face melt into a pile of mush? How many g’s can my ninety-year-old body handle? And then, suddenly, relief. No g’s. Zero. Weightlessness. We were floating. We got out of our harnesses and began to float around. The other folks went straight into somersaults and enjoying all the effects of weightlessness. I wanted no part in that.

I wanted, needed to get to the window as quickly as possible to see what was out there. I looked down and I could see the hole that our spaceship had punched in the thin, blue-tinged layer of oxygen around Earth. It was as if there was a wake trailing behind where we had just been, and just as soon as I’d noticed it, it disappeared. I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely… all of that has thrilled me for years… but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death.

I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her. Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong. I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.”

I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.

I learned later that I was not alone in this feeling. It is called the “Overview Effect” and is not uncommon among astronauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Michael Collins, Sally Ride, and many others. Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet’s fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner. Author Frank White first coined the term in 1987: “There are no borders or boundaries on our planet except those that we create in our minds or through human behaviors. All the ideas and concepts that divide us when we are on the surface begin to fade from orbit and the moon. The result is a shift in worldview, and in identity.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Elephant rock, Iceland

 

 

 

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